Meet the Boys, Volume 1: Nathan

As most of you know, I live in the English school I teach at along with one of the teachers, and three of the students. They've been my family out here and have been the single reason I'm still alive. So yea, they're special to me.

I wanted to kill a couple of birds, so I gave the boys some homework that gave them a chance to practice speaking English, while giving me a great opportunity to learn more about their lives.

First up: Nathan. If I can summarize Nathan, I'll say that he's hardworking, shy, and above all else earnest. There isn't a bone in his body that is insincere or trying to be anyone else. He isn't the most vocal (which is a skill in and of itself), but he's so thoughtful, which is something I really love about him. Without further ado...

Name: Nathan (Bora)

Age: 20

Home province: Kompongcham

What are you currently doing? 

Going to high school grade 12, and also taking English classes at Shelter of Peace.

What were you doing before coming to Shelter of Peace? 

I was a monk for four years. Two years at the temple in my hometown, and two years at the temple down the street from Shelter of Peace.

Why did you leave the monkhood? 

I moved to the temple nearby because the temple in my hometown no longer taught classes, and I wanted to continue my education. Then the temple nearby stopped teaching classes as well, so I had to go somewhere else to continue my education. Instead of going to another temple, I decided to leave the monkhood because I also wanted more freedom to try other things. Being in the monkhood didn’t allow me a lot of freedom to pursue other interests.

Why is learning English important to you? 

It helps me communicate with people from all over the world, and I think it will also help Cambodia if we can learn English and be connected to more people.

What are your goals for your future? 

I want to be a manager for a company, and I also want to teach English to poor children, so they can have better opportunities.

Why are these your goals? 

I want to be a manager because people need a good leader to help them work well together. Just like families need good leaders, I would like to help provide that for a company.

What will you need to do to achieve these goals? 

I need to study hard this year so that I can pass the 12^th grade test and be in a better position to get into university. This will be a challenge because at the Buddhist temple, I was only taught up to an 8^th grade level, so I will have a lot to catch up on this year.

What are your family’s goals for you? 

My mother only got a 2^nd grade education, so her focus for me was always to get my education. She didn’t care as much about what career I chose, but she just wanted me to get my education.

What does a perfect day look like? 

I would like to have a whole day to explore Angkor Wat. I’ve been there only once and I only had two hours to see all of the temples. There are many more things I want to see there.

If you could learn one thing, what would that be and why? 

I would like to learn how to be a good manager.

What is one thing Pert has learned since coming to Cambodia? 

He has a better understanding of how people in Cambodia live day-to-day.

BONUS: Questions from Nathan for me - I told you he was thoughtful (his answers in parentheses, no answers from me:)): 

Do you ever think about getting married? (Yes, 28 years old) What are you looking for in your wife? (Smart, kind, and will let me do what I want) Are your old girlfriends married now? Are you happy with your life?

So This Happened...

Champa always braids her hair in really cool designs, so one day I asked if she would braid mine. She gladly accepted, but also upped the ante. "How about makeup, too?"

"Sure."

let's start with my ugly mug.

Getting there...

And now the hair, along with Champa's lovely laugh :).

A work of art!

Voila!

And here's the great reveal!

My awesome evening class.

Covert Ops - Mission: Blind Date

Back home, I have a weekly standing meeting with my good friend Tiff called "covert ops." It's really just a weekly sync, and we rarely get into any real espionage. But last week I had a real life encounter with some covert ops in the form of a blind date.

For those salivating over the prospect of reading about me going on a blind date, let me clarify a bit: it wasn't actually my blind date.

There are two wonderful students I have in my evening class named Champa and Monytep. They're sweet, funny, and radiant, and I just smile when I see them - I would be ecstatic to have daughters like them one day. One day after class, Michael and Champa passed on a cryptic message to me: "Friday night, we have something planned." I asked for more details, but they both just gave me mischievous smiles and told me just to be ready to go...somewhere.

Friday rolled around, and I still had no idea where we were headed and for what reason. I just got on the moto and took a ride with Michael. We met up with Champ, Monytep, and their sister Chiva. And then one of Michael's long-time friends met the five of us before we drove to a little noodle shop by the side of the street. Once we sat down, it all clicked: this was a blind date between the girls' sister Chiva and Michael's friend! We were just along for the ride to act as wingmen/wingwomen.

I sat at the "kiddie" end of the table with Champa and Monytep and it was so fun and funny interacting with them. Champa kept stealing glances over to the other end of the table, would give me a little smirk, and then we'd sneak a little high-five before recomposing ourselves as to not blow the cover. I felt like the most immature 32 year-old man of all time, but what better reason to act a little goofy than sitting beside a busy Cambodian street eating a hot bowl of noodles with fellow hopeful onlookers at the prospect of love? Stay tuned for updates :).

