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.