phnom penh...

Sunset behind the Royal Palace, from the Tonle Sap River, photo by Matt Drape...
(we'll add more photos when we're on a faster computer...)

Chrissie and I are currently on a "date" here at our favorite Phnom Penh internet cafe, while Andy and Matt are off adventuring with Kathy Morefield. Kathy wanted some boy help in finding a birthday present for a seven-year-old friend of hers, and she liked the idea of helping us have a little couple-time. We promise that it will not all be spent here, though we are sitting next to each other, which is nice.

Phnom Penh has been wonderful. It is an amazing and complex place, fraught with challenges and contradictions, and full of delightful and dear people. While there is much tragedy in the history here, and many obstacles lying to better things for most of the people, there is a sweet spirit in the midst of it all.



We have been adventuring widely here, and will try to cover some of the highlights:



-We have spent great time with our dear friends John and Kathy Morefield. John (former Seattle principal, and professor @ UW) is working with the Cambodian Ministry of Education doing principal/leadership development. Kathy is teaching ESL at the University and more informally to smaller groups. They are taking great care of us, and it has been a joy to reconnect. We have visited a number of projects with Kathy that serve children affected by AIDS (either directly themselves, of having parents suffering...).

-We have been able to connect with a Cambodian friend, Min Sor, who is the country director for an education NGO, Room to Read. Yesterday we joined him and his family for a wonderful and very traditional Khmer meal. It was delicious, and all the dishes were new to us - quite an eating adventure.


-We spent a good bit of time this past week exploring the difficult history of Cambodia and the time of the Khmer Rouge. We traveled out to the Killing Fields - Choeung Ek, and visited the Tuol Sleng Prison here in town. While there were many "killing fields" during the Khmer Rouge's genocide, Choeung Ek was the primary execution site, where people were taken from Tuol Sleng prison here in Phnom Penh. It is very painful to witness what took place, but it is also a powerful testament to the human ability to survive, and the stories speak to the important work that still lies ahead for the people of Cambodia. If you want to delve more deeply into the stories yourself, visit two very powerful websites - Document Center of Cambodia (http://www.dccam.org/ - a research and documentation project), or "Beauty and Darkness: Cambodia, the Odyssey of the Khmer People" at www.mekong.net/Cambodia.


-We have also visited numerous temples and fascinating cultural sites, like the Royal Palace and National Museum. There is such a rich history beyond the Khmer Rouge, and that history has survived, despite the KR efforts. We took an evening boat ride with the Morefields. Phnom Penh sits on the confluence of the Mekong and Tonle Sap Rivers - quite an amazing site - so we floated down the Tonle Sap, and then motored up the Mekong a bit.


-We visited the Psar Tuol Tom Pong Market (also called the Russian Market) and found lots of great deals in the hilariously cramped, stuffy and busy little aisles. Our wandering through the food section connected us to a wondrous diversity of sights and smells - some good, some not so. We saw many chickens that looked quite a bit like our little rubber traveling companion, as well as live turtles, eels, crabs and many different fish. Fascinating.



The wonderful thing about living in South Seattle, is that it represents so many different parts of the world, and there are many things we see here that remind us of home. We like that. There are also many great projects in the midst of the city that we have had a chance to connect to, one in particular called "Friends", which is a training program extraordinaire for helping street youth move off the streets (with New Horizon connections!). They run a number of training restaurants (similar to the Fare Start project in Seattle), and we have enjoyed some incredible food there. Their tacos will make an updated version of Andy and Matt's favorite foods of the trip.

Tomorrow (Monday), I am headed out to rural northeast Cambodia (Ratanakiri) with John as he heads out there for the week with his Cambodian colleagues to do a training with principals in the province. Chrissie and the boys are headed the opposite direction, and going to the beach at Sihanoukville while I'm gone. On Wednesday evening we'll reconnect and then on Thursday we head northwest to Siem Reap, and the amazing temples of Angkor Wat. We'll keep you posted!