Somehow Gone Wrong

Dai, celebrating with me
Channa's creative hairdo.

"Ma Dai Neu Mon-tee-pet, Han-na.  Ma Dai Che." Ming says to me, with a grave expression on her face.  "Ma Dai kluin ot la-aw."  

Furrowing my eyebrows, confused at this suddenly newly-acquired information, I stare and blink a few times before asking, "Hay-it ay?"

I know Ming had taken Pisey to the hospital to check out a lingering cough.  And Pisey had been okay.  But now, Ming is talking about a neighbor, the mother of my sweet, bubbly 8-year old friend who is not well.

"Ma Dai lA-up tnam ch-raan bAk, Hanna"                                       "Mon-tee-pet ot la-aw..."  

The mother of Dai, my friend, is sick.  But not just sick...Sick.  

                                                                   - - - - -
I am pulling my bike into the home, waiting to ask Ming what I know is on her mind,  "Ming, Ma Dai laaw jeeing neu?"  I am hoping - almost expecting - to hear, "Everything's alright now, Hanna, don't worry.  Dai's mom is all better."  But sometimes, I don't get what I want.  And this is one of those times.

"Ma Da ot laaw Hanna....."
                                     "Monteepet ot laaw....Ot mien loi...."         
                 "      Vit jeah bon dut ot laaw...
                                                          "Ot mien som khun."

As Ming finishes what she is saying, I put together what I understand.  Dai's mom is not okay. The hospital is not good.  There is no money.  The doctors are not skilled.  And...there is no hope.  No hope.  These last two words hit me like a ton of bricks, lingering in my ears, producing a knot in my stomach, its striking unfamiliarity sending a shiver through my body.  No hope.  Within me, everything screams that somehow, someway, this is not true.  But I have no words.  No explanation.  I head upstairs silently, praying for a miracle.         

                                                                     - - - - -                                                         
Earphones in ears and guitar in hand, I am figuring out the chords to Pisal's favorite Khmer song, when Pisal walks over to me.  As I take my earphones out, he says, "Ma Dai slap howee," which produces another knot in my stomach.  I let the silence break in.
                                                                         Dai's mom is dead.

                                                                     - - - - -
For the fifteenth-hundred time, I am trying to put together the pieces from the last few days.  She was healthy, Channa said, like me. She got sick and had a fever.  She was given too much medication in the form of an injection?  Who gave her the medication?  Why didn't she know taking too much medication was wrong?  The Hospital couldn't do anything helpful.  Why couldn't the hospital treat her?  The hospital didn't have money for the proper resources, no thanks to the government.  Dai's family didn't have the money to get her to a better hospital.  They didn't enroll in the USAID program that helps under-resourced communities.  Within 5 days, Dai's mom is dead.  Somewhere, somehow, something had gone horribly wrong.  Perhaps a few somethings.  And everything within me wanted to know how it could have been different. Because all I can think about is Dai.

                                                                    - - - - -

I am not exactly sure how Dai came to be part of my life.  She is one of the children who embrace me immediately in my transition to Cambodia.  Yet she sticks out in my mind, because one day, I found myself exploring the community with one of the most excitable of personalities.  Her bright smiles at the smallest of delights, accompanied by earnest squeals of joy, stand out in everybody's minds.  Early in the transition, I found myself a constant companion who consistently visited to share the joys of coloring with me - and then I clumsily lost the markers and the beloved sketchbook a dear friend gave me.  At one point, Dai helped me wash my laundry, showing me that experience, no matter what age, wins when it comes to doing laundry.

You might be able to imagine how I felt when, after the death, I heard a familiar voice call, "Han-NA!" Turning around as quickly as I have ever, I received the emphatic hug of a small friend, whose touch perhaps provided as much comfort to me as it might have provided to her.  Her brave smiles and laughter, as authentic as I have ever seen, in the week after her mom's death, repeatedly gave me reassurance of the presence of an ever-loving God.

But these days, things are different.  There is a numbness in Dai that screams that she was wronged, robbed of a love that every child has the right to have.  Her silent, hollow stares are evidence that somewhere, somehow, something has gone horribly wrong, and things are not the way it should be.

