I Miss Your Face like Hell

In July I mark my seventh year of having lived in Cambodia, and I find myself looking back on this journey and the people who have been with me along the road of my life so far.

A year from now we'll all be gone
All our friends will move away
And they're going to better places
But our friends will be gone away

I received my invitation to Peace Corps Cambodia the day I graduated from college. Already I was at a crossroads in my life, with friends graduating and moving and considering my own next home, knowing only that it would not be back in Indiana. A few weeks before my flight, Jessie, Steph, and I attended a concert in Millennium Park where I first heard The Head and The Heart play Rivers and Roads. The refrain echoed on and on with tears welling in my eyes, standing next to two amazing people and thinking of all the others in my life and how we were spreading not just across the nation but across the world…. Rivers and roads….rivers and roads till I reach you….

Sitting alone in OHare and waiting for my flight, I put that same song on repeat as I read through letters from friends filled with words of love and well-wishing and the promises not to drift apart. Life is not static, though, and goodbyes are inevitable. With hope and hard work those goodbyes are not eternal, but, even when they are, the people on our journeys are an integral part of shaping the path ahead of us. Sometimes our paths converge again, and I rejoice when they do, but I know that my loved ones have their own paths to follow to their own better places. And this is the path I must take.

Nothing is as it has been
And I miss your face like Hell
And I guess it's just as well
But I miss your face like Hell

You all are living your own best lives, and I am so proud and in awe of each and every one of you: whether raising the next generation of fabulous individuals, serving in your dream job, and/or still figuring yourself and your path out. Whether you know it or not – whether you intend to or not - all of you are changing the world around you for the better. With the world seeming to crumble around us, my heart is lightened being reminded of those of you in my life and knowing that goodness and love prevails in people.

It is just as well. But, god, I miss your face like hell.

Been talking 'bout the way things change
And my family lives in a different state
And if you don't know what to make of this
Then we will not relate
So if you don't know what to make of this
Then we will not relate

While I was preparing to leave for what should have been just two years of service with Peace Corps, my mom commented that she felt like she was saying goodbye forever and that I would not return.

I know you sometimes feel I abandoned you – sometimes I feel that way myself – but please know that I left a piece of my heart with you and there it will remain.

Rivers and roads can create a chasm of loneliness. Whether it’s remembering those on the path behind us or saying goodbye to someone taking a different fork ahead of us, whether that person is family or friend, distance is a tangible ache.

Rivers and roads
Rivers and roads
Rivers 'til I reach you

But over rivers and roads, I’m also converging paths with new people. Even more, I’m learning to love and learn across the rivers and roads of culture and language and I hope creating a bridge for others to do the same.

We cannot explore new roads without first leaving our current ones and crossing those rivers to new adventures and new people to know and to love.

Rivers and roads
Oh rivers and roads
Oh rivers 'til I reach you

I’ve been so privileged to live in a world where rivers and roads are not eternal barriers as technology connects us all. I’m sorry to everyone with whom I have not maintained a strong enough bridge through time and space. Know that you are missed.

Rivers and roads
Rivers and roads
Rivers 'til I reach you

What I Learned from Peace Corps:

How to Communicate

For the past five years, I’ve been living in a constant state of miscommunication. 

I never realized how much my own self was defined by language until it was gone. For the past two years, only a tiny percentage of my daily communication has been with native English speakers. And of those, the majority are Australian or British, while I myself am American. Bit by bit, over these past two years, I’ve watched as pieces of myself have floated away: My vocabulary. My grammar. My sarcasm. My pop culture references.

I have always loved language: Structure. Order. Persuasion. Beauty. Language makes us as much as we make it. When you look to the roots of language, you can find how inextricably tied it is to the culture surrounding it. Both constantly evolve as either takes on newness. 

Coming from the Midwest, I stereotypically had had minimal exposure to other languages, so when I joined Peace Corps Cambodia in 2011, I was in for quite a shock. At my going-away toast at the end of my service (more like a roast…thanks, guys), one of the Program Managers remarked that when he first met me, I spoke so quickly that he doubted I’d ever be understood by a Cambodian English-learner.  

