Drive

Greetings,

Welcome to the Famous Cambodian Driving School. (FCDS) Our slogan is Drive Fast, No Fear.

We are here to initiate you into the wild wonderful crazy world of driving. We do not have insurance. We don't believe in wearing seat belts because they are expensive. Do not let these minor details influence your decision to take risks. You will be issued a helmet. Wear it at all times.

Remember: you are in complete Control of a large automobile. It is capable of extraordinary maneuvers. You will have a teacher with you at all times. If they are sleeping it's ok. It's part of their job. 

Ok, let's get down to basics. Cars, especially massive 4-wheel drives, are popular with the rising middle class. A car symbolizes many things: freedom, money, prestige, and power.

As you know there are NO stop sings, traffic blights or silent flashing signals on streets, highways and byways. If you want to achieve big things, like getting where you want to go in a big fat hurry, you must take big risks, especially while operating a car. It's fun and exciting. 

Inside the chanting Buddhist monks at the pagoda you have a gas pedal, brake pedal and horn. The horn is the most important part of the car. It is your way of telling others, if they are awake, you are coming through. You will not be deterred. Your goal is to get through, get by and get going. Hit the horn. Hit the gas. 

Using the brake and singing your intentions is for dummies.

At FCDS we believe practicing on small narrow crowded city streets will introduce you to the fun and excitement of driving. You will negotiate limited space with: thousands of motorcycles, children, women balancing bamboo staves and jumbled baskets of food, orphans, amputees, rolling food carts, bicycles, garbage trucks, tractors, push carts, young teams of boys and girls collecting cardboard, cans, and bottles, fast brown rats disguised as health inspectors and endless processions of chanting monks seeking food, kindness and enlightenment. 

Their enlightenment will be their salvation. The horn is your salvation. 

Tomorrow we will practice on narrow red dusty potholed rural roads. 

Metta.

 

Mr. funny money

Greetings,

Mr. Money talked in the market. He's 30 give or take a day, well fed and garrulous.

When I saw him he was standing near a shop holding a big pile of 500 real notes. 500 real is worth 25 cents. I am rich, he said waving the pile of money at me. I am the President, I said.

He came over. He sat down in a red plastic chair. He put the money on the table. See, he said, I have a lot of money. All the red notes were old and faded. Yes, I said, You do. Where did you get it?

I collect the money from the shopkeepers. It is their daily cleaning fee, he said. But, I am a poor man. I only make $50 a month. Food is cheap. I have two wives and two kids. Wife number 1 is mad at me. Why, I asked. She saw me with wife number 2. I screwed wife number 1 one day and then I went over to see wife number 2. Wife number 1 saw me and now she's angry. He laughed.

I have lots of energy. I can screw three times a day. Do you want to go with me to a nightclub? I can show you around. There are many girls there looking for some action. Their boyfriends are poor at sex. The girls are poor and need money, he said. Interesting, I said, Not today.

It's easy, he said, I know everybody. He waved his arms around the market. People were slurping noodles, negotiating fruit prices, haggling, chopping vegetables, stoking cooking fires with kindling, manhandling blazing woks, wiping counters, sewing cloth, selling gold, trimming nails, cleaning oranges, and hungry eaters were stuffing their faces. Their eyes were either buried in their bowls or scanning faces in a life of distractions.

An old woman wearing white sat alone on the cracked pavement with her silver begging bowl waiting for someone to express their kindness.

Yes, I'm sure you know everybody, I said. Are you really the President, he asked. Yes, I am, I said. He laughed, I think the president is a joke. Many people would agree with you, I said, It's a lonely boring job being responsible for the entire human race. Yeah, he said, Well I gotta go make some collections. See you later.

Metta.

 

No education, no chance

Greetings,

Editor’s note: this entry contains material which may not be suitable for children under 100.

It is 6:00 a.m. It is raining. Rain is not part of this short tale. It’s only purpose is to clean the air, turn dusty red rutted ragged roads into quagmires and provide essential moisture to roots.

It is important, gentle reader to understand the context. I have written extensively about the reality here on the ground the last eight months. Unpleasant facts are more plentiful than health care, education or clean drinking water. See Travel Tales for material.

Some Cambodian people, like other people on planet Earth are cunning, devious and scheming. They, like others, have little or no formal education for various reasons. 

For many impoverished adults on Earth educating their children 

wastes time and m-o-n-e-y.

Food is their daily priority.

This means many mill around, stare, interrupt others, are rude, do not LISTEN and demonstrate behavior and attitudes similar to simians with a very limited vocabulary.

Their daily existence involves searching, finding, preparing and eating food. It involves searching, finding and having sex. It involves sleeping. Sleeping is popular before, during and after food. 

Sex is popular whenever the male, the ALPHA animal in the tribe demands it. This is Natural Selection. People live on Earth for two main reasons: to breed and to work. Read and write? No, breed and work. 

Female members are Passive. They are conditioned through DNA genetics and environment and family education and expectations to be Passive. 