Dai has a loving father who takes care of her well, but I ask for prayers for what only God can do.  I ask for prayers that God would bring life and not death, peace and not fear, freedom and not discouragement, into Dai's life.  I ask for prayers that their family would become aware of an ever-present God who knows their pain, and walks with them through the journey.  I ask for prayers that Dai, her family, and my community would find that there is hope - a living hope in Jesus Christ already at work, somewhere, somehow, amidst the messiness. I ask for prayers for health, for provision, for people to come around Dai, that in her every moment, God would be her truest comfort, her best strength, and her greatest hope.

Opposite Direction

“Som Ji Yeut Yeut,” I beg my host siblings.  Two weeks into Cambodia, I had gotten a much-needed bicycle, or gong, and am pleading that my two younger siblings, Pisal and Channa, will teach me to maneuver the traffic-ridden Phnom Penh streets, slowly, very slowly.  Channa is requesting, to my nervous disposition and Ming’s mindful disapproval, to lead me on moto.  Somehow, I am imagining chasing behind my sister on her moto, with my bicycle.  The thought of  Frogger-ing through the streets of Phnom Penh is horrifying.  “Channa, hay’it ay ot jong ji gong?” I ask my sister why she doesn’t want to lead me on bike. “...Channa k’jil,” Ming responds for me.  “Jia, kn’om k’jil na,” Channa says, agreeing shamelessly with her mom that she is lazy.  I can’t help but laugh, as this is completely characteristic of my opinionated 15-year old sister.  The final consensus is that Pisal, my brother, will go ahead of me on bicycle, and show me how to get to Toul Tom Pong, where both the SERVANTS team center and my language learning school are located.  Relieved and grateful, but feeling uneasy still, I put on my helmet with determination, and scuffle onto my used bike, praying that everything will be okay.

Clamoring down the muddy, rocky, pathway in front of my home with my bike, struggling to gain control, I wonder if this is a good idea.  I am fully aware that the real struggle is going to be the highway. The first time that Pisey, my host sister, took me to church on the moto, we had turned left onto the highway, straight into the face of traffic flowing directly towards us.  And we had stayed in the makeshift feeder for the entirety of the trip, maneuvering against pedestrians, motos, bicycles, and trucks, flowing in the opposite way.  The ride was probably less than ten minutes altogether, but for me, it felt much longer.  I remember nervously hanging on to my seat behind Pisey, doing everything to keep myself from asking her the obvious, “are you sure this is the right way to get there?” and “…are we allowed to do this?”  That experience makes me smile now, as I recognize just how new I was to the country, only seven weeks ago.  This is a country where police will be the first to make the clearly-marked illegal u-turn, before all of traffic follows suit.  And a country where some genius city planner constructed an important intersection, so that traffic must cross an overpass over a river, make a u-turn, and come back over, to get on the adjacent road.  For those riding on human strength, going the opposite direction is the obvious better option.

Pisal maneuvers carefully down the highway in front of me, sticking close to the curb as we face traffic going the opposite way.  He is indeed going very slow, and I am tail-gating closely behind, mindful of our lives.   Meanwhile, I gawk - not sure whether to laugh or cry - at a woman riding her bicycle down the highway, one hand on the handle, another hand on her one year old - both helmet-less.  Should life like this ever be normal?  Pisal and I get to the end of the road where highways converge.  What is this.  I swallow hard, as I follow Pisal, amidst a slew of motos, into a mess of traffic.  We need to go slant-across three different flows of traffic before we get to the lane of the farthest right.  My heart races, as I take in the incoming traffic going in all directions. Clenching my jaws, I remember that my brother knows what he is doing.  And that he's done a tremendous job being mindful of me thus far.  These streets are not new territory for my siblings.  They have made their marks on this exact route to get to and from school, since they were children.  "Han-NA!" I suddenly hear next to me.  Taken aback, I turn to see that my sister, Channa and my bubbly 8-year old neighbor, Dai, have joined us on moto for the journey, in the middle of the highway.  Surprised but pleased, I sense that the group of four is a much more secure cluster than the two of us.  With a sigh of relief as we get to the lane on the right, I ask Channa what is happening, a little confused.  She tells me that she and Pisal decided to switch-off in the middle of the trip.  Cool.  My siblings specifically show me the wave of the arm, a signal to drivers the intent to turn. "Go with motos and cars," Channa says to me when turning, showing me how to take advantage of being the smallest vehicle on the road.  Finding this a really effective way to make turns, I decide I can not be happier leaching off of larger vehicles.