Two years into my service, I had this to say about language and communication:

The way you communicate will completely transform. Learning a language from scratch through immersion is a powerful experience. You will learn to have complex communications though expressions, gestures, and basic vocabulary. You will learn to bond with another human being through silence. You will answer the same basic questions over and over and over again. You may never achieve the ability to discuss ideas and concepts. You will develop a new English language which consists of pared down vocabulary and grammatical structures. You will actively think of each word before you speak. Your speech patterns will slow. You will have to define words whose meanings you had always taken for granted. You will learn to listen. 

Thinking About Peace Corps?

Now, approaching my 5th anniversary in Cambodia, having moved from Peace Corps Volunteer to senior management at an education NGO and having progressed from a Cambodian boyfriend to a Cambodian fiancé, I have a few things to add.

I miss being eloquent. I miss seeming intelligent (or simply not stupid). I miss being understood.

I’m actually quite functional in Khmer by this point. I can speak, read, write and type (a fact that actually saddens me as many Cambodians are themselves not given the opportunity to achieve that). But the intricacies still elude me, and even the way I speak Khmer is still impacted by my American-ness. In Khmer, I still use the word ‘sorry’ with the frequency that only an American could, and I struggle to adapt to the lengthy language of appropriateness and politeness in formal Khmer situations.

When I was still a Peace Corps Volunteer, these miscommunications and lack of understanding were bearable and, most of the time, amusing. I still chuckle at the time I told an elderly woman that her son had ‘f@*ked’ me a lot as opposed to ‘helped’ (two such opposing words should never be allowed to have such similar sounds….). And, before, when I was the only English speaker at an event and got lost in the conversation, I could just tune out and play Snake on my little Nokia. 

In my current position, though, a lot rides on my understanding and being understood. This level of responsibility highlights my language failures every day. When a little kid mocks my accent, it’s no longer obnoxious. It’s painful. When I walk out of a meeting thinking we’d reached consenus only to find the opposite playing out, I ache at my failure. Just learning more vocabulary is not enough because communication is much more than mere words. It’s also patterns and culture. To be eloquent in Khmer is a level which I fear I can never achieve. 

To try to counter this, I’ve worked to adapt to find the bare-bottom necessities of communication. In both English and Khmer, I pare down words as well as abandon elegance and subtlety in order to be understood. Those parts of myself, though, I miss every day. I miss the power I used to feel from my command of a language.

In the midst of self-pitying, I must remember that this is a two-way street. I respect that everyone who communicates with me - either in Khmer or English - is also sacrificing a part of their selves to try to find common ground with me. I look to my amazing host mother who told me of her family’s experience under the Khmer Rouge via charades; she sacrificed the pain and emotion and importance of her language so that I could understand. I look to my fiancé who lives our relationship in a language that is not his own so that we can grow together.

Beyond mere miscommunication, I’m increasingly frustrated by finding how closely our opinions of others are correlated to their ability to communicate in our preferred language. When someone cannot understand us, it’s easy to write them off, to assume it’s the concept they can’t understand as opposed to the words. In my experience, I’ve found this to go both ways. I’ve heard foreigners mock Cambodian waitstaff for not catching the request from the customer. I’ve also been on the receiving end of these assumptions of incompetence, and I’ve had to resist to urge to respond as Sofia Vergara inModern Family: 

I’m working daily to remember this tendency to patronize based on language abilities and to recall when talking to others to dumb down only the language and never the ideas. I must look back to my early days in Peace Corps when learning Khmer was a pipe dream and recall that I could achieve understanding with someone through silence. While I may miss English full and bountiful in its boldness and abstractness, words are not the end-all, be-all of communication. Where words may fail, communication is supplemented by action and mutual kindness.  While not foregoing the need to continue my Khmer studies, I need to abandon my fetish with words (sorry, English teachers….).

Ultimately, it’s my responsibility when I feel misunderstood as I did not employ my full arsenal of communication. I must look back to my host mom who would daily work around words to help me understand. I must look back to my own words from three years ago and remember all of the complex conversations that I have had through ‘expressions, gestures, and basic vocabulary.’

I’m not being misunderstood. I am miscommunicating. 