Champa and Monytep, my co-conspirators in the game of love.

G & P v.V

This post is a little Sh0uT 0uTzZzZzZz to my very dear friend Gitanjali. I was able to meet her and her family in Phuket for a long weekend, which is now the 5^th country we’ve met up together in! (That “V” in the title is supposed to be a roman numeral 5. I thought it would be cool to have the whole title rhyme...Yup... OK...) I’ll get to this milestone in a bit, but first let’s take a step into the way back machine.

I’ve known G for almost 8 years now, back to when we both Accenture consultants working at the Gates Foundation, and when I was in my very, very formative years of being employed full-time. I was pretty fragile when she joined the project for various reasons – the main one being that I literally had no idea how to do any part of my job. No big deal, but it kept me up at night. See here’s the thing: I was a (middling) marketing major from UW, the economy was good, and Accenture was possibly conducting a social experiment by hiring someone totally unqualified for the job, so they gave me an offer to join as a consultant…in IT!? My answer to any computer problem up that point was CTRL + ALT + DEL. When my friends heard I got hired on as an IT consultant…well that’s the thing, they didn’t actually hear it. They assumed they heard my announcement incorrectly because why would anyone hire me to help with IT? Astute observation.

When G jointed the project as my manager, about a year into my IT consulting job, I was still totally confused and would literally just click and scroll around my screen to make it look like I was doing something of value. The team G and I was on was pretty small, so we clicked quickly and allowed me to confide in someone about the terrible secret that I was in essence stealing money from the largest non-profit in the world, one click/scroll at a time. This admission also had me questioning whether or not IT consulting was for me. G, being the mature person that she is, talked me off the ledge. She fully admitted that it might not be for me, but also to know that everyone at Accenture had a learning curve, so I should give it a little more time before bowing out. She also made up some stuff about me being OK at my job to make me feel better J. I still vividly remember the lunch where we discussed this over a hot bowl of pho and tears (kidding…?).

Anyways, things turned out OK in the end. I finally figured out this whole IT thing (one-to-many entity relationships!) and our project launched relatively successfully, depending on who you ask J. (For you Gates/ACN folks, I still have the giant Unison binder that I will always look at with two parts pride at the hard work we put into it, and one part shame at how insanely dense that thing was. I’ve since learned from those mistakes J). It was a pretty intense half-year G and I worked together on this project, and working close to 18 hours/day, 6-7 days/week for an extended period of time will result in one of two outcomes: hatred or adoration. Luckily for us, we landed in the latter category.

Since that project, G and I have stayed in touch as our careers took us to different places. She helped steer me in the right directions when I was thinking of job changes over the years, and was one of my biggest fans when I joined Gates full-time. She kept climbing the ladder at Accenture, and also got to travel a butt-load, which made me both envious as well as inspired to do the same. Her job took her to Singapore and South Africa, and I’m so appreciative that we always made time to email/call each other, even half a world apart, to make sure we were doing OK.

The travel aspect has been the coolest part of our friendship, which is what we’re here to celebrate today. In 2010, G was in Singapore, and after another project at Gates ended, I decided to meet her and eat our way through the various hawker markets. What I didn’t know as much at the time, but what I now appreciate and look forward to each time we meet, is how thoughtful and curious G is about my life. She’s always probing to understand my life better and why I do what I do, or why I believe what I believe. I’ve had so many discussions with G about relationships, Christianity, career choices, family dynamics, Indian/Chinese culture, and of course food. I like to hope that we’ve learned a few things from each other over the years (G to P: “You have enough friends.” P to G: “Be a busy restaurant.”).

After that initial meet up in Singapore, things just aligned for us to meet up a few more times in various locales. In 2011, I went backpacking for a few months and decided to pay G another visit in Singapore before heading to Europe. That trip is when G learned about Accenture’s sabbatical program that I was using for my backpacking trip, so a few weeks later, G used the same sabbatical program to move to Germany to learn German! So awesome. The other result of her time off was that we decided to meet up in Rome, after she finished her intensive language program. I had one of my favorite dining experiences ever in Rome with G when we ate in an alleyway outside of a dude’s kitchen (of his house!) with unlimited grappa and limoncello (h/t to JHong!).

The next time we met up was in the exotic city of San Jose in 2013. G moved there for a short project with Accenture, and while she was there, decided to move over to EY, which would bring her to Switzerland. Before she headed off to Europe, we thought it would be a nice change of pace to meet up in America. A fun weekend living in a half-empty apartment on an air mattress J.

