Day 2:Kampot province and CPP coconuts

I wake up before dawn. I slept well. Like a rock, in fact. If I dreampt, I don't remember. It gets light around 6. It gets dark around 6. We're pretty close to the equator, so the days are pretty equinotic (?) here all year round. I don't want to wake anyone, so I lay in bed for a little while and listen to the sounds of the area. Birds, weird frogs, dogs, and the occasional moto driving by. As it gets light, I creep downstairs. I unlock the door and wander around outside a little, but only within the walls. The gate is locked and I don't remember whioch key it is. The front door lock was easy, as I had seen Sam put it up the previous night. All the doors and gate are padlocked at night. There are bars on everything. They don't look like bars in the US, and it's standard here. They're on every house. Everywhere. So, not menacing, just different. Plus, you simply can't take chances when you're responsible for 30 defenseless children. I sit outside at the stone table for about a half an hour and Sam comes down, starting to get ready for our trip to the South. We're supposed to pick Peter and his girlfriend up at 7:15. I'm long ready to go. Anne is still upstairs, and Sam is running a little slow. Hah, good to know I'm not the only one who fucks up sometimes. It makes all of this less intimidating.
We pick Peter and gf up at about 7:25. Only 10 minutes. No big deal. They just live down the street, basically. The street is crowded with stalls and motos and kids running around and dogs and food and random crap of all kinds. A guy rindes by on a moto with two giant propane tanks on the back. The road is only about 12 feet wide.. 14 at the most. And when I say the road, I mean the distance from the front of one stall to the front of the one facing it on the other side of the street. Not the curb. Curbs exist here and there in PP to impress the tourists and make it harder for motos to compete with larger vehicles when trying to drive on the sidewalk or whatever is on the other side.
After we get Peter, we head out for Kampot down highway (Hahahahaha)3. Highway. It's a one and a half lane road... what we would call an undivided country lane in the US. It's filled with motos and trucks and cars and chaos. Once again, driving here is... well, I can't even describe it. I'll try to later, but I think I'll just film it. It's like being on a rollercoaster, but with a dynamically changing track. Great fun for adrenaline junkies.
Peter has talked to a village leader and a commune leader from Kampot province, and they say there are people who need help down there. We have 'plans' to meet first with the village leader at 9 am or so, and then with the commune leader. We're running a little late, but that apparently doesn't matter much. The road from PP to Kampot province is impossible to 'cruise' down. It's like leaving the parking lot of a major concert or sporting event... the whole way there. So, on the way we goof off and chat, sometimes talking about the work, others just being silly and cracking jokes, other times I'm just staring out at Cambodia as it passes by. It's amazinly beautiful. In some parts it looks alot like the Southern plains of Texas; sandy soil, patches of low plants, palm trees spaced out.. but not the same. More lush, and something about it is just alien. The shapes of the plants, the mountains in the background, the water buffalo wandering around. It certainly isn't southern Texas.
Signs for the Sam Rainsy party are everywhere. At almost every inhabited point there are half a dozen or more. There are CPP posters as well, but not as many. I don't think the CPP needs a whole lot of advertising; their 'representatives' will surely be around very soon to tell everyone who's going to win the elections on the 27th. They're so considerate.
We arrive at the turnoff for the village. It's a barely visible road right next to a little stand of some kind. No one's operating it at the moment, so who knows. We then follow a dirt track back into the countryside. Now, as far as 'civilization' goes, it basically follows rivers and roads. There are very few places where a town or village touches a major road and goes back off of it with streets and such. They're usually built almost entirely along the road, so you have long, thin towns. Once you get about 100 meters off of the road, it's almost instant coutry. Everywhere. PP is anexception, of course, but everywhere along the major roads this seems to be the case. This place was no exception. Once we drove back a quarter mile or so, but certainly not much more, it was as if we were hundreds of miles from the 'highway". And it was beautiful. It was unbelievable... like a little quiet paradise. Rice fileds, dry and wet. Coconut palms, some trees like date palms but with different fruit.. similar to dates. water lillies everywhere, people on bicycles everywhere, people working in the fields planting, and harvesting rice. Everyone smiling. And no trash. So far, everywhere I've gone has been littered with, well, litter. Everywhere. Even in front of the royal palace.This place, however, is almost pristine. We finally get to a place where we have to park... we can't really go any further. So, we pull the car up to the front of a house that sits right on the road and park. The people there are very friendly and show us where to park. A man on a bicycle knows where the village chief is and tells Peter that he'll take us to him, so we all set off on foot through the rice fields. Even Sam and Anne are commenting on how beautiful it is here, and they've been all over Cambodia. It really is like paradise. The color of green that dominates the landscape is one that I think the West is probably completely unaware of... I've never seen anything like it. The sky is filled with clouds, like a herd of slow, peaceful animals, moving by and creating shadows on the landscape.