Why I'm a Peace Corps Volunteer

Peace Corps focuses on relationships. Of its three main goals, two are about the results of those relationships. It’s about making this world smaller, about connecting people and places. 

I knew nothing about Cambodia when I received my invitation to serve here with Peace Corps, barely even knew it was a country. If I had ever been taught about the Khmer Rouge, I didn’t remember. I stepped off the plane in Phnom Penh full of ignorance but excited to learn.

And I have learned. But more than that, I have loved. I love the people I have met. I love my host family, my work colleagues, my friends, and even my breakfast seller. So when I’m asked when I’m going home and fellow Americans express shock that I could want to stay in Cambodia past my tenure with Peace Corps, I ache. I ache because if I’m getting that question and receiving that surprise, then I haven’t done my job.

Honestly, I doubt my Bachelor’s degree in English Literature can make much of a development difference in Cambodia. But I hope that it can help me put my love for these people into words, to make this world a bit smaller and connect my American family and friends with my Cambodian family and friends. That’s why I’m a Peace Corps Volunteer.

Elie Wiesel, a survivor of a different genocide, posits that peace is found in relationships: “We must not see any person as an abstraction. Instead, we must see in every person a universe with its own secrets, with its own treasures, with its own sources of anguish, and with some measure of triumph.”

Cambodia has been experiencing protests and has had a strong minority of Senate seats unfilled due to those protests since July. I’d wager that not many Americans are aware of that. This world is a large place, and we all end up picking and choosing to whom to extend our attention and empathy. The remaining places are merely ‘the other,’ an abstraction of a place in the world where we barely blink an eye when someone is hurting.

And while I understand these limitations on empathy, I still rage against them. Because when a place – and the people in that place – becomes that ‘other,’ we begin to fail at ‘recognizing the humanity in others,’ at ‘seeing the dignity in every other human being everywhere’ (Desmond Tutu; Kurt Vonnegut).

My Peace Corps experience - my purpose in being here with this agency - is to bring Cambodia to life for my fellow Americans, to ensure that Cambodians get some small measure of Americans’ attention and empathy. To bring my love for these people, this place, to life through stories and pictures. My goal is to have you look into their eyes and realize that these people are not abstractions. They are mothers and fathers and sons and daughters and neighbors and friends and lovers. They are flawed. They are beautiful. They are not projects or objects for the charity of pity. They are human beings the same as you and me.

My hope is that you can love them through me and that that love will change the way you live.

My mother. She goes without much needed medical attention to make sure there's enough money for her grandchildren to be healthy and educated.

My boyfriend. I feel truly calm and happy in his presence. He works as a driver but puts his effort into a community school to increase love of learning in his village.

My niece and nephew. Every time I visit, I am met on the road with shouts of glee and bear hugs. My nephew has watch Mulan 12 times. My niece loves to dance.

My sister and my niece, two of the strongest, most independent women I know. And they look damned good in a dress.

My nephew, a typical teenager: he's at the top of his class, stalks pretty girls on facebook, and is saving up to take a road trip with his friends.

My favorite aunt, seen here laughing hysterically with my best friend. She's a midwife at the same health center where her husband is the director. I love to watch how in love they are.

My friend. He's the main teacher at Countryside Class, which he did for two years on a volunteer basis. He has shared with the students his love of song and dance, and they recently performed and studied in workshops at Create Cambodia.

My boyfriend's niece and the giver of the best hugs in Cambodia. She is one of the funniest and most gregarious kids I've ever had the pleasure of knowing.

My friend and his son at their home in Pursat. He is the most trusted tuk tuk driver in Phnom Penh.

My favorite tuk tuk driver in Siem Reap, who became a great friend when he was the guide for Vaughn, Jessie, and I. He works hard for his parents and siblings and spends as much time as he can helping at an orphanage.

Some of the teachers at my school in Svay Rieng. This picture was taken at a Christmas party they threw so I wouldn't be homesick. They all pitched in so we could eat at my favorite restaurant.

My favorite class of students. They were all good-spirited goofballs. 

Cambodian Cuisine

This weekend, PSE, an education NGO in Cambodia, hosted a fundraiser for their programs. The highlight of this fundraiser: bringing together unique tastes from across Cambodia.

