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Other entries in Phnom Penh

hug someone today

my days are numbered in cambodia!....   spent sunday with (most of ) the jones family: catherine, savanah, tia, naomi, micah, tim - noodle soup for breakfast (the kids were up since 6:30, I could have slept until 11, so we bargained for wake-up times and agreed to 8. oy.), then watched a movie (finding nemo is excellent!) swimming, chips & sandwiches (a novelty for me now), friends over at night for dinner/church. realizing how much I'm gonna miss this family and dreaming of ways to fit them in my backpack. although knowing them means a guarantee I'll get back to cambodia someday....

monday morning dale rushed me to the bus on his motorbike (he's one of the fastest drivers on the road AND a westerner so we made a rare sight). I was on my way to the wat opat aids orphanage again. just like before, the bus driver was told where I needed to get off, and just like before, by the time I did, the rest of the bus knew too. nice to know so many peeps have got my back.

this time I stayed overnight at the orphanage with teresa,  wayne & the kids.  that night, one of the pigs had 11 babies - never seen that before! so 15 other kids and I  watched it unfold. afterwards, I watched khmer soap operas, but it was mostly an excuse to let the kids cuddle up for hugs. I was repeatedly overwhelmed by how willing these kids were to smile and especially  to ask for hugs.  my hand  was held everywhere I walked. wayne and teresa do a fabulous job,  but with 60+ kids, it's impossible for them to give all the attention needed. I sort of put myself on hug patrol as much as possible.  I read a while ago about endorphins realeased from hugs and even thogh I was there barely 24 hours and felt bad about leaving so soon, I figured a few endorphins released wasn't such a bad thing. I also discovered I can hug 4 kids at one time. 5 if everyone really squishes.

my plan was to get the kids drawing a little more amd we managed it. there was the same hesitation to be creative as the last time, but the second day, to mix it up a little, I drew tree trunks then had the kids make the  leaves to cut out and stick on. figured something focused like this might feel more comfortable to them.

I plucked tropical leaves from their school yard and at first they traced, which was a little disappointing. but then they started coloring in with some pretty creative stuff and a lot of kids stopped using the real leaves as templates. overall I'm SO not complaining - mostly I just wanted them to have fun and that worked. we even got a couple adults to join in but they were the most shy of all.  (side note: did I mention the awesome woman I met on the plane from denver to LA who told me about joseph cornell? he's created al these low-cost bio-diversity games for kids to teach them about their environment. well, I stole the leaf idea from her/him & plan to incorporate more as I keep volunteering.).

wayne and teresa have been working with this orphanage over 5-6 years now and each of them have fascinating lives that got them to this place. both are medics/nurses that served in vietnam. teresa is a devout christian and loves field work (today she tracked down reasons why 26 kids didn't show up at school by going door to door). wayne has been doing missionary work since he returned from the war and has seen the best and the worst of both volunteer and religious organizations. he speaks and lives with such compassion and beleives in the generosity of spirit, not what church you belong to (tho, thankfully, the same could be said for many of missionaries I've met in cambodia - including my hosts dale & cathleen).

my first night, after dinner, wayne and 7 of the kids - plus me tagging along - walked  to the crematorium to honor one of the recently dead patients,  mr yew. we lit incence sticks and a candle. then the kids and wayne went through a buddhist chant followed by a christian song. 'scuse me for stating what already has,  but, 7 boys chanting by candle-light in an aids crematorium in cambodia is something I wont forget any time soon. it was remarkable....the whole stay was. knowing I'll get back to cambodia, I know I'll get back to the orphanage some day too. and if you're looking for a place to volunteer time or send money, this counts! let me know if you're interested. nlehet@gmail.com

another cool thing that had nothing (or everything) to do with the kids was I stumbled across a magazine article about a buddhist video artist. he talked about how blurred the line had become for him between life and art and spirituality. so as I've been wandering all these galleries of religious art its a great reminder that this is stuff to be lived,  not just observed. it USED to be lived, but now we sequester art in museums and universities....I'll be pondering this one for a while...

a few other nuggets worth remembering: what it means to loose yourself in art (his sensei master would say "no technique! no thinking!");  that the amount of time you put into something doesnt always equate to better quality (the same master on chinese style vs zen style painting: "5 days is equal to 5 seconds!") (the sensei master seemed to yell everything...);  and my favorite new quote from Ibn Arabi, a 13th century sufi master: "If you engage in travel, you will arrive."

I could have spent my travel fund on another grad degree. I'm so glad I didn't.

ps- click ahead for pics of the jones family. long story, but I couldn't get them uploaded to this page.

pps - from here on out, these are the results of  pics taken with my smashed view-finder.  I can't see what I'm taking pics of until I plug into a machine. argh...

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