Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Traveling

Things I have tired of here in Cambodia:
  • Eating out every single meal
  • Deet: This is necessary pretty much all the time. See photo below, this is what happens when sitting by a pool at dusk for an hour, when all the mosquitos come out, without wearing deet. I had at least 45 bites on my right leg, and many elsewhere. 
  • Sunscreen: This must be worn everyday for me. 
  • Sweating: Although I am from Texas and am used to the heat, it is odd that it is winter and so warm outside. I do miss wearing sweaters...
  • Acne: Using sunscreen and deet everyday, my face and chest were a bit in shock. I had to buy acne medication for the first time in several years. 
  • Diarrhea: I have had this bad twice, but pretty much have had on and off regularly since my arrival.
  • Waste: Drinking only bottled water creates a lot of waste. 
  • Trash: It is everywhere here and typically not contained. 
  • Tuk tuks: I actually enjoy taking tuk tuks, it is nice not to have to drive, but it is rare that tuk tuk drivers know where they are taking you, which means you have to know how to give them directions. In addition, it is not very common for people to walk here, but I do it daily to the coffee shop and from there to the office. During my morning walk to the coffee shop the other day, a 5-7 minute walk, I counted the number of times I was asked if I wanted a tuk tuk or a moto ride. I was asked eight times, and I was walking at 9:00 am, which is less busy than 8:00 am, when I normally leave. It is also incredibly amusing when the same tuk tuk driver will ask you three or four different times during the process of walking by them, if you want a ride. 
  • Negotiating cost for everything: There has not been a day that I haven't negotiated tuk tuk rides or prices at a local market. We have been doing this for a while, so we have a pretty good idea how often people are trying to rip us off. When I enter a store here and there are price tags, I sigh a breath of relief, because I know there will be no negotiations. 
  • Being followed in stores: I am not sure if we are followed by employees because we are foreigners or if they do this with all customers to ensure they do not steal, but it is really weird being followed while trying to shop. I have walked out of stores a few times because I had a close shadow that I couldn't shake. 
  • Smells: See last blog entry.  
  • Noise: I love visiting cities, but living in the middle of a very busy city that basically never sleeps wears on you. Even in my room with all doors and windows closed, with the AC on, I can hear almost everything that is happening on the street. In addition, everything echoes through the streets and up the buildings because most buildings are made of tile and metal. 


Things I am looking forward to upon my return to the US:
  • Cooking
  • Fresh fruits and veggies
  • Eating/drinking without the fear of diarrhea
  • Drinking tap water
  • Not being looked down upon/laughed at for walking
  • My pillow
  • The smell of clean laundry: The other day we were at a restaurant and their napkins smelled like fresh laundry, and I had forgotten how much I love the smell of clean laundry. I wash my clothes every week here and it smells clean and fresh coming out of the washer, but then I line dry it outside and it loses that scent before it is even dry.

Things I am glad that I packed:
  • Toms: they are destroyed but keep my feet clean and protected.  
  • Turkish towel: packs small, is soft, and dries fast. 
  • Wash cloth: nice to scrub off the grime. 
  • Pillow case: packs small and is my only bedding that is soft. 
  • Nalgene bottle: perfect for mixing with electrolyte tablets. 
  • Electrolyte tablets: sugar free nuun tablets, taste good without all the sweet stuff. The only electrolyte mixes we have found here have been packed with sugar. 
  • Fjallraven kanken backpack (a gift from Kat): I have carried this with me everywhere, and somehow it is the one item of mine that has stayed clean without being washed regularly.
  • Sound canceling headphones (borrowed from Michael): these made the plane ride here much more bearable.
Thus far this trip has opened my eyes to the privileged life I lead in America and that I have been leading here. Many of the things on this list have caused phases of frustration and acceptance, but ultimately if I had to choose I would prefer to leave behind in Cambodia, though I am grateful to have experienced them. Making this list I also realize how fast 3.5 weeks has gone and that in a very short time I will be boarding my flight to return home.

"No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow."
  - Lin Yutang

Sunday, February 23, 2014

Poop

Most of my friends who post about poop on any social media network have recently had a child and are dealing with more poop than they know what to do with. Well, I have not had a baby, but Cambodia has made sure that I am experiencing poop in ways I have never dealt with before.

