Below is an account of my first 48 hours in Cambodia, spent in Phnom Penh, the country’s capital, as well as an update on what I’m doing now and how I’m serendipitously getting involved!

Big Love.

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I’d spent the first day here recovering from a red-eye flight where I slept in Malaysia’s airport and arrived to this new land at dawn. The only word I could tangibly produce for the first 24 hours was ‘confusion’. Pure confusion. Confusion about what was happening around me, what has happened here, feeling, strongly, the undertones of a country so recently raped to its core by the Khmer Rogue regime, a city overflowing with prostitution, poverty and a population of 1.5 million. I couldn’t help but wonder upon every face my eyes fell upon, “How were you affected? How are you affected today?” Within the first 15 minutes of arriving I witnessed a woman on the back of a motorbike with her left arm up in the air holding an IV tube that was attached to her 5 year old daughter’s wrist with a needle. The daughter sat between her parents as the father weaved the motorbike between rows of traffic. In the afternoon I bought a smoothie at a cafe where a clear, plastic donation box sat behind me saying, “Please help the victims.” There was no organization stated, no specification as to which victims – for who, for what, for why – and I wondered if it meant everybody.

I began the second day by eating fresh mangos from the rooftop of my hostel, peering out at the five story buildings around me that hundreds call home. I studied a few basic words of the Khmer language as I watched lines of laundry flail in the wind, strung along rusting roofs, bleeding, crackling, colorfully painted walls peeling away. After learning how to properly greet and thank the locals in their language, I laced up my shoes and ventured out in the chaos. Outdoor hair dressers, hundreds of small shops, naked kids, hungry dogs, motorbikes, tuk-tuks, vendors with plastic tables set up for the crowds; the smells of meat and heat and spices palpable. First stop: Daughters – an organization created to empower both women and transsexual men to leave the sex trafficking and prostitution industry by offering fair-trade jobs with good wages, on-site training, free medical care, psychological counseling and educational classes. I spent hours reading their literature, exploring and buying their hand-crafted goods and eating lunch at their cafe, mentally trying to wrap my mind around the reality and insanity of their situation, and the situation at whole. One in forty Cambodian girls will be sold into sex slavery, 90% of them being sold by their own families. Abused, raped, ostracized and trapped by financial burden and shame, the lines of choice for these women become entirely blurred. I know, deeply, that I am not the only one confused. I struggled with how to show my overwhelming gratitude and love to these women who were making my lunch, who are making leaps and bounds in theirs lives and in the lives of others, wanting to show my support, without coming off as offensive, or even worse, have it be mistaken as pity. I sat simply trying to bring the essence of equality, love, warmth into the room.

After lunch I took a motorbike taxi to Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, a former High School that was turned into a prison during the Khmer Rogue Regime from 1975-1979. I walked the haunting halls of their old quarters where over 20,000 innocent Cambodians were detained, interrogated, tortured and killed. I saw mug shots of hundreds of those arrested, heaps of their old clothes and hats, some of their actual skulls, old blood stains and markings on nearly every wall and floor, and the instruments once used for their torture. I spent nearly three hours there moving, reading, breathing slowly. After reading notes left in a visitors log, hearing foreigners speak out about how these same atrocities are happening, RIGHT NOW, in their own countries, I sat on a bench and took a breath. Praying. Breathing. Praying.

Later in the afternoon I walked to the Wat Langka temple for a community Vipassana meditation, where I arrived early and ended up talking for a half hour with a monk who invited me to sit with him. He wore the traditional orange robe, though this one appeared to be more modern with zippers and pockets where he kept his two cell phones. “Two cell phones?”, I thought, “For a monk?” I joked with him about this which led us into comparing the quality of our iPhone’s to one another’s and with his second phone, a Samsung Galaxy 6. The conversation continued, ranging from his thoughts on the US Embassy to his passion for the teachings of the Buddha to his love for Starbucks. He told me his favorite Starbucks drink is the “frappe, caramel” and that any time he visits Thailand he goes to get one “…or two”. I couldn’t help but laugh. Was I really in Cambodia, siting with a monk, talking about iPhones and Starbucks and Buddha?

I ended the day eating dinner with a beautiful view of their Independence Monument. I walked home stumbling across a plaza where hundreds of young teens were dancing to some Cambodian hip hop song. Half of them sat on the grass talking and watching, half of them were up and moving to the music. I literally said, “Yes!” out loud, smiling, as I witnessed their youth and joy and community.

