Hold the Phone!

I officially have a new life plan. All previous goals and dreams have vanished at the feet of being...A BABY SLOTH BATHER! How does one get that job exactly? For real I'm going to figure this out. Watch this video and tell me you won't be my competition for this job. Seriously.

In other news, big love from Siem Reap! I'm done with work in Phnom Penh and am now traveling a bit before jetting off to the USofA on February 1st. Sunrise at Angor was amazing! More updates later.

Rules for Living

Having seen a good chunk of the world (though by no means all of it) I've noticed a few things. And over time I have developed a set of rules to live by, things to remember. Not really pep talk-y stuff but just things I believe, deep down, to be true. Only recently did I realize this and I wanted to share some of them. They are:

1. Laughter sounds the same in every language.
2. All God's children got problems.
3. Others treat you based on how you demand to be treated.
4. People are infinitely more complicated than we realize.
5. There will always be someone bigger, badder or better.
6. Really, everyone just wants to be loved.
7. Give back.
8. Being unabashedly friendly is the best way to go about life.
9. Pictures of baby pandas is the real great equalizer.

Do you have life rules? Anything you believe to be true and always true? I'd love to hear other peoples thoughts and ideas so please share!

Moving Markets

I spend a lot of time in Phnom Penh en route. The dorm isn't particularly close to much of interest so I end up spending some quality time in the tuk tuk every day. I don't mind; it's actually fun. I hang my hair off the back of the seat to fly in the sun, relax and listen to Coffee Beak French when I'm feeling productive. But mostly I just look around. Traveling in the open air enables you to really get into the street scenes and be a part of the world around you. I've been in a car twice since getting here and it felt so stifling. It was like a dulling of the senses, being insulated from the smells and sounds of the streets. One of the most interesting things about the street life in Phnom Penh is that little market stalls are everywhere. Not just situated plumply on the sidewalk, but actually in the traffic itself. Vendors have come up with some remarkable ways to ply their wears while still in motion. The perpetual motion of vendors gets a little frustrating because you never know when anything is available and a craving for noodles could become quite a mission. But it really appeals to my love of markets and motion, espeically now at such a dynamic point. There's something in transit that appeals to me, the moving of people, things and money and the mobile market stalls of Phnom Penh take this to a new level. So I tried to take a few photos of the merchants and their contraptions of commerce. It was quite a challenge, as all the photographing had to be done from a moving vehicle. For every picture here there are 100 more amazing and absurd wheeled stalls and stores but these are the ones I managed to snag. I hope these are interesting!

 

 

Returns

This is my first post in a long time. Sorry about that. I suppose sometimes these pauses linger for some reason or another- speechlessness, uncertainty, schedule. Then I become saddened by my lack of enthusiasm and embarrassed at having let you down, not being the faithful writer that I want to be and I feel you might want me to be, too. But I'm breaking the silence.

So much has happened since I last wrote. I've reached a turning point and have decided to move back to America. I hope I'm not too easily put off of development work; I only submitted one application to further a potential NGO career in impoverished countries. But I'm tired. I'm 24; I shouldn't be tired. But I am. There's a long list of reasons why I feel the deep and urgent need to return home, home to the sticky summers that birthed me. It wouldn't be best to laundry list them here; needing to go is enough. However, I do hope that by running back into the arms of loyal and constant friends and family, I am not running away from unknown others who need help. Somehow, despite misgivings, this feels right. I don't think I could do another term of service in a foreign land right now. Perhaps later.

I know it will be difficult to become stationary, though now I lust after it. A work that has always resonated with me in my travels is Alfred Lord Tennyson's 'Ulysses,' a poetic riff on hoary Homer's tale. It has buoyed me through journeys far and wide and speaks eloquently to the experience of the wanderer. I've taken the liberty of extracting a few bits that really strike me now. I would recommend reading the whole thing; it is beautiful. But here let Tennyson speak to what I loathe to leave:

I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: all times I have enjoyed
Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Through scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vexed the dim sea...

Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honoured of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers.

In the Odyssey, Odyssus returns again to his home in Ithaca, joining his abandoned wife and son. Though he has seen much and been tempest-tossed to the ends of the earth, the protagonist returns home. I'm not so grand as to assume myself a hero of yore; I harbor no such delusions of greatness. But something about the story Odysseus, and the universal commonality of journeys, beckons me to yield to my instincts. Like the pulling of the tides, the sojourner must end up where he started. 

