Last night was our long awaited reunion with Elephant, the man who had driven for us when we adopted Bodhi. A ‘driver’ in this country is much much more. He is your translater, your guide, your maitre ‘d’, your fixer, your babysitter, your friend – if he’s a good one, and Elephant was the best. In the eight years we’ve been gone, he’s become a man of means. He and his family have moved on from the tiny one room shack on stilts, to a four-bedroom, three-bath house. He has been elevated to Colonel in the Cambodian Army, though he does not actually serve, there is a cot and uniform for him at the barracks. He has become Executive Director of a well-known charity that operates schools, orphanages and an HIV clinic for mothers. Elephant is a survivor of the Pol Pot regime, he was raised in refugee camps on the Thai border, he and his brother were separated from their family and forced to dig ditches in lieu of a normal childhood. He went on to become one of the top three ranked Khmer kick-boxing champions.
He is stronger and wiser than when we met him eight years ago, but with the same sense of humor and absurdity, the same zest for life and especially, the same constant clock ticking driving him to work 16-20 hours a day. He remembered us well enough and especially Bona. He commented on Bodhi's head rounding out (his head had a big flat spot as a baby from lying in the crib too much.) It was sweet to see them together and for Elephant to see what a great boy Bodhi has grown into. We had a drink or two and shared some food here at the hotel. We will see him again on Sunday at a dance performance at one of the orphanages.
Friday, December 12, 2008
Thursday, December 11, 2008
First Sunset
We went for a sunset ride in a tuk-tuk. This is a motorscooter with a canopied buggy attached and can be had for about $6/hr. we went to the river and what began as exhilarating and glorious fairly quickly became a touch shocking and finally harrowing, but loaded too, with wonderous moments. When we reached the river, five minutes from the hotel, the driver pulled over amidst the beginning of an incredible sunset. We asked to walk and he, too, seemed to need a change, he got on his cell phone and a minute later another tuktuk pulled up. He explained that we would go with the new driver as he was quite busy this time of day. The new driver was very nice and had good English, so no problem, but we asked to walk a bit – he would shadow us. We passed a number of women selling large woven plasticy tapestries or floor coverings with various pictures such as the temples at Angkor or one with thanksgiving turkeys of all things. This gave way to egg and nut sellers and various cooked food sellers.
Now came the riverfront with several cages of birds. I began to film the birds which were doing an amazing random flight craze. The seller came up behind me to look at my movie. Amee explained that for $1 you can buy a bird and release it for a prayer. I bought one, he gave me two. The squiggling, warm, downy pulse was ticklish in my cupped hands, and I was happy to let it go pretty quickly. I prayed for this country and for Bodhi’s health.
We walked a bit more, a very sad beggar came up beside me and I wanted to give him a dollar. I fished around in my embarrassingly large wallet and peeled one of my few singles off for him. I had actually spent the last few days in CA getting singles in change for this purpose, but unfortunately had left them in the hotel. We kept going. The light became amazing and I asked Amee and Bodhi to stop for a picture. They stood by the river in rainbow salmon colored light. At this point there were a number of Khmer women in pairs on the stone wall over the river. A pair of them watched Bodhi as he tried to shake a coconut tree on the plaza. Their eyes went from his brown skin to our white skin and back and forth, they smiled, I smiled back. A boy of Bodhi’s age came up beside me. He was in rags more or less, a child of the streets, red pants ending in torn edges below the knee led to ashen dusty bare feet, I thought of Dickens. He grunted to me for money, he was badly in need and we had no more small bills. The desperation and that feeling of being swarmed overcame me and I think Bodhi felt it too. The sunset grew more and more amazing but a need for escape overtook us three.
On the plaza were hundreds of people doing some kind of line dance. I wanted to see what was up with it but Bodhi was tiring out. I believe it was that Zumba craze, with latin-tinged, techno-house music pumping from battery powered boom boxes and a white Aussie type of gal seeming to give instructions to the mostly Khmer group assembled.
