Why am I here?: The ups and downs of life in Cambodia

I suppose it would happen in any country, to anyone living anywhere, abroad or otherwise -- though perhaps especially for expatriates like me. Every few months, you start to wonder what you're doing here, because the things you think you want morph, the things you think you came for vanish, and in between there is a whole lot of gray to deal with.

It's not as though there are not opportunities in Cambodia -- in fact, there are so many that I'm working close to 50-60 hours per week between three jobs and my extra projects, which include a number of performances to dance in and create.

But it just doesn't look like I thought. Most of my recent frustration has come from my attempts to start "Pandaemonium Dance", which I had pictured as intense training and rehearsal with a number of dedicated dancers, building up to a variety of performances. I spent a long time worrying about the fact that I have no paid opportunities yet and not wanting to waste the dancers' time, and yet thinking they would be there to build the thing up with me.

Except, as artists do everywhere in the world, that's not the case. As the producer/creator, you are always the one who cares the most, and the others are there because it is one opportunity among many and they don't want to miss anything, so they do everything 50% instead of throwing 200% into one thing to build it and see it through.

What does that mean? It means that every week, some dancers are missing because they have other shows, other rehearsals. Saying they are free to rehearse at a certain time -- which they all did -- does not, I've discovered, mean they actually are. That time is not "blocked out" of the schedule as it is with mine, and if something else arrives, well, they try to do everything and if they can't, they say yes to the new one and send me text messages apologizing profusely for not coming.

That's all well and good, but they still aren't coming.

It's frustrating because of course I want it to be as essential to them as it is to me. When I say I'm doing something, I do, and come to every single rehearsal unless I absolutely cannot -- and if another thing comes up, I say I can't do it, I'm already working on something else.

But that is not the case with everyone and everywhere, and in the past few days, I've had to go back to that old question -- what do I want?

Every time in Cambodia when I think my mission is to "help" or to "teach" and that my knowledge is somehow invaluable or essential, I get lost and I have to realize that it is not. These artists are busy. They are good. And they will find their way -- or not -- regardless of what I do. I am not the Doctor or the Know-All, End-All.

It's a sobering thought, but the only way out is to go back to that simple question. What do I want out of being here? Why am I still here, a year and change down the road, and why shouldn't I just leave, as I consider doing every few months? If all these things I want, in life, love, career and etc, seem so very far away, where can I go to find them?

I actually still don't know the answer to those questions and probably never will, but I do know that for whatever reason, I'm not ready to leave this place yet, and I can't picture it.

So I'm having to go back to what there is and go from there, and follow my own heart, do things because I want to and not because I think someone else needs it. And be willing to let my vision of what it is I thought I was doing here to change. As an example, the past week I started judging for a Kpop dance contest on CTN, which is fabulously amusing, but that is not at all what I thought I was coming for -- a TV personality on Cambodian TV, WHAT??? But there it is, and it's fun, and though it is not the artsy fartsy production/creation I had in mind, it is here and happening, and I have to follow it.

Life is complicated, and so is this country, but for better or for worse, I am here, and learning by the day -- and maybe, in the end, that's the real and only reason to be here -- and maybe it's reason enough!

Home of the brave and the blowhards

When I was a little girl, the fourth of July was one of my favorite holidays. Of course I loved the fireworks, but I remember one year at a big party and fireworks show, and they sang "Proud to be an American." I put my hand over my heart and I cried, because I did feel proud.

Times have changed. I have grown up and lived over two years (11 months in France September 2010 - July 2011 and Cambodia since July 2012) abroad. I have watched the disastrous reign of Bush and partied in the streets when Obama was elected. I have read and ignored and generally pretended I know nothing of the country where I grew up and still holds my citizenship.

As I have mentioned, I do not much like politics, anywhere in the world, and especially these days. But I have to say that I have been utterly and completely disgusted by the recent political situation in America.

I knew it was a mess before, with the Republicans heading down a dangerous fundamentalist path and flatly refusing to negotiate anything that even so much as hints against their own agenda, and the liberals flatly refusing the same thing (though I tend to agree with the liberal agenda much more often than the Republicans, I have been quite dismayed by both party's complete unwillingness to even consider listening to each other.) I did not agree with Obama's hardline on Syria. I do not like the US foreign policy period.

Let me put it this way: that the Republicans have shut down the government because they didn't get their way is a disgrace to democracy.

But it's more than that.

This is personal.

I have watched my father struggle with the healthcare system over the course of and continuing over two serious accidents. I have heard of how my deathly ill sister was refused at a number of clinics because she had no insurance, and my financially struggling sister ready to spend 300 dollars out of pocket -- no small change -- simply to get someone to look at her.

My sister Darcy ended up in the hospital for two and a half months while my family struggled daily with social workers to figure out how to get her the care she needed.

And now, here we are. Maybe it is expensive, maybe the system will be flawed, but in Obamacare I saw an opportunity for me and my family - none of us with health insurance, no way to afford it, and all sorts of reasons why companies would deny us -- to get valuable coverage.

But because some blowhards have decided they disagree and are completely unwilling to negotiate or even consider that the system now may be broken -- and it is, I assure you, broken -- the government is shut down, and the whole country is suffering. I see no end in sight or even any sign that anybody would rather have a functioning government over getting their way.

No.

I am not proud to be an American. Not anymore, and not now.