No women in tuk-tuk land

Greetings,

Now here this. The tuk-tuk is leaving in five minutes. Departing for points unknown. A massive celestial event known as YOUR LIFE will depart in five minutes. You are advised to assemble all the necessary documents, certified seals of approval, water, guide books, sunscreen, funny money and so on...you will visit the following areas on your short, fast, easy tour.

Bring your life with you. And a guidebook with heavily creased pages. If you attempt to read while moving at the speed of light, 186,000 miles per second, you will discover a new sense of perspective.

You may be surprised or traumatized  to realize your experience at Angkor is not about "seeing" the temples. 

Angkor, Bayon and Beyond...

Please conclude various private and group discussions to ascertain your destination. The tuk-tuk driver has his helmet and vest. His vest has a green four-digit number. If he tries to bring you into Angkor without the vest he faces massive problems. For starters he will lose his job and have to return to his small, isolated village where he will plant rice. The biggest dream for many young men is to become a tuk-tuk driver.

If he loses his tuk-tuk job his family will starve to death. This is a common problem here. Death by starvation.

A tuk-tuk river driver has an easy job. An easy life. He drives you to a temple and crashes out. You feed him. He takes you back where you started. He makes $15-20 for the day. The average person's daily wage is $2.03.

Not a single woman in Siem Reap is a tuk-tuk driver. There are 3-4 women tuk-tuk drivers in Phnom Penh. They are as rare as clean drinking water, sanitation, hospitals and schools.

Why? A woman doesn't work as a tuk-tuk driver because: 

1. it's too dangerous
2. it's inappropriate
3. it's foolish
4. they lack the education, intelligence, drive, initiative
5. they haven't broken free of deeply ingrained social and cultural stereotypes: a woman's place is in the home, taking care of kids, washing, cleaning, and cooking.

Thirty years ago a woman was lucky to finish 9th grade. She married and stayed at home. It may take another generation before women become tuk-tuk drivers. So it goes.

Metta.

Lina studies Engineering in Phnom Penh. 

Elephant Tears

Greetings,

A girl from Argentina who arrived in Siem Reap after midnight broke down after breakfast. Tears streamed down her face. Her boyfriend stood helpless. He handed her a tissue. He didn't know what else to do. She cried and cried. He suffered in silence.

She blubbered in Spanish. "I miss mama...I miss mama. Where are we? What is this strange place? Everyone is trying to cheat us. The food is terrible. They charge extra for butter. Where's the beef? The bus scam from Thailand was long, bumpy, grumpy, expensive, a drag, a mistake, a terrible tragic drama. I can't understand the people here. O woe is me, us." She discarded a soggy tissue.

Her macho man suffered in silence. 'She's a basket case,' he thought.

They'd argued recently. About their trip, lack of good sex, decent food, hot sticky weather, poor planning, lack of planning, expenses.

'Maybe it all comes down to sex and money,' he thought. Clean and clear understanding. In Spanish or Splanglish or deeper emotional levels of complexity. 

She blew snot into another tissue. She crumpled it into a ball and dropped it on a plate glass table. It shattered under the weight of her sticky mucus. It's not what she thought it would be. Her expectations were shattered by illusionary possibilities. Her life was one big question.

She gradually composed herself. They started to leave the restaurant. They paused at the top of the stairs. It was a long way down. He whispered to her. Calming poetic words. He put his arm around her shoulder. She was frigid. Mr. Romeo had his work cut out for him and there was nothing to fix.

Metta.

Innocence and War

Greetings,

I met Alice last month. She's from England and has visited Cambodia six times. She's worked here as a volunteer at local schools. She recommended two important books. 

The Lost Road of Innocence by Somaly Mam. Her true story of being sold into sexual slavery at the age of five. Heartbreaking. Somaly now runs shelters for abused girls and women in Phnom Penh. She's received international recognition for her work establishing AFESIP (Acting for Women in Distressing Circumstances). 

