"First we see, then we do."

Disclaimer: This is a long entry. Something on my blog is malfunctioning, it flushes all the text Bold even though I've closed all the tags... Anyway, I apologize. I appreciate your reading as much as you can muster.

This is Cambodia. Hello, from Cambodia.

I've been staying in Phnom Pehn with my friend Lynn. We met during Segment 1 of my travels in Vietnam with Thich Nhat Hanh. She and her husband have been living in Cambodia for almost 3 years now. They have a beautiful tiled apartment, set back from a quiet street, a big sitting room with lots of windows, surrounded by trees and birds that sing in the morning. It's really an amazing place to be.

Lynn and I!

They moved here after all 3 of their children had graduated from college, intending to use the new freedom as an opportunity to help those in need. Currently, Tom is helping to orchestrate a team of Cambodia physicians in the AIDS/HIV arena. Lynn spends her time volunteering -- teaching english at two prisons just outside of PP, caring for severely disabled children at a government orphanage, and aiding a French-Catholic NGO which distributes information on safe-sex, healthy relationships, and HIV prevention to young Cambodians.

Something, huh?

My original idea in coming here was to follow Lynn's husband day and night for a week or two, just to get a feel for the life of an AIDS doctor in the developing world. I mean, here he is, doing the work I've been dreaming of (carelessly) for years. The opportunity seemed to good to be true.

And you know, it probably was. Real life is a million times better.

As it happened. the dates of my travel to Cambodia and time in Phnom Pehn almost perfectly coincided with Tom's departure for the good ole' US of A. He's still there, and I am here. I haven't been in touch with his world at all. I have, however, had one of the most amazing weeks of my life.

Being humanitarian and wonderful, Lynn happened to have a number of contacts lying around in the AIDS/HIV treatment world of Cambodia. One in particular jumped to mind when I mentioned my particular interest in AIDS orphans and infected children. She made a quick call, and set up a meeting with her eccentric, Catholic friend John for the next afternoon. John has founded an NGO in Phnom Pehn which has, in a matter of three or four years, single-handly blown open the door on care for HIV+ children in Cambodia. There were absolutely no resources for them before he came along. His organization, New Hope for Cambodian Children, now cares for more than 500 children in the southern regions of Cambodia. He is just in the process of building a village outside of town which will house more than 200 orphans, a village where they can not only receive treatment for their condition, but also learn vocational skills, live in a familial environment, go to school, laugh and play together. The designs are just amazing. And the first set of houses are complete! Children are moving in next week! It's just in time. Each of his 4 group homes in PP city are completely overcrowded.

The thing is, though. The thing is. His organization is different. It's different than the schools and orphanages I saw in Vietnam, different than the other places Lynn brought me to here in Phnom Pehn. The children he's caring for have a terminal illness. They are completely abhorred by society at large. Most were abandoned, even abused, by the families that bore them. Terribly tragic truths. But, in the centers we visited (one for infants and toddlers, one for elementary-aged youths) there was real joy. There was love and happiness and excitement. They call him Papa John, and when he comes to call, the cheer and run and shout and joke. These children are the happiest children I've seen in Cambodia. They have the most beautiful faces. I fell in love.

The kids, playing with Papa John

They kept calling him chubby (in Khmer)
He'd say Noooo, skinny!
While puffing out his belly
His organization is different, because it is based on true love and a deep desire to stop the suffering of others. It understands that suffering comes from isolation, neglect, and rejection. It understands the basic emotional and spiritual needs of humanity. John and his wife saw a need, and they filled it. They worked hard, they wouldn't take no for an answer, and they loved everyone, every step of the way. "I haven't turned away a kid yet," John says. "Not even the girl ones."

I could go on about NHCC for just about my whole life, but I won't. I want to come back next summer to be a live-in volunteer at the blossoming village. I'm also learning how to fund-raise, so that I can do so at Columbia during the year, for his organization and others. Gotta get the resources, man. Gotta get the resources.

Sokai and Lynn

The dancing fiend! He's ten years old.
Lynn and I also went to the orphanage and spent time with ten severely disabled Cambodian children. I was worried that the experience would be too difficult or too consuming, as people at home had warned, but it was simply wonderful. Though the children's bodies were under-developed, they smiled and loved and received love in just the same way as all the other children I've had in my life. They were in a clean, simple space, with toys and books. They lay together on a mat and absorbed our presence with such alert energy! One boy gave the most jubilant smiles whenever one of us would muster a goofy dance to the screechy radio muzak. Another radiated silent joy for simple peek-a-boo games. Pure and light and living, as much as possible. They squirmed when they diapers were wet, they fought against naptime, they exuded innocence and love. I feel so blessed to have met them. They gave me such a gift.