Sean, Saeed, and I were pleased to engage in some edible nostalgia as each of our provinces from our Peace Corps site placements were featured:

Sean, Saeed, Monika and I shared a delicious meal of stuffed frog, spicy chicken salad, roasted beef and veggies, and spiced duck, all served over red rice. We certainly ate our full.

We then wandered the venue, which was packed, and ended up in the corner with carnival games. We all tried our luck at darts, and I walked away with an adorably ugly puppy that only cost about $1 in attempted throws.

We also all gave walking on stilts a try, and by that I mean we all failed miserably but with style.

In the past I’ve been a fairly vocal critic of living in Phnom Penh (it’s certainly a lot different from being with my family in Svay Rieng), but last night’s event has me rethinking the pros and cons of being in the capital.

When Peace Corps Volunteers Fall in Love

Peace Corps, at its core, is all about relationships. The agency's relationship with the host country's government. The Volunteers' relationships with their host families. With their work counterparts. With others in their communities. With people outside their communities. And their relationships with fellow Volunteers. 

And, every once in awhile, it becomes a romantic relationship between a Volunteer and someone from their host country...

This is my good friend Vaughn. He arrived with me in July 2011 as part of Cambodia's 5th group of Peace Corps Volunteers.A bit over a year ago one of his Cambodian friends introduced him to Sreymao. This past weekend they were married. 

Sean, Saeed, and I were grateful to be able to participate in the ceremonies on behalf of the groom since Vaughn's family could not attend. Cambodian culture and tradition are rich and intricate, and even though the family opted for a much smaller event in which every traditional ceremony was not performed, the day was full of beauty and complexity.

The evening before Vaughn and Sreymao joined her parents and Vaughn's stand-in parents to pray to their ancestors. They made an offering of rice and other foods and burnt incense with a prayer. Vaughn and Sreymao promised to maintain their union with honor in order to keep blessing upon the entire family. As a symbol of these promises, each of them placed a set of clothing in a red box to keep present during the following day's festivities. 

That night we also got busy preparing the groom's dowry. Each silver plate was filled with colorful and flavorful fruits, wrapped in saran wrap, and topped with a bow. Every plate had its pair, an identical plate so that the day's procession could go two-by-two. In addition to the fruit, the dowry included drinks, crackers, and a pig's head.

In the morning, not long after sunrise, we completed the groom's processional. The groom must arrive at the bride's gate with the agreed upon dowry in hand in order to receive the parents' permission to enter and meet the bride. If the bride and groom are from the same village, the processional starts at his house and might take quite some time to complete. Since we couldn't exactly walk from Minnesota, we simply walked out the gate, lined up, and walked right back in.

The sunrise processional, though, did not start our day. We were up at 3am to attend to the bride and prepare her for the day. Around 4am was one of the most beautiful ceremonies, in my opinion. The officiator, seen in the white shirt with his back to the camera, led a back-and-forth conversation among the groom and bride and their parents. They talked about love and respect, both within their couple and within their families. Similar to the unity candle tradition in the States, each parent, two on each side, lit a candle and held that flame to light a candle held jointly by Vaughn and Sreymao. Sreymao marks this as the moment that they were officially considered married in the traditional sense. 

All of these ceremonies are so beget in history and tradition that each one has its own soundtrack of sorts. 

A short clip of the band's playing can be found here:

After the groom's processional, some of the guests stayed out in the yard while the closest family and friends went upstairs for a few more ceremonies. First, one of Sreymao's relatives performed the duty of 'matchmaker' and introduced both Vaughn and Sreymao as well as the idea of them as a couple. She presents their qualifications for the approval of the parents and the officiator. 

Somewhat less traditionally, Vaughn and Sreymao re-exchanged their engagement/wedding rings. The photographer snapped away as first Vaughn placed the ring on her finger and then kissed her hand. Sreymao then did the same for him. Finally, they asked Vaughn to present Sreymao with a red rose, which he flourished to her with playful exageration.  

