THE CHAM’S

In Cambodia I guess you can say the minority population would be the chams which is just Muslim faith however not many of Peace Corps site have much interaction with the chams my site is pretty unique in that way. So one of my good friends is cham he lives in the cham village which is just the other side of the street from my house he ended up inviting me to this event going on yesterday night. Originally I was not so sure I wanted to go because I thought it was going to be in the mosque however he is working with me on my soccer camp so it was time to suck it up and go. I was going to go before my Khmer lesson so it would not be dark one less hassle to argue with the family (girl walking alone at dark never makes Cambodian’s happy) however that changed and let me to tell you about my encounter with a pedophile… no secret I am the American in town there is this old senile guy who loves me and no he is not the pedophile he is really nice just not all their and it seems to make him happy when ever he see’s me so I go out of my way to attempt to talk to him even though I know he does understand me and vise versa. This old guy came with I think his sister or someone I am not really sure maybe wife anyways they wanted me to go to their house and meet this American who was marrying their daughter I don’t know why but it never crossed my mind he was going to be a pedophile perhaps because they seemed so happy I thought wow this must be a great relationship (I really can be slow sometimes) if you saw how happy this family acted you would think this was a great thing. Anyways since they asked me to vist I said sure ill go now bc I have to study Khmer soon so jentee comes with me though im not sure why not that I mind for some reason I think she was curious when we get to the house and see the old white dude I almost throw up. When I mean old white dude I mean his face was like deformed his nose was like something out of hassle and Gredal he is 56 and the girl he is marrying is 22. Now im thinking in my head what the fuck is with my village to sell their daughters to crazy ass old ugly American dudes this is just not normal I cant take this!!! But some how I collected my self (still don’t know how) well maybe I do because I wanted to read is body la and see how much he would lie to me thanks to that show lie to me its one of my favorite things to do. Minus a few things ill have you know he lied the whole time he told me they have been able to talk for 5 years though online and stuff even though she doest speak eng or have a computer and no Cambodian goes to find internet so at best he knew her maybe a year though her family that lives in the states and met her once. When I asked him about being married be4 he started to play with his wedding ring indication he did really crappy things in his marriage the first time around or tried the same thing but that wife left. Things he told the truth about he wanted to marry her so he could have someone to take care of him when he retires that he paid off the village chief 2600 dollars helping her get though the embassy. Everything about him is just sketch and I wish I could prevent that but they are getting married on satruday so another Cambodian lost to a creepy man who just wants her virginity and a house made im so glad her parents can be so willfully ignorant to what this man wants out of her. Speak of creepy men I think this was a lot of jentee to see she is really good and holding things inside and not letting people figure her out lucky for me I just kinda can feel things with out really knowing why its my gift and curse as I like to put it since meeting me she has had to put a lot into question esp her marriage and what her family did to her. Part of me is so sad I over told her the truth like I wish I held back but the other day I just spilled it all out about him stealing her visa to hold her hostage all the things I have seen working in the dv shelter everything she took it in and realizes but she also wants to remain willfully ignorant. Which I can tell u is effecting her more lately just from watching her she also is feeling like she got an even shorter end of things bc at least this new creep has money who is giving to the family her husband has not helped her family out at all this has been a huge stressor on her. For one people know she is married to an American so they number one talk about why doest she have money if she has to barrow money she cant ask people bc they are pretty jealous of her and think well u have an American husband go ask him sort of a mentality. She has been put in a real shitty situation because of him and I would be supper mad she keeps putting on this charade but something insde me has slowly changed and I don’t know why. Intial in the states I would think well now that you know why the fuck do you stay with the jackass I really would, but experiencing Cambodian life and knowing even with the risk of what I have seen in my line of work men holding imgrant women hostage beating them taking knifes to them raping them etc I can sadly see why its still worth the risk to her. I think I will wait to give you more background on her in another blog bc I have already gotton way off topic and know I could go on forever about her dynamics as a human being. Chams yes well due to that side adventure I went at 8 instead which was some what hard because it was dark and Khmer people don’t trust the cham’s though they don’t like to out worldly admit their prejudices what I mean by that like family has a lot of cham friends and a lot of chams buy stuff from them bc jentee speaks cham however they think chams are more likely to rape and kill me. Well I was like ill be fine no worries they told me I was crazy but I left anyways I was pretty happy doing so to it was nothing like I excepted. When I got their I found my friend has his wife and family who started to explain what this was all about so 411 on chams…. Well in Cambodia most chams are Malaysian chams they told me their r 3 types Malaysian, Iraq and Vietnamese cham my friend is malay cham however turns out most of the cham village near me is Vietnamese cham which is pretty rare but I guess back in the day they had their own land until Vietnam took it over anyways malya chams think they are the normal chams bc they prey 5 times a day that their more legit for whatever reason so my friend said he did not want to be joining this party. I was like huh so this was not like a typical this time of year religious event after someone is really sick and drs etc cant help if the family is rich enough they throw this huge ceremony I mean huge to ask the ghost to make them better it was one of the coolest thing I have seen because it just so rare to see. First only chams can go so no Khmer people are invited so I think I might have been the first outsider ever to go which made it a privilege. Their was food vendors everywhere and then this big bright light stage thing where there was young boys playing music on a hallow wooden log very interesting music to hear while they were playing their were these older ladies who were dancing some sort of ritual dance with lace fans. Due to the fact this was to entice the ghost this is why the Malaya chams do not like this event bc they do not believe in the ghost and basically think that a real cham would not believe in a ghost. I stayed for a bit and watched walked around met some people who’s house I have been to I think my appearance made the chams happy because I don’t ignore them or treat them anything less then I would anyone in Cambodia and as an American they are deff worried about me thinking they are terrorist which I am like no I don’t think u want to boom and kill me. I have been in Cambodia almost 8 months and each day I am still going deeper into the rabbit hole until next time peace out from the other side of the world.