Of course there are most of the things you would expect; a water buffalo sitting in the field, someone riding by on a bicycle with a big sack of rice, coconut trees everywhere. And again, unlike PP, there's no trash.
We work our way to a house where there are people milling around, seemingly doing nothing but trying to stay cool. It seems that this is what most Cambodians do most of the time. Now, the temperature here and the temp in Texas are basically the same. The humidity here is slightly higher, but not incredibly so like I expected. My guess is that poor diet is what makes these people lethargic and ineffective in the heat. Surely a people who've lived here for thousands of years have adapted to the heat...
At this forst house, Sam and Anne ask Peter "Is this where the leader lives?" No, he tells us. He is talking to a man I presume is the head of the house. I can't tell. A woman starts bringing us chairs and a younger man starts cutting open coconuts for us. He uses a rusty, fire-carboned hatchet to cut the tops off of them and then brings them over and sets them down on a table. The coconuts in Cambodia are not what we think of as coconuts in America. We think of little hairy, butty things about the size of a softball. Not so here. They are green and as big as a person's head, with smooth skin like a mango. The 'milk' from these coconuts is extremely sweet... like nectar. It's very good and I try to drink all I can while waiting for Peter to figure out where we're going next. There's no way. There is simply too much liquid in one of these to drink quickly. So, I do the best I can, getting sticky nectar all over my chin and shirt.
We're wasting time here and no one really knows why, but this kind of experience is so new to me that I don't mind at this point. Sam is getting antsy though, so we move on with new guides. Two teenage boys start to take us down on of the village paths, further in the direction we headed in. Well, they could be as old as 22, but poor Cambodians look extremely young because of, among other factors, poor nutrition. But, they're smiling and chatting with Peter as we walk through yet more pattys past more cows, chickens, dogs, and paradisical landscape. When you see pictures of rice pattys and they seem to be separated by tiny, narrow humps of dirt, those are village paths. Those are what we, the bicycles, the cows, and the occasional motorcycle use as roads in the villages. The almost one lane wide dirt roads that link the villages could be thought of as highways out here.
We finally arrive at a bigger house with more of a compound feel than the last one, but still with the ubiquitus random merchandise from civilization hanging from the 'ceiling' in the bottom part of the house. There are posters in Khmer here and there, most look official but a few are adverts. The village leader is there. An older man, probably 55-60, he's very friendly, very quiet, and has a younger aid talking to Peter, almost as if he's sizing us up and deciding whether or not to talk to us directly. If that's the case, he decides in our favor pretty quickly. I'm trying to keep a respectable distance from the conversastion and let Sam and Anne and Peter conduct the business. Hopwever, I think I'm making things worse, as one of the dogs has decided he doesn't like the cut of my jib and keeps following me around the clearing barking at me. So, I go and sit down at the table under the house with everyone else. The dog shuts up. The village chief smiles at me warmly, so I'm relieved that I didn't flubb anything by joining them.
They talk for about 10 minutes and Sam starts getting visibly impatient (to me but likely not apparent to the village leader) as we discover that, at least in this village, there really aren't any orphans at all and the poor people here are just people with fewer chickens, and it's starting to seem like they just want a handout. I don't know if that's true or not; they could think we just came by to dole out 'aid' to anyone poorer than us. A precident set by stupid westerners and worthless NGOs who don't consider the dynamics created and destroyed by thoughtless gifts of free money.
As we walk from the village leader's house back toward the car, Sam and I walk a little ahead of everyone else so we can talk about what just happened. He's pissed. He's frustrated because we drove about an hour through insane traffic, using time he could be spending on other things, seemingly for nothing. Hee tells me that Peter talked to these people on the phone, and should have known better what to expect. He thinks at this point that Peter is just using this excursion to 'find kids' as a way to get out of town and see the place where he used to live... a sort of 'working vacation'. I tell him that maybe Peter just doesn't understand what he means... what kind of criteria he has for children to take in. Peter seems to just be telling the locals 'poor kids', as so far all of the kids they've told us about have parents, they just can't get to a school. These kids definitely need help, but we're looking for the worst cases... emergency cases where the kids not only have no money and no way to get to school, but no medical, no parents, and no chance at all.
Anne says it would be rude not to go on after this to the commune leader's house after Peter told him we're coming, so Sam grudgingly agrees to go and see if this guy has any useful information. He says he's going to give Peter a stern talking to, but agrees that he could be wrong.
