I told you...

so you might remember my rape culture rant where i posted some epic youtube video talking about lying. you also might have forgotten some of what i wrote but for this blog case and point i said that come football season that different college teams would use the penn state thing as a joke... if only i was wrong sadly no =( check out this link http://jezebel.com/5938687/ohio-state-fans-kick-off-football-season-with-horrible-shirt-mocking-penn-state-victims. but hey now i can add Legitimate Rape to my next session on rape culture. this is what i predicted now i ask you my loyal followers all 20 of you  what does this say about american sports or american culture as a whole?

Till Next Time Peace Out From the Other Side of the World!!!!

Cold War Hospital Stay

Its 1 am and I lie wide awake on a hospital floor next to my host mom and a women I never met until today how I ended up on this floor I will get into but this will be one of those stories that will unfold in various sequences. This hospital floor is not any floor but some smaller run clinic to the soviet hospital; yeah really there are still things with the name soviet in it even after that wall came down. I am not going to lie the way this hospital looks and is run is pretty much how you would think some 1970’s propaganda ad might be made by America except its not propaganda and I am living it as we speak.  In fairness it seems like they tried to spiff it up but just miss the mark where the walls are chipping away and brown streaks run down them. The beds are in a row of 6 the mat’s given to the patients to sleep on is full of rips and tears. Due to the fact the hospital has no one to do the nurses assistant job its left up to the families which adds about 20 to the room I am in while we all share the floor and bathroom together. However when your poor in Cambodia this is upper scale at 350 dollars for a 5 day stay and surgery its pretty pricy and if this didn’t exist maybe some people would be worse off always a catch 22 ay.  I know some of you are frantically wondering why the f*!@$ am I on this floor did I die did peace corps forget about me no no nothing like that have no fear it all started about 2 weeks ago… my host sister developed a cyst it was drained but it just was not getting better so come this past Monday I went with her to the Japan hospital where she was informed it was infected and had to be cut off (japan hospital was to expensive) anyways the next day she went back with my host mom and found this gem I came later that day in order not to have them over pay due to my white skin. So I arrived while she was already under the knife and did not really know what to except its been a week now of life on this hospital floor so I think its fair for me to talk about my cultural observations and how mentally draining it is to ignore all your own cultural normative behavior in a serous situation like being in a hospital. So they wheel her out and the drs get her on the bed where it becomes apparent they did not just numb the area where the cyst was but her whole lower body thoughts on this is that it seems odd and I am pretty sure there was not special person doing the drugging which is the next thing I notice sever itching on the skin feeling which I am pretty sure is a side effect of using to much morphine. Due to being numb from the waste down they put a catheter in her and not well might I add ill get to that later. She was not in to much pain at this point in time until the dr came out with the cyst to show us it was pretty freaking big and this made her cry and I think from that moment on she just let down her emotional block bc she is just that type of person who pretends things are always fine. I also think that its really hard for her to get my host moms attention which I feel bad about bc its so easy for me to get her attention I sometimes wonder if this ever got to jentee with me living with her but I don’t know if she would ever admit it to me or not (coming soon is a whole post on my theory on host families). This caused my mom to stop selling and freaking out on her and give her attention and I think this sort of allowed her to be more expressive with her pain if that makes sense to you the reader I don’t know. That first night I did not get to sleep one because I was in charge of having to change the pee bag I WILL NEVER TAKE FOR GRANTED HOSPTIAL ASSISTANTS THAT DO THAT STUFF FOR REAL! The other was bc im pretty sure they put the stupid thing in wrong so she was up all night crying that it was pitching her and ill be honest I did not know what the f!