Day 1: July 9, 2006 (Cambodian Time Zone)

Finally, I was on the airplane destined to Phnom Penh. On the airplane I pulled out a travel magazine from pocket on the seat in front of me. I read an article about Cambodia that I found very interesting. The article was written in first person from the point of view of a traveler trying to learn about the Cambodian people. The author gave a brief summary of the atrocities from the Khmer Rouge. She spoke about seeing the killing fields and the torture prisons. She also gave some statistics; because so many adults were killed off by the Khmer Rouge, the majority of the population was below the age of 25. With this said she went out to talk to some young people first hand to learn about their lives. Every person she spoke to had decent educations and jobs. Many of them worked at restaurants set up by NGOs (Non-Government Organizations) to give young people job opportunities and others made authentic Cambodian garments; all of their jobs required the money of tourists to survive. Everyone she talked to had similar stories, they resented their countries past, but were motivated to move forward and start better lives. I found this pretty refreshing, that these people were so positive and that all of them were on the right track to improve their lives. The article encouraged me to purchase local trades and made me excited to visit the beautiful country. After reading the article, Alan informed me that the article painted a much rosier picture than reality, in hopes of encouraging tourism. The majority of the young people didn’t have jobs because there were not job opportunities, also many of the jobs paid very little.

Flying over Phnom Penh, I could already see a lot of the terrible living conditions I had heard of. I could see makeshift shelters clustered together, many with umbrellas out front indicating street venders. The airport was much nicer than I had expected. It was obvious that not many locals traveled, as everyone there had to go through customs. We had a driver sent from the hotel to pick us up. The trip to the hotel was pretty shocking. The roads were like rivers of motorcycles. It was common to see two adults and two children all on one motorcycle, and I once saw four monks on one motorcycle. There seemed to be no traffic laws at all. Most people drove on the right side of the road, but every once in a while a motorcycle would zip past us on our right going the opposite direction. There were many instances when I was afraid we were going to hit drivers and pedestrians, but miraculously we didn’t. At one of the few stop lights, a little girl amiably walked up to the car and the driver handed her a 200 riel bill (the Cambodian currency is dependant on the U.S. dollar: $1.00 = 4000 riel) equal to a U.S. nickel. The girl was probably 4 years old; she was dirty and expressionless. Alan told me that he usually carried around 200 riel bills to give to beggars.

We arrived to the hotel and Elise met us out front. Elise had already been here for almost a week and was very excited to see us. Once I got checked in, a boy probably only a little younger than me grabbed my bag and showed me to my room. He couldn’t speak any English but smiled a lot and acted very subservient. When we got my room he opened the drapes, made sure the windows were closed all of the way, and turned on the air-conditioning. I gave him two quarters as a tip, and he looked grateful but a little confused. When I told Alan and Elise about my tipping experience, they told me that $0.50 was very generous, but U.S. coins are practically useless here. When you pay for something, you get full dollars back in U.S. currency and the change in Cambodian currency. Once moved in, Alan and I took showers then we all went to lunch.

The restaurant we ate at was very nice. It was right off the street, but you could barely tell because the front was covered in plants. There was outdoor and indoor seating, we ate outside. The menu was like a book with over a hundred different dishes. I was glad to hear that we were going to split a few different things, I knew better than worrying about what to order and asked Alan and Elise to order for me. Elise and I got Coconut drinks, which was a whole coconut with the tip cut off served with a straw. We shared 3 dishes: a banana bud salad, a pad tie, and a vegetable dish. The food was very different, but very good. Everything is made with peanuts and curry, and most meals are served with rice.

At lunch, I learned about many things. The people in the village where Alan built the school are all Muslim. 95% of the Cambodian population is Buddhist and only 3% are Muslim. Of these Muslims, 90% are modern Muslims (a.k.a. ‘Chum 5’ because they pray 5 times a day) and 10% are traditional Muslims (a.k.a. ‘Chum 7’ because they pray once a week). The villagers are all Chum 7. 80% of the population lives in rural areas where they mostly participate in subsistence farming. Elise is here working on her thesis for her masters. Her thesis is supposed to be a creative non-fiction writing, similar to journalism. She is focusing her paper on the Chum 7 in Cambodia.

After lunch, Elise and I went to a Muslim Koran reading competition for young people. We missed the actual competition, but we did get to see some Muslim girls sing for entertainment. It was a pretty unique experience being around the large gathering of Muslims. The set up was very formal, with 3 seating areas and a stage at the focus with the mosque in the background. Throughout performances children dressed in the traditional robes and head garments would sporadically sprint across the center of everything. At one point everything halted and all of the men migrated into the mosque for an approximately 10 minute prayer session. Throughout our entire time there, people were constantly coming up to Elise and introducing themselves. Everyone had different stories, and everyone had a contact card. Two men, maybe a couple of years older than me, were there in hopes of receiving funding to preserve and reprint the ancient Muslim books. The men where Chum 7, possibly the only Chum 7 there. Another man, much older, was a U.S. ambassador that used to live in D.C. The people there were very nice, and the head of the event gave us some of the best seats.

After that, we went back to the hotel via tuk-tuk. A tuk-tuk is a motorcycle connected to a cart with two seating rows facing each other. Our tuk-tuk driver’s name was Hok and was very friendly. He waited outside the mosque for us for about 3 hours. Many people wear hospital style mouth clothes when driving because it is so dusty and there is a lot of exhaust - most of the engines run on diesel fuel. We paid Hok $5 for the day – a generous salary for a day of work. Teachers make $30 a month and garment factory workers, a very sought after job, make $45 a month. I learned that many girls will leave their villages during or after high school to work in garment factories. These girls will send most of their salary back to their families, providing their family with all the money they have to buy food. Once at the hotel, Elise and I went for a swim then got ready for dinner.

For dinner we went to Khmer restaurant that served a lot of amok food – I’m still not sure what amok means, but I know it is a way of preparing food. We ordered another salad dish, fresh spring rolls (fresh denotes not fried), a curry (which is like a well seasoned light stew that you mix with rice), and an amok fish dish (which came on a plate with approximately 8 small bowls with lids). We also split a couple of local beers which were surprisingly good – I think we each said wow after taking a sip. The food was great and I learned a lot more about Cambodia. After dinner I called my family and was asleep by 9:00 (I hadn’t gotten more than about two hours of sleep in one sitting for over 48 hours).