  1. The first full weekend we were here I experienced my first bout of diarrhea. Likely caused by some food that I had eaten the day before. It lasted about 36 hours, which meant I missed the first day of data collection for Mother's Heart because I needed to be near a toilet!
  2. The end of our second week I went to Siem Reap Province to see the Temples of Ankgor. We took a night bus, arriving at 5:30 am and spent about eight hours trekking around the temples in the heat of the day. As the day progress I was feeling increasingly worse, and almost vomited while we were in the last temple. I made it back to the hotel feeling overheated and not right in my tummy. I took a shower to cool down and then it began. I started projectile vomiting, like there was a monster inside me trying to get out. I imagine the scene would have been appropriate in a Men in Black movie or something of the like. Next the diarrhea creeped up on me, and I was in bed for the next 30 hours, while my travel mates continued to explore Siem Reap and enjoy the pool at the hotel. I was happy to have a clean bathroom and a comfortable bed to spend my sick time. I was really nervous about the night bus back, but somehow my system knew I couldn't handle anymore. However, Christie developed the same symptoms half way into the ride, and spent two hours on the floor in the bus bathroom vomiting. We decided it must have been a viral infection, because we ate similar things before I got sick, so not the food.
  3. The infamous Shitty Canal. This is not the actual name of this canal of human excrement, but was passed along to us by Katrina, who said one of her English friends calls it this. So "Shitty Canal" must be said with a proper English accent. This canal is basically filled with sewage water, I am not sure how it gets there, if it is stagnant or moving, I have never been near one long enough to make many observations, and I don't really care to. There are many shitty canals throughout the city, and they all smell something near death. The best is when it smells like you are near a shitty canal and there is not one in site to escape from. My favorite experience with a shitty canal occurred with one that is large enough to be considered a shitty river. We were on our way out to start interviews in the factory district and were, of course, in a traffic jam on the bridge crossing the shitty river. 
    This photo was taken from the tuk tuk in the area we were performing interviews. If it were an aerial view you would see the shitty canal we were driving along (it is no fun to drive ALONG side one, we usually simply cross one via a bridge and that is plenty of exposure), but the photo does show shitty water, coming out of the pipe in the wall into the shitty canal.
  4. The bathroom connected to the room that I am living in, smelled like something curled up and died in the drain. There are also several parasite looking bugs that like to swim up from the drain anytime there is water one the floor. There happens to be water on the floor frequently because the bathroom is a toilet, sink, and shower head. There is no segregation between the three, when you shower, the entire bathroom gets wet. I was in search of a sandbag or something heavy to cover the drain, to try to prevent the smell of sewage water from coming up, but was unsuccessful. Last week the smell intensified, it was a sour sewage smell (similar to the shitty canal) and was strong enough it was creeping out of the bathroom into my bedroom despite the door being closed at all times. I had a baggy but couldn't find anything heavy to put into it to seal off the drain, then the lightbulb turned on, I have water. Since covering the drain with a baggy filled with water at all times, except when showering the bathroom smells normal, even pleasant with the air freshener.
  5. There are many unpleasant smells in this city, sometimes identifiable, but often not. Malaika and I came up with a rule last week that we live by here in Phnom Penh. When you smell something that is pleasant, like food cooking, a flower, or some other sweet something, you must enjoy it for the one whiff you got that was nice. This rule stands because every time we have taken a second large whiff of the sweet something (because we so enjoy the smell of something pleasant), it instead becomes a large inhale of the smell of death (garbage, human excrement, etc...). So, we enjoy the pleasant smell for the one whiff we got. We named this the Double Whiff Rule and has been added to our survival tips for Cambodia. 


Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Week 2: Beauty

The first week in Phnom Penh I was in complete culture shock. My international travel has consisted of a week trip in Mexico and 30 days of cycling through Canada. After becoming accustomed to the smells, sounds, and sights, I am finally able to start appreciating the beauty this city has to offer. The architecture in many places is truly amazing, it is intricate and colorful. Last week Malaika, Diana, and I completed the data collection for our project. For Malaika and I this consisted of visiting the factory district to interview young woman during their lunch break, we did this daily from 10:00 am - 1:00 pm. Then we would find a gas station with an indoor table to escape the heat and dust, eat lunch and around 2:00 pm we went to the KTV's to interview the young women there. KTV's are places where men can pay for a room and hire girls to karaoke with and entertain them. During these interviews I have had the opportunity to be in an intimate conversation with many Cambodian women and they are stunning.  The week was long, hot, sweaty, and dusty, but it was a really great experience, and because of it I got to see parts of Phnom Penh and Cambodian culture I would otherwise never have seen.


Each day during our lunch break we would have about 1-1.5 hours in between when the factory workers lunches were done and when the KTV/Beer garden woman would be available for interview. One day Thary (left) and Somphors (right) decided to teach us the Khmer alphabet complete with 33 letters, excluding vowels, there are 22 more of those (not pictured). They then translated our names into Khmer. The characters used for our names is dependent on how we want our name to sound. There was a lot of discussion about weather mine should be Ka-saun-Dra or Ka-saun-Tra. Thary and Somphors work for Mother's Heart as social workers, but for the week were our translators. They are really great girls, and we adore them. Lower left photo, is an actual headline from the paper last week. Although rape is not legal here certain aspects of Cambodian culture make it acceptable. The last photo is a market we passed on our way to the factory district. 

Top left, a photo of Thary taken to show the: amount of dust in the area we were traveling/working in, the large truck behind her, and the dirt and trash on the side of the road. When traveling on the roads here there are massive semis, which are more common in the factory district, then the tuk tuks which are significantly smaller, and the motos. Top right, this is the best kept pile of trash I have seen while in Cambodia. Usually it is a pile of trash without a container to contain it. There are trash piles all over the place, big and small, and they smell pretty awful. Middle left, this is a common site throughout the city. it is a wheel barrel like cart, the top is covered in very small clams, that have been cooked and seasoned, they are sold by the can full. Middle right, another photo of the outdoor market we passed daily, pictured are bowels of cow intestine for sale. Lower left, this was an awful traffic jam we were in last week, imagine this traffic on all sides of you. Because there is no order/lanes of traffic, the traffic jams are basically a large crowd of all size vehicles, all trying to go in different directions. Lower right, this is a common sight when farther away from a convenient gas station. Gas here is sold by the liter. These stands use old Pepsi and Coca-cola glass liter bottles to fill with gasoline. When you buy they liter, you dont get to keep the glass!  



Saturday, February 8, 2014

Cambodia: Week one (February 2-9, 2014)

Well we made it, and have survived our first week. We are living in the middle of Phnom Penh, it is a loud city and has taken several nights to get used to the noise. During our 24 hours of traveling (18 hours of total flight time), I only slept for 3-4 hours total. We arrived late in the evening, where there was a mass of people all trying to get a visa to enter the country. The men behind the counter took our forms and passports and simply shooed us with their  hands in the direction we were to go. This meant just about nothing to all of us (Diana, Lauren, and I), we had no idea which of the many lines we were to get into. So, we went to the next line to stand in, which was the wrong one. So another man shooed us into a new "line" which was just a crowd of people standing around the men with our passports. It took us several minutes to observe what was happening. The men behind the counter were simply holding up the passports as they received them, attempting to pronounce our names, and taking our money. We thought we were applying for a general visa, however we were only approved for a visitors visa, which was supposed to cost $20, however the men charged us $25. Lesson learned, only have out as much cash as I intend to pay for something...

