Breaking News!

This past week and a half there has been a significant change in my life!  Om has FINALLY learned my name!  It's only taken a month and a half but she has learned how to say it.  Admittedly it's more of a "Rrro-bay-caw" than Rebecca, but hey, I'm not complaining.  Up til now she has just called me "the other one" since I don't live at her house (she just feeds me twice a day).  She calls my roommate, Clarissa, "the pretty one" so that's pretty cool but I was just "the other one".  Or sometimes, if she were talking to Clarissa and I wasn't there, she would just ask, "there are two?" And that was her way of asking about me.  So, yeah, it's been a big week!

Routine

     It's amazing how fast you get into a routine in a new place.  The same thing happened when I went on my study abroad to Jerusalem.  Everything is so new and crazy at first, all the cultural differences seem totally bizarre, then one day you wake up and it's just your life.  Everyday, while still exciting, feels very natural.       And what you used to find difficult or be surprised by becomes easy.  I've only been here a month and a half and life here is already completely normal.  Before I came on this trip I remember hearing about the food thinking it was super bizarre. I mean who wants rice for EVERY meal?  And who wants grilled pork or squid for breakfast?  But now, all I want every morning is some baay sae cherouk ( sweet pork with pickled vegetables and an egg all over rice- literally the best breakfast ever!).  Initially I was a little freaked out by the amount of wildlife on the floor in my bedroom or in the bathroom.  But now it's an odd day that I don't step on at least a thousand ants.  Just six weeks ago I was terrified and furious with the Phnom Penh ridiculousness that is traffic, but now we weave in between cars, motos, tuktuks, and random pedestrians like a seasoned pro.
     I'm really enjoying life in Cambodia now...it's still an adventure, but it's an adventure I'm very comfortable with.  I may not know the language very well, but I'm white (a 'barang') so nobody really expects me to anyways!  If anything they just yell 'Ooh, America" at me and are surprised when I can say anything back!  And I can say the few things I need to to get by!  I can Suasdei or Chumriepsua people all day long!  And if I really want to impress them I through in a Lea-sen-hi here and there. And most importantly I can ask people how much things cost in the market, and if I'm lucky I can understand their response!
     The other day I was doping in heavy traffic and rain (not what you think at all- it's where you sit side-saddle on the back of someone's bike while they pedal you somewhere) and I got the comment that I'm a real Cambodian now.  And you know, I kind of am! (in spirit if not race, culture, language, or anything else that technically matters!)

Liahona Children's Foundation

   So I realized that I've been here a month and all I've blogged about is the exciting trips we've taken which is only about a fourth of our time here.  The other three quarters of the time here we are kept busy by our internships.  That's right, I'm an intern!  I work with the Liahona Foundation here in Phnom Penh.  It's a super great organization that works on children's nutrition and promoting breastfeeding.
     So every six months they screen children in six different areas of Cambodia.  They take their height, weight, and other information to determine how well nourished they are.  If the children show signs of malnutrition, they are entered into the program where they then receive nutritional supplement and their mothers receive lessons on proper nutrition.  It's a really good program and they work really hard to help out young children because malnutrition is a huge problem.  In class at BYU we've had a lot of lessons about this shown through the poverty cycle: families are poor and cannot afford to feed their children very well--> their children are malnourished and their brains don't develop as well--> these children aren't as well educated and can't get great jobs--> they work at low paying jobs and their family is poor so they can't afford to feed their children very well....And the cycle just continues on from there. It's a really hard cycle to break, but it starts with properly nourished children!  And that's why I love the work the Liahona Foundation does and am glad to be a part of it!
     Two weekends ago the three other interns and I went to Battambang to help with the screenings there for an afternoon.  It was a really cool trip and a nice chance to go out and do work with the mothers and children instead of data analysis behind a computer.  Here's a few pictures of us at the screenings:

Two of my fellow interns: Chelsey and Lisa

Some cute children at the screening

My new friends!  Although it seems like I terrified the little girl on the left and the other little boy clearly developed a bit of a crush...

One of the elders and Clarissa (my roommate) teaching a lesson to the mothers

How the children responded to the clearly exciting lesson

Screening some children!

