Although one of the best I've seen, third world countries do not always view these kinds of services (aka musuems) with a tremendous amount of importance. The facility itself is in need of major repair and one wonders if the government will ever subsidize such an endeavor.
Lunch consists of eating at a traditional Pho Noodle Shop where we all slirp down our soup broth swimming with noodles and meat.
Trang escorts us to the ticket agency and handles all our fares and luggage check in. We say our goodbyes with hugs and thank you's and exchanges of business cards.
Several hours later we land in Siem Reap.
Having never witnessed sun during our days in Vietnam, Cambodia quickly becomes the antithesis. The sun pours through the window of the plane and by the time we exit and walk across the outdoor tarmac, the humid balmy air delivers steady beads of sweat.
I'm a bit ancy as I go through the visa process and the customs formality. I know my friend Ohm is waiting passed all this security and I can't wait to see him. It's been almost two years since my last visit here and we have stayed in touch through e-mails. Ohm took me seriously when I suggested that we somehow start a school that is autonomous from any government agency. No small feat, he took it upon himself to scout out land parcels for rent. Together we could then secure the funding necessary to make this 'seed dream' a reality. In the meantime we addressed immediate issues such as the urgent need for fresh water wells and how to best go about finding locations, materials and the local support to do the labor.
All this back and forth communication and big ideas swirl in my head when I finally reach the doors.
However, his smile does fade while telling me that his current tour company boss is removing him from one and a half days worth of guiding us around. Seems he is needed to host some important British official.
Ohm is Cambodia's premier guide and if you've ever been in his presence and watched him in action, you'd understand why. His love of Cambodia, his knowledge of history and his ability to make everyone feel seen and heard is the stuff of masters.
He becomes deeply apologetic over the news. I become disappointed as I watch my expectations dissolve beyond my control. After back and forth banter in trying to work out solution and cell phone calls to the company that yield no compromise, Ohm makes a startling decision.
"I'll just quit, he earnestly offers. If they are not willing to work this out and get another then I'd rather not work for them. I can always freelance."
Moved by this sudden display of immense loyalty, I realize that by having to have another guide take us through temples is not worth him quitting his job over. I'm the only one in the group who will feel the loss of him as the day guide because I'll have the past experience to compare it to - and I will get over it.
"No, you keep the job. We'll work out our personal work schedule."
We do our best to plan as we travel in the mini-van towards the hotel. After two years of long distance e-mailing, it just feels too good to be back together and I don't want to waste another minute haggling with outside circumstances about time and schedules. We make plans to work on our project in the evenings and he will still be traveling with us towards the end to the makeshift school hut that he's already managed to put in progress.
"In spite of the change made by the tour company," he says, Ï have a wonderful surprise for you!"
We arrive at the Angkor Lotus Hotel - a gorgeous, simply furnished 4 star facility that I've stayed at before. After a quick shower and change into shorts, (plus spraying myself with a homeopathic bug repellent blend), I am ready for Siem Reap once again. The others are escorted to dinner and Ohm and I motorbike through a mixture of asphalt streets to a local restaurant bought by tourist dollars and the dirt thouroughfaires that are left for most of the local neighborhoods. I escape all western influence and dine on monk fish and rice and a bottle of cold Tiger Beer.
There under the breeze of a noisy, rusted electric fan attached to a wooden beam above our heads, he pulls out the documents and shows me the official permission granted to us by the Ministry of the Interior from the Cambodian People's Party. It is a document filled with the energy, prayers and human effort that I cannot even begin to fathom. He'd been saving this surprise for almost two months so he could tell me in person. To what lengths Ohm went through I may never know, but he is so proud to show this to me, that his eyes begin to tear and his voice begins to choke. His emotion feeds into mine, and I just hold the letter, written in the native language of Khmer, and run my fingers over the official governement seal. He also gives me a copy he translated into English.
We eat, we toast, we strategize. I pull out the nearly two thousand in US dollars, I've raised just for water wells alone and place it in his hands. To him, this is more than he's probably ever held at once. To me, I know I could have done better.
We talk for hours till I can no longer fight off the yawns that force themselves upon me from the heat and the beer.
We motorbike back and say our goodbyes for the night. Where he goes, what his living conditions are like, I have yet to see. I, on the other hand, walk into beauty, ride the elevator and enter into my air conditioned room.
You can't help but search deep within yourself and ask the most basic of questions. "Why do I have so much when millions upon millions have so little?"
It is a sobering, necessary question. One that will bring even the best of us to our whining knees if we ever have the gift of putting ourselves in such a contrast.
If that ever be the case, then there, in that humbled, kneeling position, may we vow to take action before rising up and going about our priviledged way.
I cried...xoxoxo to you david.
ReplyDeletecshellchick