Though I grow anxious dwelling on what I will find (or might not find) in America, my friends tell me it will be a new adventure. And I want so badly to believe them. So with that I will leave you with Tennyson's closing lines:

Though much is taken, much abides; and though  
We are not now that strength which in old days  
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will  
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

I hope it will be so. 

PS I will certainly continue posting; there is still so much to say and I'm not leaving yet. I just wanted to give you an update. Stay tuned for pictures from Christmas/New Years in Paris and more Cambodia stuff!

Between the Vines

I stumbled upon a phenomena today. I think this experience is one that is relatively universal but today it was nonetheless pungent when it occurred. Waiting for the cashier to return from lunch, I decided to take a stroll around the grounds of the private school where I substitute teach. It was a lovely day, a soft breeze tossed the tops of the palms and the sunshine was warm and buttery. Walking along the path I decided to take a detour into the school's kitchen garden; I have been admiring it from afar for a while now. A couple of Cambodian workers in wide brimmed hats were bowed over the plants, tending to the greens as carefully as if they were teaching the children playing a few yards away. I walked along the rows of bok choy, lettuce and eggplant, savoring the respite of the greenery after dweling in Phnom Penh's concrete for so long. Then a breeze slid gently my way and the scent of the whole garden braided itself around me. It came upon me in the middle of the garden and was an exact echo of my grandparent's garden back home. During frequent visits to my grandparents house, I grew up examining gnarled heirloom tomatoes and eating blackberries off the prickly vine on the narrow dirt alleys between towering corn stalks. The garden was as defining as our family tree, it held the family together over the dinner table and we watched it grow together. But alas that garden is gone. Pa died two years ago, Memaw moved to a nursing home and we sold the house. Until now I hadn't thought about that path of earth. How vacant it must be now. For so many years it birthed abundance, showered its bounty upon our whole family under Pa's watchful eye. Without Pa standing sentential, clad in a plaid shirt with his sling shot in one hand and trowel in the other, willing the vines to curl around each other and lower down glorious green beans, surely nothing will ever grow there again.

It's funny how smells do that- take you to a different world. Only the elated squeals of the children and the hum of the nearby highway anchored me to Asia. Every other fiber of my body had left and gone to Marietta, Georgia. The exact smell defies description; it is such a layering of things. First there is richness of wet soil, then the scent of fresh green things, growing things. And the honey of flowers woven though it is accompanied by the promising waft of fruits already ripe and round. It smells like a garden, for sure. But it has the sweetness of promise and the grit of growth in it. These things have smells, too, and they are unforgettable.

But after a moment, the breeze was gone. It's stillness left nothing in my nose but much in my memory.

It's Time.

Watch this and don't cry. I dare you. It is time. Long past time.

Thanksgiving Bits and Bobs

I hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving! It is without doubt one of my hands down favorite holidays- and not just because my Sister and I get away with drinking White Russians and making pies together before noon. That is certainly a perk though. I just get so on board with the whole gratitude thing. It's just so refreshing, espeically after seeing such extreme dichotomies in socioeconomic statuses and how rarely that correlates with thankfulness. Also, the food is awesome. There is so much fuss made over Christmas that it's nice to have a more low-key option to see friends and family on a festive occasion. At any rate, below are a few T-Give items I thought I'd share.

First a really quick but totally worthwhile article called Gratitude as a Business Strategy. The content is pretty self explanatory based on the title but the author hits on some really excellent and well taken points about gratitude's place in life in general, not to mention the world of 9-5. Read it!

Below is our super sweet Thanksgiving set up. I was convinced it would be a bunch of dirty 20-something expats sitting around in cigarette ash and talking politics, which is how things went in college. Instead it was at a very classy venue with wine pouring servers, 2 catered turkeys and all the trimmings, even though no one is quite sure which black market the cranberry sauce emerged off of. That stuff was in no store to be found across the whole city. It was a lovely evening of making new friends as we chatted about The Great Gatsby and the Kardashians, enjoyed a rainbow of pot luck sides and savored the balm of the night air for many hours. I truly felt thankful that wherever I may end up, there is always room for me at someones warm and welcoming Thanksgiving table. That thought plucks me with courage and humbles me with thanks. Sorry the pics are a little fuzzy! Wish you were here!

The whole group! There were 22 of us from about 8 countries.

My little table up close

A little pie...A little vino...

Me! Post-feast chubby cheeks and emerging from good eats.