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. 

The Day's Reflection - 7 April 2013

This day was full of travel. I boarded a bus in Battambang Province in the morning and didn’t arrive home in Svay Rieng Province until evening. 11 hours of sitting in my own pools of sweat does not make me a particularly pleasant person - I even chastised a complete stranger for taking too long in the Sokimex gas station (the aircon wasn’t working on the Capitol bus from Battambang to Phnom Penh and then I had to sit in the van at Olympic Market for over an hour waiting for them to get enough passengers).

As I’m nearing my special leave to the States for a month, I’ve been contemplating how I’ll adjust back and trying to appreciate the fullness of what I’ve been experiencing here in Cambodia. As I sat in the touri (van) on my way from Phnom Penh to Svay Rieng, something that has become a common experience which I undertake without thought or appreciation, I tried to take note of what was around me:

I noted the 24 people fitted into a 15 passenger van (actually a bit more roomy than my typical ride), the baby who looked to be a mere month old who cried not even once during the 4 hours it was in the van, the young couple who shared the passenger seat, the adolescent boy who was too put off by the ‘barang’ to sit next to me, the driver who I trust enough to hand my bags (which housed my computer and passport) to and walk away in search of market food and not even check to see if they made it safely into the vehicle, the mass of people buying bread in bulk at our obligatory bakery stop out of the city to bring back to the rural province where the bread just isn’t as delicious, the man who crawled out of the window at the ferry because it’s too much of a hassle to climb from the back to the door, the young boy who begged at the vans, cars, and buses as we waited to board the ferry and who was happy to get an empty pop can, the police officer who took a 50 center (2000 riel) bribe to let us cut in line to board the ferry, and the passengers would talk to each other about me but not to me and who would ask the driver and a woman from my village questions about my life even though they knew I could understand and speak their language.

Won’t life in the States be boring and monotonous compared to this? Moreover, for a country with supposedly good infrastructure, why am I going to have to rent a car when I go back to visit? Why can’t I just catch a ride from a passing van or bus like I do here?

News of the American Dream has Reached Cambodia

Lines from Death of a Saleman flash through my mind as I listen to my family exude the greatness of the American Dream. I struggle to understand how fervently they hold to this cultivated image of the Land of More than Plenty while I am trying so desperately to find a way out of returning myself. When I think of the States, I conjure images of disconnected individuals, unhappy careers, broken families. I think of homelessness and joblessness, the wealth divide, the broken education and prison systems, victims of political impasse. But my family begs that I see it differently.

My brother-in-law wants me to take him with me when I go back to the States. I tell him that it isn’t what he imagines. I think he understands that, knows that buying power reduces impressive-sounding wages to next to nothing, that he will face isolation due to a severe language barrier. He doesn’t care. He knows what he has to offer, and he is confident that he could make it work as a Khmer chef. I believe him. Almost. As in, I want to abandon my skepticism and believe that just because the Western frontier is gone that opportunity has not been consumed along with it. I want to believe in the greatness of a country, culture, and Constitution. I want to believe that hard work and perseverance can overcome and endure. My brother’s passion wants me to believe, but I still find myself questioning what it is that he wants so badly. I tell him that I don’t have money to take him and that I won’t for several years. He says, No problem, he’ll wait. Just don’t forget him. I tell him how difficult it is to obtain a Visa to enter and stay. He tells me stories of friends who have entered into false marriages to receive green cards. Would I marry him? I laugh him off, tell him I want a HANDSOME husband, tell him that I wouldn’t want such an awful husband. He laughs with me. But my sister (his wife) finds me the next day. She asks, Did he upset you last night? No, I say, I know he is joking. Sure… she says. But.. Is it possible? He really wants to go.

Families willing to be torn apart for something that I can’t see about my country. I envision him arriving and finding legal and monetary restrictions to his dreams, sinking into despair. He envisions working tirelessly and unceasingly, the difficulties worthwhile because he is in AMERICA. His wife, his mother, his parents-in-law all want him to have this opportunity to try; they would sacrifice the extra income and household help to know that someone is getting his shot at the Dream. What’s more… they want me to raise my niece. 

She’s 8 months old now. She’ll be 2 when I’m done with Peace Corps, still young enough that I won’t need to buy a plane ticket for her, my family argues. Won’t I please take her for 5, 10, 15 years? I tell them that, sure, she’ll learn English, but I wouldn’t be able to teach her Khmer. No problem, they say. She’ll learn Khmer when she comes back to Cambodia. It is more important for her to know English. I am reminded of the story of Hannah in the Bible; my family wants to consecrate their child to America. I watch my family with my niece, I’ve never seen a baby so loved and cared for. To imagine that they would choose her living continents apart, unable to speak their language, unable to hold her and see her smile and hear her laugh… Maybe my family is teaching me more about my country than I am teaching them.

(posted February 5, 2012)