#@$% to do bc there are no real drs or nurse on staff just some guy you can call to change an iv bag if it goes empty. So I did the only thing I could do stay up and hold her hand which im still not sure if she wanted this is one of the cultural things I notice there is not so much touchy feely stuff but part of me just went with it and hoped it was not annoying her. Well after the dr got there the next morning and me auguring for them to take out the stupid thing next came 6 shots of I don’t know what this bothered me that there was no real charts to look at or they never tell u want they are giving u and what for consent all of that stuff I assume you have to do as a dr. well that first day she was getting better but then bare with me for a min bc you will all think im crazy bc u don’t live in Cambodia but just trust me okay… these shots that were supposed to be helping ended up causing such bad back pain she could no longer sit up and im convinced they did it because of me. Why because of me bc they wanted to make her stay longer to charge her more money and my presences is a social mark of wealth and I feel supper shity about this that one these people could be so heartless to causes someone pain and im part of the reason makes me feel so sad and empty. I know luis is reading this and saying u don’t know that and a lot of u most likely think the same thing let me back up my claim the lady next to her who had to have throat surgery was way worse off then her and they stopped giving her shots pretty early on and she recovered one to three no issues it was only my host sister and one other guy in the room who happens to come from a wealthy family that just seemed to get worse I don’t think this is coincidence. Knowing this I would love to have asked what they were doing but I had to save face and cultural norms so I stayed silent even though it still killing me now. Most of you know me I barely fit into American culture bc I don’t know if I believe in normal I just go with what feels right and sitting there with someone in so much pain they cant sleep it does not seem right to treat the drs around her like god and keep silent. Sigh okay lets fast forward a bit I have spent 5 days in the hospital now and got to know the people in the room quite well read there palms “fit in enough” im pretty sure I shaped there few of all Americans which is odd. My sister still cant sit up I keep putting hot pads on her that I have been buying and putting khmer medicine on her to rub into her muscles I don’t know that its helping her that much. I have to leave because im moving into my new apartment today then I will be heading back with my host sister jentu to have a sleep over. I guess I should mention jentu hates hospitals, which is why I was staying over night and not her but jentu is the emotional sister you can ask my mom and my aunt about her personality anyways she was crying the taxi ride back. She still really doesn’t get what’s wrong with jentee but that’s okay eventually jentee can get her to understand bc im to lazy and worn out. To add to all of this there have been other things going on with other people I am close with in this country. One of my students called me up crying and explain to me that the women I met when I ate rice at her house was her aunt not mom that her mom died she is a an orphan. I am all like okay but then she informs me her aunt beats her and kicked her out of the house because she not really her daughter. Then the girl I think I have mentioned be4 on this blog Sopennith who was studying to be a dr had to drop out bc of money and I tried to help her write letters for scholarships ect with no avail =( now she dropped out of college will she ever go back I don’t know. Next is the cream of wheat guy no giving a shit his wife is in the hospital making very little effort to help her I had to write an email today to ask for money which makes me so sad that I have to do this. On top of that with him I keep lying to jentee so she is not sad telling her that he has been email asking about her I figured its not good for her to be hopeless while trying to get better sigh is that the right thing to do I have no idea. I know life is not fair and I know we tell kids this all the time I just wonder why it has to be unfair and why do we want people to accept it? Some days its harder then other to accept that my presents can not really change things and people as much as I wish it could and in the two years since being in my village I have only really had the chance to work with a few people closely and even at that I can not change there socioeconomic status enough to make sure they achieve there dreams. Its hard to say that I am a failure bc in some ways im not but in other ways it is pretty evident I am but it is this complex dynamic of working in development that has helped me grow as a person. So until next time peace out from the other side of the world!  

