...we are confronted everywhere with wonders; we see that the miraculous is not extraordinary, but the common mode of existence. It is our daily bread. -Wendell Barry
Yesterday, our office, usually a place of quiet & peacefulness, became a place of terror for one tiny, incredibly unlucky gecko.
when we arrived at our office i watched a small gecko climb curiously into the air conditioning unit near our ceiling. this had happened once previously & the gecko came flying out of the front of the a.c. with spectacular force, sat stunned for a moment, & then scampered away. at the time, i concluded that was probably the single most exciting thing that would ever happen to that gecko.
i was thinking about that, when the current gecko also came hurling out of the front of the a.c. & landed on our floor with a thud. his tail was moving, but further inspection showed that the top of his little head had been sliced off. his little tongue was even hanging out of his little mouth.
so we swept him out the door, where he was immediately attacked by an army of ants. a day later, we now have a completely clean tiny gecko skeleton on our doorpost.
we were prepared to encounter trauma here in this war-torn country, but i was not prepared for such gecko trauma! :)
When we were in Vietnam, we stumbled upon a rollercoaster like none we had ever seen before, the Coaster Bob. The Coaster Bob is a rollercoaster that you control yourself!
You just observe the easy-to-follow directions on the sign along the track & away you go!
We decided that since nothing was stopping us from ramming full speed into each other, Coaster Bobs would never be allowed into safety conscious North America.
So we took the chance to enjoy them while we could!
A few weeks ago we decided to celebrate Cambodian New Year (& its weeklong public holiday) by taking a trip to explore Vietnam.
We hopped in a boat with our friends, Amie & Steve, & headed down the Mekong River to Vietnam, a land of dragons, contradictions, sadness & most surprisingly, a land of restoration & rebirth.
We fell in love.
We very surprised by how much more developed Vietnam is, compared to Cambodia.It was much cleaner & tidier (no piles of garbage in the streets!), the traffic was very busy but quite orderly, there were no giant Lexus SUVs taking up the roads, everybody wore helmets and not a single motor bike had more than two people on it!
In Ho Chi Mihn we drank delicious bubble tea.
We hired moto drivers & rode out to the Cu Chi Tunnels.
They were a network of tunnels & booby traps (made from bamboo, former hunting techniques, quite gruesome indeed!) made by the Viet Cong to evade & harm the American troops during the war.It was disturbing & fascinating to see the conflict from the Vietcong perspective.At the end of the tour, there was also a firing range where tacky tourists could pay $10 to fire an AK47 or various machine guns at a rifle range. An old Vietnamese war vet was telling us his stories about the horrors he lived through while wincing from the sound of these ridiculous tourists firing off weapons for fun...
Speaking of pacifism, we also went to the American War Museum (formerly called the american war crimes museum) it was gut wrenching & horrific & made us feel like weeping for all the needless blood shed, on both sides, in vain trying to protect the world from a communist Vietnam.The museum depicted such tragedy & loss that I really am at a loss to say anything more, just that we left with a profound sense of sorrow.
On to brighter things...
communist Ho Chi Minh is now a beacon of capitalism & we could not believe the swanky stores we saw.Louis Vuitton!Calvin Klein!Marc Jacobs!Oh my!
Feeling like we should indulge in this western deluge while we could, we enjoyed an evening of Pizza Hut (!!!) & a movie at a real theater. Unfortunately all that was showing was Race to Witch Mountain, a Disney movie starring the Rock. Oh well, we still enjoyed the pizza, popcorn, & air conditioning!
From Ho Chi Minh, we headed to Dalat, a mountain town about 5 hours northeast.
In Dalat, we met up with “An, the man who cAN”, a moto driver who spent several days with us, showing us all around the surrounding countryside, showering us with tales from his time fighting with the South Vietnamese army & his time in “re-education camp” after the South surrendered & drinking lots of rice wine.
It was great to travel around via moto & Dalat was cold, which we loved, because Phnom Penh has been so hot.We saw beautiful waterfalls,
In Dalat, we also visited we also visited the Crazy House. A guest house designed by a former Vietnamese leader’s architect daughter who appears to be some sort of Yoko Ono. But it works great for architecture! This building was part Dr. Suess, part Dracula,and maybe part melting Smurf house!
In the end, it seemed entirely fitting that we were in Vietnam for Easter. The overwhelming feeling we came away with, was that Vietnam is a country that has been resurrected!
A few weeks ago we traveled to Kratie Province (348 km northeast of Phnom Penh) to attend the wedding of the sister of one of our colleagues.
Amanda got to wear a fun wedding dress again...
We spent the day after the wedding with the bride & groom & the rest of the family. We visited Wat Sorsor Moey Roy (literally, the Pagada with 100 Pillars)
The inside was quite ornate...
A friendly monk waved goodbye as we left...
Afterwards, we went swimming in the Mekong River & enjoyed a picnic of (what else!) rice & left over wedding chicken.
We finished the day on a beautiful boat watching a few pods of the Mekong's endangered freshwater dolphins.
all told, it was quite a nice trip.
[not pictured: 1) Daniel being carsick out of the bus window & friendly Khmer passengers insisting that he rub tiger balm all over his face (it stings!) & eat mangoes 2) d&a sitting at a wedding table full of jolly policemen & being convinced to eat deep fried chicken feet 3) d&a being forced to dance & the male guests, after being emboldened with "special beer" (its real name) lining up to shake Daniel's hand enthusiastically, while saying things we did not understand 4) swimming in the Mekong river, Cambodian style i.e. in all our clothes 5) a very squished return mini-bus ride where the passengers insisted on listening to the english preaching on the Christian radio station, for our benefit I presume]
[daniel using his moto skills to drive us through rice fields]
A few weeks ago we headed out to Prey Veng province to visit some of MCC's more rural work sites. The trip was fascinating on several levels. It was great to see what development work MCC is doing outside of Phnom Penh, but it was also shocking to see some of the rural poverty that exists in the countryside.
[children collecting dung to use as fuel]
There are estimates that half of Cambodia's rural poor lives on less than 45 cents a day. And more than the poverty, what I found haunting was the apparent lack of opportunity for the rural farmers, and especially for their children. And at the same time, it is in this context that the work of MCC and its local partners becomes so inspiring and hope-filled. We visited a meeting of a small community bank, villagers coming together to save and to give each other small loans for small scale business ventures.
We attended a meeting of local farmers listening to a trained veterinarian speaking about caring for their animals and protecting against bird flu.
We visited a high school that is teaching students agricultural techniques to address food insecurity issues.
We met a family living in poverty, who with the help of MCC, is learning to raise & sell chickens.
And we saw some rice field irrigation projects.
In the midst of our journeys here, we are often reminded that we are haves, while so many around us are have nots. And that we are haves in ways that run so much deeper than the size of our bank accounts-in having lived lives free from violence & war & the trauma of genocide & sexual abuse & discrimination; in having families that have always loved and supported us; in the education we received; & in the opportunities we have had to travel & learn & experience life from so many different places.
and it does not make any sense.
i keep remembering (& praying) the words of the poem "listen" by w.s. merwin
with the night falling we are saying thank you we are stopping on the bridge to bow from the railings... we are saying thank you and waving dark though it is