Upon leaving the airport, we walked into a very humid, warm darkness. We found our tuk-tuk driver, who was a friend of Savin (our local logistics coordinator/care taker), who was holding a sign that read "Turo University.  Lauren, Diana, Kasaundra." We loaded all our luggage and began our 45 minute journey through Phnom Penh in the dark. We went through the "red light" district filled with KTV's, with many girls in the front. I only knew what these places were because of the work I will be doing with Mother's Heart in this area. After a hot, dusty ride we arrived in the front of our house. We were told we were on the second floor and given keys. We then dragged our luggage up to the "second floor," where we tried to break into someones locked front balcony, before we realized this was actually the first floor. We then lugged all our stuff up another floor (total of 4 full flights of stairs), discovered a note from our classmates, found our way into our apartment, found our beds a tried to sleep. We are in the middle of the city, I was in an unfamiliar place, and had no idea where I was in the city. The first night I think I slept a total of two hours. I was awake at 4:19 am, which would become a trend for me for the next several days. Around 4:20 am there is a flock of birds somewhere in the city that begins their daily calls. These calls echo through the buildings of the city, which makes them sound like they are just outside our window.

All of these photos were taken from our second story balcony. The two photos on the left are of the street we live on. Top right are the electrical wires, this one is conservative in volume compared to others we have seen around the city. The last is a photo to the north of downtown Phnom Penh. 
Sleeping has been interesting. The first four nights here I averaged 3-5 hours of restless sleep. Waking up every day at 4:20 am. It was a bit weird, especially since I had ear plugs in, but 4:20 was my time. Although I was getting very little sleep I didnt feel tired, I woke up everyday ready to go, and was grateful to feel energized. I think this was simply a result of jet lag/ my circadian rhythm being completely off and likely excess cortisol due to an underlying level of anxiety about being in a foreign place. I have progressively gotten more sleep each night, Wednesday and Thursday night a few beers and benadryl was effective. Friday and saturday night, I was just exhausted. Last night, I fell asleep with all lights on at 7:45 pm, woke up two hours later, brushed my teeth and went back to bed until 7:45 am. Feeling more refreshed today.

It is winter here, it seems the timing of seasons is similar to the US. However, the temperature here in the winter is still in the 90's during the day, with lows in the 70s to 80s. No joke, I have seen several people wearing fur lined coats and puffy jackets when it is 85-90 degrees out in the morning, when I am wearing a long skirt, and tank top and am sweating from every pore of my body. It is hot here, and is only supposed to get hotter during our stay as summer approaches. Our apartments do not have central air conditioning but each bedroom has a small A/C unit, for which,  I think, we are all grateful to sleep in a cool place, and not be sticky/sweaty for a few hours a day.

Traffic is crazy here. On the road there is a mix of vehicles (mostly Lexus and Toyota), tuk-tuks (per wikipedia, an auto rickshaw, it is a buggy type cart carried by a motorcycle), motos (motorcycle), bicyclists and pedestrians. At many intersections there are no traffic lights, but no one wants to pay for repairs of their vehicles and somehow there aren't crazy accidents. During rush hour we have approached a wall of traffic, 4-5 lanes in each direction, literally 10 lanes deep total. Our tuk tuk driver will slowly pull forward and somehow we make it all the way across in one piece. It is quite amazing.  I have learned to trust that we will make it across. We have had some close calls in other areas of town, but it isn't typically when crossing at an intersection. Often, at intersections without traffic lights, motorists will honk to let the traffic traveling perpendicularly know they are coming. There are so many motorcycles here. The other day we were in a traffic jam because 3/4 of the road was closed for construction and it got me to thinking, "what if all these people were driving cars like in America."

Tuk Tuks are our major form of transportation around town. A ride with 2-4 people averages $2-5 dollars depending on the time of day and the area of town we are traveling.  We have found after dark it is more challenging to find a driver that speaks English and it is best to have our map out to ensure we are traveling in the correct direction to home. Throughout this first week we have made some rules for ourselves when traveling on tuk tuks.

  1. Our driver must speak some English.
  2. When we show him on the map where we are going, he must have some recognition of where that might be.
  3. He must be able to see, preferably out of both eyes.
    Yes, there is a story for this one. One day after work, Malaika, Diana and I got on a tuk tuk to go to a local market to pick up some stuff before returning home. The tuk tuk driver did not understand English at all (usually we just show them a map and where we are going and that is sufficient). However, after I showed him where we wanted to go on the map, he stood there and stared at the map for a good long time. Then, he went to the back of the tuk tuk, made Diana stand up and picked up a pair of glasses with only one lens. He then put them on and stared at the map some more. He continued to be very confused about our destination, which we found odd because it is a market catered more to locals and less to tourists. The girls at the office call it the second hand market. After crossing the "shitty canal" (more on this later), we realized he had no idea where he was going and we weren't even sure he could see, so we got out early, still paid him the agreed amount, and added this rule to our list. 