After a clothing change (of which there were many over the course of the day - I recall at least 5 different outfits), we performed the knot tying ceremony. Family and close friends presented the bride and groom with an envelope of money, which they placed between both their hands, sprinkled them with water, and then tied a red string of their wrists. These red strings are the most visible notification that someone was recently married as it is customary to wear them until they fall off (anything under three days will not preserve the good luck of the blessings). Many couples will save a few of the strings to tie to the wrists or ankles of their future children.

Starting around the time of the processional and continuing throughout the day guests arrived to share in the ceremonies or simply the breakfast or lunch and the dancing which went until about 4pm. As each guest arrived, they were presented with a small gift from the new couple. Seen here below are two adorable girls waiting to pass out red envelopes of 200 riel (about 5 cents) to arriving guests.

Even though Vaughn's American family could not come, he was not without those who loved him. His host family from Svay Rieng Province made the trip to Prey Veng to offer their congratulations. 

In all, we arrived at Sreymao's house at about 4pm on Saturday and didn't stop celebrating until late on Sunday. The event may have been exhausting, but the newlyweds sure were happy.

Youth Star Cambodia

Last Saturday was Youth Star Cambodia’s eighth annual fundraising gala dinner. This year’s theme honored the decade of the Roaring Twenties as ‘a decade symbolized by progress, innovation, liberation and prosperity. Youth Star’s Volunteers embody the characteristics of this time: they are change-makers bringing growth and development to the communities they work with.’ 

Thanks to the generosity of the USAID Director in Cambodia, I and a few other Peace Corps Volunteers were able to attend this event. We were all inspired by the vision and work of Youth Star, and we hope to work more closely with Youth Star in the future, learning from their methods and their dedicated Volunteers. 

Caitie, Kirk, and Jodi

Table 24 - arguably the most fun table at the gala

Youth Star was founded in 2005 by Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Eva Mysliwiec, and the mission and core values of Youth Star are actually quite similar to those of Peace Corps. Youth Star Cambodia sends young Cambodians to rural, impoverished areas to serve as Volunteers for a year, with the mission ‘to build a just and peaceful nation through citizen service, civic leadership, and social entrepreneurship. Our work is guided by the belief that building a just and peaceful nation is every citizen’s right and responsibility, and that each individual can make a difference.’

Youth Star Volunteers work closely with community leaders to achieve a community-directed development plan. Primarily, Youth Star Volunteers work with youth clubs, training up the next generation of leaders and empowering youth from disadvantaged situations. 

A Youth Star Volunteer leads a campaign for domestic-violence free communities through Cambodia’s Good Men Campaign (http://goodmencampaign.wordpress.com) (image from Youth Star’s website)

As a Peace Corps Volunteer in Cambodia, every time I read about Youth Star programs and events I am in awe at how much they are able to accomplish compared to us American Volunteers. Youth Star Volunteers are here, in their own country, helping in communities where they know the language and the culture and the everyday dynamics. 

You can learn more about Youth Star Cambodia and their vision and work at their website: 

http://www.youthstarcambodia.org/

Chris, a fellow Peace Corps Volunteer who just finished his two years of service in Cambodia, offered up an encouraging moment to the volunteers still in service:

I was on my way to the Province that shall not be named. Along the way I met a Khmer boy on his way to this place. He took up the opportunity to speak English with a foreigner and came and sat by me on the bus. I asked him where he was going and he said that he was going to volunteer in the province with some Japanese volunteers on his short time off from University. He then started to tell me about a certain English teacher that he had in high school that had inspired him to study at University and to volunteer. He told me about how great and inspiring he was and how he helped find scholarships and that he had been inspired to study Japanese.. strange advice from an English teacher, but it seems to have paid off. Anyway.. he went on and finally said that he was a Peace Corps volunteer and asked me if I knew what Peace Corps was.. I was blown away. I had no Peace Corps shirts or hats on and I was certainly not expecting to hear about Peace Corps while going to a forbidden province. I asked him who it was and how long he studied with the teacher and he said Teacher Brian and for 6 months. I couldn’t believe how big an impact a volunteer had after only 6 months of a class that was held only a couple days a week.