The slum, home to Aziza Schoolhouse

There's another American here, Drew, who came a little over a year ago as a tourist, saw and experienced the poverty and the need, went home, and came straight back. He infiltrated a really impoverished slum area just a block from Lynn's apartment, and started a free school for the children who live there. He just burst in, threw some things together, and opened up shop. He offers scholarships for medical and dental care to each of the kids, passes out toothbrushes and new sandals, pays Cambodian teachers and wrangles the odd volunteer, like Lynn, to provide guest lessons on English, visual art, karate, or leadership. It's a beautiful thing he has, but his mind is all over the place! His funding comes primarily from his friends, only $1000/month for the whole school which serves something like 90 children, 8 hours/day, 6 days/week. On Friday afternoon, Lynn showed the kids how to fold their own simple books from a single sheet of paper (actually, she taught me, too. It's a really cool trick!) and gave each of them the tools to write their own "Little English Books." It was great! 30something kids, in varying states of dress, huddled over folded computer paper and colored pencils, biting their tongues while copying Latin script, letter by letter, curve by curve.

A dedicated student

Those are the service projects we've visited. She's described at least a dozen more. The need is so great here. Cambodia was so devastated by the wars and the genocide. The government is still hideously corrupt. The rural areas are without jobs, without aid, without anything.

This is really difficult. There's so much to talk about.

If you couldn't tell, I've sort of ingested Cambodia and turned it over and over within me. Combining centuries of culture, architechture, and leadership with the recent years of devastation and suffering, Phnom Pehn is truly unique. Because of it, I feel a new awareness, a new existence. With everything I've learned being here, as hot and as buggy as it is, all I can think is I can't wait to come back. I can't wait to go home, learn more, and come back. It's beautiful and sad and so many things, it's terrifying.

I can't wait to come back.

Maybe I'll re-organize my thoughts and edit this post a little more cohesively. I think it's a bit allovertheplace, but then again SO AM I. I'll blame it on the fact that it's very late and the day has been long. Visiting Tuol Sleng genocide museum, getting lost, watching Pan's Labyrinth, packing for the next leg of my voyage. Withstanding the heat. But I am envigorated by the challenge and the promise of what's to come. Of what there is to be done!

I invite any and all of you to join me. Fo reals. Everyone. Really.

Also, this has lead me to great curiosity. If you've read this far, my friends, or if you've skipped to this paragraph: what issues are important to you? What cause draws you in? Is there something really pressing you into action? I see us as a pretty mobile and socially-aware bunch, my generation. My peers. My friends. My human family. Is there some suffering in the world or in your backyard that you feel a personal drive to alleviate? If yes, what is it? If yes, how do you intend to do so? What skills do you rely on? What skills do you hope to gain?

Until Next Time, "In our time, the struggle between old and new will reach its crescendo. It's not over yet, and we carry scars of this struggle in our hearts. Questions raised by contemporary philosophers makes us feel lost and anxious. Confused minds suggest that existence is meaningless, even absurd, and this adds another coat of black to our darkened hearts. "Existence is foul. Humans are loathsome. No one can hope to be good. There is no way to beautify life." Even while adopting such mindsets, people cling to the illusion that we are free to be who we want. Yet most of the time we are merely reacting to the wounds engraved in our hearts. Almost no one listens to his or her true self. But when we are not ourselves, any freedom we think we have is illusory. Sometimes we reject freedom because we fear it. Our true selves are buried beneath layers of moss and brick. We have to break through those layers in order to be liberated, but we are afraid it may break us, also. We have to remind ourselves over and over again that the layers of moss and brick are not our true selves."
- Thich Nhat Hanh, Fragrant Palm Leaves: Journals 1962-1966

Brown birds on barbed wire, listen to them sing

Assorted pictures from Phnom Pehn, Cambodia -- shared for the sake of sharing.

Phnom Pehn, adorned and abandoned

Brown bird on barbed wire

Tuol Sleng genocide museum
Bocce Ball

Tuol Sleng genocide museum
Statues, Wat Ounalom

Sex, monkey?

On a wire!
Fat, monkey?

Snuggle, monkey?

Until Next Time, silly monkey.

Craters in the earth

I'm in Cambodia! Arrived safe and happy without dangerous gangsta action or harrowing traffic close-calls. My AC Bus left Saigon at 9am with 6 people on it, one of whom was a 20-something Canadian woman just finishing up a few months of solo travel, so there were nice chats. Of course, I slept on and off -- buses make me tired! -- and so maybe missed the best of the countryside, but such is life. I nevertheless have a profound respect and awe for the Cambodian countryside, just based on the few glimpses I had.