Top left, a photo of a tuk tuk, it can carry up to six passengers, with two benches facing each other. Top right, the best photo I have taken of the traffic we were trying to cross. The lower two are of  a traffic jam yesterday while traveling to The Kililng Fields.  There was a lot of construction in the village we were traveling through, all the motos and tuk tuks were pulled to the side to let the very large trucks pass by, with enough room to prevent them from hitting the power lines. Lower left: Lauren and Christie, with Savin, who is our logistic coordinator and a tuk tuk driver. 

The organization I am working for is called Mother's Heart (MH). It is an organization that opened its doors three years ago, with the goal to provide crisis pregnancy counseling for women in the area. There are many services available to women in Phnom Penh, however many woman do not know about these services. Mother's Heart provides counseling and referrals for woman to receive the services they need through out their unplanned or unwanted pregnancies. Katrina, the woman who started MH is an Australian, who did a lot of work in China before she was married. She has been in Cambodia for six years with her husband and three children. Emily, who is supervising our project, was born in Thailand where her parents met, her father is English and her mother is American, but she grew up in Cambodia, in a province north of Phnom Penh and also in the city. She went to Oregon for her bachelors degree and has returned to Cambodia to work at MH and be near her family. I am working with two girls from my class Diana and Malaika and our project is a needs assessment of a new area MH would like to expand their services to. The first week we were responsible for editing the tools we will use for data collection, learning about Cambodian culture, working with two social workers at the organization that will be our interpreters, testing the tools we created in house and in the field. The areas MH would like to expand their services to is the factory district, where thousands of woman work seven days a week to send money to their families who live rurally and the KTV/beer garden district, where the woman are responsible for entertaining men, their jobs include refilling ice, drinking with the men, singing karaoke, and touching/kissing the men. These areas house a population of woman who are not receiving services from other NGOs and are at high risk for unwanted pregnancies and therefore unsafe abortions (which make up a large percentage of the maternal mortality rate in Cambodia).

Yesterday (Saturday), Diana, Lauren, Christie and I hired Savin to be our driver for the day to visit The Killing Fields and The Genocide museum. The Killing Fields is now a memorial for all the people that died under the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pots reign in 1975. Entering The Killing Fields we were all given an audio player and head phones. We toured the grounds used to kill and bury over 20,000 Cambodians. The experience left us all with a heavy heart. It is still unclear to me how Pol Pot came to power, but it appears the people did not truly understand what was happening to their country. You can learn more here.



On our trip out of Phnom Penh to The Killing Fields. Top left, it is very dusty in some places requiring we cover our faces with a mask or scarf. Top right, the truck is fully loaded, this is a common sight on the streets here. When trucks travel with a load, the load is usually larger than the vehicle itself. Lower left, one of the two bodies of water we have been near that was not full of human excrement, and actually smelled nice. Lower right, rice fields. 

Upper left, another rice field. The others are photos of architecture we observed on our ride. There are many buildings here that are absolutely stunning. 

The memorial at The Killing Fields. Also called a stupa, which translates to a heap or mound, it houses the skulls of many of the victims of Khmer Rouge. The tree was used to hang a loud speaker to drown out the noise from the victims as they were being killed. 

Top the rice fields behind the memorial.  Lower left, a spirit house next to the mass grave used for woman and children. Lower right, the mass grave sites that were cleared and have filled in over time due to shifting of soil during the rainy season. 


Left and lower right, inside the stupa. The stupa now houses all the skulls from the mass graves that have been excavated. The skulls are organized by sex and age group. They are several shelves of them as depicted here. Upper right, Diana standing in front of the mass grave used for women and children. The tree behind the covered grave is called The Killing Tree, because it was used to kill small children. 

There are many more things about Cambodia that I will share in the coming weeks, there are so many things that are very different from the US. But life is simpler here, in a good way.