"Channa, toah mah dah deu sala trogah man neitdi?"  I ask Channa how long it usually takes to get to school.  “Basun Hanna ji yeut yeut, tlo-gah mamoung.” Channa responds that if I ride as slowly as we just did, it will take me an hour.  I laugh.  We did go very slowly, even for a rookie's taste.  “Toe-um mah-dah, ma-pai niet-di ban."  A 20 minute ride, once I get the hang of it.  

                                                                   - - -

Now five weeks later, logging more than twenty hours of commute between school, work, and home, the taste of dirt on my teeth is a familiar feeling - with some frustration that it gets past the surgical mask.  I am constantly aware that except for pedestrians, I am the smallest person on the road, the brilliant "brinnng" of my cowbell lost in the blaring "hooonk" of the tow-truck.  But there is a definite rhyme-and-rhythm to the streets of Phnom Penh, a mutual understand between drivers that share the same road, as we collaborate the vacant spaces.   While the streets have not exactly become home, the streets have become familiar enough to provide me a sense of much-needed autonomy for every day life.  On better days, I recognize that with my bike, this autonomy is nothing short of a blessing.  On other days, I clench my jaws as I prepare to face another day on the streets, against traffic, potholes, construction, rain, heat, pollution, and only God knows what.

Monsoon Season

Every day, with rare exception, there is a torrential rain storm that surges over the city.  It is the equivalent of titanic buckets of water being poured over your homes, with the volume of a clattering freight train making its way through your front yard.  It silences everything with its boisterousness, from teachers lecturing at school in mid-afternoon, to life at the market, to traffic in the hustle-bustle of Phnom Penh.  Those caught on the streets are at a loss; motorcycles stall on the side of the road, while unlucky motorists find themselves in too-deep puddles they should not have risked, and unprepared commuters sum up the cost of damaged goods.  The city waits, cooling down, as water plummets from the sky.    

At home, life is summoned at the roar of the storm.  Children shriek with joy, and streets are occupied with dancing, running, screaming, with laughing.  It is time for tag. It is time for swimming.  It is time for a free shower.  Out comes the bath bucket with the shampoo, as both young’uns and old’uns take advantage of the storm.  In front of my home, Channa, my lively sister mimics Psy’s Gungnum style as she chases the children in the street.  Every existing child I know on our street is drenched now, playing, each face exuberant with joy.      

“HanNA!” they call, laughing, running, screaming.  But I can’t, rationalizing, wrestling, fretting.  In my mind, I can’t get over the knowledge of what comes with the play…injuries, disease, sickness… I think that I know too much to ever be able to share those carefree laughs of the storm, with these kids, on this side of heaven. 

Meanwhile, homes are flooding.  My home is flooding.  Water flows through the holes between our wooden planks, into the lower lot next to us—a trash dump for the community, a beer-drinking space for men, a place to dry clothes for women, a sand lot for children, and a scrounging space for animals.  For others, water that continually surges into homes is trapped, forcing families to wade through water, or sewage, for days at a time.   

Khmer Language Practice

“Channa, bA-a kao-ao moung man?” I ask the younger of my host sisters.

Blank stare.       
I try again, using the negative.  “Channa bA-a OT kao-ao moung man?” 

“Khnom ot yul A.”  She says, not understanding.  She is sitting still, uncharacteristic for her usual vigor.  I say it again.  Slower, louder, pointing, acting, in English, in Chinese.   
 
 ”…Bong!!!”  Channa shouts, calling Pisey, giving up on me. 

“Pisey, Channa bA-a kao-ao moung man?” 

“Oh,” Pisey says, laughing. “She always wears clothes, Hanna.”

Blank stare from me. 

Channa is dying laughing, rolling on the floor, laughing.  