SALT Soccer Camp… These Girls Rock My World!!!!!

Well when I first got to Cambodia I wrote this organization called pass back who donated 100 balls and other soccer supply’s it was supper sweet! For a few months I had a small camp going on Sundays however my counter part left and it started rainy season and never picked back up. With the realization without me there was no camp was really sad because it is not sustainable this lead me to the quest to make sure that I found a place the camp could be sustainable. This is how I came to find out about SALT they are a branch of fifa world cup the guy sam who is in charge of the camp is soooo great and has been living in Cambodia for the past 8 years and has started it from the group up and with this he has created the number one nationals girls team in Cambodia. He works on saving girls from migration work in Thailand, which for the most part means these girls were very close to being trafficked for sex. The main camp is in Battambang the girls range from 11-19 ish and participate in the SALT program and then are placed with various other organizations around Battambang to sleep though some of the girls are legal guardian of the SALT staff. While I would have loved to set something up long term in my village that is most likely not going to happen so instead I opted for a one day soccer empowerment basic skills training for girls I worked with another volunteer Alison who works at an orphanage 10 k away from my house. The camp ended up being more then just girls bc as the camp was going on more people where being drawn in. the best part about this camp it was entirely run by the 17 year old girls national team! I don’t think you can truly understand why this is sooo amazing to me but I will try to explain in a culture that tells girls that there uterus will fall out from playing sports and acting to much like a man will never allow u to get married it really is nothing short of a miracle to see girls rise above it. Having these girls run everything just took down a lot of the walls and nervousness the younger girls were feeling and I really got to see some of them transform. There was one girl from my village I think she is 11 or 12 now she had to drop out of school along time ago and goes around on her bike picking things up at the market and delivering it to sellers so she always came off so serous in part to survive I’m sure but I could just see how much she needed a release. The camp was good it helped show a vested interest girls have in sports when not having to fight for the filed or chance to play most of them wanted another day of camp. Second part of this camp I took my self up 4 hours up north to Battambang where the actual camp is run. The first day the older girls that I first met in my village where not there because it was thought school was starting that day lol im happy to know that its not just me that never can figure out when school starts ends and is on break bc turns out they were off by a week =) anyways this gave me a chance to really get to know the younger girls who were around 11 speaking Khmer helped me a lot to get to know them. Anyway I was able to help a little hear and there but for the most part they have trainer and are pretty well prepared for soccer so be4 lunch they took a break to play games that were not related to soccer. I was able to help this session bc the volunteer who tends to work it was sick anyways we played red rover, Indian chief, and concentration though have to say I had the most fun watching them play concentration bc they all tried really hard not to forget numbers and who was already out at first they thought it was easy until slowly people forgot who was out etc and repeated numbers.  After that I kept with there schedule and went to the orphanage and ate lunch with them the house mother I think got a kick out of me sitting on the floor with them speaking khmer she kept asking me if I knew how to eat rice which was the other funny thing how the stored rice for that many girls. I worked in a shelter before so I get having this big size but in America even with lots of people u have to maintain appearance of just like everyone else so the shelter feels more home like. Well the rice is stored in this huge tin thing that u also wash clothes in and they just rip into the rice then they get a bowel of soup to share in a group of about 5. The cool thing about being around them for the day is that they are not scared of me and they also did not put me on some American pedestal bc they were to busy just being kids ex they race for the front seat of the van and not once did anyone ask me if I wanted it when getting rice no one asked me if I wanted it first which I have become so used to it was nice to be on the same level for a day no celebrity status. After lunch they had the choice between dances and drawing class I sat in on the dance class. Seeing soccer players though and though try to take up dancing was really funny anyways watching them in dance class is when it hit me for what ever reason maybe bc they were falling all over them selves and really could tell there child hood and not yet disappeared or been robbed like so many kids but if they were not here with me right now they could be in a brothel in Thailand and that freaked me out. You could tell that at 11 they still don’t get what they escaped or what maybe there parents did on purpose to them instead they had this view of life that anything is possible if you try. Despite everything these are some of the psychological girls I have ever met not really no of them once mentioned my white skin or about wanting to go on a diet and stop eating rice bc there value system had been changed by something as simple as the game of soccer that was there motivation. None of them where stick thin they are just like a top athlete American soccer player I have high hopes that these girls can make the 2016 Olympic soccer team and be the first Cambodian soccer team to be part of the Olympics. The other awesome thing about this camp is it was really well rounded after dance class we went to the top bank in Cambodia where they got to ask question about how to work for a bank and how to open an account stuff about atm cards etc and you can tell they have been in environment to ask question bc none of them felt shy they just kept shooting out ideas. The bank was the first time all day I had to be reminded I was an outsider the guy working for the bank was acting way more concerted with me then he had to like wanting to know if he should speak in eng for me and im like dude this is not for me its for the players. Listening to them ask questions about how they can get money to study in other countries etc was inspiring it gave me hope that they know they have more worth then getting married that they are so much more then a wedding dress. The last part of the day I choose to go to a cooking class that was held at a high-end café the girls made home made banana bread sooo good. That night the country director of Peace Corps Cambodia was in town doing site visit so I sort of invited my self to dinner with the bb volunteers and got to scope around bb which is a really pretty place to see if you ever have the chance to see Cambodia. The next day I went back to the camp except they had another class on relationships which I wanted to see how it was run I tend to like to observe what is taught to kids in Cambodia. I think this is one aspect of the camp I might have not liked okay well in the teacher offense she was a nice lady who meant well its just she missed cultural issues and over emphasis gender behavior. She was trying to get across self confidence and conflict resolution with not just male female relationships but female on female which lead her to this statement that one often hears growing up “girls are better at communication they need to express where boys will just fight with each other and be over it” why this is not good to teach in Cambodia or anywhere it normalizes violence behavior of men to girls. It seems in many area girls are taught that boys cant control anger so they hit so how can a girl know its not okay for a boy to hit her if this is male normal behavior they don’t.  she also talked a lot about peer pressure and to not let it bring you down all well and good but she never asked them things that they are up against not to mention she left out about adults who pressure them bc its not just classmate I know my host mom tells my host sister to take weight loss meds and that everyone in my village young and old alike tells me I should use bleach on my skin to get rid of my freckles.  I just think her lesson had a very western approach and lacked a chance for them to express what they are going though or culturally what they have faced bc that would teach her something to. Another blunder while its might raise self esteem on a superficial level was we got in pairs (yeah I participated) and had to say what we liked about our selves physically and then something about our partner I was interested in that my partner said she liked her skin I’m sort of used to Khmer girls telling me they hate how black they are but she was happy with it so that was nice. But the down side we are still teaching a value of beauty as it exist is a male dominated system like I said this lady meant well its just sometimes we don’t realize what we are teaching between the lines esp with girls empowerment and gender topics in general. After I did a short health session on hand washing and then got a free ride back to my site from Peace Corps. Until next time peace out from the other side of the world!!!!! 

