Big Orange Backpack

This is my second day in Phnom Penh, and I have to say, I'm filled with so many different emotions. Sometimes, like this morning, I'm filled with a sense of "how am I to survive this next three months?" But other times, like this afternoon when I rode on the back of a moto, Khmer style, I thought "how am I supposed to leave this place in just three months?"

This morning we had orientation at 9am at the school, which is just around the corner from the house we live in. I passed out from jet-lag last night at about 6pm, and slept a solid 12 hours until 6am. I came up to the roof, where I'm writing from now, and got onto the internet for about an hour. I was able to chat with my cousin Scott, Greg, and Jeremy for a bit. There's someone in the neighbourhood with a linksys router, and we're able to pick it up from the school. We learned about the program we're working for, CWF (Conversations with Foreigners) as well as CDRT (Cambodian Rural Development Team). Basically the money that I pay to live in the house pays the salaries of ten Cambodians who work in the house (we have two cooks, a housekeeper, security guards...) The school that we're teaching at gets $30 per Cambodian student that comes to learn English, and that money goes to CDRT, a local NGO. They use that money to do things like create fish farms and dig wells in Cambodian villages.

This afternoon after returning back I went to the hospital/clinic with my roommate Jessie who has been feeling ill since yesterday morning. Apparently it was food poisoning, but I don't think it could've been. But whatever it was, she's starting to feel better now, we really should have gone yesterday when she couldn't walk. I rode on a moto with Geordie, the Australian advisor to CDRT, who also works for CWF. Jessie rode on a moto with Sambo, the Cambodian advisor to CWF. I rode "Khmer-style" on the moto, which means I was hanging off the back of it, with Geordie in the middle and the moto driver in the front.. It was LOADS of fun, and it made me really appreciate having this amazing opportunity to be here in Phnom Penh. I understand now what my parents' passion for motorcycles came from. I keep having these moments of realisation that I'm really here, that I'm really doing this. I've dreamed about coming here for almost seven years, I craved coming here more than anywhere else in the world. I am so lucky to be able to do this amazing thing.. (and then go home :) )

I think the funniest realization that I've had has been the following:

When I was in high school and living with my mom I will admit I was a bit, lets say, "hygienically-challenged" (that is that I hated taking showers). When she would yell at me I would tell her "Mom, I'm just practicing for Cambodia". The irony is though that I've taken more showers here per day than I ever have before. I took two this morning, and I'm probably going to take another two more.. Which is where I'm headed now. At two we have some orientation to Khmer culture, and then we are going to a picnic dinner on the riverfront before going to an art gallery opening and then a party at a bar called "Elsewhere". Apparently the last Friday of every month there is a party with every Westerner in Phnom Penh (sort of like a Liege Wednesday for you Belges reading). That's the plan.. now I'm off to live it.


Here's a link for more photos: http://rutgers.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2171400&l=d3899&id=8818340

This is the beginning of my first day in Phnom Penh. It was a really long flight, seventeen hours, and I was so dizzy when I landed in Bangkok (from hunger, dehydration, too much Dramamine or a combination of the three) that it felt like vertigo all over again. When I landed in Phnom Penh there was nobody there to greet me, and I almost had a panic attack. I was too tired to thank G-d, and I called the number of Sambo, and he told me someone would be there to pick me up soon, and within 20 minutes Sopheap, a thin beautiful Cambodian girl came rushing up to me. She grabbed my backpack and walked with me to a tuk-tuk (a motorcycle with an open air cab on wheels attached), where I met Jessie, a girl from Seattle. I learned that I was the youngest in the program, by far. The ride from the airport was only about 15 or twenty minutes, but I got my first opportunity to see the city, and in poverty, was similar to Egypt. We arrived at the house, which is a turn off of a main-looking road (with two bar/restaurants that were hopping as we drove by), and our street is one made of dirt. We are out of the city centre, but close to the Russian Market. I met two other women that arrived yesterday, and already seemed like fast friends, Michelle and Helena. Michelle is from Sydney but lives in Melbourne, and Helena is English. We talked for about two hours, about where we’re from, what we do (Jessie and I are the only students). There is a French Canadian girl here, one from Malaysia, and it seemed like the rest were Australian. The house itself is nice, about what I expected. There are a lot of people that work here part time it seems. We have two cooks, and the kitchen had ants all over the place. However, there was a loaf of bread and lots of peanut butter around, so worse comes to worse, I won’t starve. I got to sleep immediately, and had a strange dream about living with Anastasia, and accidentally dropping her TV off of a balcony, trying to hit our awful landlord. That’s neither here nor there though.