More Than “A Five-Star Hotel”

“Why are you going to Cambodia?” the man next to me on my 13-hour layover flight from Los Angeles to Taiwan asks, with furrowed eyebrows and a slow shaking of the head.  The conversation I had gotten into with the 60 year-old Taiwanese man suddenly shifts to me.  When he, my neighbor in the emergency exit row of our Eva Airlines flight, had dismissed the flight attendant’s attempt to give us a run-through of our responsibilities at the start of the flight, I had wondered if he was familiar with the flight.  Letting my curiosity get the best of me, I am now hearing about his regular choice of seat 60C for the spacious leg room and the window, during his frequent ventures between Taipei to Los Angeles.  I am  also hearing about his childrens’ successes in business and medicine in the States, his different homes in Taiwan, as well as his interest in cars—the numerous Mercedes and Lexus’ that he has owned.  Except to comment on my fluency in Chinese as an American-born Chinese, this is the first time he turns his attention to me.

I take a deep breath, not sure how to answer.  Having thought through the rationale behind this trip countless times, on numerous occasions, for a drawn-out period, all I have to show for it is a tangled web of thoughts and feelings.  I manage to articulate, “I hope that living in Cambodia will broaden my perspective towards the world for the rest of my life,” hoping that I will get the chance to explain.  But I never do, because the conversation shifts back to him as quickly as it had turned to me.  Quickly, I am listening to his view of Cambodia— lack of water sanitation, overwhelming poverty, heat, disease, corruption—that should keep me from being there.  Exhausted, several hours into the flight, I cannot help hoping—and praying—that there a significant portion missing to his narrative.  When we say our farewells at Taipei International Airport, he leaves me with an attempt at humor attempt that stick in my mind … “Cambodia is not going to be a five-star hotel.”  




                                                                    - - - - -
Day One
My host family—Pbu (host father), Ming (host mother), Pisey, Pisal, and Channa—and I sit together cross-legged on a square wooden table a foot off the ground, in front of a ten-inch television, when darkness suddenly surrounds us.  A murmur arises from the surrounding community, and Channa, my animated 15-year old sister utters something in Khmer.  Before I even realize she walks out of the home, she returns with a candlestick from a home that serves as a store.  I am confused, not just at what that is happening, but that she maneuvered the narrow winding passages of our community—of wet dirt, off-handed litter, and pointed objects—so quickly in blanket darkness.  Dinner continues as light gleams off of cell phones and the thin candlestick Channa melts onto the wooden table.  I am overwhelmed by the first couple of hours of arrival in Cambodia.  But I am mindful, after a long day, of the comfort of being with a whole family. 
                                                                   
                                                                       - - -
Pisey is one of the first people I connect with in Cambodia, a university student who is also my host sister.  In the first couple of hours in Cambodia, I try to be of some help while she washes dishes.  But a single knee-high faucet, a small space for dishes that allows water to run into the dirt ground, and a need for developed muscles in the squatting position makes me of little use.  So of course, I manage to assume the role of distractor instead.  Pisey’s fluency in English, in a context in which education is not highly valued, is telling of her family’s diligence to find good education… and makes her the perfect victim for my inherent inquisitiveness.  Rain spatters noisily on the metal roof over our heads, while we attempt to hold a conversation.  Water seeps from holes in the ceiling—where chemicals from a factory next door had eroded the roof— and Pisey and I are soaked.  But we pay little attention, as time stands still.  We are laughing.

“Bong, Hanna,” Pisey says, teaching me the word for “older” sister and brother. 

Me.  “Bong”
“Bong” ,” Pisey says more clearly, more slowly.

“Bong?”
“No… Bong”

“…that’s exactly what I said!” 

