The Rice Paddy Reflections of Rebecca: On 101 uses for the kroma, barang-barang!, and a surprize encounter on the mountain top

Dear family and friends,

As many of you know, I have been on vacation for the past week and a half in the province of Kampong Som by the sea, during the water festival holiday. This brought on many exciting adventures and experiences that I won’t too soon forget. To give you a brief idea of my itinerary, I left Prey Veng on November 21^st, spent a couple of days in the city where I “helped work on ODOV’s website”, which basically involved me approaching Humberto (MCC’s go-to-guy for all things smart and computer-y) and saying “HELP!” I then took a long bus ride down to Sihanoukville, Cambodia’s tourist beach town. There I stayed with Galuh, another SALT volunteer, and her host family. The next day, Galuh and I went to Koh Rong, an island nearby with a few beach resorts. By resort I mean one-room bungalows with beds and bug nets, shared bathrooms, a restaurant with really good and inexpensive food, and all the beach gloriously uncrowded beach you could want! We stayed there for a couple of days and met up with some other MCC’ers who happened to be vacationing at the same time. Back in Sihanoukville I took a day trip to Ream National Park, known for its birding. More about that later. The next day I visited Galuh at her workplace, the Cambodian Children’s Paining Project, before sharing a taxi with some OTHER MCCers heading the Kampot, which was my next destination. In Kampot I stayed at a little riverside guesthouse on the river where I enjoyed lovely live Argentinian music and met some very interesting people, visited some caves with the above mentioned MCCers also on vacation, took a day trip to Bokor National Park, and then went home!

I became convinced on this trip that my Kroma is the most useful piece of clothing I own. Here is a list of things I used it for this past week alone: pillow on the boat ride to Koh Rong, stylish beach wrap, wrapped it around my head like a hat during the walk through Ream National Park, sweat rag to wipe my face during our intense caving experience (more about that later as well), catching tiny striped fish on the beach with Galuh, towel for showering, I even slept in it once when it was too hot to put on clothes, blanket for sitting on, scarf to keep warm in the cool misty mountain air of Bokor, scarf to protect me from the sun on the long moto ride from Prey Veng to Mesang, and finally as a handkerchief to carry some pounded rice from where my host mother brought me to watch it being made to our house. From now on, I shall never go anywhere without it.

Besides discovering 101 useful ways to use a kroma, I also discovered a lot about Cambodia on this trip. First of all, I discovered that it is a totally different world there on the coast. Never have I seen so many Barangs in one place! What is a Barang, you ask? Barang is the Cambodian work for foreigner. It was explained to me that originally the word was Barangsay, the closest you can come to saying Français in a language that has no “f” sound; Français because it was the French that colonized Cambodia way back when. This was gradually shortened to Barang and now refers to any foreigner. It was so strange for me to be on a bus full of barangs, to stay in guesthouses and eat in restaurants that catered only to Barangs, to meet people from all over the world, to not be stared at because there I was not special anymore, to have so many people try to rip me off just because I am a foreigner. That last part wasn’t so fun. I know it is to be expected when visiting such a touristy place, but it still feels terrible. They even have kids doing it, especially kids. When we went to visit the caves the first one was amazing! We had no idea what to expect… the guidebook just said caves with an ancient temple inside. The first set of caves we had to pay admission and for somebody to watch our motos (no matter how many time we said they will be fine). But in return, we got a spectacular tour, perhaps more than we bargained for at times… we were lead on a caving expedition through the mountain, squeezing through narrow passages, scrambling up slippery rocks, dodging killer bats, finishing with a 2m drop from a ledge and crawling along a rotting plank over a deep murky underground pool. But it was absolutely stunning! The caves were of limestone, beautifully carved by time. In some places, you could glimpse sunlight high above, and had to step around roots that hung from the ceiling, and watch that you didn’t crush the flowers and fungi growing in the cool dampness. At home, you would have had to sign a thousand waivers, wear a helmet, been warned to wear something other than flipflops on your feet, been given a headlamp (we had 1 flashlight between the 5 of us). But as Helen Keller said “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing!” The second set of caves just up the road was interesting as it had an ancient Hindu temple inside, well preserved over the last 1300 years thanks to the shelter of the protecting cave. However, we were totally scammed by the local kids, knew it was happening, but couldn’t do anything about it.

