The Power of A Smile

The Power of a Smile

This man, an 87-year-old Buddhist monk,  performed a blessing ceremony over our school group as we prepared to leave our local village home-stay. Looking upon him and seeing all the years of wisdom reflected in his eyes, I couldn't help but think about all that this man must have seen in his 87 years of life. He lived through the brutal Khymer Rouge regime - a regime that arrested, tortured and killed intellectuals and monks. Though we were unable to communicate with this man as a result of language barriers, I was moved by his radiant positivity, spirit and smile. Cambodians smile with their whole heart. The give everything they have to help others and while language, religion and customs may divide us, a simple smile has the power to unite. 


Moved Beyond Words

It has been a little over twenty four hours since I have left Cambodia and my mind and body are still reeling from the experience. 

I honestly have no words.

I am speechless.

What mere words exist in the English language that can effectively convey all the beauty, wonder, power and joy I felt over the past week? 

Perhaps a few pictures will do it.......

The above pictures were taken on our second day in Cambodia. We arrived in Siem Reap the previous afternoon and spent our first evening in the city eating dinner, walking around and getting accustomed to the new environment. We woke up at 5 am the next day to watch the sunrise over Angkor Wat. It was an absolutely stunning experience. The temples of Angkor Wat are so beautiful and awe-inspiring. Though the grounds were crowded with tourists, it did not take away from the experience. I snapped as many pictures as I could in an attempt to capture the monument's beauty, but of course technology is limited in its ability to capture magnitude and inspiration. I received a blessing from a Buddhist in the temple and felt incredibly serene and peaceful for the remainder of my day and trip. Though I had to be a vigilant and responsible teacher looking out for my students, I managed to slip away for a few quiet moments of contemplation during our walk around the temples to reflect upon all that I am grateful for in this world.

These photographs were taken during the three days we spent in a local village on the outskirts of Siem Reap. We were tasked with filling the foundation of a library being built next to the village's secondary school. For two days we dug, carried and piled sand into the foundation of the structure that is to become their school library. For many of our students it was their first time doing any kind of physical labor. Though we were all baking and sweating and working under the steaming sun for hours, the toils of our labor felt minimal considering all the work that is left to be done to help this community thrive and grow.

There is always more work that can be done. There is always something that can be improved upon or made better. Though the students left the school site feeling accomplished, I was not satisfied. There is so much more we could have all given...

Buddhist blessing ceremony upon our departure. 

My father instilled in me a love for all things creepy and crawly. I have always loved tarantulas and when we stopped at this local market for lunch, I just had to try all the exotic "snacks". 

On this trip I consumed:

Tarantula
Cricket
Grasshopper
Water beetle
Cockaroach 
Baby frog (stuffed with lemongrass and chiles)
Tiny clam
Fish ball (with chiles)
Bamboo stuffed with sticky rice
Boiled aborted chicken fetus (with cilantro, chiles and other spices)
Sour whole duck soup
Palma fruit 
Milk fruit 
Jack fruit
Rambutan
Palm wine (which was honestly more powerful than vodka...)

These are pictures of the Tuol Sleng prison and killing fields. The prison was a particularly painful place to visit. It has remained more or less preserved since it was shut down in 1979. Blood stains can still be seen on the floors, walls and ceilings. It was a place of inconceivable acts of torture and murder. Two of my students, both a boy and a girl, asked for me to take them outside because they were crying. It was a very powerful place and truly gut-wrenching. My students were in absolute shock at the fact that all this horror took place  and yet their history textbooks barely touch upon this part of history. 

The killing fields are where soldiers under the orders of Pol Pot secretly tortured, executed and buried millions of Cambodians. Though Pol Pot was only in power from 1975-1979 he ordered the execution of over 3 million people during that time. Bones and fragments of clothes and teeth can still be seen as you walk around the grounds of the killing fields. Every year, during the rainy season when more pieces of human remains surface, men go to the killing fields to recover the bones and pieces to preserve them. 

On our last day in Cambodia, I dreaded leaving. I couldn't help but think about how real and meaningful of a country Cambodia is. I kept saying to myself and our kind tour guides (above) that I will come back. I need to live here. Life here is just so much richer and more meaningful. It is truly unlike any other place I have ever lived or travelled to. 


As if my experiences in Cambodia weren't life-changing enough, on the morning of my last day in Cambodia I received the following letter....

I got into Graduate School!!!!! This summer I'll be attending Columbia University's Teacher College to get my Master's in Teaching English. I had to take a picture of this letter with my camera and check it again and again to make sure that it was real. I couldn't believe it. I honestly still can't. 

I cannot believe my good fortune and my life and all that I have in it. I am truly blessed and so thankful for everything I have in my life. It almost isn't fair. How is it that I have so much in this world when others have so little? I will never stop feeling this utter sense of gratitude.


Reality Check

After our plane landed in Riyadh, I was greeted by what now sounded to me like harsh and guttural sounds. As the customs and immigrations officers barked out orders in Arabic and broken English, I couldn't help but notice how aggressive Arabic now seemed to me. This was surprising to me. I had always considered Arabic to be a beautiful language. I loved the rolling sounds and melodic rhythm of speech. I thought the Arabic script to be so beautiful I got the words "love" and "peace" tattooed on my wrist at the age of 18 as a way of honoring the Arab culture I revered so deeply as a child. 

Yet after a week of living in Cambodia, listening to their extremely foreign sounding but upbeat and chipper language of Khymer, Arabic seemed so much more pugnacious sounding to me. It also occurred to me that Arabs don't really smile that much, while Khymer people smile constantly. When in Saudi Arabia I try to disguise my foreign-ness - I cover my hair and work hard not to draw too much attention to myself. In Cambodia, my foreign-ness is welcomed and embraced and considered beautiful as opposed to insidious. The Khymer people made me feel welcome and I was looked upon with interest and curiosity as opposed to Saudi where I am ostracized from their society and looked upon with suspicion and condemnation. 

I left King Khaled International Airport afraid that my recent experiences in Cambodia had "ruined me" and made me resentful of Arab culture. I do not resent Arab culture, nor do I find the language and society any less beautiful. The truth is, having now seen a part of the world that is rooted in compassion, forgiveness and equality, my tolerance for Saudi's conservativism has waned. There is no reason for the Saudi's to be so hard and aggressive and distrustful. The Cambodian people have suffered horrendously and have had to endure decades of torture, pain, destruction and poverty and yet they smile. The Saudi's have not been tortured, massacred or forced into submission by internal forces (or even external forces for that matter). They have lived wealthy and relatively peaceful lives for years since the discovery of oil in 1938. Simply put, they have NOTHING to be so angry about. What are they so afraid of? Why do they fear female empowerment and why do they look upon Westerners with distrust? In Saudi Arabia I am constantly criticizing myself for being too white, too Western, too liberal, too loud, too feminist, too confrontational, too emotional, too skeptical..... In Cambodia, I was free to be myself. More than that, I was free to be a better version of myself.

So now the question remains....what next? 

Right now, speaking on pure instincts, I would like next year to be my last year in Saudi Arabia and I would like to move to Cambodia in 2015. I cannot be sure if there will be a job opening for me at the International School of Phenom Pehn, but I am going to look into all the teaching opportunities in that country.

However....now that I have been accepted to graduate school, I wonder if I should not make the more financially responsible decision to stay a fourth year in Saudi Arabia and save money. Money. It's really what everything always comes down to in the end doesn't it? 

Fortunately, I have some time to think about this new big life decision. I must carefully balance the needs of my heart with those of my head...