The Raging Mekong and recent events.

It's only been a few weeks since my last post but already so much has passed by that I haven't gotten around to. I've had a few incredible weeks here as of late but this post will focus primarily on my 2 week old river adventure (Nov 13-14). One of my fellow MCC worker-friends named Daniel invited me to join a group of expats in Phnom Penh that was planning on doing a rafting adventure down the Mekong River. The Mekong is a huge river that tears through SouthEast Asia (see the wikipedia page to learn more.) As I talked to Daniel I found out that we were not only trying to raft down the Mekong river, but we were going to aimlessly drive 100 kilometers away from Phnom Penh, jump out at a farming village and ask some random local to teach us how to build a raft out of banana trees, build the raft, float down the river all day, then spend the night in the wilderness sleeping in hammocks. I said I was interested.

Note: Sorry I don't have good quality photos of this event, we all took video and are hoping to compile the footage sometime.

After work friday night the four of us expats hopped in a cab and headed up to Kampong Cham, a small city on the river bank where we would wake up at the crack of dawn and start our adventure. After clearly eating someone's leftovers for breakfast at a nearby market we grabbed food and water for the trip and jumped on some motos and headed into a nearby village. Now just so you all know -- Daniel and one of the other expats, Steve, speak pretty good Khmer so we were able to make pretty clear conversation with the locals. This was absolutely necessary because English is pretty rare in the more rural parts of Cambodia (obviously). So after telling our plan to the villagers we got laughed at quite a lot. "Chquet," which means "Crazy," was a pretty common word used to describe us. It took some warming up to (and some money offers), but eventually the locals gave into the idea and agreed to help us build a raft. We ended up following this old woman who looked to be probably 150 years old into her back yard where we found a nice selection of banana trees. I've come to learn that banana trees are absolutely perfect for making rafts which was great for us because they were plentiful out here. The next three hours were spent working and learning how to make a raft. I must say it really was an incredible process to watch and the raft turned out fantastic. Using only a machete, axe and line of string, the whole lot of us were able to construct a ghetto-looking raft out of banana and bamboo trees. We even got a makeshift sail up and it was buoyant enough to keep the four of us afloat as long as we stood in our respected corners of the raft.

Raft construction while the local children watch and laugh.

We pushed off the shore around 10:45 and waved goodbye to our raft-making teachers and new friends feeling content with how kind and helpful they all were. At this point we were all on top of the world because it had actually worked out, perhaps even better than we originally hoped. Our raft was badass to say the least. We were slowly cruising down the Mekong on a banana raft and it felt awesome. Most the day was spent swimming along side the raft, abandoning ship to jump on the shore to see how ballin' our raft looked and do some cliff jumping, relaxing, enjoying the view, and simply being totally cool white people. We waved to the people along the coast who were washing their cows and horses in the river and talked to fishermen as they cruised by our tiny (but respectable) watercraft. Every conversation ended up in laughs and giggles as we told people we were trying to take the raft all 100 kilometers back to Phnom Penh. It's not everyday 4 white guys sail down the Mekong river on a banana raft so we had a lot of fun with it. We were at the mercy of the Mekong and it was very kind to us, perhaps a bit too gentle actually.

My three shipmates swim to shore to cliff jump as I man the raft.

Unfortunately, we were quick to discover why people thought it was so crazy for us to want to float all the way to Phnom Penh. The Mekong river, which was supposed to be fast-moving and slightly dangerous, was more like the lazy river you find at a water park. Our average trip speed was something like 1.5 kilometers an hour. As the sun was going down we had only traveled 14 kilometers -- only 14% of the way there. We had all figured we weren't going to actually make it to Phnom Penh, but it wasn't really too heart breaking. At this point the sun was going to set soon and we were in the dead center of one of the worlds biggest rivers. We needed to get to shore within the hour and didn't have way of effectively getting there. We all jumped off the raft and did the only thing that seemed to get that fat little raft to move -- we got behind it and pushed. Now for those of you who know me, you know I'm super duper strong and have monster biceps (for those of you who don't know me, I'm kidding). It was exhausting and I'm not sure I've ever done that much swimming before, but the four of us managed to get the raft to shore before the sun went down.

More raft construction, I was doing more watching/less working at this point.