Then a few months later in January 2014, right after I joined Gates full-time, we were able to meet up in London! It was good luck that we were both there at the same time for work, and at this point, we were thinking it would be a cool tradition to keep meeting up in different places. So we got together for dinner and drinks a couple of times, both of us sporting our shiny new jobs.

Let's take a visual walk down memory lane...

2008 - Our project team dressed up for halloween. That's G on the right as "crazy" Britney Spears.

2010 - Our friend Hailey and me visiting G in Singapore.

2011 - Another round in Singapore.

2011 - Gallivanting in Rome together during our ACN sabbatical overlap.

2013 - Hanging out in San Jose before G headed off to Switzerland to join EY.

<2014 - Sadly, no picture of us in London, but instead you can enjoy this gif that I love.>

Which brings us to the 5^th installment. Rewinding a bit back to San Jose, G mentioned that it would be great for me to meet her parents, which was a little weird to me since I had no idea they even knew who I was. But G told me I had come up with her parents a few times and they wanted to meet me. Her dad was in the Indian army, and has a killer mustache, so naturally I was intimated. On top of that, I didn’t really see a realistic way for us to meet so I didn’t really give that offer much thought. That is until this summer.

When I told G I was taking six months to move to Cambodia, she immediately told me of her plans for a family vacation in Phuket. Because I wanted to keep this cool tradition alive, I was able to find a long weekend to visit G, her family, and her boyfriend Gregor for a few days. And just like that, the crazy idea to meet her parents was now reality, and they were just the best. When I first arrived, G’s mom had some Indian snacks ready for me and also gave me a present! She heard that I was a big reader, so she got me a book by one of India’s most famous Presidents – A.P.J. Abdul Kalam. Her dad was also a really sweet, and soft-spoken guy, very much the opposite of what I had envisioned.

The weekend was really laid back, and it was just nice talking to G per usual, but it was also nice getting to know her parents. G found a way to leave me alone with one of her parents a few times during the trip, so I had a lot of 1:1 time to get to know each one better. Her mom was both really thoughtful and curious, so I really appreciated how much she asked about what I was doing in Cambodia, why I did it, etc. She’s an amazing woman and I got to hear a bit more about her experiences as a teacher, which we could connect on, and I got a little more insight into her work with translating books into braille for the blind. Her dad was sneaky funny, and shared a lot of war stories about his time as a grenadier in the Indian army. The weekend also included a lot of tasty food and desserts as is always the case with G and me (a lot of desserts because it was G’s mom’s birthday!).

One of the fancy pools we got to relax at.

The beautiful sunset we got to see each night.

Learning to make animal towels! See if you can guess what we made.

This is what was playing in my head.

The egg tart roadshow continues!

Some tasty snacks at the Phuket night market.

Mustaches unite!

A great time with G and the fam.

I look at my friendship with G as some kind of weird anomaly. She was my manager for only 9 months or so, we never lived in the same city full-time, and we rarely had convenient ways to see each other. But I’m very grateful that for some odd reason, we both made an effort to stay invested in each other’s lives, including both important decisions (career choices) and less important announcements (a tasty burger we had). G, here’s to many more adventures wherever we find each other.

2015 - The latest installment :)

A Lot of Firsts, Two Months In

So the last time I mentioned my work, it was primarily around teaching English at the free school I’m living in. I’m really lucky that the English school opportunity was right there because it allowed me to get involved right away, and build some great relationships before my other work potentially kicked in. I knew going in that it would take some time to meet some people and get more involved in the trafficking work I wanted to help in and learn more about. And as I mentioned earlier, I was also completely OK if nothing panned out due to the sensitive nature of working with people taken out of trafficking along with my limited time commitment, my gender, and my lack of speaking Khmer. But in the meantime, I would keep grinding away to see if my skills/experiences could help anyone in that area, either working directly with victims or maybe helping more in the periphery.

Here’s a good lesson on letting things breathe a bit. Michael introduced me to the director of an aftercare home for girls who have been trafficked and/or sexually abused. It was really great chatting with her, and I told her I was interested in helping in any way that was needed. My only tangible skill I could initially offer her was first aid training, which my friend Sapna back in the states trained me on so that I would have a skill that was very much needed in Cambodia. The director of the aftercare home already knew, Sapna, so I was pretty excited to have that be a vehicle into working more directly with the home. I made my offer and the director told me that the sensitive nature of some of the first aid topics required them to have a female provide this training. I very much understood where she was coming from, but was also bummed because I thought that would be my “in” and the opportunity ended before it began.