We hailed another tuktuk and asked to be taken along the river. This driver had zero English but gave us a nice ride. A few blocks into the ride, Bodhi suddenly asked for a pen and began writing in his book. The ride became more difficult as the fumes from the evening traffic enveloped the carriage. Highlights: we passed the Sunway Hotel and Wat Phnom, the site of our adoption stay and many memories we have described to Bodhi over the years. We passed a new kid’s park with shiny play equipment and groovy neon across from the American Embassy. Big highlight - we spied a large monkey sitting nonchalantly on a concrete post around the edge of the park. We had to teach the driver how to find our hotel, with no language between us. Finally he stopped at another tuktuk stand and those drivers helped us home with directions.
Taipei Airport
It’s 11 am and we are on a small plane with 120 Khmer and some Chinese heading to Phnom Penh from Taipei. It is a bright mid-morning which feels like a neverending afternoon. We are served a very similar version of our breakfast which was consumed while flooding down into a very Oakland-like and foggy Taipei. Eggs or Chicken/Rice, this one is somehow more Spartan and less flavorful than the 5 am breakfast version. We are quiet, Bodhi is watching yet another repeat of Star Wars :The Clone Wars – his 4th viewing in 24 hours. Considering this is his favorite movie, it couldn’t be better for him. We feel saddened somehow that he is not just still and present awaiting his pilgrimage. That is the word he used, pilgrimage. We’ve filled out our tourist cards on the flight and put the reason for travel as “vacation” and he’s corrected us on this one, but we’ve left the cards as they are.
The world is huge and Cambodia is familiar. It seems ungodly to travel around this ball at such a speed for such a time. In 14 hours we were in Taiwan and there was, no difference, except more Chinese speaking English. This may sound harsh at first, but I mean that inside the airport there was: technology, noodles, crusty croissants and Bubble Milk Tea. There was also free wireless but our carry on had been force checked and my laptop power cable had gone with it – so for our layover while I hoped to blog, I was as always, thwarted by technology, having wasted the battery on the series opener of Battlestar Galactica on the flight.
The Cambodian man across the aisle asks me if the boy is Cambodian. I tell him “yes.” He asks if he’s my son, I tell him “yes.” He is touched that we are bringing Bodhi to see his country and so are the other surrounding passengers, who are treated to some photos of Bodhi as a baby and present day in California. Most of the passengers are Cambodians who live in California, heading to their country for a yearly holiday.
We come down over the expansive, flat, corn-colored landscape. It reminds me somewhat of California and I ask Bodhi if he thinks so too. He says it looks like he thought it would. The airport is new. That is okay, last time we were here, we came down a rolling stairway and walked across the blasted tarmac. God, that word is cliché, tarmac, not blasted.
We come through passport control and the endless row of uniformed officials passed us along to the last three of the row and they take a long look at Bodhi and say: “Cambodian?” “Yes” we agree proudly, “But he’s a US citizen”, reminds Amee. Bodhi speaks to the American senior citizen couple behind us that he is coming home to see his country. And we leave the terminal.
A wave of heat coated with excellent nostalgia hits us as we are recognized by Ken holding a card with our name on it. We acknowledge him and meet around the corner and walk a few hundred feet to his racy Nissan SUV. He quickly turns off the hiphop radio blasting as we settle in. He is the driver for our friend Catherine MacNeql who on the board of Cambodia Tomorrow, a non-profit that has built a school for orphans outside Phnom Penh. Amee served on its board a year or two ago and Catherine has graciously put us in Ken’s care for our Phnom Penh stay. We get to know each other as we navigate a chaotic traffic pattern into the heart of town. We noticed a lot of new construction from the air and it seems that things are busy as can be for Phnom Penh. I remark that America is seeing business closures and lots of layoffs, but PP seems to be thriving in its impoverished status quo. Last I heard Cambodia is the 4th poorest country in the world, I’ll check on that, but its not like we’re in Bruges. And yet the street scene is loaded with businesses upon and tons of people busy at them.
