Thursday, August 1, 2013

Too Clever by Half

Well for the first time in recent history for Cambodia people stopped being scared of change and standing up to power with that said I sort of felt a need to stay out of the city for a few days while the elections went down just incase something bad happened. I choose Palin as my destination because I have never been and it is a 5 min drive to the boarder of Thailand incase stuff got real crazy I could leave the country. Pailin is famous for rubies in their dirt and ex Khmer rouge solders living there now in my head I had this insanely different picture of Pailin that went something like this a poor desolate place where these ex-soldiers slink off in a corner somewhere and everyone hates them and a town that barley had roads sort of ghost town like. However in reality it was way different majestic really it is UN touched jungle with waterfalls and mts and ironically enough these ex Khmer Rouge soldiers were not poor saps in the corner they are rich and have a lot of money. Moreover they are in the run of the gov there which I was really surprised about but I think I get a better idea of what is going on in that land all over Cambodia is sold to Chinese companies but pailin the gov leaves them alone I think it’s a secret agreement that they don’t try to fight and watch and protect the Thai Cambodia border. I also thought it was just a few soldiers turns out the whole place is ex-soldiers basically every other person of a certain age you run into is missing a limb, an eye or has severe burns on their face with that said I will begin to explain why I was only too clever by half. So these soldiers love the current ruling party cpp so I inadvertently put my escape root with possible black opp type solders for the CPP I should also mention that I did not go to Pailin alone I went with Alin from my village and her sister both of them used to live there and work in the Casino and have family in the area who we stayed with. Ironically these family members where ex Khmer Rouge why this is crazy is I spent the night in these peoples house and they were supper nice to me but u know when u ask about them before getting their I get a line like this “ming khume pou-kai kamplug” my aunt was the most skilled at shooting people all good stuff to keep in mind right. Not gonna lie these ex khmer rouge people were not the type who would never claim they were forced or scared to die if they did not join these are like the leaders who really push the ideology and shit with that said there whole year 0 thing and not wanting any other cultural influence made me wonder if they were just acting nice to me but hating me secretly but it honestly did not feel that way hummm. Well as I went riding around on a moto I got to see some cool stuff I got to go looking for rubies I did not find any maybe next time but never the less the first day of my trip was a good time. The second day I went to this mt that is called green mt and it was soo pretty it goes up 10 levels but it’s important to note that it’s not paved and really off the beating trail but that’s the benefit when u go somewhere like this with Khmer people they know all the way to get places that are missing in lonely planet. Well that night before the elections the news who I might add is stated owned and controlled was playing a rerun clip that remind me something out of an snl skit I don’t know if I can describe it but it went something like this going to different khmer people asking them about the opposition party and then a camera will show a girl wearing a tank top and some old khmer lady will say something like cnrm is destroying khmer culture they are going to break are women. Another one of my favorite skits I mean news shots was this homeless guy huffing and then they shoot back to cnrp having an Election Day party basically claiming that they are passing out drugs to homeless people. Then the news people where trying to prove that cnrp is a bunch of young kids making trouble so they were vandals in every providence however they lack video clips for this so instead they tried to blur out the background pretend it was different place in Cambodia while it was the same people in every shot lmao. Anyways this is like comedy to me so im crying laughing so hard sitting next to some ex khmer commrads looking at me like im crazy then I try to explain to them in khmer why I think this shit is so funny don’t think it translated o well I had a fun time watching the news. Okay well on to the day of the elections pretty much all the news did all day long was say how fair the election r this year and showing the special ink that was donated my India that cannot be wiped off (except it has been proven that it in fact can me) I know shocker anyways this went on all day long smiling police etc showing their finger to the camera. Meanwhile facebook has changed the name of the game in this country and the election no one will believe a word the news says so instead u got kids and people posting up video clips anything to facebook showing the polling stations and all the corruption more than 1 million people have been left or eliminated off the voters list this year see my last post for the map. In the past people where hopless for change so they just did not care this year that was all different and because of that people got mad and a bunch of people burned a police car and turned it over even the monks on the video were helping. Cambodians are very biased against Vietnamese immigrants sometime I feel its way to harsh but I sort of understand why not Vietnamese people who don’t have citizenship are allowed to vote while khmer people are not its quite strange I have never seen anything like it. So the polling stations closed and the kid who works for the ministry comes home and we start making phone calls to see what the numbers are well at this point it’s about 4:00 and huge upset it looks like CNRP won despite all the odds stacked against them and these results came from the counters in other provinces so it’s pretty official. Well as this is showing up all over facebook less than an hour later people are all posting pictures and video that army is out they closed down all these streets blah blah. Meanwhile the state run news has stopped showing anything and instead puts on khmer dancers for the next two hours if we did not have internet we would be lost. Around 8 pm the news comes back on to go down the winner and comes out that cpp won though at this point most people don’t believe it felt that the military forced CNRP hand which is sort of proven bc this letter that the CNRP leader send around went something like this “Please stay Calm thank you for your support but they have guns and I have nothing do not try to fight on my behalf bc you will only end up dyeing” O yea maybe I should mention Cambodia law prohibits owning a fire arm so only the military, police can have them so most people are pretty defenseless in a circumstance like this. More important u might be wondering will all the military really support the current ruler and the answer is does not matter bc the military is only slightly trained however the P.M has 10,000 yea that’s right 10,000 of his own person security guards that are supper trained basically meaning even if the military tried to go against him they would lose as well so to stay alive I feel they would back him. Well anyways my roommate went back to Phnom Penh that night from a village down south I was way up north to see tanks and trucks rolling past a rd near r house they were not just preventing riots it was a fear tactic however in the past that really did work but it seem less people care now.  Anyways now the Gestapo is out and about I can’t go home because all the taxi are freaked out and don’t want to go into Phnom Penh and I am feeling sorry for my roommate being left alone with things so uncertain. I finally find a taxi back but its way more expensive then when we came but what can we do so on the way back I stop in my village to give my host fam some fruit and see what was going on their last night and my host mom just goes off, That she wants someone to get him out of office it’s not fair. She is scared for me to go back to phnom penh then she begins to give me lessons on how to crawl on the ground like a solider and apparently bc my apt is the top of a house they like to shoot high so im in more danger got to love my host mom for just being so blunt about things like this. My host mom is 66 and she refuses to watch tv bc it lies to her now instead now I have to sit down with my ipad and let her watch the news via facebook so I guess u can say she is a truly informed citizen now. Going back to work things seem both normal and slightly off like people where deff unsure what would happen and CNRP was contesting the loss claiming different results. This then caused the current ruler to yet again to take out the army and close the streets off only issues is I work right around the block so I was stuck in this barricaded area until they finally directed traffic another way and soon enough I see a park filled with people and Sam Riansey…  is it me or does that not seem like a bad idea to direct traffic into the oppositions rally bc if I went home as normal I would have no idea it was going on they are basically giving him more support just saying. No final results are in apparently it might be two months in the meantime Cambodian people is calling for international help and wants the UN back in create a true democracy and to count the votes for real. As you can see this whole post is only to clever by half and to add to this I think I caught some kind of bug and have been really sick with a 102 temp based on my blood results which are in French instead of eng err I am anemic have limited white blood cells and may have either Dengue, malaria or typhoid fever sigh I came back into work today bc I have enough energy to type at a desk the past two days I could do nothing sort of sucked my host sister came in yesterday to take care of me but I made her go back to sell I felt bad. Anyways peace out from the other side of the world!!!     

 

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