Sometimes in your two or three years here, you will or have asked yourself what kind of a difference you made in this country (I know I have sooo many times). It is definitely sometimes difficult to see, but every lesson, every semester, every outreach, every conversation has the potential to inspire people.. even if it’s just one person. Maybe it’s students, villagers, friends, co-workers, tutors or teachers. You may not even realize it and maybe you will never get the chance to see it personally, but you are making an impact in Cambodia.

Good Luck, K7s and K6es! Keep going out there and inspiring people.

Peace Corps: Creating Global Citizens

A couple months ago I posted my thoughts on how the Peace Corps experience changes and challenges every volunteer, and it received a fair amount of responses, including not-so-flattering reviews and criticisms.

One commentator (whose comment no longer appears) took umbrage with this particular passage of mine:

You will be the biggest product of your Peace Corps work. You will change. And you will bring that change back with you.

(The full post can be found at http://mylifewithrice.blogspot.com/2013/05/an-open-letter.html.)

Since I can no longer access the original comment, my memory’s paraphrase shall have to suffice:

This post demonstrates exactly what is wrong with the Peace Corps, and the author even admits it! It’s all about the person’s own benefits, and not about helping others at all.

Peace Corps has three main goals, and I suppose the latter two could be viewed as self-serving as they focus on cultural exchange. That viewpoint, though, I believe is vastly cynical due to its shortsighted nature. 

I recently participated with other K5s (the 5th generation of volunteers in Cambodia) in our Close of Service Conference, where I was touched by the final remarks of our Country Director, Penny Fields. Penny was serving as a volunteer in Gabon when the Gulf War broke out. As she told us, her thoughts upon hearing of the war were of the people in her village: What if it had been here? Her political leanings and voting record have been perpetually guided by that moment of viewing the world from another country’s citizens’ perspective.

So maybe it’s true; maybe Peace Corps is a cultural exchange program and not a development one. But to claim that it’s selfish and won’t help those in other countries is ignorant of the development work done directly or indirectly by Returned Peace Corps Volunteers because of those ‘self-serving’ results.

Here are some ways that my time in Cambodia has affected me and will continue to do so in how I vote and for what I advocate and how I work: 

* I have a very hands on experience with my food here. Most vegetables in my village are grown locally, and the fruit I get from the trees in the yard. Meat is bought fresh and eaten that day. I know our eggs are fresh, because we’ll take them straight from our ducks’ roost. We don’t have a fridge and our ice supply isn’t reliable. Meals are prepared and eaten in quick succession. Apart from the occasional stomach mishap, I’m healthier here in large part to the composition of my diet. I won’t be looking at supermarkets and preservatives and importation the same way upon returning to the States.

* My province houses several different factories belonging to international companies. Many of my students will drop out of school if they have the opportunity to get a job at one of these factories. Last year, workers were fired upon during a strike for better wages. This week, two factories around Phnom Penh collapsed, killing and injuring workers. There’s been a long-term protest outside a Phnom Penh factory because large, well-known multinational companies are refusing to pay wages due. The average factory worker earns a decent salary by Cambodian standards. Ask me in a few years how I’m voting in regards to outsourcing.

* Lately, I’ve been a frequent recipient of the Cambodian health care system. Health care here is unbelievably cheap by American standards, but the quality is usually in doubt. Health insurance is either incredibly rare or nonexistent. Families will go into debt for emergency care. My host mother has foregone receiving medical attention for a long ailing stomach condition and even getting a pair of glasses because of the expense. My future earnings will be going in part to international medical outreaches and my effort toward making sure Americans aren’t also having to forgo needed care because of the cost. In conversation with my host aunt about America’s wealth gap, she expressed surprise that a country with citizens still struggling to meet basic needs is advising others on poverty policy. I’ve taken that to heart.

These are just three brief ways among several in which my notions have been challenged by living abroad and viewing life from a small village in rural Cambodia. These changes will affect how I view domestic and foreign policy for the rest of my life. I’m bringing those changes home with me, and they’ll be sent right back out in the form of my votes and activism. I’d wager that in the long run Returned Peace Corps Volunteers have multiplied the affect of their service on the host country nationals’ lives through their actions post-service.

I’d love to hear from others about their own countries of service and how they’ve changed as global citizens because of their time there. How were you a product of Peace Corps service?