But, hey, I wanted to learn about their work, even if I wouldn’t be able to get as involved as I wanted to, so I asked to grab coffee with the director to learn about their programs and approach. And as a last ditch effort, to offer up some other skills that might be useful. Meeting her was really insightful, and somewhere in the course of the two hours, despite my dodgy physical exterior, she said my background in teaching/tutoring would be helpful and wanted me to work with the 19 girls in the program on English, sports, and Music (some of the girls want to learn ukulele, which means we’ll all be learning a new instrument). I’ll be tutoring them 4-5 days/week, and I’ve already met a few really awesome girls. One who knows how to play slide and has offered to braid my hair – connect however you can, right? And another one who no matter how much I tell her I want other kids to provide answers during English tutoring, can’t help but scream out the answer anyway, and then give me a mock-embarrassed look as if she didn’t know she shouldn’t have J. Additionally my background working at the Gates Foundation lent itself well to helping her with a proposal to possibly extend their program to also provide vocational training.

First of all, how awesome is it that not only do I get to help out a great organization that provides aftercare for girls impacted by trafficking/sexual abuse, but that I get to actually interact with the girls, learn more about their stories, and hopefully make a positive impact on them. Secondly, most of my career has been on the grant-GIVING side of the philanthropic world, both at Gates and at One Day’s Wages, so it was and continues to be a really educational process for me to work on a proposal from the grant-RECEIVING side of things. IW folks, I’m already thinking about outcomes, measurement, and sustainability – I’ll have some lessons learned to share when I’m back J.

My interaction with the director went from excitement/expectancy to disappointment but understanding, and finally to elation and a little nervousness. I know I really wanted to get involved in this way, but I am very aware of the many reasons why it wouldn’t have worked out, so I’m going to remind myself daily that this opportunity is a real blessing and nothing to take for granted.

So on top of that development, a few more exciting and uber-nerve-wracking things have happened, that similar to working at the aftercare home, are more inline with what I was hoping to get more involved with. Sapna, the doctor I was working with in the states, and who connected with me with Michael (my guardian angel) in the first place, was able to come out to Cambodia over the past couple of weeks. I’m not going to dive into all the things that make her great, but she basically travels the world helping sick people, as well as people who want to help sick people. Before coming out here, she was in Africa and North Korea, and she’ll be headed to India and the Philippines next. Everywhere she goes, she leaves a big and tangible impact, some of which I was able to witness and be a part of during her stay.

Over the past handful of years, Sapna has been working with and training med students, so every time she comes back, the students want to meet up with her and learn, as well as put on medical clinics so they can get real life experience while helping people in the provinces that have less access to regular health care. The clinics are pretty much now completely organized and run by the med students, and even though Sapna will defer and say it’s all them, I will brag on her behalf and say that her influence on them has been immense, and you can see it whenever they’re around her.

Organizing meds for our medical clinic.

Going through dozens of free glasses that look like they belong to Sally Jesse Raphael.

Either because they were really desperate or wanted a good laugh, they invited me to help out with one of their clinics in the Prey Veng province, a few hours drive outside of Phnom Penh. It really was a cool experience seeing the med students set up shop and treat more than 200 people in the village we visited. I was happy to be the lowly pound-kilogram converter (since our scales were from America) when they were taking vitals, but then it got really busy and they asked me (ME!) to help take vitals so we could triage them a little faster. Again, desperation/hilarity. But hey, I did OK, and by “I”, what I mean is that I luckily had the one machine that automatically checked pulse and blood pressure. The other non-doctor helping out, Clair, wasn’t so lucky and actually had to learn to manually check vitals, but she did so great!

Villagers waiting to see the med students.

First aid training as they wait.

Claire taking vitals for the first time ever!

Our makeshift pharmacy.

Just trying to be useful.

With Sapna back, I also got to visit a KTV (karaoke) and provide some medical help for the women working there. So the way a lot of the KTVs and beer gardens work in Cambodia is that the women that men choose to sing/drink with can also be paid for sex, either directly at the location or taken somewhere else. So a lot of these women we were seeing had STDs that needed diagnosing and treatments for. Overt sex for money is prohibited in Cambodia, but a lot of these places that everyone knows provides sex for money are looked past as an open secret. I wasn’t able to help much, so I just observed and man is it really heartbreaking to sit there hearing their stories and not really feel like you can do much other than pray. Most of the women are really young, late teens to early 20s, and through the short discussions, you could tell through their looks or the way they talked about their job that many of them didn’t want to be working that vocation. But when pressed with what they would want to do instead, they didn’t know. I can imagine how hard it is to think of an alternative when all you’ve known is that work, and the money you’re making is a lot better than most other jobs you could get. The best we could do in situations where girls say they wanted to get out is to grab their phone number, and pass it on to an organization that provides vocational training, which would give these women another option. But again, wanting a change and actually feeling safe/secure enough to make that change are two different things. The goal is to get one or two of the med students to continue visiting the KTVs to treat these women and to continue the dialogue to help them choose a different path if they want to get out.

