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.

Telephone Pictionary is the Shortest Distance Between Two People

This is going to be a short post, but something I really enjoyed and wanted to share. I had a game day with one of my English classes recently, and the game that automatically came to my mind was telephone pictionary (shout out to my c-group, Club: Sandwich!). It's one of my favorite games, and always makes me laugh hysterically. For the uninitiated, it's exactly what it sounds like - telephone + pictionary. Each person gets a stack of paper equal to the number of people in the circle. Every person writes a word or phrase on the first sheet, then they pass the entire stack to the person on their right. The next person reads the word/phrase, then draws a picture of that word/phrase on the next sheet. Then they pass the stack to their right, and the person has to write down a word/phrase that describes the picture, and so on and so forth until the entire stack gets back to the original writer and they get to see the insanity that ensued. Never not fun.

Enjoy!

A mad scramble to beat the clock!

"What...is...this...?"

Autopsy time to see where it all went wrong.

Snake --> Duck (not bad!)

Sword --> Coke (less not bad...)

Moto accident --> Listen (baaaaaad, but so good!)

A Romantic Birthday Dinner Under the Stars and a Trip 3 Years in the Making

So I just turned 32 a little over a week ago and I think it was my first birthday out of the US. I felt a lot of care from back home in the form of emails/texts/fb/whatsapp which I so appreciated, but I didn’t have any plans to celebrate in Cambodia, which I was okay with. I don’t have any go to spots, and I did like just hanging out with the boys so I was planning on having a pretty low-key birthday. But Michael and the boys had a different plan.

The day started like any other, with me going to the coffee stand at the Buddhist temple, getting my café duk dakou taggoh (iced coffee with condensed milk) and doing some reading/journaling. But when I went to pay, Heng (the girl who works at the stand) said I couldn’t pay. I thought she was just being really nice, and thought nothing of it.

When I got back to school, Michael asked how my coffee was and I told him it was “chingan na” (very tasty), per usual but it was weird that Heng didn’t charge me. He was like,  “Oh good, I stopped by this morning to pay for your coffee already since it’s your birthday. You shouldn’t have to pay for anything on your birthday.”

But Michael’s sweetness didn’t stop there.

He told me after lunch that we’d be getting a massage, and then we’d go to the super fancy Aeon mall to do some window-shopping. The massage was great. It included a spa so we steamed/sauna’d/jaccuzi’d for an hour before getting our hour-long massage. All for $6! Pretty great.

Aeon mall was super fancy, and it definitely reminded me of being in an American mall, prices included. My friend Mark said that Phnom Penh has two economies and going to Aeon made that a little more real. A standard home-cooked dinner for the 5 of us at home will cost us about $2 total. At Aeon mall, you’ll find a cup of coffee for $5 – just really interesting to observe the two extremes in such close quarters.

After window-shopping, we drove back to our place where the boys (and one of my students, Rena) were cooking a dish for a potluck at our friend Jong Hao’s house. I knew we were planning on having this potluck, but I didn’t realize how much of it was centered on my birthday. We got out to his place, which is a little more remote. We’d eaten there before and we normally just eat in the hallway, but Michael wanted to make it a little more special, so he proposed we sit out in the field. There were no streetlights, so getting everything set up in the field was fun to say the least, especially moving the few-hundred pound wooden table that would seat us all. But it was such a great idea. We sat in the field, lit a few candles, put on bug spray (this part was just me since I was the fresh meat from afar), and had such a fun time eating and laughing. I’m still learning Khmer, so I probably understand 5% of what is said, but the beauty of sharing a meal with people is that you’re still connecting even without words.

The other special treat the boys were excited to share with me was called Kaylaka. It was a $1.25 bottle of whiskey that was branded “the wrestler whiskey” because there was a shiny wrestler on the bottle’s label. Two things about this whiskey: 1. $1.25?! For a bottle?!?! Crazy, and 2. That’s not even the cheapest bottle we’ve had! The week before, we had a whiskey called Alexand (pronounced “Aleshawn” in a fancy voice, at least to us) which was $.75 a bottle. So we really busted out the good stuff for my birthday.

As I was sitting out in the field with those boys for my birthday, I caught myself thinking how awesome this experience was. And how thoughtful and caring it was for all of the guys to plan a day for me, having only known me for about 5 weeks. I made a mental note to remember that feeling because it was really special and unique and something I probably wouldn’t experience exactly the same way again.

