Okay so take back the night close pin line around the
corner a few hundred short from goal needed we went back to lucky supper
market. Since I have a blog post on tabling in Cambodia I thought this one I
would just do best funny quotes convos I endured on my two day table excursion.
Random American couple about 50 years old “o what work r
you doing that’s great but we come back every year for 3 months to work in the
orphanages so we are doing out part already”
My response “That’s great umm any little thing we can do”
in my head “im not asking for ur bank account if u have a penny that would be
great”
A judge I think British “o I am a judge so I know all
there is to know about violence I see it in my court everyday and I have so
many charities I donate to already”
Me “o u work in the court system what do you think of all
the corruption of the legal system Cambodia”
Judge “o that’s not my concern but I can tell you this you
will never be able to stop violence or prostitution in Cambodia it is the
fabric of there society”
Me in head “great the judge uses prostitutes every night
and me putting a stop to that behavior is the end of his fun” what I actually
say “well its certainly not going to happen with me alone there needs to be a
cultural shift of equality between sex’s world wide”
Random ngo worker French “you know there is more pressing
issues in Cambodia and you might want to concentrate on them”
Me “can you give me an example”
French dude “children that’s where it matters”
Me “sure children matter but we need to go to the root of
the issues why so many of them are forcibility abandoned”
European Women 40’s “o your with the un I will never give
you a cent” storms off
Me “wait I don’t work for the un that’s just some
educational materials I have” quickly accepting a lost cause.
Repeat offender “why do I recognize you”
Me “ooo I know y because last time I did this you freaked
out on me”
Repeat offender “o no what did I do”
Me “you told me that I should be ashamed of my self for
working for peace corps and they are the worst organization ever they do more
harm then good”
Repeat offender “omg that’s right but no I saw something
about u yesterday… hey ur doing work for metahouse”
Me “yea hey how did you know that”
Him o im in charge of getting the funds for the project I
like ur idea
Me in head “once hated by this dude now we r friends
people really can change =)”
Missing his teeth dude “I have a Cambodian wife so im not
like the expats”
Me in head “really that’s exactly what an expat does” Me
“that’s great”
Missing his teeth dude “I don’t need to be educated on the
situation in Cambodia my wife’s father beat her and all his girls”
Me “that’s terrible im sorry to hear that”
Missing teeth dude “yea he still beats people up”
Me in head “I wonder if this abusive father is the one who
arranged his marriage to his daughter” me “well I hope you can find away to
help the situation”
Missing teeth guy walks away quickly then turns around to
tell me “ you see I could write a book on sexual abuses u have know idea how
much I know”
Me in head “what else is there to say” “well sir I hope
you do write that book im sure it will be an educational read”
20 something American SEXPAT in the Hawaiian shirt “I am
going to read about your project first ill hit u back on my way out”
SEXPAT in the Hawaiian shirt “can you please define what
your definition of sexual violence is”
Me “any unwanted forced sexual touch”
Sexpat in the Hawaiian shirt “if that’s the case I can’t
in good conscious donate to your project”
Me “I’m sorry what about that definition don’t you agree
with”
Sexpat in the Hawaiian shirt “when I think violence I
think it has to be extreme and has to be rape with penile penetration”
Me “gives ample examples of violent sex acts from using a
knife to use kissing someone to more extreme examples that his definition
leaves out”
Sexpat in the Hawaiian shirt “but that would mean I could
be considered a rapist and im not”
Me in head “yes that exactly the issues u don’t see ur
self for the rapist u r bc u get away with so much and not enough people inform
u that what you are doing is rape”
Me “well maybe that’s something u should be thinking
about”
Sexpat in the Hawaiian shirt “you need to see how wrong
you are and that if this is how you or ur organization defines sexual violence
u should put it on ur information about the project so people know what they
are donating to”
Me thanks for the advice
Okay so on the flip side I would like to say there were a
lot of people who where engaged in learning about what we were giving out. Not to
mention some people gave a lot of money in hopes to help a dead ancestor who
was a victim of abuse. Just something to think about how seriously some people
can take what me and liz say to them and how for a myriad of foreign workers in
country feeling what they do is good enough and r above talking with me or liz
says a lot. Anyways peace out from the other side of the world!!!