                                                                     


                                                                  - - -
I wake up in the night, immediately aware of unfamiliar sounds and surroundings.  Cambodia, first night, I remind myself.  And… of course I need to use the bathroom.  But, how?  I remember the struggle earlier in the day, to take a shower.  “They don’t shower naked here, or use toilet paper,” Chami— my slum-experienced, effortless-Khmer-speaking, Japanese-Canadian mentor— from SERVANTS, explained to me when she introduced me to the family and showed me the workings of the home, earlier in the day.  Fear races through my mind now, as I listen to the furious scurrying and bizarre screeching.  I had seen a few rats earlier in the day, and somehow, I am imagining that they jump at people, and take huge chunks of flesh out of them.  But I have no experience and no idea.  It does not help that nothing is visible, except the humidity, thick in the air.  I hold my hand up to my face to find that it blends into the surroundings.  I grumble at being subservient to a high-maintenance bladder, and try to gain the courage to leave the mosquito net.  Failing, however, I decide to try to go back to sleep.  But I really need to go to the bathroom.  Ugh.  On second attempt, I successfully leave the mosquito net and struggle to find my way to a door three feet away.  It will not open.  Is it bolted?  Making a lot of noise, I consider just waking up Pisey, sleeping a couple feet away.  But I cannot do it without also waking up her siblings sleeping next to her, and her parents, under the wooden floor beneath us.  I breathe a sigh of relief when I finally find the bolt, feeling like I might have woken up the entire community in my attempt anyway.  I scramble clumsily down the wooden ladder, and through the dark to the bathroom.  Feeling like I have conquered the world, without any animal incidents, I climb back up the wooden ladder, bolting the door behind me.  Making sure that my mosquito net is firmly tucked, I fall back asleep, holding my aged stuffed golden retriever, Hopeful, firmly, grateful for the decision to bring along something so familiar. 

                                                                    - - - - -

Week One & Two
“Han-Naa…mao vengh howee” Ming says, greeting me.  Reassured to see her after a long day, I respond,  “Jchia, mao vengh howee,” with a sigh of relief.  This is usually the part where I attempt to give Ming a run-through of my day in Khmer, complete with actions and vocal expressions, in hopes of communicating effectively.  It is easy to get her to smile, as I tell her about my all-too-common mishaps, as well as unusual encounters during the day.  Today, I am telling her about finally being able to speak the same language as people at Khmer Language School - Chinese, with three people from China. “Tengay ni, kn’om niyey piesa Jen jieh-muy jon-jiet Jen bai nea, neu Sala Piesa Khmer” I say, excited about the conversations I had with my new friends.  Ming laughs with me, listening carefully as she shares the experience, all the while helping me to communicate what happened.

Another time, she asks me how much my moto-dop ride costs to school.  I tell her I tell every moped driver, “roal tengay, kn’om tlo-op jih dai bai powan da” when they try to make me pay more for looking like a foreigner.  Her face creases from years of being in the sun, as she smiles proudly at my explanation to the moto-dop driver that I usually get a rate of 3000 real, or $0.75. 

Every interaction with my host family is a reminder of the reward of working through Khmer.

                                                                   - - - - -

In the next five weeks, I start to learn the ways of this communal child-rearing community.  Neighborhood children become my best friends. Logistically, I learn the ways of our tree-house like home, so that I only bump my head every once in a while, and fall on the steps every now and then.  I figure out that rats are cowardly creatures that do not eat people.   And, most importantly, I find that my family fosters my sense of belonging in Cambodia.  Rats, mice, and geckos quickly fade into normal life, as cherishing life with people takes the forefront of life in this Cambodian slum.  While I never want to mitigate the realities of material poverty - realities of societal neglect, missed-opportunity, and daily hardship - I am also experiencing that both life and poverty, should never be mistaken for just material possession.  Instead, life and poverty, individually, are holistically intertwined somehow, meshed into our complex physical, emotional and spiritual beings.


















"Our physical, emotional, and spiritual wounds - the totality of weakness, vulnerability, and human frailty - are our poverty.  We are finite and limited creatures, not self-contained, never self-sufficient.  Amid our best talents, our greatest strength, we are, at base, impoverished.  Poverty is part of our story, our reality, and part of who we are in this fallen word...Brokenness is a spiritual response to my poverty.  It is to come to the end of myself - my wisdom, energies, and talents - and to know from the depths of my being that Jesus is the only hope I have for life and for holiness.  All are broken, but few embrace brokenness, yet it is an intimate part of who we are and how we are to be with each other" 
- Judith Hougen