Before I returned to my hostel I found myself in front of a huge, lit up monument for Cambodia’s king, which reminded me of something you’d see in Las Vegas. There were hundreds more families and friends walking along the river front, sitting on blankets eating dinner, selling food from their carts. I pondered, perhaps really soaking in for the first time, that we, you reading this, are really the minority here on this planet. Poverty ruling over half the worlds population. After seeing Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Thailand, Indonesia, Cambodia, _______, I’m realizing more and more that what I’m seeing is simply the tip of the iceberg, that so much of humanity here on earth live in poverty, war, destruction. This was only confirmed as I pick up the Phnom Penh Post Newspaper and read about the aftermath of Nepal, the 300,000 Sudanese refugees having their already slim aid be pulled out of the war-torn country, evacuations in the Philippines, street children on the Thai-Cambodian border being trafficked and then forced to beg for money for “school”, the list goes on. I am blown out of the water, again and again and again, by the need.

What a day. What a world we live in. Mama sent me off right that morning saying, “Let the voice of silence and the dark space between the stars enter and bring peace”. I used this as my mantra as I journeyed solo through this foreign land, soaking in the history and reality of this country and the gifts of my present moment. I closed the day by rolling out my yoga mat in the corner of my 14 bed dorm room, giving my respects to the earth, thanks for my breath, and acknowledgment of this life; asking to be a servant, to be of service, to continue being guided with purpose, here in the mix of all of this. Though I don’t feel any less confused or unclear, I feel blessed to be a witness. Though I have no idea of what Im suppose to do with any of this, I write, I share, I bow.

I send this off from the small, riverside town of Kampot, located in the south of Cambodia bringing hot winds, a view of the hillside, and a mellow, more wholesome way of life. Within my first 24 hours here, as divine guidance will have it, a beautiful teaching opportunity has landed in my lap. For the next month I will be volunteering here at a women’s only spa offering yoga and energy training workshops to young Cambodian women who are seeking to create a better life for themselves. The project takes on volunteers who can teach the young women a skill (such as hair dressing, reflexology, jewelry, facials, etc) that they can apply to their work at the spa, and beyond. The spa, Banteay Srey, has a cafe, a wide array of treatments and daily yoga classes, where all proceeds go to the girls’ wages and support of the on-site educational training that is offered to them for free. The question asked at the door is, “Do you want to learn?”; all other questions are left aside. I’ll be teaching yoga once or twice a day for traveler’s who’s donations will contribute to the cause, while also teaching a private yoga class for the girls themselves each morning before they begin work. In addition, I’ll be leading energy and intentional touch / healing workshops for these woman, incorporating Reiki, energy healing, presence, positive affirmations, voice empowerment, self-love and more. The spa is women only to honor traditional Khmer culture where massages are not given to men as it is inappropriate for women to touch men for money, even if it’s just a massage. Coming from a variety of difficult and challenging environments  the project seeks to re-empower them not only by offering employment and free vocational training that support their movement forward, but also by redefining touch, by rooting in self-love, by living and working in a space of equality, respect and trust. I am blessed and honored to be a witness.

Lastly, my dears, in addition to all the juicy goodness above, I’m excited for this opportunity to simply spend time writing. Reading. Strengthening. Shedding. Becoming. To continue building and unfurling into my own practice of self-love, self-care. To absorb, learn, listen, create. To put pen to paper, fingers to key board, producing writings, spoken word readings, poems, accounts, reports – communication that is infinite, that brings us to this ever-moving, standstill moment of NOW, where the moment I write this and the moment you read it are the same. A oneness in which I inhale, and you exhale, and together we create one breath. I’m not sure what it all looks like, but it doesn’t matter. It’s the journey that holds the nectar, and I’m excited to commit and nestle into the tasting, exploring, expressing of it’s sweetness. This is important y’all. This is important.

THANK YOU for journeying with me. May the voice of silence and the dark space between the stars enter and bring you peace.

Here’s to a month of creation my loves.

Here’s to the women of the world.

From my beating heart to yours,

Hugs!

http://daughtersofcambodia.org

http://banteaysreyproject.org/mission/

  

Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia

 

 

Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum

Wat Langka Temple

 

Monk friend on his phone

Vipassana meditation

Independence Monument

Vegas looking shrines for the King

Kampot riverside sunset