PS THE SOCCER TEAMS NAME IS MIGHTY GIRLS CHECK THEM OUT! 

yep so this is what you get to work with in the village life loves that kids overalls!

warm up relay races

big green the movie remember that movie... yeah we had to share the field with cows in the village

flash monsoon time to come in

some of the younger girls from bb camp

action shot

The Post Article

This is the Link to the article but I posted it below for your reading enjoy ment. http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012072557588/Lifestyle/cambodians-and-expatriates-take-back-the-night.html 

Cambodians and expatriates take back the night

Wednesday, 25 July 2012 Dagmarah Mackos

Even a newcomer to Cambodia is familiar with one grim fact about the country: its reputation of widespread sexual violence and human trafficking.

With a refreshing take at tackling this throbbing issue, last week several NGOs joined forces with Cambodian and international artists hoping to reach a larger audience through visual arts and discussion.

Take Back the Night, a global-scale initiative, saw its local incarnation from July 18 to 21 through a series of special events organised by Artworks for Freedom, within the framework of Meta House’s month-long Free Your Minds Festival.

AWFF founder Kay Chernush said she wanted to breathe new life into an old issue, and “involve many artistic expressions, so that it could provide new entry points into a very dark subject that some people don’t know about or don’t want to know about”.

Her idea materialised in the intimate setting of Phnom Penh’s Meta House where a small group of foreign and Cambodian guests delved into the horrors of victims’ lives as they watched Fields of Mudan – a short drama about a young girl whose dreams of a better life are ruined by the brutal reality of a Chinese brothel.

Dancing boys of Afghanistan, a documentary by Afghan journalist Najibullah Quraishi, followed suit, and long-standing NGOs like Action pour les Enfants continued with a slide show and discussion on their work around the issue.

The more curious visitor would have been drawn to the colourful T-shirts hanging innocently on laundry ropes – a display prepared by two American activists, Elizabeth Johnk and Eileen McCormick, and a handful of Cambodian volunteers who succeeded in convincing child victims to pour their feelings onto the garment canvas.

It’s the second time that the young international social workers, who aren’t affiliated with any local organisation, focus their efforts on a problem which they believe hasn’t been adequately addressed despite many existing initiatives.

