I ran downstairs this morning as I heard the AHC Jeep that I was supposed to be inside of pull out of the front gate of the White House. I got outside, looked down the street, saw the Jeep about to turn left on its way to Angkor Chom, waved my arms, and then I watched it disappear. I dropped my hands and my head fell with them. How could I be so stupid!?!? Just more evidence that I am in fact, as the locals say, a stupid "barang". I turned to walk back into the White House and there in the doorway was the Team Project Manager. He was about to get onto his Baja moto and ride out to Angkor Chom. He gave me a helmet and I gladly (and reluctantly) climbed on the back of the one-seater. I knew that the 55km ride out into the countryside on muddy, red dirt roads was going to be painful, but I had no idea that it would, without a doubt, be the most ass-numbing experience of my life!....literally. Pain. I'm sure it was karma for something I have done that I shouldn't have. So, that's how I am looking at it.
About an hour and a half later, as we bumped up and down along the road and my camera equipment, subsequently, continued to bang into my spine, we passed a white Jeep. All the bumping had shaken my brain loose, I think, because it didn't even occur to me that it was the AHC Jeep until we pulled in front of it and stopped the moto. The project manager is a good man. I got off the back, he turned around and laughed at me, I smiled, and jumped in the most comfortable Jeep ride I've ever taken (and will ever take) in my lifetime. About fifteen minutes later, we arrived at a small, empty, concrete building in the center of a flooded fishing village. As soon as we got out of the Jeep, the empty building filled with locals who sat on mats on the floor like a kindergarten class would. The team members talked to them and then began to teach. The people of the village, all adults, leaned like children over their papers as they tried to scribble on their papers and read the words on the chalkboard. Fifty perccent of the people in the room were illiterate. All they knew of their language was how to speak it. And that is due largely to the Khmer Rouge Regime that came through in the 70's and 80's. They killed all the educated Cambodians and refused those left living any educational opportunities for fear that they would rise up against the regime. Now that you have a small piece of background on that, I can say with ease, that watching these adults, some of them my grandparents' age, struggle through writing their own name down on a piece of paper was an intense and moving experience.
I observed for about an hour and then moved outside the classroom walls. I just began walking through the village. If I smiled at a passerby, they smiled back. If I stared at them, they stared at me. That was pretty much the story until I ran into a bunch of children swimming in a rice paddy reservior. I held my camera up to my eye and began to shoot their heads bobbing up and down, just above the water line. At first, they were startled, some even frightened (which is normal for a child from the countryside, as most have never seen a barang, let alone a digital camera). But as quickly as I turned the camera around to show them their own faces, all doubtful looks disappeared and laughter ensued. This continued on for quite some time. When I finally decided to leave, I began walking back to the clinic, turned around, and saw that I had a line of children following me and laughing. I felt like I was carrying a flute down that road. When I got back, it was time for lunch: more fermented fish and rice and, of course, a hot glass of ovaltine (and it was not a chilly day). I finished eating and talking with the team members (in English AND Khmer....woohoo!!) and walked back outside. I was immediately invited to the hut next door to lay in a hammock suspended from the stilts of the dwelling. I laid down in the green mesh and quickly fell asleep. I woke up about fifteen minutes later, after one of the best sleeps I've had since my arrival in Cambodia, and looked out onto the countryside. It was a great moment.
I got up, began photographing again, and before I knew it, two hours had passed and I was in the Jeep riding back to the White House. I can honestly say that nothing about this passed month has been familiar, ordinary, or anything less than a fantastic journey.
