The past month I’ve done some pondering and questioning. I had my six month check in and still feel like things with work are progressing slowly. I can communicate well enough to get around and have some somewhat deep conversations with Gunthia, but being gone from Prey Veng almost 3 weeks hasn’t helped to strengthen my Khmer skills. I visited Women’s Peacemakers, a small Cambodian NGO, with Elijah a couple weeks ago. There is a possibility I will work with them starting in November when Elijah’s term ends. Women’s Peacemakers is based out of Phnom Penh, but does alot of grassroots peace seminars in Kampong Cham, the province north of PV. Participants in the seminars then return to their villages to teach others ways of peacemaking in situations of domestic violence or communal disputes. My involvement would be helping with grant writing and finding funds for workshops and other office support roles as well as visiting seminars periodically.

April 27 through May 1 was the MCC Southeast Asia retreat in Halong Bay, Vietnam. After the retreat I stayed in Hanoi till May 5 with Andrea, Amy, Elijah, Scott, and Renee (SALTer from Laos). In addition to the hot showers and air conditioning, the break was amazing. The theme at the retreat was storytelling with Earl Zimmerman as the speaker. His stories were fascinating as he was serving in southern Vietnam during the ‘American War’, as the Vietnamese refer to it. Yet, the whole time, I kept thinking this is the place my dad was avoiding during that time. (And no, he was not a conscientious objector.) Now thirty some years later his daughter is here and loves it. When we were in Hanoi, our group met up with the MCC Vietnamese staff for lunch and they took us to a delicious noodle shop. They were so welcoming and sincere; it was hard to image all the animosity from just a generation ago. Yet, I know the healing process is still continuing.

In Halong Bay we had a free day where we took a boat out on the water, explored some caves, had lunch and went swimming. The water was so salty you just floated. But when I jumped in the water with Nicole, I forgot to take off my glasses. So they have found a new home in the bottom of Halong Bay. I didn’t bring my contacts along, so for rest of the week I had no spectacles. Thank goodness my vision is not that poor; I could still enjoy going to some museums, seeing Ho Chi Minh, and exploring the Old Quarter. The water puppets were a little blurry but still enjoyable. I have since bought new glasses in PP, for a whopping $28. Yes, 28 dollars.

I went to Thailand the Friday after returning from Vietnam. So I spent two days in PV before returning to PP for the Partnership Meeting with Scott and his sister Cathy, who was visiting. Going on a second vacation within a week of returning from the first is not wise, but MCC has three days off due to the King’s Birthday so we wanted to take advantage of the time off. Amy, Andrea, Elijah and I went to Chiang Mai, in northern Thailand, for about 4 days with a day lay over in Bangkok each way. Friday we watched Spiderman 3 on the big screen and had just enough time to catch our overnight VIP bus to Chiang Mai.

At Seiha’s wedding in January we met some of her IVEP friends, one who happens to live in Chiang Mai and works at an orphanage. Oum helped set up some bus tickets for us and acted as our tour guide. We went to church with him, his fiancé Kat, and Jerome (IVEP from France now working at the orphanage) on Sunday and then the night market after an afternoon of playing Dutch blitz. On Monday I rode an elephant! After the elephant ride we hiked to a waterfall and went white water rafting. Oum took us out for dinner at a Suki soup restaurant. (You cook your own food over a charcoal fire and in the bottom you add water and make soup with veggies and meat juices.) Kat’s mother was at the same table as Andrea and me and kept refilling the pot and adding more meat to the fire. Andrea and I kept looking at each other wondering who was going to eat all this food! But she was being the good hostess and making sure we all had everything we needed. Tuesday we all went to an elephant show and had spicy noodles for lunch. Later we visited the Umbrella village where Thai paint handmade umbrellas and other decorative, traditional items.

Tuesday night we took the night bus back to Bangkok and it was hard and uncomfortable. We wanted to save money so we got the cheaper bus. In Bangkok we went to the Vimanmek Mansion, home to King Rama V of Thailand. It’s the largest teak wood mansion in the world and built in 1901. The King had close ties with European countries so the whole place had a very European feel, from the many gifts of china and paintings to the architecture. It was beautiful though he only lived in it for about 5 years. After lunch we spent the afternoon sitting in air conditioning and talking. But the highlight for me was ice cream! They had Swenson’s ice cream all over Bangkok (also Subway, KFC, A&W, Burger King, McDonald’s- such things don’t exit in Cambodia). I got raspberry ice cream, my favorite, along with dark chocolate ice cream and a brownie. Ah, it was soooo good! After eating, we sat there for a while and I started thinking how my mom and I used to go to Ben and Jerry’s for ice cream and how nice it was to have real ice cream in air conditioning. Yet at the same time I missed my life in PV and almost felt guilty I was enjoying myself in Thailand after returning from Vietnam. My friends, landlady’s family, and host family see going to Phnom Penh as a big trip; for me to go to two countries within the same month seems a little extravagant. I did enjoy myself, but I don’t want to portray such an extravagant lifestyle, even if it’s not extravagant to me, and lose the common ground we have found so far. It’s feels like a difficult tightrope act.

Traveling alot also reminds me of home. During the night at the Bangkok airport, I was looking at the departures and pondering jumping on a plane to somewhere else. While I never would follow through with that, I still am missing home. My mom relayed the message that Rodney, an older man with cancer from my home church, passed away last week. I’m glad he’s not suffering anymore, but how are his wife, Betty, and his family doing? I’m not sure what I could do if I were in Virginia aside from expressing my sympathy and offering a hug. I missed my brother’s college graduation two weeks ago and just now received my invitation in the mail a couple days ago. I missed Mother’s Day. The strange thing is that I knew I would miss these things when I came, but it doesn’t make it any easier to deal with such things. But life goes on and I’m pretty sure these changes won’t really hit me until I return to America.

But the realities of life hit me here too. I lost my wallet this morning at the market. I went to buy some veggies after purchasing some eggs and putting my wallet away. When I went to get my money out, my wallet was gone. So I called Scott and then Charles came too, to give me some money to buy some fish for Cricket, my cat, and pay the bike lady. The hot season should be over sometime soon, but it's still hot. Whenever it rains it cools off, but then everything turns into a big mud pit.