We get back to the car, where the people who live (or are just hanging around) the house where we parked have covered the windshield and driver's window with reed mats to keep the heat out. They're sitting there smiling, just like when we arrived. We thank them all and say 'bye bye' and drive back toward hwy 3.
We drive a little further South on h3 until we get to the commune leader's house. Liike all Khmer houses, the main house is the second level and the ground level is a combination of patio, garage, and shop. Inside you can see that he has nice tile and refrigerated cases, though some are not running, as they have clothing and other non-food goods in them on display.
We exchange greetings and sit down. The conversation starts, Peter starts into the 'Thank you for allowing us to talk to you and blah blah...". Eventually, he gets down to business and starts telling the man what we're here for and shows him the 'brochure' which is just a printout of the Chibodia website with some extra documents. None of it is in Khmer. So, basically this does nothing except show the leader some pretty pictures. Eventually, he says that we should talk to his boss, the commune leader. The commune leader? We thought HE was the commune leader. There's obviously some miscommunication going on. Peter is starting to frustrate me at this point. The leader leaves on his moto and returns shortly with a slightly younger, but larger and more casually confident man. He's not fat, but barrel chested with strong arms. Just more 'manly' than the other commune leader or whatever he really is, who is in his 40s and fairly thin and unassuming. This second man is quite obviously a leader. Maybe we'll get somewhere...
Once again the greetings, once again the coconuts. I'm a little nervous at this point... am I going to offend him if I don't drink it all? This guy is a bigshot. So, I try to drink as much as I can. There are straws this time, so I don't have to show him how we pour coconut milk down our shirts in America. No doubt he's heard the legends. I don't want to show off, so I use the straw.
He and Sam begin talking through Peter. They go back and forth several times, seeming to reiterate the same things... Peter doesn't seem to be able to convey what Sam is telling him to, and we're all realizing that Peter's English is, in fact, not so great. This is a problem, but they keep at it, trying to reach an understanding. Peter seems to be telling the guy that we're 'here to help poor people'.. or at least that's what it seems like this guy is hearing. He says he can donate land and a building if we'll donate the funds. Seeming now like he wants barang to come in and give him money. They try again.. this time pulling out the pamphlet, brochure, whatever you want to call it. It's basically a print out of several pages of the website and a copy of the lease. It's in English. ~sigh~. The guy looks at the pictures and tells Peter that 'anyone can get pictures and say that they took them'. Good point, and as he can't read the rest, he has no way of knowing. Hmmm...
...So finally Sam becomes a little angry (but doesn't show it) and tells Peter that he has to try to translate correctly. He tells him that orphan does NOT mean 'poor child' or anything like that, it means both parents are dead or that both parents are gone. He tells him that our priority is children who have no chance. Children who are poor but have loving families undoubtedly need help, but that isn't the mission of the orphanage. Peter wressels with this a few times and finally gets it... we think. We talk some more and find out that the guy we're talking to, the 'other commune leader' is actually the CPP (Cambodian People's Party) representative in the commune. He's a bigshot. He's a bigshot with a moped... er, moto. The CPP is Hun Sen's party. The CPP is the party who tossed out the King, tossed out the Prince, exiled Sam Rainsey. CPP is the party who harass people every election to get 98% popular vote. This guy we're talking to now is their man in central Kampot province. And oddly, he's a pretty cool guy. And by cool, I don't just mean he smiles at us and brings us straws for our coconut milk. He's cool because all through this exchange, he's scrutinizing us, our reactions, our faces. He tells us that barang NGOs have been here before and made promises, but they crapped out before anything was done and he has to think of the welfare of his people. He can't let some well-meaning whiteys come in and make a bunch of promises and raise everyone's hopes. He likes us, but he has to make sure that we're on the level. He's a good leader. In Cambodia, that's like saying he's a progressive, understanding, socially-conscious Republican. But he is. Or at least he seems that way...
So, he agrees to take us to observe the conditions of the two groups of children that he thinks meet our criteria for eligibility. (And don't get me started on that. It's a disgusting, heart-breaking moral dilemma that I have to confront every day and it never gets easier).
