Reflecting Cambodia

The kids have had so many experiences on this trip. For us, it has been great to experience this trip through our children's eyes.



Laos was wonderful. The people were friendly and happy and even though we spent a fair amount of time in rural and isolated villages, it still seemed fairly easy for our kids to connect with the Laos kids. Without speaking the same language they could play games, show pictures of snow and skiing, and generally have fun together. It was clear that the villagers had little material wealth in their lives and yet everyone smiled and people were sunny and happy.



We really enjoyed Cambodia too but this was the place where the kids were struck by the poverty and the desperation. It is just a border that separates these two countries and yet their worlds are totally different.



Levi is too young but I am totally proud of my girls for the interest they have shown in understanding such grown-up things like: civil war, genocide, the Khamer Rouge, communism, and the Pol Pot regime. (The hardest thing for Greg and I to understand is how this happened in our own lifetime.) The day that they were completely shocked was the day that we spent on a boat going through Tongle Sap (in the dry season this lake is 2,500 square kilometers and in the wet season it grows to 13,000 square kilometers) and the thousands of people who live on little boats on the lake. Everything floats. They have floating schools, floating animal pens, and floating grocery stores. The buildings that do not float are up on stilts 2 stories high.



It was over 35 degrees Celcius and the smell of drying fish in the air was thick. It was pretty easy to see that these people have nothing and live on nothing.



Our biggest challenge in Cambodia was trying to figure out what our 'role' was. In Laos we only encountered about a handful of beggars (less than I do going to work downtown everyday) but in Cambodia we quickly saw a difference. Little kids -- 2 and 3 and 4 years old -- coming over to beg, lots of disabled people (mostly landmine accidents and many of them only young teens), youth begging for money so that they could pay to go to school. Lots of people would try to sell us items we didn't want; then they would beg us to buy the items we didn't want; then they would nearly insist that we buy items we didn't want.



At first we bought items from children vendors but then learned (through more seasoned travellers) that this does more harm than good as it rewards the kids to stay out of school -- and we also learned that school is free (so we also learned that we could be easily scammed by 6 year olds). Needless to say, we had some interesting conversations with our kids about this dilemma and we were so impressed with their maturity and their insight and their appreciation for their own little world back home.



Cambodia offered some beautiful sights, some wonderful hospitality and we also met some very nice people. I'm so happy we were able to experience both Laos and Cambodia on this trip; together these countries offered so much to all of us.



... inching toward our dream of exposing our children to a world apart from our own so that they have a better chance of becoming culturally and morally astute adults.



Lana.

Merry Christmas from Thailand

Western or Squat?

OK, I miss our bathroom facilities. It is not the fact that we have to carry our own toilet paper and it is not the squat toilets that bother me either; the kids are getting more adapt at using them too -- it is just the overall hygiene in the bathrooms here that makes me weary.

I find it so funny that we need to take off our shoes everywhere we go. When you enter your hotel or guest house you need to take off your shoes, when you enter a temple you need to take off your shoes, when we enter some restaurants we need to take off our shoes at the door -- then there appears to be no rules when it comes to the bathroom facilities.

They are wet and because of the heat and humidity, almost always mildew and almost always a stench. In public facilities, many times there is no place to wash after.

In our guest house rooms it is better; typically western toilets but the shower is right above the toilet so you just stand beside the toilet for your shower -- the floor in the bathroom is always wet yet our shoes are at the front door because we can't wear them in the hotel.....

Unlike Greg, I do miss my bed from home but then the only other thing that would be really nice here would be a clean, dry bathroom. Western or squat? I really don't care, just clean and dry would be nice.

The one thing we do know, is that the worst scenario is a 'half western' approach to facilities. Just last week Greg was pleased to see a Western style urinal in the men's room at our bus station. A 'half western' approach is to have a urinal mounted on a wall but not hooked up to any plumbing. So let your imaginations fill in the gaps as he moseys up to the urinal ... and then quickly realizes that he has actually just pee'd on his shoes.

Lana