Rural Cambodia

In Phnom Penh, Cambodia's capital, we met up with a buddhist monk named Sareth Brak. Sareth spearheads an organization that does community development work in a series of rural Cambodian villages within a couple hours drive of the city, one of which is his home village. Chris and I traveled with Sareth to his home village where we stayed with his family and helped him build a library at the elementary school. We worked every day with the younger local monks to lay cement on all the floors and build a garden outside.

Working with the monks was fantastic. They are energetic, playful, hilarious, kind-spirited people. Despite the obvious language barrier, we would always find ways to joke around with each other  mostly involving us making fun of each other's inability to pronounce the other's language. Every day was productive and fun at the same time. And to cap it off, we played football at the end of every work day. So much fun.

One thing that continues to amaze me is how at-home we can feel in a completely foreign environment. Like the hill tribes in Thailand, living in this remote village is very different than back home. We were surrounded by trees and plants that all look strange to us; we used tools that you cant really find back home and mixed all our cement on our own; every meal was much smaller than back home and with much less variety, involving combinations of rice, watermelon, eggs, beef or vegetables- for breakfast lunch and dinner; we showered with cold bucket water; we washed our clothes by scrubbing them by hand; we slept on a thin foam mattress on the floor. But these things are all trivial. Joking around with the monks felt like joking around with a group of buddies back home, playing soccer with the kids felt like playing soccer at the summer camp I work at, Sport Fitness School. These things made me feel so at home in a strange place. It feels so great when people from opposite sides of the earth whose cultures are so different can so seamlessly come together and feel connected to each other  Its the best, most feel-good thing.

But seamless is too strong a word. The fabric of our cross-cultural connection wasn't without its frays. One big thing that bothered me while in this village, something that's bothered me everywhere I go in southeast asia, is that I always feel this big elephant in the room that I'm a rich westerner. This is the kind of thing that happens: We'll be sitting at the table on a work break with the monks and some of the villagers. They tell me about their family, how many brothers and sisters they have. That whole thing. So I take out my iphone to show them pictures of my friends and family too. They find it interesting to see my family, to see snow, to see Canada. Its easier than trying to explain it. They're intrigued, we exchange some laughs. Then I notice one of the villagers starts to really find the iphone itself interesting. He asks me how much it costs and now I feel really uncomfortable. I can't dodge the question, he's curious about the price, the dollar value. When I answer the question, his face tells me exactly what he's thinking: 'holy shit, this guy can spend that much money on a pure luxury item? I've never even seen that much money, I maybe never will.' Then the thought that follows, the jab to the gut: 'Imagine what I could buy with that money?'. And the uppercut to the jaw: 'My family, my community could have so much more.' And then finally the hay-maker  the mortal combat Finish Him: 'why does this guy get that much money? Why does the world let him have all that and not me? I work hard too, does he work harder? No. So why does he get more?'

How would I answer those questions? The cat would rip out my tongue and cut it into pieces.

Truth is, I can't actually read minds. Maybe this guy didn't have all those thoughts. But the fact is that lots of people do and its totally justified. Its not fair, there's no two ways about it. I get more just because my heart took its first beat in a privileged nation, not cause I deserve it any more than anyone else. In that moment, I hate my iphone. I want to throw it away, I want to vow never to waste my money on luxuries. No smartphones, no car, no washing machine, no hot water showers, no cozy mattresses. But I'm not going to do this. These luxuries are standards in my culture. To throw them all away would be extreme. It would make me weird, isolated. I would be lonely. Does this mean I'm selfish? My wealth is my curse.

I sometimes did stupid things like purposely wear my dirtiest shirt because I was ashamed to wear a perfectly clean one around kids that had nothing but dirty clothes, dirt that the hand washing can't get rid of, clothes that I would never see anyone wear back home. I'm obviously insecure about it. I love my home but living here makes me feel ashamed of it at the same time.

So thats the good and the bad from Cambodia. We've flown out of Phnom Penh and just landed in Kuching, Malaysia. The entire city has no power at the moment. Interesting start.