Monument to honor nothern Vietnamese women and children

Seen from across the Ben Hai river, dividing line between N and S VN
I've been heavily pre-occupied by the events of the war over the past few days. The literature I had finished, the countryside, a tour of the heavy-fighting and mining areas, interaction with American Vet sentiments and Communist framing of the war. The DMZ tour was a 12-hour day in a non-AC Bus; we drove for hours with the front door open, past stilt houses and old military bases. Light clay roads and resurgant vegetation. Good lord, it was hot. So hot. Damn hot. I don't mean to be crude, but I've never sweat so much in my life. Ever. More sweat than skin. And the monuments, the museums, the war relics and battlefields. It was a hazy, dehydtrated, sun-spotted excursion, to say the very least. And the peace of these places. They're so calm now. You're told about the brutality and the combat. But what's left is heat and dust and profoundly-worded monuments. There was a 'guestbook' at one of the museums on Khe Sanh Marine Base, a pretty gruesome place if I understand correctly. And the guestbook was full of diverse remarks, in language and subject matter and feeling. But a number of American soldiers wrote things like "I can't believe I'm back. This is not the place I remember," or "This was a Hell, and now it's a museum. Thank you." It was so shocking and so simple. I have never lived in war. I have never experienced that terror, and I probably never will. Reading books, hearing stories, seeing pictures and feeling sorry, I will never know war. I will never know what war does to people, I will never touch their experiences. I empathize, I conceptualize, I feel. I work towards an understanding of my freedom as the freedom of others. I work to see more deeply, to really comprehend. But I do not know war. These reminders are not war. They are reminders of war.

I do not think that is enough.

The mountains of the DMZ

We went into the tunnels at Vinh Moc. Entire villages lived underground for five years. Sleeping, peeing, praying, giving birth. Seventeen babies were born in the Vinh Moc tunnels. They are all alive today. Our tour group, of which my friend Kate and I were the only Americans, went 60 feet underground in these tunnels. The system as a whole is hundreds of kilometers long, three different depths, spanning the whole DMZ, linked by trenches. Pictures of the land at that time are terribly beautiful -- the Earth was so full of craters, it looked like the surface of the moon. The dirt came off the walls on our hands and shoulders, bent over and shuffling in the brown darkness. They had oil lamps, they had bandages. They had guns. And not much else.

Scratched graffiti on a tunnel wall

We visited Peace Trees the next day, an organization which de-mines and plants trees all throughout Quang Tri province, which is home to the DMZ and the most brutal battles and traps of the war. The visit was like candy, it was so sweet. Tragic, yes, as the mines that were left behind ended up claiming almost exclusively the lives and limbs of local children. But Quang Le, a beautiful man with a powerful story, has been working there for almost 12 years now, after decades of work in the US and at refugee camps in Thailand. He got out just after the war, but his wife and children were held by the Communist regime for years after. He says he did his work just to "keep his mind busy." Now, he's instrumental to the cause of "reversing the legacy of war." Building schools, educating de-miners, and children who live in mined areas. Giving scholarships, planting trees. He was a true boddhisatva, he really took care of my friends and I when we visited.

Peace Trees!

This land was barren just 11 years ago
Thank you, for being here. More on Cambodia tomorrow or the day after. And my impromtu Vietnamese homestay last night! It's a brand new world, and there's so much to learn.

Until Next Time, "Medical statistics will be our standard of measurement: we will weigh life for life and see where the dead lie thicker, among the workers or among the privileged."
- Rudolf Virchow, 1848

Pictures from a day in rural, central Vietnam

Visiting local schools, supported by Plum Village.
Looking in


Heavily bombed area, next to the "Highway of Great Danger"


Vietnamese landscape (yes, rice paddies) -- Green!


Monk on a colorful swing


Thich Nhat Hanh's father

from his ancestral temple, outside of Hue
Today is my last day with the delegation. I hardly know what to say.

Touring the DMZ tomorrow, Peace Trees on Monday, back to Saigon on Tuesday, Phnom Penh (Cambodia) on Wednesday.

Until Next Time: Hello, Deepening Roots of the Heart.

For peace, please

I'm in Hue! The ancient capitol of Vietnam, Hue is HUMID. The air is saturated, I'm sweating all the time. I've never lived in a climate like this. Of course, the pollution is so much less than in Saigon, I'm not close to complaining about a little wet heat, but WOW. The middle of the jungle baby.

