Homecoming
 

Theary Seng

Phnom Penh, June 1996

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Memories of that first moment in Pochentong Airport flicker dimly in the distance of nine months of Phnom Penh living. I can no longer relate as well with the idealistic person who sobbed inconsolably with burning tears, evoked by the dirty emaciated faces reflecting her youth, now imploring her for money as she first stepped onto Cambodian soil. She quickly learned survival dictates a certain degree of immunity to the ubiquitous poverty, suffering, and insanity engulfing her.

I remember the profound sorrow that blanketed over me - as well as the other volunteers I'm sure, as the van made its way from the airport to the Cando* office and my living quarter for the next twelve months - at the sights of skeletal children playing on heaps of trash as if they were rolling on green pasture; of decrepit, war-created transparency of Phnom Penh University buildings; of dark, gloomy wooden shacks that lined the streets with women sitting at stands patiently waiting for customers; of dusty and sweaty faces, lined with expressions of hopelessness and futility but thinly layered with a determination to get through the day. Oh, if each could tell her story - but all their faces seem to say, "I have weathered so much that if I were to tell you, you wouldn't understand." As the van came into view of Independence Monument, a sharp pain of familiarity - a sickness of nostalgia - triggers memories of my time spent there many years ago playing hide-and-seek with siblings.

We arrived in the middle of the rainy season. I remember wading through knee-deep sewage water as we made our way from Cando II to the office of Cando I for orientation that first month. The dilapidated, hole-ridden, over-flooded roads make for adventurous cyclo (rickshaw) rides. A rowboat would have made for a smoother and more practical transport as streets overnight transform into rivers. Along the way, cyclo and motor taxi drivers make use of the stream as they washed and shined their possessions on the road but only to have their cleaned wheels to be splashed and dirtied by oncoming Mercedes. Children play and swim in the city-river alongside women balancing baskets with amazing ease and poise, selling local delicacies from "noum arkow" to seasonal tropical fruits.

During my first trip to the neighborhood market, I almost fainted from the stench and unsanitary condition. The mixture of flooding, garbage, and the odor of the open market posits a perfect breeding ground of diseases. Have I become too bourgeois in my attitude? Or has everyone a right to a healthy environment?

It is really very difficult not to put on an elitist attitude here, especially as an "anikachun" (Cambodian from overseas). Prior to coming to Cambodia, I romanticized about running free with children in the villages, eating delicacies from street vendors, dressing in traditional local outfits, living in shacks. I romanticized that I would be free from the comfort of fifteen years of American middle-class living and fully embraced the culture of my roots - at least for the one year I am here anyhow. The 140-pound maximum allotted to me, I packed with mainly books, gifts, and the most essential personal items, purposefully avoiding stylish clothes of Western taste. Sarong is the way to go! How quickly that first day in Cambodia shattered my romanticized ideals! Each of the volunteers was shown our own personal, spacious, fully-furnished, air-conditioned room in our well-guarded villa in the most expensive part of Phnom Penh. We were introduced to our cook, our maid, our laundry lady.

I did make a conscious effort to not let the royal treatment dilute my strong initial desire to contribute to the development of Cambodia. I refused the laundry service. For the first eight months, I scrubbed my own clothes. I had sarongs cut. I only accepted half the time to be driven to and from work at the Ministry of Justice. I frequented local restaurants and stands. However, success was short-lived. After the first few months, inexpensive, local stands were traded in for trendy, western hang-outs. The "Cando Breakfast Club" can be spotted religiously at the French café, Phnom Khiev. And hey, that Justice Ministry four-wheel drive would make for a smoother and more sophisticated ride than the rickety cyclos. Moreover, it would provide better protection against the dust and heat to maintain that pale, bourgeois skin. And now that I am presenting the news on national television, tailored expensive clothes are excusable.

Thus, continues the deterioration in thinking and action. Would Cambodia be better off without people like me? The country doesn't need attitudes - plenty of these already exist here among the leaders and the expatriate community. Cambodians don't need "anikachun" flashing the almighty dollar in their faces for they have witnessed how more vices can be achieved with a dollar than a riel. The conclusion to be drawn then, is not the altruistic American-me benefiting Cambodians. Rather, in all honesty, I have gained a lot more than I have given during my nine months here.

*CANDO is the acronym for Cambodian-American National Development Organization.