If they refuse to submit to the male they are beaten. If they talk about it they are beaten. If they enjoy it they are beaten. If they run away they are captured and beaten. If they suffer humiliation they are beaten. If they are beaten they are beaten. If they live to tell the tale they are beaten. If they die while being beaten their corpse is beaten. They are beat.

In Afghanistan they are stoned to death by members of their Taliban community. 

She was 19. He was 25.

However, females display acts of aggression when they perceive their offspring (and they have 100’s) are in danger. The longer she breeds the longer she lives, the longer she works the longer she lives. In theory.

Their main task in life is to breed and work. Then they are slaughtered. Life is a bitch.

Across the rural street from my little space behind a green garden I am a witness. I extrapolate, illuminate, illustrate, and desiccate. A family has moved into a long shack across the street where they live. They set up a food joint. They sell steamed corn and fast fried foods.

There is a mother, two older boys 17 & 20 and two girls, the youngest is about 13. The girls may belong to the mother or, as is common, they're from poor areas needing domestic work. They are highly vulnerable to exploitation and abuse.

No papa. He is history in the tragic family tale, one of millions throughout the Magic Kingdom. Long gone in the long now. 

Incest Is Best, a boy about 17, touches one girl’s rear while mom is at the market. He’s wearing his towel-sarong. She’s setting up a glass display case on a wooden counter with her back toward him. He slides up behind her and presses his crotch against her. 

She freezes. He imitates sexual movement. He whispers to her, Little ‘sister,’ this is what happens to you. I have a little red rooster. Do you like it? 

She is powerless. She has to stand there and take it. She is silent. She feels like crying.

Rule #1. Boys and men run the show. They pay lip service to girls and women. It’s the old breed and work paradigm. 

Sexual harassment by immature boys and older men (with money, power and control) and a high level of testosterone, IS a game. Simple sex. No education. No responsibility. No morals. No ethics. No education. 

This explains why millions of girls have babies and the guy runs away. Zero responsibility. 

Girls and women tolerate it because:

it’s an unpleasant hard, cold cruel fact of life

they are told to submit to males
they live in Fear 
they are considered stupid and second class citizens
they have no human rights
it’s an unpleasant reality here
it’s the LAW of the jungle
it’s expected
they have no Voice, no way out
they don’t have the power to say or do anything to stop it
mother is not sympathetic. it happened to her. that’s life

(Translated by Rain)

Metta.

barefoot

Greetings,

early dawn streaks orange skies. two barefoot mendicants are walking down the cambodian broken dirt road. one looks well fed. he wears simple tattered white cotton clothing. a red and white checkered kroma scarf is knotted around his head. 

he carries their possessions in three white rice bags on a simple bamboo pole balanced on his shoulder. he is followed on the dirt trail by his friend, a tall gaunt man. they are talking.

man #1. these bags are heavy. i am tired of carrying them. you carry them. 

he drops the bags and stick on the ground. they crash on the dirt. startled birds leave leaves. a river changes direction. he walks over to a large cistern filled with water. he splashes his face. he drinks deep. 

his friend stoops over, adjusts bamboo through twine and hoists the stick and bags onto his shoulder.

man #2. where are we going?

man #1 (muttering to his feet in red dust) down this road.

Metta.

 

Firefly

Greetings,

Culture is what you are. Nature is what you can be. 

I faced a challenging ethical decision at the Chinese steamed bun and iced java joint. I pulled up on my little simple blue bike. There were three HUGE extraterrestrial vehicles parked on the sidewalk. A group of men were having a morning snack and discussion at round tables. They were the economic Knights of the Round Table. 

All the men wore buttoned down long sleeve shirts except for the leader. How did you know he was the leader? When he spoke all the men at his table listened. He wore a striped short sleeve shirt. He wore a gold watch and a big radiant red ruby stone set in a gold ring. He looked well fed and rested. 

His driver held the keys to a big black Caddy. It looked like a tank. I showed him my bike. Want to trade your bike for the Esplanade? he asked me. No thanks, my simple bike meets my needs. It's really efficient. Ok, he said, just asking.

The leader shifted in his plastic chair. He got up. Everyone got up. He walked out. Everyone followed him. The driver opened the back door. He got in. Let's go for a drive through luminous green country, he said. The driver gunned the engine making powerful noise. His friends followed him down the broken rutted dirt road.

There are no stop signs or traffic lights here. Everyone operating a moving vehicle trusts everyone else. This is fair. 

Cambodian children, like children everywhere love to play. They have a game called Kick The Sandal. They use their sandals. They take turns kicking a sandal on uneven cement pavement to see who can reach the goal. It''s exciting and fun. The cement comes from Siam.

A firefly named July zoomed around my dark room one night. The yellow flickering light was illuminating, mesmerizing and hypnotic. A multi-facted dancing yellow white gemstone. It was looking for a way out. I opened the door so it could live in nature.

Metta.

My girlfriend is smart. She wears a helmet. We are happy. We are going nowhere fast. Passengers wearing a helmet here is almost as rare as clean drinking water.