Our original plan was to set up camp in the wilderness and spend the night in our hammocks. Unfortunately, in our current location we were surrounded by small farming villages so we didn't have many options as to where we would dock considering we couldn't be on the water with the sun down. For a moment I want you to think what you would do if you lived in a rural farming village in Cambodia, had never seen a white person before, and had been told a banana raft with 4 white men on board was about to touch shore in your backyard. What would you do? The correct answer is watch, and that's what the entire village did, I'd guess close to 70 people stood on the bank (including naked babies, but no monkeys) and stared in awe as we walked our tiny raft to shore (I kind of felt like Christopher Columbus, but without the intention of taking all their land). After a lot of talking and a crap-ton of being stared at we eventually got the situation under control. There was a guy in the village about my age who was attending university in Phnom Penh and spoke good english who must of felt like a total super hero because he was our link to the village and form of communication even though Steve and Daniel speak good Khmer -- they'd rather have a Cambodian do the translating. We were offered dinner at his sisters house and talked about getting a ride back to Phnom Penh in the morning since he just so happened to be going in a van the next day - worked out pretty well for us. After snarfing down a bunch of onions, eggs, and MSG whilst being stared at by 50 villagers (we counted), we were then all questioned by the 'village police.' I can't imagine these guys had a very exciting job and they were all over us and our situation. The whole process got kind of annoying even though they just wanted information, but we really didn't even want to stay in the village and just wanted to go to bed. After all, we were pretty beat from the recent water aerobics. We set up our hammocks, talked to the police and hit they hay.

Now there are a few mysteries I've come to find in Cambodia. A new one I discovered this particular night was, "How in all that is holy do people in the village sleep?" A group of men (most drunk) having a long, jolly ol' conversation. A woman with a crying baby. A man with cell phone and a friend who apparently likes to make calls at 4 in the morning. A rooster. Cows. The sound of a generator. Rave music. These things along with a few other sounds I honestly can't even describe equal my sleeping experience. Needless to say, I didn't get a lot of sleep that night, but I was definitely ready to get in that van at 5:30. At this point the adventure was over and our mission may not have been 'accomplished' but I would definitely consider it 'complete.' We built a raft from scratch and floated down the Mekong river all day long, how cool is that? We slept in some rural village and hitched a ride back into Phnom Penh the following morning - who does that? There's probably plenty more tiny things that could be said about this trip but I'll just leave it be for now. Bottom line I had an adventure and it was so good. And I managed not to get eaten by a shark or some crazy river dragon.

That's the word. What else to say? This past weekend was Water Festival (4 day weekend with 2 holidays) in Phnom Penh where people from all over Cambodia come to celebrate the end of the rainy season and have boat races, concerts, and a whole bunch of other fun things. I however, decided not to join the festivities due to the fact that it is apparently always overcrowded and these 4 days were just begging me to go to the beach. So I went back down to Sihanoukville for some winding down, and it was fantastic. Had a great weekend but came home to some very sad news. On the last day of the festival there was a stampede on one of the bridges by the riverside and some 450 people have been confirmed dead. Glad I ditched town this weekend, but hope we can all be praying for the families of those who were killed or injured. Tomorrow has been a declared a national day of mourning which happens to also be Thanksgiving. A bit strange to tell people I'll be giving thanks on the day of mourning. Anyways, hope everyone back home has a great turkey day and that all is well.

Peace.

The Beaches of October

I haven't written in a while so I made it long.

Last weekend I was invited by my host brother to go down south to the beaches of Sihanoukville with a group of Cambodians from various local churches. Originally I didn't really know what to expect from the experience. I was told that this was a "youth camp" (also called 'Friendship Camp') with "kids." As I've learned so far, in Cambodia it's best not to make expectations because they've never been very accurate. I actually initially thought this camp was going to be on the weekend before it actually was - I've learned that leaving on "Thursday" doesn't necessarily mean "this Thursday" (this has happened on several occasions). I also ended up coming home a day earlier than I thought - I didn't really find out until we were boarding the bus home - "oh we're going home now? Whatever you say."

Anyways, Thursday morning I find myself hopping on a bus with about 25-30 Cambodians who all look between the ages of 16-25. These were the "kids" I was going to be joining for "friendship camp." The idea behind friendship camp is for the older kids (21-25) to be friends with the younger kids (15-20) for the weekend and have a space to worship and learn about Jesus - I ended up being somewhere in the middle, mostly as good company. On the bus, we were joined by 9 adults from Singapore that were sponsoring the event and brought a lot of leadership and energy to the group. So as the bus was nearing the final destination I was content knowing I was in the company of friendly, loving people that were all excited about the gospel - what a great place to be.

Friendship Camp 2010. Can you find Waldo?

We all stayed at a hotel called 'Holiday' which was a 5 minute walk from the beach and spent most of our time in hotel meeting room singing songs and praising God. Anytime there was a moment when someone would ask the audience to volunteer or share something, most the Cambodians nervously looked around and would always say, "Michael! Michael!" Being the only white kid in a group of 30 people has it's baggage, and makes you a very popular figure (especially if someone needs to be singled out!). But I didn't mind, I actually thought it was quite fun to be involved as much as possible, and Cambodians have become well known to make sure EVERYONE is involved. I would get stares on the beach when people would walk by this massive ball of Cambodian youth acting crazy only to see a white kid in the middle of the cluster acting just as crazy as everyone else. It felt good.

