man, am i getting old...

Until about three weeks ago, I never even dreamed that I’d go to Asia, for vacation or mission work or just about anything. It was really a God thing that less than a month ago Katherine (my “host” UMC missionary here in Phnom Penh) contacted me with a perfect volunteer job description, available housing, and an incredibly flexible schedule for my arrival and departure. Maybe I should blame my 9^th grade World History teacher for his fascination with Mexico and resulting general neglect of the rest of the world, but I didn’t know a thing about Singapore, the Vietnam War, or even where Laos was before I came to Cambodia! So suffice it to say, when I got here, I had a lot to learn.

If you, too, were deprived of learning about Cambodian history in its full, here’s an appalling simplification of the basics and (more importantly, I think) the effect it’s had on the current population living in Cambodia today:

1.       Way back when, the Chinese dynasty began taking control of northern and middle Asia, pushing the Viet and Thai dynasty and their peoples to southern Asia (i.e. Cambodia, the land of the Khmers). Cambodia was effectively controlled by Vietnam leaders until the French came and took their place.

2.       When the French left, they allowed the Vietnamese to stay in-country as the upper-middle class. Obviously, this caused a bit of dissention.

3.       In a style very much like Hitler in Germany, the Khmer Rouge, a small purist group of Cambodians, decided to rise up against the Vietnamese in power and exterminate all non-Khmer peoples (including Chinese-Khmer, Viet-Khmer, Thai-Khmer, and the like). The group’s goal was to effectively start over – their dream was for Cambodia to be a feudalistic, purely Khmer, communist society. This meant that all non-Khmer and educated peoples had to go. Some were targeted and killed, but something like half of the population died in labor camps.

4.       After lots of bombing and general chaos, peace came finally by the late ‘70s and ‘80s, and the remaining population started having kids again. Christianity only became legal in 1992.

The effects? Over half the population is under the age of 20, and 70% is under 30. Since the educated were targeted, Cambodia is incredibly far behind other Asian countries in education, technology, and development. Since many young people’s parents are farmers in the provinces, they are unable to earn enough money to send their kids to school, and many don’t have a choice but to work for minimum pay ($1-2 a day) or crowd Phnom Penh’s slums, trying to find odd jobs to support themselves and their families.

Since Christianity’s only been around for 20 years, you can imagine how crazy it’s been for the Church – not only is there institutional poverty juxtaposed by ostentatious wealth (of the king and the upper, upper class) nearly everywhere you look, but the church itself in Cambodia is in its infancy. Persecution for being Christian is a real deal in a country where only 1.3% of the population claims itself Christian; the other 98.7% is mostly Buddhist.

So a country dominated by kids and teenagers: give that a second to marinate. The younger majority of the population have few, if any, positive older role models to follow and learn from, so in their place, hyper-consumerism – iPods, iPhones, diamonds, jewelry, designer shoes and handbags, cheap alcohol, and everything else that the media has told them that they should have and want – makes a fabulously convenient substitute. For those who desire a higher education, scholarships aren’t available, so they have to find a way to pay their own way through school or just not go.

Understandably, that’s quite a problem for a developing country. To counter it, Clara, a missionary from Bangladesh who works at the GBGM office, heads up “Street Kids,” a program designed to help children living in Phnom Penh stay out of trouble, go to school, and have a chance for a better life than their predecessors. I’ll work with Clara mainly before and around Eastertime, when she’ll be putting on a huge Easter celebration for the kiddoes.

Issues aren’t only with the inner-city young’uns, however. CHAD (“Community Health and Agricultural Development”), the group I’ve primarily worked with up to this point, mainly focuses on increasing the standard of living and well-being of the people who live in the provinces by providing micro-finance loans, introducing systems of saving money so farmers can buy more seed when they need it, and starting rice banks so communities can have extra stores of rice during times of drought. Their revolving credit loans are really cool: CHAD loans out $125 for 5 people ($25/person) with the understanding that each person will pay back $5/month. Within one month, the program has $25, another person can take out a loan, and the cycle continues. They do the same thing with cows and rice – it’s working beautifully!

This weekend, I’ll be heading out to Siem Reap (a historic city in the province…I’ll find out why it’s historic there, I’m sure), Anker Watt (!!!), and other towns with a couple of the CHAD staff and a few people from Virginia. They’re visiting to see how their church can best offer its assistance, support, and future teams to help the church in Cambodia, and I essentially get to tag along on their “exposure trip,” getting to learn a ton first-hand about what CHAD does within local congregations outside of Phnom Penh. I know I act like I’m allergic to taking pictures, but I’ll try my best to bring back some good ones. Exciting!

Hope y’all are doing wonderfully and are enjoying this new week! (Downloading pictures isn't exactly happenin this week...the internet's not that good!) All my love and many blessings,

Stephanie

PS – In case you’re feeling an itch to relocate, here are a few perks of living in Cambodia:

1.       You’ll get off women's day (this Thursday)!

2.       Tired of plain orange juice? OJ + mint + condensed milk is an acceptable substitute here.

3.       No more embarrassed whispering about feminine products…”sandwiches,” "bread," or "hamburger" are code words (oops! Secret revealed).

4.       Dislike the no-texting laws popping up all over the place? Texting while driving a moto on INSANE streets is actually legal and common.

5.       No more hundred-dollar tickets: a ticket for the passenger not buckling their seatbelt is just $1.25.

6.       You get to risk your life daily if you decide to venture out onto the main roads. Although people generally “drive on the right,” that’s basically a suggestion – if there’s more room on the left, then drive on the left. Just remember: the biggest vehicle always wins (it's a rough world out there).

7.       Apparently, dogs can ride motos, too.

8.       Your 8.5 women’s shoe size is monstrous for little tiny Asian feet shoe stores…so make sure to bring your own!

9.       You can actually talk down $40 to $9 in a mall – bargaining to a quarter to a fifth of the price is expected.

10.   Tired of feeling youthful? Half the population of all of Cambodia is under the age of 20, and 70% are under 30.

11.   Ants invade everything within minutes, even dried packaged noodles and canned items…aaahhhh!!! You will develop red ant paranoia…but hey, having the kitchen all to yourself is no fun anyway.

12.   Off-brand windex kills ants (hooray!!).

13.   Scratch that…off-brand windex kills ants for an hour.

14.   Raid kills ants for 6 hours.

15.   Ants are immortal.

16.   Instant roommates! Mice will move into your broken clothes washer.

17.   In the mornings, monks go around barefoot in bright orange robes with little umbrellas and homemade baskets, asking for food donations (they can only eat before 11am) in exchange for prayers. So hey, you’ve got that goin for you.

18.   Bored? There are weddings all over the place. If you’re really bored, you can get up at 3am when the ceremonies and rituals start. It’s a long day…so to keep their guests entertained, the bride and groom change outfits about every hour (do the math – from 3am til midnight means a ton of clothes!). A “poor” family will have seven outfits, minimum.

19.   Looking for a free workout class? Drive to the center of town, where you can join tens of men and women doing step aerobics on a sidewalk facing the middle of a busy traffic center.