As we were trying to find the place, some kids offered to be our guides. When we said no, they told us the caves were up ahead. Eventually we realized that we were heading the wrong way and turned back, only to find the kids again who insisted they guide us. Turns out we had been right beside the caves the first time. They made us pay for guides, pay to enter the cave, and pay for some kids to watch our motos, despite the fact that we tried to explain we were volunteers not rich tourists. But whatever, we got to see the caves. However, on the way home, we had not gone more than a few hundred meters when two of the motos stopped working. We were not only upset that the kids we paid to “watch” our motos had obviously done something, but it was getting dark, we were far from the city, and these were rented bikes. The first thing we checked was the gas thinking they had somehow picked the lock and siphoned it, but that was fine. Call it luck/providence/coincidence or whatever you like, but one member of our party happens to spend his spare time fixing up old cars, and he thought to check if there was a switch-off valve preventing gas from getting into the carburetor. Sure enough, those kids had flipped the valve, and would no doubt have offered to fix it for us (for a fee!) had we not been able to drive a short distance away and solve the problem on our own. After having a really interesting and fun day, it was too bad that it ended with such a rotten feeling.

Though so many children in those touristy coastal towns make their living by perfecting the art of scamming/stealing/begging/conniving money from foreigners, there is hope. In Sihanoukville, there are a couple of drop in centres for children who would otherwise work on the beaches selling things. Galuh volunteers at one such centre called the Cambodian Children’s Painting Project. Kids can come on the condition that they go to school and do not go sell things on the beach. In return, the centre offers classes in English and Khmer, supplies for arts and craft which are sold in a gallery to help support the centre, food, and most importantly a safe environment. These drop in centres have the daring goal of breaking the cycle of illiteracy, human trafficking, and poverty. Sitting there and watching the kids play, I was struck by how different life for them would be without this drop in centre. Here, there is a space for them to just be kids. No need to sell things, no abuse, no wondering where the next meal will come from, no fear of what will happen when they are too old to sell things on the beach. Here they can just be kids, if only for a few hours each day. The Cambodian Children’s Paining Project is heading towards a difficult time of transition, raised rent, and searching for a new director. Please keep them in your thoughts and prayers so that they will be able to continue to break chains and give children a safe and hopeful future.

My other excursions gave me a taste of the endangered beauty of Cambodia. Ream National Park on the coast is known for excellent birding. I saw many Kites, Sea Eagles, and Kingfishers there. It was great! I also caught a rare glimpse of a Lesser Adjutant in the mangroves on the ride back up the river to our bus! I was so excited that I started jumping up and down in my seat. Other passengers on the boat looked at me with either amused or confused expressions, but I didn’t care! It was worth the whole day trip to see that one bird. But despite my jubilation at seeing an Adjutant, Kites, and Kingfishers, I should have seen a lot more birds. On Koh Rong island, I hardly saw any birds at all. On that supposedly remote, untouched island, there were no birds. There is something wrong with this picture. At Bokor National Park the tour was more historical than nature-oriented. I was told that there was no trekking in the forest (this is false, and therefore I will have to go back). In both national parks, large resorts and casinos are being built, some by foreign companies. So much land is being sold for development. If there are already few birds, what will this development do to the remaining wildlife? Southeast Asia is a hotspot for biodiversity, and it saddens me to see it being sold away, when it should be protected and conserved, for the benefit of the people that live here as much as for the wildlife. Despite the downer of so much development, my tour of Bokor National Park did have a very uplifting moment. Our tour stopped to eat lunch on a rocky outcropping overlooking a 100 year old church on one side, and a steep densely forested drop to the ocean on the other side. Suddenly we were surrounded by a group of African men and women who formed a circle nearby and started singing praises to God. Their voices rang out from the mountain top in perfect harmony.Nneeding no music other than the sound of the wind sweeping over the rocks, no roof other than the clear sky, they sang for an audience of One. It was so refreshing, rejuvenating, and uplifting to behold. I started singing along to the familiar hymns between bites of food and tapping my feet to the beat. How my soul longed to join them in such Spirit filled praise as I have not witnessed since coming to Cambodia, if only I was not a part of a tour with a pressing agenda.

My brief exploration into the parks of Cambodia has convinced me that I need to get out and see more. The area I went to wasn’t really designed for ecotourism or seeing the natural wonders I know are there. I know there are hornbills and monkey in the forests, but getting out to see them will just take a bit more effort. I know there are untouched beaches and undeveloped forests, but I’ll just have to search a bit harder to find them. It was lovely to take some vacation and explore Cambodia. I can’t wait to get out and do it again! Next time I will take my “Ultimate Cambodia” guide recently given to me by some MCCers just finishing their term, and armed with my binoculars I will explore some areas off-the-beaten track!

To all of you whose attention I managed to keep to the end of this incredibly long post, I hope my stories were not only amusing, but gave you something to think about.

Wishing you all the best. May you be filled with strong hope and confident expectation this Advent Season!

Rebecca