The second day two foreigners approached me during breakfast wondering what the heck I was doing with all these people and if there were other foreigners with me (they saw me on the beach). I explained to them my situation and they eventually told me that one of them was a Clairvoyant (look it up) which was a neat experience in itself, there aren't exactly a lot of them walking around the beaches of Cambodia these days. After morning worship we went to a local restaurant which would become very familiar - we went here for every single meal during the retreat, thankfully they had a variety of food. Sihanoukville is well known for it's fresh seafood and everyone laughed and watched as I had to guess how to eat a crab.

On the second day we went to the market after lunch to get some food for a big BBQ we were planning on having for our final meal on the beach and I was invited to go so I could 'site see' also known as 'we need someone to carry the food.' But it was a cool site, almost a bit like an aquarium but the animals are either dead or about to die (I saw a shark lying on a table, still alive but probably not for long). To get home we decided that there was no reason for us to take more than 1 tuk tuk for the seven of us and the giant cooler of food (a tuk tuk usually fits 4). I sat on the outside of the cart on something that definitely wasn't a seat holding on to the roof as it was the only support I could find. I had fun talking to the moto driver who spoke good english but also encouraged me to speak Khmer - we had a nice conversation and he eventually asked me where I work. It's hard to explain in a new language so I ended up saying, "I work for a Jesus organization." The funny part came next; he then told me he knew Jesus and that Jesus teaches him Taekwondo. I think we know a different Jesus...

Back to the hotel and back to being a friend. Over the week I got to know many of the kids better and now have good friendships with many of kids who attend my church. One specific bonding experience was with the church drummer Samuel who likes to listen to american pop music. I wasn't proud to represent that music genre but I definitely know the songs, and we sang them together in the hotel room as I did the robot. He likes Justin Beiber and the song 'enie minie' just came out -click here to listen- we grooved to the Beibster. I learned that by being myself helped the others feel comfortable around me and they were entertained by the idea of this slightly crazy american hanging out amongst the group. I also ended up having a group of girls around the age of 16 flirt with me - I usually didn't know what they were saying but lots of giggles - nice! "Michael do you know what 'Sraalan' means?" It's the verb for, "to love." Don't worry everyone, I haven't gotten married yet and I'm not pregnant.

So now we tell the final tale of the adventure, my favorite part. The last night eating BBQ on the beach. We swam, we played soccer, we played the guitar, and we played games. Then we fired up the grill and got our fill of squid, shrimp, pork, fish, coca-cola, pineapple, and other tasty sides. This is where things quickly escalated from awesome to super awesome. To my right kids started shooting off fireworks in honor of the Kings birthday. My left was entertained by monkeys swinging in a nearby tree as a local started doing some form of fire juggling. The sun was setting in front of me and I was surround by great company - then we started passing out glow sticks. By body nearly exploded from shear amazement. "This is all the stuff that's awesome, how could this night get any better?" After walking the beach with Samuel and another friend we returned to find the rest of the group had started a big singing and dancing ball of wonder. We marched in a circle clapping, laughing and singing (or pretending to sing, I don't know many Khmer songs). Small children and a baby with only a t-shirt found that glow sticks and a white kid was a great source of entertainment, the basically naked baby chased me around the circle for hours poking my leg with a glow stick, I couldn't stop laughing. Then it was my turn to contribute to the circle of song and dance. "Michael do you know the song 'Beautiful Girl?'" It took me a while, but they were talking about Sean Kingston, and they wanted me to sing the song in the middle of the circle. I only know the chorus to that song and can't say it's on my iTunes - with that in mind i said, "of course I'll sing it!" - I was high on life to the max. I sang the chorus 3 times and danced in the circle and everyone laughed, then they wanted another song... this is when I made either the best decision or worst decision in my life. Looking to Samuel in the crowd I said let's sing 'enie minie' together. The circle was clapping and we were stars, again I only knew the chorus "Shorty is an enie menie miney moe lova" so I didn't know to what to do for the chorus, because Samuel definitely knew it - so I did what I always do in this scenario - I laid down a fat beat. Beat boxing in a circle of Cambodian high schoolers is a great experience and I recommend it to anyone who gets the opportunity.

Me and SoKun sippin on a cup of good times.

We left the next day renewed in our experience and happy to have made new friends both from Singapore and Cambodia. This weekend taught me a few things that I can carry throughout Cambodia. We can be in our home congregation or we can be halfway around the world listening to a sermon we can't translate. We can be at home enjoying the company of our close friends or we can be on the beaches of Sihanoukville making new ones. We literally can be on the other side of the world and we can still be ourselves. No matter where we go or how we conduct our business we can find the love of God and the love of others. It's mighty powerful.