But if the cause is admirable, they admit that touching gender issues in a foreign land is often frowned upon.

“We put up with all the expats who were saying they had already helped the orphans. Some people would simply say it’s a stupid idea,” said Johnk, adding that she’s even been called a “feminazi” by critics.

So can foreign hands meddling with what may be perceived as local traditions or customs do any good? As the old controversy rages on, these activists trust that “there’s a respectful way to go about it”.

“Adults and children from all different backgrounds participate in a project like this and even if they’re only thinking about this on a slightly different level than before, I guess I’m OK with that,” said Johnk, who is looking forward to next year’s challenge. 

Meta House Opening

I think I mentioned a few times about the 2^nd part to my take back the night project and it went down this past month. There was a free your mind exhbit and we got to part take in it by adding the shirts from take back the night. For a few month we have been putting this together designing how we would set up the rope etc and there was also a slideshow to show the making of the project how it started sort of a deal which I posted up already try to let it fully load before you play it. The slideshow took a supper long time to make because choosing music to fit the situation I have a new found appreciation for movie and tv shows who ever job it is to pick the music. Well I wanted the volunteers to come but in order to this I had to suck up the cost of 40 dollars to rent out a van which pretty much put me and broke this month luckily today I get paid bc I ran out of money on my phone and internet and have been counting down to be able to buy more time for both. Along with the volunteers from my village coming my students came as well o yea I guess I might not have mentioned but in order to afford Khmer lesson I am exchanging that for me teaching one hour of conversational eng everyday. Well me and my khmer tutor thought it would be a good experience to let the students come to the art gallery to one see what an art gallery is and two practices there English with people from other countries. However I had to go in early to Phnom Penh to set up and that left me in trusting my khmer tutor to make sure everyone was on time and left when I said which NATURALLY DID NOT OCCURE SIGH. Well that morning me and liz waited around for meta house staff to set up the rope etc which took far longer then excepted then liz had to run off to work that’s the thing about being a pcv lots and lots of time to do the little stuff that people who have a real job cant do. Part of the exhibit we took close up pictures of people and cut out the eyes and placed mirrors in them and placed them on the line a lot of people seemed to really freak out when looking at these pictures. We did this to symbolize how violence is not happening to only one person but all of us and if you had to see your self though a victims eyes what would you do? Well that night when the event started not that many people showed up and my Khmer tutor left an hour late so that screwed up things. With traffic and everything else they did not make my part of the show so to speak there was other ngos and presenters there to show a movie and sex trafficking which they did make the students had a lot to say about the movie. One of the NGO’s APLE went out of there way once they realized I brought villages in to have everything translated into khmer which I thought was really nice. I know that seems something that should be protocol but honestly in the Ngo expat community it tends to be English only =( and most people don’t care or think about making it in the local la. Well the event over all was pretty uneventful the people who did come thought it was an interesting way to educate about violence in Cambodia the Phnom Penh Post came and while she was not planning on it she started to interview people and write up an article on the project ill post that in another post. We tried to sell shirts etc to make money for next year but that was a fail. I felt sort of bad by the time we got back to the village it was 11 at night I hope the students parents were not to mad at me I think it was an over all good experience until next time peace out from the other side of the world!