OK two more surprises before I move on. To make my night extra special, the boys surprised me by making a cake. Not a normal cake, though. They scrambled some eggs and put a candle in the middle, which is now near the top of my favorite birthday desserts. Secondly, one of the boys’ friends, Pisath, invited me to his wedding! I felt honored and am really excited to attend my first Cambodian wedding in February.

(Side note: My students also had a little birthday surprise for me in the form of a cake an a song and birthday cake the previous week. It was really sweet of them because there was a lot of deceit to pull it off. Sina messaged me earlier in the day asking if I would be teaching. I said I would and asked if she wanted to meet. She said no, she just wanted to know if I would be in class, which was weird, but I didn’t really think anything of it. Then in class, one of my other students, Ah Mouy, said she had to leave for some reason that didn’t make sense, but again I was like sure, go ahead. The next thing I knew the lights were turned off and a few students walked in with a cake and candle. Really, really great.)

Awesome...

...surprise...

...from...

...my class!!!

Ambushed!

Potluck, Cambodian style.

Romantic, candlelit dinner.

The infamous $1 Kaylaka!

Such an awesome way to celebrate with new friends.

Egg cake!

fin.

After coming down from the high of special night with Michael and the boys (and the Kaylaka), I immediately took an early morning flight the next day to Chiang Mai. Why Chiang Mai you ask? This has a little backstory to it.

I’ve known Auntie Joyce for a handful of years now (she’ll introduce me as her daughter’s friend, which is when I’ll inevitable interject that we were first introduced because my brother dated her daughter in high school – always a fun nugget to share). We weren’t that close until 5 or so years ago when I reached out to her about her passion to work with children in Thailand. As I had mentioned in a previous post, I had been trying to volunteer overseas for a while and I wanted to pick Auntie Joyce’s brain about her experience and see if it’s something I could possibly fit into.  I was looking at old emails and our first in-person coffee chat about her work was a little over three years ago where we thought it would be such a great experience if I was able to visit her work in Thailand someday, as well as eventually get plugged into an opportunity myself.  A few more cups of coffee and 3+ years later, here we were in Chiang Mai!

I had always wanted to visit Chiang Mai because all of my friends who had been there raved about it. How lush and green it was, the elephants, the different style of Thai food, and the slower pace of life compared to Bangkok. That all was really attractive, but it would have to wait. I was really excited to just experience a week in the shoes of Auntie Joyce and her husband, Uncle Jon, to see their work, as well just as just spend time (and eat many meals!) with them.

I will readily admit that I sometimes over-emote with my choice of words. I’ll very commonly say something is the best whatever when in reality it was pretty good. (Reminds me the Louis CK bit where he overhears someone saying the wings they had were “amazing!” What word is he going to use when Jesus the Lord and Savior returns to earth and plants the new living savior in his belly? He already used the word “amazing” on a basket of chicken wings.)

I tell you this flaw in my personality because I don’t want my description of this week to be (appropriately) brushed off like my other bold claims. I knew it was going to be a really great time visiting, but the most time I had ever spent with either of them was an hour of coffee at a time, not 7 days together living in the same house, so I wasn’t completely sure how the week would turn out.

It turns out spending time Auntie Joyce and Uncle Jon was much more than I could’ve expected. They had the entire week planned out for me so that I could get a taste of what they did for work, and also get a taste of what they eat for dinner. But before we started the week off, we most definitely had to get some tasty street food, so they took me to the famous Sunday walking market where we ate roasted pork neck, banana/nutella waffles and khao soi (which is two of my friends’ favorite dish ever, so I had to get it). And of course, what trip to the night market would be complete without a little $5 foot massage while people watching.

Tasty khao soi.

The highlight of the night was watching a tourist argue over the price of shrimp at the restaurant next door for literally 30 minutes while we got our feet rubbed.

Once we got that eating out of the way (at least for the first night), it was time for a proper introduction to Auntie Joyce’s work at Call2All, which is a Christian organization that trains people to be missionaries around the world. It was actually perfect timing that I visited when I did because it was the week before a huge conference they were hosting and I was able to step in a help with their preparations. I even got to help cook! Oh and we also literally visited every store in Chiang Mai that sells bed sheets, so that’s something.

Auntie Joyce is kind of a jack of all trades/utility player, so it was cool to follow her around and see all the types of work she helped out with. She also has a really calming, wise demeanor so most situations felt a lot more under control and manageable when she helped.

Not quite regulation height. Also, that's Nasukham, who is the boss lady in the kitchen and who always made me laugh. Whenever we called for her, she would respond loudly and deeply, "YEEEESSSSSSS, NASUKHAM IS HERE."