Ken takes us to a used cell phone store so we can get hooked up, there is a guy scraping crusty cocaine-like buildup off of a tiny SIM chip for a customer looking on. We purchase the cheapest Nokia and get it readied for action, we will give it to Ken as a tip at the end of our stay.
We try and locate the hotel. We have an address but no phone number and Ken is a bit concerned. We know its about two blocks from the Palace and the river. What we don’t know is that the neighborhood is a Charlie-Fandango of one way streets, streets that actually change name every few houses, construction closures, concrete fallout from what looks like bombings (not possible), police manned barricades and always, always, always, motos (motorscooters of every kind) coming at you from every direction.
After what seems like an hour of this and a moment where we stare silently at a terribly sad family sitting in rubble like a vision from Baghdad, I suggest to Ken that we ask the police on the corner if our hotel is behind this barricade they man behind the Prime Minister’s residence. It is. We’re dropped off into a large, lush, private compound with fruit trees, red-rooofed haciendas, still outdoor pools and little raised pavilions with softy beds, mosquito nets and wireless internet, one of which I write you from just now.
We order a tuna melt for Bodhi and Salade Nicoise for us and are delighted by what I can only call “hamische” lunch – as if someone invited us into their kitchen and said “after 20 hours of flying, you folks look like you could use some home cooking!”.
Bodhi is still in the giant rectangular pool which is a perfect four feet deep throughout and likely will be for the next four days. I ask him how he likes his country so far and he replies in true California-speak – “sweeeeet!”
The world is huge and Cambodia is familiar. It seems ungodly to travel around this ball at such a speed for such a time. In 14 hours we were in Taiwan and there was, no difference, except more Chinese speaking English. This may sound harsh at first, but I mean that inside the airport there was: technology, noodles, crusty croissants and Bubble Milk Tea. There was also free wireless but our carry on had been force checked and my laptop power cable had gone with it – so for our layover while I hoped to blog, I was as always, thwarted by technology, having wasted the battery on the series opener of Battlestar Galactica on the flight.
The Cambodian man across the aisle asks me if the boy is Cambodian. I tell him “yes.” He asks if he’s my son, I tell him “yes.” He is touched that we are bringing Bodhi to see his country and so are the other surrounding passengers, who are treated to some photos of Bodhi as a baby and present day in California. Most of the passengers are Cambodians who live in California, heading to their country for a yearly holiday.
We come down over the expansive, flat, corn-colored landscape. It reminds me somewhat of California and I ask Bodhi if he thinks so too. He says it looks like he thought it would. The airport is new. That is okay, last time we were here, we came down a rolling stairway and walked across the blasted tarmac. God, that word is cliché, tarmac, not blasted.
We come through passport control and the endless row of uniformed officials passed us along to the last three of the row and they take a long look at Bodhi and say: “Cambodian?” “Yes” we agree proudly, “But he’s a US citizen”, reminds Amee. Bodhi speaks to the American senior citizen couple behind us that he is coming home to see his country. And we leave the terminal.
A wave of heat coated with excellent nostalgia hits us as we are recognized by Ken holding a card with our name on it. We acknowledge him and meet around the corner and walk a few hundred feet to his racy Nissan SUV. He quickly turns off the hiphop radio blasting as we settle in. He is the driver for our friend Catherine MacNeql who on the board of Cambodia Tomorrow, a non-profit that has built a school for orphans outside Phnom Penh. Amee served on its board a year or two ago and Catherine has graciously put us in Ken’s care for our Phnom Penh stay. We get to know each other as we navigate a chaotic traffic pattern into the heart of town. We noticed a lot of new construction from the air and it seems that things are busy as can be for Phnom Penh. I remark that America is seeing business closures and lots of layoffs, but PP seems to be thriving in its impoverished status quo. Last I heard Cambodia is the 4th poorest country in the world, I’ll check on that, but its not like we’re in Bruges. And yet the street scene is loaded with businesses upon and tons of people busy at them.