Summation of this summer thus far

This summer has been flying by with colors and sorry to report I have not kept you updated. First ill go into the cream of wheat guy came back aka my host sisters husband always a ranging good time. Issues number one everyone seems to assume bc I am American and he is America we will get along and have a great time. Things they fail to see he is as old as my dad speaks supper slow is racist and is not capable as seeing Khmer people as people. If this is all coming out bitter it’s because this last trip was a real dammed if you do dammed if you don’t type of situation or in khmer as they say on land there is tiger in water there is crocodile. This time around he took away the little candor he had the first time he came to vist and this caused a lot of issues for jentee and they’re for me. How to explain everything first ill start with “saving face” this is a khmer cultural concept that is used all the time and the rules are real hard to follow and I mess up on them all the time in all honesty ex if someone wrongs you its you who will lose face if you yell at them in public so basically being pissed off in public is bad. Well cream of wheat guy was pissed the whole time it rained to much he didt want to be in the village he didt want to be around chury the 3 year old or around my host mom the list goes on. However he did not just act agitated but stomping feet etc like a child who is not getting what they want. Now to save his face jentee says he is not angry im supposed to go along with this however here is the dammed if you do dammed if you don’t situation in America when someone is that pissed and you ignore them and treat them like a child it is really insulting and rude. Well I thought it was to obvious to play dumb and I hate how Jentee goes into denial with cream of wheat guy about almost EVERYTHING and it for the most part is actually hurting her relationship by American standards and in my option a form of self mutilation at best. My actions where the following I told him I understood even if most times he was being rude and to the people around him he was offending just saying he doesn’t understand and is slow. Well this makes jentee lose face bc you know saying someone is stupid is not nice in any culture but cream of wheat dude is not normal that’s all I know but ironically thinks he is soo much smarter then Khmer people it’s a train rec to watch. If you think this is all bad it gets worse well for someone like me I guess its no shocker to most of you but I have a pretty big hang up on human rights and even more so in women’s rights and while it takes every fiber of my being to tolerate him but for him to talk to me about his moral objectification to prostitution is where I went in the bathroom and scream no really. I don’t think I had any conversation that was not worry some however him telling me how much he thinks guys who sleep with prostitutes and especially child prostitutes should have there dick chopped off and how he wanted me to know that women get sold in Cambodia all the time…. I AM NOT KIDDING YOU I left went to the bathroom screamed came back out and then asked him about marrying someone he knew for 2 secs hoping he would connect the dots no such luck. I could go on about cream of wheat dude but ill spare you instead he informed me he was not coming back to Cambodia until my host sister has her interview which I don’t know if that will happen bc all the document I told him to bring where supposed to be new and he brought the ones from 2007 I swear I think he is playing stupid or something with me I cant figure cream of wheat dude out but it reminds me of the book of 48 laws of power. Well there is always two sides to every story right and seeing it from not the same cultural view point inevitable leads to issues which is was happened with me and my host sister jentee both of us were deff not exactly happen with each other but I just sat her down which im sure is not culturally the thing to do but I don’t care and just sort of hacked out a lot of stuff and things have been really good now with me and her. On other news the Asean meeting took place and Hillary Cliniton was in Cambodia at the last min Peace Corps invited some volunteers from a lotto system to attend a small meet and greet with her and I was lucky enough to get picked.  It was held at the Raffle’s Hotel with a small group of people about 60 people all embassy workers and a special photo op setup for the kids of the embassy workers. Security was tight we had to show up real early and wait for a few hours then after had to wait more time so she could take more pictures out side the door with the military staff. Meeting her was interesting she has such a stoic clam presence and I thought it interesting to see how they “made her up” for south east Asian culture what I mean by this is she had on just the type of clothes and makeup that impress Cambodians her hair was slicked back and she wore this huge diamond necklace that the American media would have crucified her or any politicians for wearing. She only spoke for like 10 mins and it was pretty typical stuff of where Cambodia was and where they are now and how America played a role in helping achieve that. I mean don’t get me wrong I get its all saying shit for political stuff but its like every country not just American that comes into Cambodia says the same stuff and never calls out how corrupt so much of this stuff really is. However I also realize I am no better bc I have to work with in the system to. Some good new I found an apartment its 3 bed rooms wrap around porch and even has hot water in it!!!!! Its supper nice im sharing it with Liz and her boy friend Pon its all been exciting. My Khmer tutors younger brother just recently informed me about some course being offered in development at a local university that is made by NYU staff so me and him are planning to take some classes in the fall together I guess I should mention its taught in English and the classes are offered on weekends and I think it could be interesting to take a few classes to get a better handle on grant writing and development in general so these are I guess what im working towards for next year. Until next time peace out from the other side of the world! 

shaking hands 

my host moms 65th bday

kids playing jump rope

jentu made it to the party from the rain

a storm is coming 

Meta House Slideshow TBTN

So this is the Slideshow we had playing the night of the opening at Meta House I will update a full blog soon about the Exhibit with pictures until then enjoy the slide show!