Better Late then Never

What does it mean to be integrated while in peace corps training we were given markers of how many people ask you to eat rice with them or the amount of wedding invitations you get or even how many people want to drink with you. For me I never felt these markers fit my idea what integration was in fact I spent this last year really analyzing what would make me feel integrated and after these past two weeks I think I get it maybe? Well the peace corps markers that past volunteers left me with made me soon realize that’s more about popularity then actual integration so I started my search early on but now I can tell you its when people with in your community society can break down and cry to you scream at you trust you with every fiber of their being and not be worried you will shun them. It’s more about the disappearances of nationality into the humanness we all have. I think there are degrees in which one integrates as well and times we can fit in we can even become part of a family however to go past that is no easy feat and we or at least from my experience we don’t seem to get their to often and when we do its never what we except. These past two weeks have been an emotional roller coaster for me and I have had to really think about what is fair to write in this blog as for when I first started my blog it was all just free flowing I felt the information I had was mine to share with you my followers however slowly that has changed some things were no longer my secrets to share. It would be selfish for me to unload some things I have had to learn to deal with in part bc the person sharing the secret with me is clearly suffering far more then my self with that said if there are things missing in this write up that you wish you knew more about I am sorry but I can not share it on this public form and perhaps one day I will bare all to the world but for now you will have to take what I can give. This blogged is titled Better Late Then Never because my host sister American Husband finally came to Cambodia after a 4 year hiatus however with this preparation I had a lot of looming dread intertwined with complex thoughts where I don’t feel I ever reach a right answer to any of it. Even now as I am writing this blog way after the fact of meeting him can’t I say I know what’s best. My host sister has had to endure public stigmazation for her “husband’s” lack of support and stating he will come to see her and has not. When I first heard about this whole situation I feared the worst I am not going to lie I think some of my past blogs might reflect that. When you have to deal with the public shaming day in and day out you become numb to it and you start to lie to your self and others to the point you don’t even know anymore this is how I viewed my host sister. There is a quote from a movie goes something like this “don’t pretend to be someone your not because pretty soon you will forget you are pretending and so will everyone else” I didn’t want this for my host sister however I did not beat around the bush I took a weed whacker to it and that was no the best approach for a few month in the beginning I caused her to shut down on me. I thought at the time I was just trying to help her open her eyes and make her realize she is putting her self in a seriously dangerous situation at the time I didn’t know if this husband was some sort of pimp or what even just so desperate guy who wants a made. I truly feared for her life this was what sociologist called a fallacy of being to close to the situation I took my personal experience in the domestic violence shelter and could not see it any other way or would not. I learned a lot from this and I stopped and instead decided that my purpose was to make her happy now as you can guess sometimes what is best for someone and what makes the happy is not the same. That is a consequence I am prepared to handle down the rd. I will not go into details for this is one of those things that will not be stated on the public sphere of the internet. I started to help her Skype with the husband etc. and have had time to sort of help him realize what he was doing to her I think in some ways I helped force his hand to come and visit. Back on track to leading to the visit I came back from Phnom Penh it sort of hit me like a ton of bricks just how bad this situation could be or to know truly what it feels like to be 100 percent devastated. All my worst fears came out in this culturally polite conversation my host sister and mom had with me as to this god mom telling them to keep me quite so I don’t upset the husband what does that mean I don’t exactly know. I think I know enough however to know that what ever she is up to is not good and clearly she has some sort of ulterior motive I can not speculate as to what but I have not seen anyone in this life time act so worried about a relationship that is not their own unless they are getting something out of it. I just started to think the worst about this lady she was going to extort money or something I just did not trust her and I like to think I have pretty good intuition all I could think about is my sister is going to be sold or die or something. Have no fear though you guys it gets better from here on out. While I started the week off in my own boat knowing the real situation more so then my family was ready to admit they did join me soon enough! My week was filled with following the two love birds around to take lots of pictures I will post them asap. So its important to note there is a Cambodian law change that does allow foreign men over 50 to marry Cambodian women so jentee cant go to the states right now however the god mom started to act crazy telling her family she will make her husband divorce her etc.  