Chelsey, Clarissa, me, and Lisa: INTERNS EXTRAORDINAIRE!

Koh Kong

So this past weekend we had our first real group excursion to Koh Kong, less than 8 kilometers from Thailand!  But since BYU won't let us go to Thailand it was one of those 'so-close-but-so-far' situations.  I'll just have to go back later to get that passport stamp!  Anyways, the weekend was just full of adventurous activities.  We spent Friday afternoon kayaking around some mangroves and up to this island with the creepiest statues ever! I mean it was just all these gory death scenes, crazy weird statues some with really creepy grins and others with weird animal heads.  We talked to some guy and they apparently had something to do with punishing bad people in Buddhism... but I don't know...

Our lovely little hotel pier with a restaurant and bungalows to relax in

Nicole, me, Lisa, and Chelsey out in the kayaks

Nicole, my personal kayaking chauffeur

Creepy Buddhist statues and me

Saturday we took a river cruise up to the gorgeous Tatai Falls where we had a grilled seafood lunch, swam under the falls, went rock jumping into the falls, and hung out for the day.

Grilled prawns, squid, and chicken!

In Cambodia you eat the whole fish- go big or go home!

After the falls we went out to the largest mangroves in Cambodia and walked the path through them.  They were really pretty, right on the river, and they were also vaguely reminiscent of the Forbidden Forest...yeah I could see some Acromantulas living up in there!

So all in all a pretty nice weekend, yeah?  

The Killing Fields and Tol Sleng

I didn't know much about Cambodia before deciding to come here for the summer.  All I really knew was the Cambodia was next to Thailand and they make some of the clothes in the US....that's about it.  Over winter semester I took a prep class with the rest of the students who are here with me now and we learned a bit about the language, culture and history.  Part of our work for the class entailed reading two books: Survival in the Killing Fields and Voices from S-21.  Through these books and our lessons I learned the story of the Khmer Rouge.  The Khmer Rouge only lasted for a few years, but in that time one-fourth of the country was killed.  In my family that means at least one of my siblings would have died, which is too hard to even imagine.  Everyone in Cambodia now knows someone who was killed, children born since the tragedy still see the impact and know of the family members who aren't there.
As part of our cultural experience here, we visited a couple of historical sites.  We first visited the Killing Fields, a place where thousands were taken to be killed and buried in mass graves.  It's interesting, the juxtaposition between how beautiful the area is, right outside the city by rice fields with beautiful trees and gardens, compared to how horrible the events were that happened there.

The Killing Fields and museum

This is a fence surrounding one of the graves.  Visitors here put these colorful bracelets on the posts in respect of those who died here.

'The Killing Tree against which executioners beat children' is also covered in the bracelets.

Inside the monument of the Killing Fields- 17 levels of skulls and bones of the victims found here.

After visiting the Killing Fields we went to Tol Sleng (aka S-21) the school inside the city where thousands were tortured for false confessions before being sent to the Killing Fields to be executed.

A list of the insane rules the prisoners were forced to follow.

There were a whole series of rooms filled like this with pictures of the victims who were kept here of which only 7 survived.

The tiny, 1 meter, cells that held the prisoners here.

Tol Sleng, once a regular school before the Khmer Rouge.

It's hard to describe what it was like to visit these places.  It was similar to visiting one of the Holocaust Museums.  You're glad you went and that you understand better, but there's a feeling of disgust and horror.  This only happened less than 40 years ago!  The older generations here still remember it vividly and it still affects their lives today.  It's impossible for me to understand how this could happen, how millions were killed because of a corrupt and horrible government that was so afraid of being overthrown that it condemned it's own innocent citizens.  It serves as a great reminder of what can happen and what should never happen again.  But now it shows how well this country has recovered.  They were set back a long way due to these events and they still have many many problems, but the people here are so amazing and I love being around them.  They are so happy and friendly, friendlier than anywhere else I've ever been.  They love talking to us here even though we really struggle to understand each other.  The children here love when we bike past and they all run out into the streets yelling 'Hello!  Hello!'

I'm just so grateful for the chance I have to be here and to meet them and get to know the culture and the people in Cambodia.  And that I get a chance to give something small back to them through my internship here.