Today we’re going to go on a tour of Phnom Penh and buy some essentials. If it’s inexpensive I want to purchase a cell phone and a SIM card so people from home can call me, and so that I can send text messages to people here. Jessie and I are rooming together, and we woke up at the same time, 5:30 (because of the jet-lag) and she’s really sick. We’re kind of unsure of what it could be, but she’s been throwing up and is generally really weak. I hope she’s alright. This is her third time in Cambodia, but the other two times she stayed in hotels with A/C, and this, she said, was the hottest she had ever been at night. Thank G-d for my experience last summer in Egypt (particularly in Cairo where I didn’t have A/C) and in Israel, after being in the desert in the summer, there’s not much that can beat it, even if I am this close to the equator. It actually feels good, the heat and humidity. I love this weather. If Greg were here I think he might actually die from it.

This is going to be an amazing summer, I can already tell. At the end of this three months though, I’m going to be really pumped to be back in the First World.




I wrote that this morning.. Today we went around a bit to markets and such, buying fruits and getting a feel of the city. I'm the only one here that has never been to Cambodia before. The other people on my program are really nice, it's going to be an amazing time!

So this is what 3 bad hours of sleep and the maximum recommended dosage of Dramamine looks like. Much like vertigo. I'm exhausted, and waiting for my flight to Phnom Penh to board, in about half an hour. My seat was uncomfortable and small, the flight was long (17 hours!!). I have to say though, Thai Airways is wonderful, except for the seats, I felt like I was in first class. Free booze (I didn't partake), and a warm wet towel before every meal.

I'm not sure quite else to say other than that. I can't wait till I get to Phnom Penh. And to a bed.

I leave tomorrow, I can't believe it! When I started googling "Volunteer in Cambodia" in my Soviet Russia class in February, I never thought it'd actually amount to me sitting in my room in Queens, surrounded by all my shit (it's totally a mess) making to do lists like "Pay Amex, buy plane food, take passport photos".

I've wanted to go to Cambodia since I did a 9th grade project on the Khmer Rouge. It began my fascination with Cambodia as well as with genocide as an academic field of study. It's the most interesting mix of the liberal arts: psychology, political science, history, sociology. I would like nothing less than to be an academic, but this is the one field I could see myself doing research in the rest of my life. Some call it a morbid fascination, but I see learning about the absolute lows of humanity helps one see and appreciate the norms as a gift from G-d. My other "morbid" fascination, cemeteries, is also one based upon an appreciation of life. I love to look at tombstones and think about all that that person witnessed first hand in history, what their lives were like, who they were and how they lived.

Death isn't the only reason I want to go to Cambodia, it's not even the largest. However, I felt the need to address it first, considering the two things people think of when they hear the name Cambodia are "child sex trafficking" and "Khmer Rouge". Cambodia, in my humble opinion, has the most diverse and interesting history of any nation in the world. In the 9th through 15th centuries the "Khmer Empire" ruled over the region, and in its time produced some AMAZING architectural feats. The idea of memory is so interesting in Cambodia, as it is in Jewish history. Remembering and celebrating the glories achievements of the past while appreciating the serious lows also. It's quite the dichotomy.

So, what am I doing in Cambodia? Where am I living?
I'm teaching conversational English with an NGO (non-governmental organization) called "Conversations with Foreigners" in the capital Phnom Penh. It is linked with another NGO called "Cambodian Rural Development Project", which provides aid to villages in the north of Cambodia. The funding from the school (we charge for hour long lessons) goes towards one village in particular, Kratie, which I will be visiting a few days after I arrive. I will be living in a house owned by the organization a few blocks from the school that I will be teaching at. I will be living with 7 other volunteers from Malaysia, Canada, the UK, the US, and Australia. We have our own live in cook and housekeeper, and there are six bedrooms, each with its own full bathroom.

I attached a map because a question I was often asked was "Cambodia? Is that in Africa?"
No, it's not; it's in Southeast Asia in between Thailand and Vietnam.

For more information, if you're interested I would consult http://www.volunteerincambodia.org/ to learn more about what I'll be doing in Cambodia. And also http://wikitravel.org/en/Cambodia for general info about Cambodia.

I will have internet access while I'm there and will continue to update this blog as often as possible (yes, with pictures Lori!).

This is my flight information (all times listed are local times):

Thai Airways 791
New York (JFK) to Bangkok, Thailand (BKK)
Leaving 12:00pm; arriving 4:10pm (local time)

Thai Airways 698
Bangkok, Thailand (BKK) to Phnom Penh, Cambodia (PNH)
Leaving 6:10pm; arriving 7:25pm


Cambodia is 12 hours ahead of New York (i.e. if it's 1pm in New York on Monday it's 1am in Cambodia on Tuesday).

I'll try to blog again from the airport in Bangkok during my layover if I can. Seventeen hour flight? Oy vey!