Ken takes us to a used cell phone store so we can get hooked up, there is a guy scraping crusty cocaine-like buildup off of a tiny SIM chip for a customer looking on. We purchase the cheapest Nokia and get it readied for action, we will give it to Ken as a tip at the end of our stay.
We try and locate the hotel. We have an address but no phone number and Ken is a bit concerned. We know its about two blocks from the Palace and the river. What we don’t know is that the neighborhood is a Charlie-Fandango of one way streets, streets that actually change name every few houses, construction closures, concrete fallout from what looks like bombings (not possible), police manned barricades and always, always, always, motos (motorscooters of every kind) coming at you from every direction.
After what seems like an hour of this and a moment where we stare silently at a terribly sad family sitting in rubble like a vision from Baghdad, I suggest to Ken that we ask the police on the corner if our hotel is behind this barricade they man behind the Prime Minister’s residence. It is. We’re dropped off into a large, lush, private compound with fruit trees, red-rooofed haciendas, still outdoor pools and little raised pavilions with softy beds, mosquito nets and wireless internet, one of which I write you from just now.
We order a tuna melt for Bodhi and Salade Nicoise for us and are delighted by what I can only call “hamische” lunch – as if someone invited us into their kitchen and said “after 20 hours of flying, you folks look like you could use some home cooking!”.
Bodhi is still in the giant rectangular pool which is a perfect four feet deep throughout and likely will be for the next four days. I ask him how he likes his country so far and he replies in true California-speak – “sweeeeet!”
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
A beautiful book for your holidays, a great primer on our experience
I realize that we have a great resource to share and a great read for all of you. Our friend Kari Grossman has written an amazing book about her adoption experience, Cambodian history, and the experience of returning to the country to do some amazing work. She and her husband George built the Grady Grossman School in a remote area of Cambodia and have been operating it and building a local economy using renewable energy resources for the last few years.
The book is entertaining, informative, exciting and just a great read for anyone.
Up and Adam
Its a rare day that I'm awake before Amee and usually its a good sign. Got a few hours and awoke from a good dream with you on my mind. Who would I invite to this blog? How would I describe this undertaking? I'm inviting you and everyone else should presume they are welcome. I'm describing it like this:
Eight years ago on July 4, 2000, we received a phone call from our adoption agency in Seattle saying that we had been approved to travel and pick up our son, Bodhi, then 4 months old in Cambodia at his orphanage. We had been waiting since March 24, 2000 when he had received a picture of him at 5 days old and accepted the referral - beginning our family. We travelled a few weeks later and spent a few weeks in country. Perhaps on this trip I'll have a chance to recount some of that journey, but suffice it to say, it was incredible, deep and scented with lemongrass, coconut and baby formula.
This trip will be a chance for Bodhi to get to know his country and his people and for Amee and I to return to a place we love and care about.
Monday, December 8, 2008
One more night
We leave tomorrow night and nobody can sleep. I just spent two hours downloading a ton of Dengue Fever and every podcast that comes up on search term 'Cambodia' in iTunes. Okay, not every single one, but there are some groovy sounding ideas, like interviews with underground artists in Phnom Penh - this is giving me ideas beyond the "Devil's Handbook" (Lonely Planet Cambodia). Spent the rest of today at Long's Drug buying alcohol based hand sanitizer, batteries and malaria medicine ($6/per pill for a total of 80 pills for the three of us). I either gotta get into the battery business or pharmaceuticals, kid rock just doesn't pay those kind of bucks.
The wistful thoughts of doing this right have been eclipsed by the freakout of just getting out of the house and onto the flight. More soon.
Monday, December 1, 2008
Getting Started
Hi Folks,
We're heading to Cambodia next week so I figured its time to get some blogging going. I'm feeling very excited and also a bit nervous. We've been there twice before, but never when Bodhi was a fully grown kid. Bodhi is now 8 and will be keeping his own blog but I'm sure to spend some time with descriptions, photos and finding my way through this awesome encounter.
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