So what was Cambodia like, anyway?

As if that is a question I could even begin to answer. I realized though, with all my rapid-fire blogging in my hour each week of internet, I never did tell you much about the country, at least nothing that would help you come to know the place I grew to love.

The first thing I remember was the traffic. Oh, it terrified me! I sat in the front of Bill's truck, just kind of staring as cars crossed into the oncoming traffic to pass, and motos flew in all directions. It took me a good three days of much travel in Phnom Penh to become at all accustomed to the flow of traffic, but it came in handy because in our long weekend in Vietnam, there was a constant stream of motos down the street and we crossed on foot with the specific instructions to not change our speed--and I was ok with that. Both on my first afternoon in Cambodia and then on my second weekend (when I played tourist with a few others), I went to market in Phnom Penh. These are crowded but utterly fascinating buildings filled with people--Khmer and visitor alike (though if you are Khmer, you will always get the better price). They sell everything from food to glasses and mops to shoes to beautiful silk scarves and table cloths. There is the constant sound of footsteps and vendors calling to you Madame! Do you like? and voices bartering for the best price. My second night, Bill and Marie-Claire took me to the night market in Phnom Penh (and miraculously, I made it until we got back to the ship at 9:30pm before I got really sleepy!). This is mostly just clothes and souveniers, though the market is again frequented by both tourists and locals. As we walked past the food vendors with their array of wonderful-smelling cookings, Bill warned that it is best to buy nothing from them, because such a huge percentage of food vendors in the city are infected with hepatitis A. It was a bit of sensory overload, but I loved to just watch the people wander through, watch the city be a city at night. After the ship had moved, Piseth took me to the village market. There, vendors mostly sold varieties of food, from the magenta drangonfruit (quite possibly my favorite Cambodian food) to pomelos (basically, sweet grapefruit) to cucumbers and pickles, to whole chickens and fish still swimming in small buckets of water. There were also electronics booths for cell phone etc repair (so many have cell phones and televisions despite having little else), places that sold clothes and flip-flops. I loved it, and much preferred it to those in Phnom Penh. In Phnom Penh, you know they cater to the tourist crowd and they are just filled with city and in a lot of ways, materialism. In the village, it simply felt like Cambodia, like this was how it was supposed to be, if that makes sense.

What else? Women and children very often wore prints and outfits that looked very much like pajamas. It took me a few weeks to get used to the notion of throwing our compostibles into the river. Only a few of the villages had electricity. Rick and Gail told me as we were walking on my last weekend that this village was well-off, because the people had tin roofs which are better in the rain. People would wear their best clothes when they came on the ship. Sometimes they looked terribly uncomfortable, and sometimes it broke my heart, but I appreciated the gesture all the same. Children were much more subdued with their parents than they were on their own, when they would yell hello to me for hours (though one little boy still kept looking at me and raising his eyebrows, which always made me laugh, and another little six-year-old without front teeth would just start laughing every time I looked at him). The beautiful Khmer women told me at least once (and probably more, I just happened to have a translator this time) that I should marry Khmer, for which I was a little grateful, because it meant they wanted to keep me around. Cambodia is so different than here, and yet I love it for some of its differences and in spite of others. The people there are so beautiful, and I know this does nothing to do them, or the country, justice.

Please pray for my Khmer friends, wish them safety and peace. Stay well and God bless you all. Thanks for listening :)