He immediately asks Sam for the keys to the Chibodia-mobile (a used Toyota 4-Runner) and hops into the driver's seat. Sam doesn't protest. Let him feel like a bigshot for an hour. He drives us a little way down the road to a house right on hwy3. We passed it on the way in. Like all khmer 'settlements', this one is a clump of similar traditional stilted buildings and little sheds and such, and nothing demarking the separate properties. We can guess where the girls live. One of the 'houses' is literally a shack. No door, nothing inside but some dirty blankets. It's not tall enough for an adult to stand up in... a Khmer adult. That's about 5 feet tall. When we pull up, about 8 people wander up. All ages. Most look, well, like villagers... they're dressed in poor clothes; some in just pants, others in dirty t-shirts, etc. One woman, however, is wering a nice colorful shirt with chiffon and several bracelets and visibly a fancy colorful bra. Now, the Khmer people are pretty conservative in that sense, so it doesn't look whoreish, just like semi-transparent tops that Western girls wear that show the bra through a little. Anyway, the point is that she's obviously got alot more money than the rest and she wants everyone to know it. Our CPP friend finds the the first of the kids and introduces us through Peter. It's a girl whose parents have died. Her aunt "takes care of her", read using her as slave labor and not letting her go to school while her kids get to go to school. She looks about 11. She's 15. At this point I'm still sort of hanging back... I'm only in country for a day and I don't want to be presumptuous, so I'm not sure exactly what the conditions of this situation are. I hear a little and Sam sort of fills me in later, but there's a good deal of uncertainty. CPP shows us the house that her parents had... it's a small shack on stilts. It looks deserted. It turns out that the girl lives with the aunt. That's nice of her...
After talking to her briefly, we move on to the next place. There are 4 kids at the next place. Their mother has died, but we're not sure how long ago. Their father takes care of them, but he recently lost his arm in an accident, so he can barely work. They live in what can only be called a chicken shack. I think, in fact, that it really is a chicken shack. I took some video here, and I'll post it on youtube at some point. Hopefully I can get help with adding subtitles. If not, you'll still get the idea. They look about 7 to 12. In fact, the youngest is 13 I think. They look a little sad as a general state, but are pleased and a little amused to meet barang. Especially 2 fair-haired and one bald, tall barang I would bet. Sam and CPP, who I'll call El Capitan for the sake of clarity from now on, talk about their condition for a moment. I still feel a little out of place and, well, guilty. Guilty for having nice clothes... for having a camera that costs more money than these kids will see in the next 15 years... guilty for being born. I realise I'm getting a little overwhelmed and so I wander around a little to shake it off.
Eventually they wrap it up, wave goodbye to the children and head back to the commune leader's house.
Then 'The Talks' begin again. We go through more of the same, basically. This time, I'm sitting at the table during the talks, but I'm sitting a little bit back from everything. Again, I don't want to just insert myself into the middle of this since I'm really just observing at this point. He looks at me, smiles, and gestures for me to pull up to the table. I do. When he's talking he kind of moves his eyes from person to person, talking to all of us. He's pretty serious now, but good natured; not stern. He lets us know that he's willing to work with us, but he needs something concrete.. paperwork etc., and maybe even to come up to PP to see the home. Great. We're all for that and encourage him to do so. We tell him that we'll get some documentation together asap and hopefully we can get it to him before the election. We'll see. I think we told him one week. This goes on for some time, but you'd get bored and frustrated reading it.
So, we say our goodbyes as a gift... for letting him drive the car maybe? El Capitan has one of his people give us 20 fresh coconuts, still on the branches. They just load them into the back of the truck. We thank him profusely and head back North. Exhausted.
We say we're hungry, so Peter says he knows a place. The drive back isn't quite as bad as getting there. It's around 5 o'clock or so at this point. We get about half way back, having passed several places to eat, when Peter says that there's a good place in this town. My stomach is getting a little indignant with Peter. We pull over to a fairly big place and are assaulted by begging Khmer. We all sort of ignore them and go inside. Some of them follow, but we keep ignoring and Sam tells them to go. We eat and down cold drinks. We talk a little about the events of the day, but not alot. A good amount of time is used up by my constant inquiries. "What's that?" "how do you say this" "blah blah" barang. I had sour beef soup for those foodies out there who want to know. It was really good. It cost 2 dollars for a huge bowl and some rice on the side. There was also a tiny saucer with tiny peppers. They were good and they were hot.
After we finish, we start to pile in to the car and are met with more beggars. This time they're almost all very old people. Sam says that giving to the old is a little different because there's no pension or social security here, and they really have no choice but to ask for handouts sometimes. They've all lived through the wars as well. Call it reparations. What ever. I give one of them 1500 Riel (about 35 cents I think) and we move on, back to PP. We drop Peter and his girl off just around the corner from here in front of his place and drive back here. I can't remember if there was beer here or if we bought it down at the gas station, but either way it was welcome. We watched another movie, but I can't even remember what it was.