All of Chiang Mai's blankets, right here.

A fun afternoon at a remote coffee shop.

Awesome time with Jiew, who is one of the most giving people I've met.

Random, but I had to post this.

After a couple of days shadowing Auntie Joyce, I was able to visit Uncle Jon’s work, which is at a company called Thai Tribal Crafts (TTC), that specializes in fair trade crafts made by villages surrounding Chiang Mai and pays them a fair, living wage for their crafts. Uncle Jon and his business partner Elias organized a trip for us to visit the Lisu Tribe, which is one of the handful of tribes that makes crafts for TTC. It was a really cool experience to actually visit the homes of individuals who make these crafts (these individuals get to work from home and control their own hours). The women we met with have been making crafts for TTC for over 30 years, so it was really interesting to hear their story over the years. Also, spending a few days with Uncle Jon allowed us time to get to know each other a lot better, which to be honest, I was nervous about beforehand because we were pretty much strangers before this trip, but it was really great having that time together.

Inside TTC.

One of the Lisu villager's home sewing station.

Elias showing the women what they want to design next.

The woman on the left spoke Chinese with Uncle Jon and me!

Snug.

One of the women gave Uncle Jon and I bracelets they sewed as gifts.

Another villager working out of his home.

A two-stringed Asian instrument you say? Bringing me back to my er-hu days!

Visiting some of the villagers in the rice/corn fields.

The final thing that Auntie Joyce and Uncle Jon planned for my stay was to visit a children’s home they’re involved in. The home, called Lighthouse, has 14 kids staying there, and they range from 4-18 years old. Their friend Terra runs the home and it was such a treat for me to visit, play with the kids, and learn more about their stories. It was also really cool to chat with Terra, who has a story that I was able to connect a bit with. She used to work in corporate doing financial analysis, but decided to take some time to travel and figure out what else she might be called to do. After some thought, she sold her house and car, quit her job, and moved to Thailand (without knowing the language) to help in different children’s homes before being asked to start her own, which has been going for 6 years now (they just had their first kid go to University!). I picked her brain a little (OK, a lot), and seeing the way the kids interacted with her, it was so clear to me that she found her calling. She is pretty much the mom/older sister for all 14 kids, which is really a superhuman feat. I really hope I get to stay connected to Terra and her work because even during my short few-hour visit, it was clear to me that she’s doing some really special things transforming these kids’ lives. One more thing: Terra and the kids were so, so, so thoughtful. They heard it was my birthday and so they surprised me with a homemade caked and a little gift bag of Thai snacks. It really was a great night visiting them, and I’m hoping I make it back out there soon.

The awesome Terra leading the kids in some songs, and Woot (who is a really sweet kid) on the guitar.

That's Yusef on the left - quite literally the cutest kid you'll ever meet.

Such a sweet and thoughtful birthday surprise for May, Da, and me.

Yes, that's a giant gummy hot dog in the middle :).

In between being able to follow Auntie Joyce and Uncle Jon around, we of course found time to eat more tasty food (I introduced them to KFC egg tarts, which will now be our shared downfall) and me being the nosy person that I am, I was able to just ask a bunch of questions about their lives and the reasons they’re doing what they’re doing where they’re doing it, and it was so enlightening to me.

Really tasty coconut/corn crepe thing.

BBQ/hot pot with Nu.

One of the weirder foods I've seen. Sweet coconut rice cooked inside bamboo, and you eat it like a banana.

Ok this is a little weirder. Insect eggs.

A big theme that came up during our chats was the idea of redemption and what that looked like in our lives. Both of them were so candid in sharing about painful situations in their lives and how those situations pushed them to places they didn’t ever want to be in, but helped move them to places and perspectives that led them to where they are now, and the ability to help the people they’re helping.  A lot of things in life suck, and not every situation ends happily, but it’s always encouraging to hear people’s stories of coming out the other side with something that can help others who are trying to do the same.

The week went by so fast, which to me is generally a good rule of thumb that I really enjoyed it. I’m so thankful to my two gracious hosts for housing me, making me breakfast, providing tons of laughs, discussing movies, singing Burt Bacharach songs, organizing a week to participate in their lives, oh and washing my underwear. And looking back at Auntie Joyce and my conversations a few years back, it’s a beautiful thing to see our plan come to fruition and be better than we could’ve imagined. I don’t know what word I would use to describe the week, but suffice it to say my time with Auntie Joyce and Uncle Jon was like this basket of chicken wings I once heard about.

  Couldn't have asked for better hosts.