Indelible Roots

11/05/2007

Last night we I sat down with some aunts who wanted to know why I was here. Kong was there to translate for me fortunately. They had a hard time understanding why I was working for free. Why was I helping total strangers when I could be helping family? I asked them who needed help and one pointed to her fourteen year old son who is fit, if not trim. She said he wants to learn English, but can’t afford it. Kong had a difficult time explaining the concept of charity to them and how I wanted to improve disabled people’s skills and thus their lives, not give them money for an education. Kong was sympathetic but the aunts were unconvinced with his explanations. How do you explain to a culture where wealth is everything that money means nothing or next to nothing? How do you explain how unimportant money is when you can eat as much as you want every day, have a secure place to sleep every night, and have the freedom to goof off almost as much as you want when they don’t have those same opportunities?

Later that evening Kong, Samrith, and I drove the Isuzu to a guarded lot a few blocks away. Here only the people living on the first floor are entitled to parking and then it’s parking inside the home. So you either park it in a lot or have to move it early every morning. There is also the incessant danger of theft. They pay $40 a month to park at the guarded lot, which seemed steep to both Kong and me.

As we walked back I saw the tuk-tuk drivers all gathered on the sidewalk and sleeping in their tuk-tuks. I had read this in my travel guide, but didn’t really believe it till now that they didn’t go home, but rather just slept in their little carriages. We also saw men working through the refuse littering the sidewalks for cans and bottles. The two I saw did not dawdle, but rather moved quickly from pile to pile.

I slept there at uncle Chheang’s apartment that is too small for any guests. I slept on a wood slat next to Samrith and there was at least one person sleeping on the deck under a mosquito net. Before seven we loaded up my bags, went to have a breakfast of noodles, and then they dropped me off at my ‘apartment’ on the other side of the Mekong River.

This new place is a room on the second floor of a large house that belongs to one of the medical student’s family. I’ll have a good sized room to myself and there will be two others on the floor. It is in a very nice and secluded area of town with nice homes on the bank of the Mekong River. It is perhaps two or three miles from the clinic, but I will be getting a ride in and out with Samnang, the medical student. A motor scooter is almost a must have if I am going to be able to get anywhere by myself now.

Work started as usual. I went upstairs and picked up a pair of scrubs, went downstairs to pick up a pair of sanitized flip flops, then went to the therapy room to change. And as happens more often than not, the pants were too short for me. So I went back to get another pair of scrubs and put them on there in the bathroom, leaving my wallet on the shelf when I left. I returned a half hour later expecting to find nothing, but found the wallet there, but obviously moved. Peering at its contents I found forty out of fifty-five dollars missing. I usually carry only fifteen dollars, but had that money in there for the weekend trip.

I am a bit disappointed even though I had come here with the expectation of the strong possibility of losing everything I own, to include this too expensive laptop. I had downloaded all of my important data to an external hard drive before leaving. Important data still left on this computer is encrypted and there is a super long password to log on. My disappointment is more to the fact that it was an employee only area that CSC shares with a surgical eye clinic. I hope it was taken by someone who really needed it though those kids from yesterday could have used it even more. Mostly I’m mad at myself for leaving it there, but we all know how good my memory is. Three head injuries will do that to you.

After work I went to the Olympic market area with Lyna to buy some sutures from the pharmacies there. We ended up buying $200 worth at $1.70 a piece. Now this pains me since I had a box of three hundred or so that I didn’t bring. This box was donated by the nurse from Providence, but I couldn’t fit everything into my two suitcases. I emailed Dr. Jim to ask if he wanted these, in which case I would take something else out, but he never replied. And Lyna is downright mean when it comes to bargaining! I just smiled and stood to the side.

Afterwards we stopped by a Vietnamese restaurant that had the name Pho on it, but didn’t serve pho. So we had some type of fish soup instead that was cooked on a stove on the tabletop. Now that’s one thing I’ve come to realize about the fish here. It’s never gutted when cooked. Before leaving for the seaside with Kong and his dad we dropped off uncle Chheang at a restaurant of some kind. In the back there I witnessed a cook next to a large fry pot. Next to that was a large aluminum bowl with large, twenty-four inch plus fish flopping around. The cook took his large aluminum ladle, whacked a flopping fish on the head, and then scooped it into the fry pot. Both Kong and I looked at each other and agreed that just wasn’t right. By the way, I’m taking dibs on the name Da Pho One One for a future restaurant. ;  )

So Lyna and I start talking and it turns out that she is in the middle of a divorce and has a three year old for all of you who want to know. Now listen up all you single guys as this part is very interesting. She goes on to tell me that one of her friends paid a man in the US to marry her so that she could get to the US. The cost, thirty Gs. She doesn’t have the money saved up yet, but is working towards it. Getting to the US is her dream, but she doesn’t seem to have any misconceptions of freebies, of milk and honey. But she thinks she would be happier there. That’s another strike for 1) arranged marriages, 2) marrying when you’re under 25, 3) marrying at greatly dissimilar ages. Arranged marriages=bad.

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This entry was posted on Monday, November 5th, 2007 at 5:56 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.