Michael and Sapna talking to one of the KTV girls.

The last thing I was able to do for the first time is the one thing I actually trained on before coming out here – first aid. Even though doing first aid at the aftercare home wasn’t an option because I’m a guy, Sapna asked the staff at the hotel she was staying at if they wanted a refresher in first aid, so that I could have some real world experience before hopefully doing it more over the next few months. You know how there are a lot of things in your life you know you should do, but you’d rather organize your dad’s stamp collection instead? That was me and this first aid training. Not because I didn’t want to do it, but because no matter how ready you feel for something, there’s a certain pressure that comes with doing it in front of the person who trained you on it (i.e. Sapna) because you know you can’t miss a thing. What didn’t help was that I saw her do the same training a couple days earlier and she was so naturally gifted at it that I was like, there’s no way I can do it like that.

The first aid all-star tag-team that is Sapna & Michael!

The night before the first aid training, I was nervous like I hadn’t been since preparing for client meetings as a consultant. Again, not rational, and I know Sapna would be really encouraging, supportive, and gracious, but that didn’t stop me from putting pressure on myself to perform. There’s that episode of The Simpsons where Bart prays for snow so that he can get out of taking a test. I felt that way with this training, even though it’s been literally the only thing I had been preparing for since the summer. The rational side my brain (the smaller side), knew that it wouldn’t be a big deal, that it would be over like that, and that doing it in front of Sapna would be the best way for me make sure I did it right. The bigger, irrational side of my brain said that I’d be a nervous wreck, would make a bunch of mistakes, and that I was hungry for pizza. Most things in my life are like this – a combination or irrational fear, rationale perspective of the objective weight/importance of the worry, and junk food.

And like most things, it turned out OK, like that small part of my brain already told me. I taught five topics: burns, fire safety, bleeding, wound care, and choking. After the first topic, I got into a bit of a groove and it went pretty swimmingly from there. Sapna and Jen (her sister-in-law who was also helping with clinics) said I did well, and all of the hotel stuff seemed engaged and interested. It was cool to look back and think of the first meeting I had with Sapna where she was introducing these first aid topics to me to the various nights I spent taking notes and making highlights at Ba Bar eating pho by myself, and seeing that culminate in a 2-hour session 4-months later and half a world away. If there’s anything that consulting has taught me, it’s that a lot of not important things that seem really urgent will cause me to experience the fear of God, but will generally turn out OK and make me think, “That wasn’t such a big deal.” And the more I experience that progression, the more I can try to talk myself off the ledge before even getting there, but it’s called irrational for a reason. Also, pizza.

Just like one of my favorite movie scenes.

Stop, drop, and roll.

Best caption contest.

Trust me, that drawing is definitely anatomically correct.

As an aside, it was so nice having Sapna and Jen here for a couple of weeks. From a non-selfish standpoint, I was really happy to participate in Sapna’s ministries and work and learn about the various ways she helps the people in Cambodia. From a selfish standpoint, it was really nice to just have a couple of people from Seattle to chat with and eat burgers with (we ate so many burgers…). I forgot how quickly time goes by when you’re having interesting/in-depth/random/food-centric discussions. I learned so much more about Sapna during our two weeks together than the entire few months we were meeting before I left. I remember when I was first talking to Sapna about coming out to Cambodia, my assumption was that she would be here most of the time, if not the entire time, but when I learned she wouldn’t be joining until a couple of months in, and for only a couple/few weeks, I was thinking it might be a little more difficult than I thought. It’s been a really good way for me to dive head first being on my own with Michael and the boys, and I wouldn’t change that, but this time with Sapna and Jen was just really, really good.

Grabbing dinner at the night market.

So yea, from day one out here to now, it’s been special seeing these cool opportunities present themselves that I’m able to fit into and contribute to. And even if none of this stuff worked out how it did, I wouldn’t think of that as a failure. I’m lucky I’ve been taught by a lot of wonderful people in my life that I can only do what I can, where I am, with what I have. And if I have a heart to do something, then I should pursue that as hard as I can, regardless of the difficulty or fear (this was a good lesson taught by my friend Lauren, in the context of dating no less!). But I also know that that that doesn’t guarantee my best-laid plans will work out. It just means I’m not selling myself or the people I want to help short with a lack of effort. And to my pizza-riddled brain, that’s all I can ask for.