Hey so its been along time coming but the project went
down with the help and support of so many of you in America and the great turn
out of volunteers. The event took place in Koh Kong down south in Cambodia on
the boarder. Well this place was pretty far for everyone to get to so it was
quite the treck for the 15 volunteers that came out to help however its
considered a beach so many of the volunteers were excited about this most of
them despite being from Cambodia have never been to koh kong so it was an over
all adventure with a work component. Liz
had the brilliant ideas to get shirts made up so we could look more legitimate
so she had these shirts designed and they came out amazing all the volunteers
loved them! Naturally the first part of the project had to go not as excepted
so that morning me and liz talked to an mtv exit rep who failed to mention to
us that the venue changed which cost us 8 more dollars to have our Cambodian
tent moved to the river side. However this new local was perfect for foot
traffic and getting a variety of age ranges to entices people to draw on the
shirts we did have prizes liz went out and bought some cell phones tennis
rackets etc naturally the real prize was the cell phone. I also might add I
never go the donation of shirts so I had to buy them Khmer market style u r
wondering what this is refer to pictures but I bought 500 random shirts and had
to wash them all by hand for this event my host mom started to pity me after
the first 200 and started to help me =) but we ended up needing about 250
shirts for the event. We bought a
variety of art supplies hoping the shirts would be really unique and different
this year, which I can say they were interesting however for the most part they
were always done in big groups of 5 or more I guess its just Khmer culture. The
shirts messages were more stop violence vs personal experiences though there
was a few that differed from the normal message. It was cool to see how much
people liked the opportunity to do art work it was fun to watch someone who has
never used spray paint get to try there hand at it lol if you see all the
scissors we bought were used as a stencil for said spray paint they are colors
of the rainbow. All the volunteers also created shirts to show ex of ideas in
hopes they would not all be the same which sort of worked bc I think the using
paints on ones hands was pretty popular and they really liked to use the
Chinese money and chain. Despite me and liz being less that ideal organizer the
event was pretty well executed until it came time for the prizes and it sort of
became a cluster fuck. Instead of us just picking the winner we let the
participants decide in order to do this we wanted them to line up behind the
shirt they thought was the best of course some cheating occurred where one
group would have a lot more people with them but ahh it seemed like the only
fair thing to do bc they really wanted to win. Jentee who has never done work
like this and I thought would be the hardass started to feel sorry for the kids
telling me what will we do when they don’t win bc they all kept asking her if
they were going to be number one. The khmer Eileen across the street from me is
a really quite shy person but she has a knack for education and handing out materials
it was cool to see her come out of her shell and do more ngo work. Some peace
corps staff came out to and liz students it was just a mix of so many types of
people which made the event work so well but to see all these people interact
for a weekend while entertain did become draining. Later in the day mtv exit
remps came over to apologize about the mis communication I think in part bc the
event ended up being bigger then they excepted and we really did help promote
the concert for later that night thought not going to lie I wish they took us
more seriously to begin with. That’s the thing about being a two man ngo with
no name or back up or funding you have to put up with being considered lower of
the food chain I hope this changes for me one day. Another cool thing that
happened was some random guy came while I was at lunch to take pictures of the
shirts and wanted to buy some of them and gave us 30 dollars for the cool idea.
That night what I thought at the time
was the group’s idea to meet up for dinner at some khmer soup place is when
things started to go ary. So a majority of the khmer people that came with us
wanted to go eat dinner as a group and everyone seemed fine with that and going
to get soup however that was not the case bc all the Americas don’t really like
soup including me however bc I thought this is what the majority wanted I just
planned to suck it up go and get food later. This was an issues bc they over
order pots of soup and then I guess they thought even people who did not eat should
pay however khmer culture they of course would never say it directly so instead
certain people where upset sulking my khmer tutor was one of these people. That
night we split up and some of went to the concert club and others got more
food it was not until the next morning
that I started to realize something was sort of not right sigh what I mean by
this half the group wanted to go to the thai market and the rest wanted to go
to a waterfall or something. We had two cars however bc of the night be4 my
khmer tutor in particular was on his guard to get his way which he is suborned
to begin with but he would not listen to a word I said to him that morning.
People often joke that him and me fight like brother and sister anyways I was
trying to get him to understand we should take one car to each place not to
leave people out but he rushed off and refused. Last night I talked to him
about this cuz I was sort of pissed about his infantile behavior bc at that
point and time he still never mentioned he was pissed. Anyways he realized last
night he was wrong and he was sorry I sort of feel a bit like I don’t know if I
could have changed that situation or handled it better. Looking back though at
that point and time the project was done I was not going to boss people around
or take a leadership role for where people want to go in their free time. Well the
hour they promised they would be at the market was more like 2 and ½ so we did
not go to a waterfall bc of lack of time we went to the resort with the
mangroves and then had a huge sea food lunch with crab etc it was soo
delicious. We headed back at 130 which means we got in really late and we also
had to stop 5 million times on the way back home for fruit and other things for
people to bring back to the village but overall despite some mis communication
and cultural difference I am happy with the outcome of the project and the trip
in general. Peace out from the other side of the world. 