Cambodia Now: Life In the Wake of War by Karen J. Coates. Karen is a freelance journalist based in Thailand. Her book examines Cambodian life in the aftermath of the Khmer Rouge's genocidal regime of 1975-1979. She interviews Cambodians across the country. She details relations with neighboring countries, politics, violence, family, poverty, environment and Cambodia's future.

Metta.

She sells souvenirs to tourists at a temple after school.

Angkor Draft

Greetings,

If I begin this dance by calling it Angkor Draft you may surmise it is about a local beer. It's not. While the beer is very popular with tourists and locals, the latter consuming huge quantities to cement construction deals, it's actually a urine based liquid reference favored by extremely thirsty red dust covered humans unloading huge packs with a weary sigh of relief. They've traveled far and wide to reach this epic point in their short sweet life. The average tourist will spend 3.5 days here and consume 9.6 large bottles of Angkor Draft.

As I wrote, in early January, I bought a 7-day pass for the Angkor Wat complex. This allowed for seven relaxed visits over a month's space-time. This was necessary due to the intensity of the experience. In advance I visited the Angkor National Museum to learn about the Khmer culture and Angkor. These entries are in the January Blog Archives. 

The Angkor image galleries are in a folder with a descending order of discovery. I began far away; specifically at Banteay Srei (9th C.) and The Roluos Group (8th C.) My last two visits included the main Angkor temple and the Bayon. I also revisited Preah Khan, Ta Som, Ta Prohm and Banteay Kdei. 

Angkor Wat was built in 1113. It is the largest religious monument in the world. It took over 30 years to complete and is dedicated to Vishnu. It is a symbol of the divine; Mount Meru in the center, surrounded by smaller peaks, courtyards (continents) and a huge moat (oceans).

After the 13th century it was a place of Buddhist worship. Extensive graphic wall galleries and carvings depict battles, regal processions, heaven and hell, and the Hindu creation epic "Churning The Sea of Milk," where gods and demons cooperate to create the elixir of immortality. Galleries also include battles between Devas and Asuras, and the Battle of Lanka.

Angkor reinforces the reality of small humans. How did I feel here? Serene. Impermanent, calm and centered. 

The Bayon is a three-tiered pyramid temple with 49 towers. Archeologists theorize the multitude of faces symbolize the god-king looking over the entire country. There are fine bas reliefs. My feeling was the immensity of energies and perspective. I avoided crowds and found solace and serenity in secluded places. The image below is an example. Not a single traveller exploring Western walls, courtyards or just sitting.

"You cannot photograph space," said a girl sitting in the shade.

All the temples offered deep surrounding forests, labyrinths, mazes, delightful discoveries and magical light-shadow play. Feel free to wander around at your leisure. Double-click on images to see larger visions. 

Angkor, Bayon and beyond...

Metta.

Blog dance

Greetings,

Let's dance. To the sound they're playing on the radio. Under the serious moonlight. Let's blog to the dance of letter-words.

There are 30 million bloggers in the states. Various states of confusion. Let's be various. Young people prefer social networks like Facebook (Fabulously Boring) and Twitter. Faster, shorter and easier. It's so exciting to live fast, short and easy. If I suffered from Attention Deficit Disorder, and everyone suffers from something because existence is suffering, I'd be a bird practicing social twittering. Kiss and type. 

Anxiety meets the tourist. They whisper, "I'm behind in getting my images up on Where Is My Face?" Once upon a space-dance there was a humbling life changing experience. Laughter was life learning dialogue.

I arrived hoping to teach at an isolated rural school 50km from Siem Reap. HOPE, the U.K. based charity organization sponsors the proposed school; My Grandfather's House. They require volunteers to have a criminal background check. As everyone knows, all-knowing, all powerful authorities do not issue this bureaucratic paper to aliens, nomads, misfits, vagabonds, itinerant weird genius teachers or other highly dubious life forms. So it goes.

I exist outside adult time.

Metta.