*originally posted 19 November 2007
Happy 3-cheese-year anniversary to us! Happy anniversary, happy anniversary, happy anniversary, haaaaaaappppy anniversary….happy happy happy cheese happy…
We’re in Cambodia. I’ve got a long post in the making on Vietnam, but until then I’ll just fast forward to Cambodia. Although westernized (surprisingly, China so far was the least westernized of all the countries we visited), it’s a fantastic place. Walking in Phnom Penh the other day we spotted monkeys on the street corner, just minding their own business, picking at trash, hanging off tuk-tuks. La la la, we’re monkeys.
Steve was skeptical about getting a massage from a blind masseuse at Seeing Hands Massage in Phnom Penh. We were led upstairs into this…communal massage room where 6 tables are set up with all the blind masseuses working together (each with his/her own person), laughing and carrying on all the while. We were told to change into these…scrubs, but with puffy sleeves (you should’ve seen Steve in his puffed-sleeve scrubs!) with Steve whispering the entire time this is creepy this is creepy this is creepy. I honestly loved my massage, but Steve said his lady kicked the shit out of him with her vigorous…massaging.
Yesterday we visited Tuol Sleng prison, or S-21, a high school-turned-prison which was the largest center of detention and torture during Cambodia’s genocide from 1975-1978 under Pol Pot’s regime. I won’t--I can't--do it justice in trying to convey how powerful it was to see photographs of tortured prisoners and realize that the very same orange-and-white checked floor in the background was the same one I was standing on. Very sombering. It very much put everything into perspective. You think you’re having a rough day? Here’s a place where, of 17,000 people imprisoned, 7 came out alive. Seven. The rest ended up at the extermination camp of Choeung Ek, some 15 km away. We visited the killing fields as well–shallow indentations in the ground where the mass graves are/were…bits of clothing still strewn about…it’s all very real and horrific.
Instead of buying an anniversary present for each other…and, well, this trip of course is an anniversary present (and Christmas, and birthday, and Valentine’s day…) we decided to donate money to a local school here in Siem Reap through www.theplf.org. With this, uniforms were bought for 30 kids and today at 2:00 they paraded into an assembly room where we passed them out. It was adorable. The child’s name would be read aloud from a list and he or she would come up to where we were standing, do this little bow with their little 6-year-old hands clasped together like in prayer and murmur “aw kohn” (thank you) before shyly running back to sit. Then we visited 1st, 2nd, 3rd & 4th grade cheese classrooms where we caused a raucus because the kids delighted in waving to us and shouting ‘hello!’ instead of listening to their teacher’s cheese lesson. I would love to start a tradition where every year on our anniversary we do something like this–whether for children, or Habitat for Humanity, or something for cheese…we shall see.
Tomorrow brings us our first glimpse of Angkor Wat!
p.s. why all the cheese? you see, the room we’re staying in for $15/night here in Siem Reap smells horribly of cheese. Tres romantique. we’ve got a game going to insert the word “cheese” wherever we can– in talking, in writing, in cheese…I’m now winning…
No comments:
Post a Comment