When I open my eyes, vibrant colors chase me. Humid air envelopes me. We are swimming upstream in a sea of mopeds and TukTuks. On both sides of us, stilted wooden houses stand tall carrying the weight of their occupants swinging in hammocks below. Ahead of us, picturesque, jagged mountains disrupt the blissful, lazy sky. All around us, palm trees sway in the slight breeze, enticing us to long for a taste of their cool, milky coconuts.
Two people in orange robes and shaved heads. They come to the open door of the hostel’s restaurant. A little girl runs up to them from her table. She kneels down to pray at their feet.
Thirty people gathered under a house on stilts. Kids chasing one another. Parents eating crackers and drinking an off brand of coke. All there for a sick, elderly man. He lays on a mattress placed on a wooden platform. With an IV drip, drip, dripping into his veins. We pray.
A lady whose teeth are dripping in blood. She spits red into the dirt. Her son offers us whole coconuts. He chops them off his tree. Fresh. She swings in a hammock. We drink. Her hip is hurt and not getting better. She doesn’t believe in anything. Only doctors. We pray in secret.
These are some scenes we’ve experienced here in Cambodia. Cambodia is a distinct, beautiful country and extremely different than the South American countries we have become accustomed to. Here, people are on time. Early even. People regard honor as an essential virtue. Students know English. Adults bow to greet and to say goodbye. The girls are skinny, tall, with creamy complexions. People are always clean. Three showers a day sometimes. They drink coffee from bags and eat green mangos dipped in soup seasoning. And they laugh, a lot.
I love it here. To be honest, I didn’t think I would. Palm trees, mountains, and animals sprinkle the landscape. I run… left, right, left on the red dirt path watching the sun rise over the rice fields. Peaceful and breathtaking. I sit in my hammock to read my Bible and later we gather around the table for a devotional and apples. We live at the school. Little ones are always around. We teach them English in class. Head, shoulders, knees, toes. One, two, three, four, five. Moi, pei, bei, bon, prem. The older kids ask what we like to do in our free time. They call us old. We listen to music. They ask for Ed Sheeran. We visit families, read the Bible, share our stories, pray. We pray for the sick, the blind, the women at the coconut milk factory. For dinner, there’s always rice. We ask lots of questions to our host, Vuthy. Then we worship and pray and play games. And finally, climb into our bug-netted-beds exhausted and full.
When I close my eyes, colors chase me in my dreams. Rain or wind envelopes the compound. We are swimming in a sea of avid students excited to learn and grow.