Jungle and tombs under rain, Tu Hieu Temple

Hue is the closest city to the DMZ (De-militarized Zone), which remains the most heavily bombed piece of earth on this planet. I've been told that more bombs were dropped over Hue than in all of WWII, but that that with a grain of salt. I have not verified its validity myself.

Currently, I'm in the middle of reading 3 books -- Thich Nhat Hanh's Old Path White Cloud, an epic and simple re-telling of the Buddha's lifetime (they're making it into a movie!); Sr. Chan Khong's Learning True Love: How I learned and Practiced Social Change in Vietnam, a beautiful and tragic account of the events of the war anf of Thay's life during that period; and Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, for the second time. With regard to the last two, and a visit to the War Remnant's Museum (or, A Showcase of the Atrocities Laid Upon the Vietnamese People by US Imerialists), I am slowly formulating a sense for the real devestation of this war, and all wars. It's horrific, this kind of violence, and the inhumanity it instills. I can't believe the destruction. I never understood. Agent Orange is still wrecking havoc on this nation, babies are being born still today with terrible deformities due to exposure. Many of its older victims are begging here on the streets of Hue and in the temples where we go to practice. I won't describe them, but I'm completely humbled before it. The suffering here is enormous and all-encompassing and continual.

The response that keeps re-surfacing is Thank god for Thich Nhat Hanh. A leader, a visionary. He has it, you know? He's fighting the beauocracy, he's fighting with peace and love and compassion and understanding. Without resentment or cynacism or demand. He is fighting, and he will win. It may take many more generations, but his message is true. LOVE ALL BEINGS. PREVENT ALL POSSIBLE SUFFERING. ACT WITH COMPASSION. DO NOT KILL. DO NOT DISCRIMINATE. It's simple, it's true, it's the most basic sort of honest. I am grateful for him, the man, but I am most grateful for the message he is unafraid to spread. The communist officials here are breathing down his neck, they repressed him and killed his supporters for 30 years, but he's here and he won't stop fighting, with love and grace and dedication. It's amazing.

Tombs of old Masters at Tu Hieu temple

Hue is home to Tu Hieu, which is Thay's root temple. It's in the middle of the jungle, wet and crumbling and beautiful. He was here 64 years ago as a novice monk, he was 16 and he embarked on his path from this very place. I love it, I really do. He leads walking meditation and tea cermonies with unfettered joy here, you can see how much he loves being home. Still, the conservative sides of Buddhist tradition in Vietnam, the ones that abandoned Thich Nhat Hanh and his message when it became too radical and too dangerous to their hierarchy, they are very strong in this region. Everyone is feeling a little on edge about it, even thought this is Thay's true home. A nun friend told me that every one of the monastics is focusing their energy on slowly transforming their elders trough example and practice. Such a complex system for such a simple message.

Thay and his children, pure joy

I am in great spirits right now. I was having a lot of trouble feeling settled in Saigon -- the pollution, the stares, the anger -- but Hue is much clearer. My roommate and I were also at odds, but I actually found the power in myself in confront her about it and we talked and she really listened to my difficulties, and we were able to come to a real understanding. I'm sorry if I'm gushing about something very small, but this is a really incredible moment for me. I've never had such clear and open communication over anger and misunderstanding. I'm actually growing. And I feel lighter, I feel more capable. I feel love.

Monk feeding dogs

Also, there's a french boy, Unai, here with his parents, and he made friends with a Vietnamese orphan at Tu Hieu. They've been spending all their time together even though they don't even come close to speaking the same language, and it's really wonderful to see. Taking turns on the french boy's gameboy. Whacking a basketball back and forth with huge sticks of bamboo. Playing with stray dogs. Like a corny movie, I can't help but Awwwwww all over the place.

Unai and his friend

And otherwise, I'm still enjoying fruit, long walks through the city, cheap-everything, and the prospect of travel to come. I'll be done with this part of my trip (following Thich Nhat Hanh, that is) by the end of the week, and heading to Thailand, Singapore, and Cambodia not long after. Friends and friends of friends to visit, volunteer work, back-packing, sight-seeing! Ah, my happiness is abound. I'm free.

Mosaic dragon

I love you all, hope you and yours are absolutely terrifically happy.

Until Next Time, "Those eight days (the Tet offensive) were a turning experience for me. Seeing so much death and despair, I learned that we must resist war at any price. Once a war gets started, it has a momentum and intensity that are very hard to stop."
- Sr. Chan Khong, Learning True Love (READ THIS BOOK!)