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.