In sight to this law makes you think thank god right they want to protect women but if you dig a little deeper you start to see men in Cambodian society like that status quo aka more women to men this has allowed their cheating behavior to rule the roost if you will. Once this lady started to get real hostile with my family the walls all broke down and they were no longer defending her and so many truths came out of it. However so of this came at a hardship because as the saying goes the truth really does hurt more on that story first I will bring this to a happy note with the trip to kampong som. My host mom always talks about going to the beach down south and with jentee husband in town this was able to happen he bought a van for the family and we all went down to the beach real Khmer style by that I mean packed up van with cooked fished meat and anything else they could fit into 5 different coolers. This was the hi-light of the week for me it just felt like everyone was on neutral ground again ate all the crab I could eat played in waterfalls swam in the ocean etc it was great. At night it was me in the room with 10 other khmer people I tried to take a picture to show that they pushed all the beds together so we could try to fit as many people on and this left floor space for some more people. They put the 3 year old to sleep with me and does this kid sleep crazy and he wet the bed I was going to kill him but they don’t really train him to go to the bathroom or don’t know not to give a kid that young water be4 bed. Actually the next morning my host dad tried to get him to go to the bathroom instead he ran outside and peed off the 3^rd story balcony thank god no one seemed to mind. With in the coming days when we got back my host mom realized how screwed up things were and that my host sister was trying to get pregnant I also happen to get sick from the AC. With no one around except me and the 3 year old despite my horrible khmer she just broke down. She was suction cupping me so I could not do much to console her at that time but she had her bubble burst after talking to me all week seeing the husbands actions (he is a good guy but supper slow) before she could not accept the situation for what it was and I cant really go into that much detail hear bc once again not my soul to bear but it was one of the saddest thing I have seen in all my time. All she could do want just cry into my arms and tell me how much she wanted better for her children then the life she had.  That she disserves to die for not living up to expectation she had for her self and what she has done to jentee which was crazy to hear out of her mouth. She regrets ever trusting the god mother but as the saying goes its never to late to be sorry but sorry cant fix things after the fact. In the mean time the dynamics with in my family changed jentee who was once so closed off and didt trust a soul had no friends now relied on me and liz . She kept telling me all trip long she was happy to have me and liz as friends and that I am the same as her younger sister really. To see her change into this person who was just so happy around her husband it made me see how repressed she has to be for the sake of Cambodian culture. I joked around with her bc she gave me so many speeches about when luis came how I could not kiss him in public but she was so flirty in public I just kept saying u wait the next time my bf comes! I spent a lot of time with both of them and together they seem happy so what ever reservations I had about him being some sort of sex slave trade dude I don’t think that’s him. On the other hand though HE JUST DOES NOT GET THINGS LIKE DOES NOT! My family left me in charge of getting him to understand he has a wife not just some girlfriend he cant not tell people in America he is married he cant just come once in 4 years not have a house with jentee etc. still after numerous talks was not getting it finally a little beam of light came though when I asked him if he would want his daughter to be treated the same way as this whole situation as treated jentee and of course not BINGO! So he told me he was going to think of better ways to support them as a married couple not just do what he has been doing thus far I don’t know how well all my pep talks worked but only time will tell. This was an emotional tiring 2 weeks for me and has made me kick my self 100 times over for not speaking Khmer better. It was a transformation for my family has a whole and maybe I became apart of it and just can’t see it from my perspective. While I will always worry about this on going situation it has also made me realize that there is more to integration then meets the eye while I may never viewed in my community as Cambodian I am also not viewed as American I am viewed as “Eileen” these imaginary boundaries that we put on people when we first meet them seem to disappear as time goes on and for that knowledge I will forever be grateful to my experience in Cambodia. Until next time peace out from the other side of the world!