Dinner with the locals

(This post was written last night, to be published today.)

I just got back from dinner at this tiny little roadside restaurant, where my friend and I were the only guests and the rest of the team – a family, or close friends – sat at the neighboring table and had their own dinner.

It was a bit late when we met up, close to eight, and I wasn’t sure if there was going to be any place open. My neighborhood is pretty safe, but still I’m not sure how good of an idea it is to go wandering about at night on the third (fourth?) day in a foreign country. We were heading for somewhere a few blocks away but decided instead to turn down a closer street.

What we thought was a fairly large restaurant was in fact a gym (take note, Gillian who hasn’t been exercising in god knows how long), but this place was not far away and appeared somewhat open.

We asked them and they happily welcomed us. One of them spoke very good English and came to chat with us and take our order. They didn’t have a menu, but told us what they had. I ordered fried noodles with beef and my friend a chicken soup. Once that was taken care of, our new Cambodian friend stayed to ask us what we were doing in the country, and chatted amiably for quite a while.

We ordered a couple beers, the local brand (Angkor), and he headed off to the table next to ours, coming back a few minutes later to offer a cheers, which his table seemed to be doing an inordinate amount of.

The food came in a bit, and turns out, it was delicious. Simple, but very good, and we had a lovely time eating. At the end there was a bit of a mixup on the bill – the girl gave us 300 riel back when it should have been 13000 – but after finally working out that there was a problem, Gillian having issues with her very latent math skills, we turned back in the rain and explained. They were very nice about it and we got the extra 10000, so it worked out well.

But let me tell you about this place. Like all of the restaurants, it lacked a front wall, inside spilling out into the street. The walls were whitewashed and tiny little lizards skittered across them. The tables and chairs were plastic, the dishes and the chopsticks white. Out front a cart to make the munchies or the meat, I’m not sure, but covered with some kind of umbrella, either with the Angkor logo or something similar.

The floor inside was tiled, and a covering stretched out into the street, protecting from the rain, which has been downpouring since about six o’clock this evening.

I fully intend on returning, because now, I think, I can maybe make friends with the owners. The food was good, and cheap – two fifty for the meal, about 90 cents for the beer.

When I got home, sticky and wet for the monsoon, I took a cold shower and listened to the rain hit the metal roof. Tonight I really enjoy my life; I confess to being a bit lonely earlier on, having gotten very used to having my family a phone call/text away. Now, we’re separated by thirteen hours and a very large ocean. I’m settled enough to start missing everyone, my friends and family, but after a dinner like that, I’m reminded why I did what I did and flew halfway around the world. Crazy, sure.

But so very worthwhile.  

The food, and the drivers

In other words, you need a helmet.

At least for the latter, but perhaps for the former too. I mentioned that nobody cares what side of the road you drive on, and I mean it. The scariest part is at intersections, as most don't have lights and you just have to grit your teeth, slow down, and wiggle your way through the throngs of oncoming traffic. The other is that there aren't really street signs and when you take the time to look at the shop signs to see the street, you aren't paying attention to the road. It's a balancing act for sure...

With that said, I adore the chaos. I found my way to the Orussey market, another mess of stands and smells and things to buy, food and fabric and motorbikes and water filters and if you can dream it, you can find it. It's so much it sprawls out from the main building and onto the surrounding streets, as though the sheer amount of stuff being sold fell from the sky and blurted out the sides.

I bought a helmet. It was the first success of the day, the second being buying a "numpai", a steamed pork bun, for a snack and conducting the transaction entirely in Khmer. Yes, aren't I cool.

In the meantime, I'm learning quickly how to eat Cambodian food. It's just so different that at first I wasn't quite sure what to make of it, but the last few meals have tasted really good, so maybe I'm learning.

The biggest thing is this: I will need to, and am already making progress, swiftly get over my aversion to fish heads. The fish are served whole here. There is no such thing as a filet or a boneless chicken breast. Everything has bones. Chicken claws are not excluded from the chicken when cooked.

Rice is of course served with everything and the food itself is not spicy, like Thai food, but filled with spices. Cambodians love to mix everything together to get the mix that suits them. The most popular dish is, as far as I can tell, Amok, which is some concoction of coconut milk, fish, and a bunch of spices. Everyone makes it differently, so I've heard, but it's very yummy.

Fish is served with fish sauce and some kind of pickled veggies. Fish cakes with eggs are eaten with raw vegetables. There is a lot of soup, and a lot of veggies. I had a very good pineapple and beef concoction the other day.

Then there's the fruit. Green mangoes, which I'm not so sure about yet, but then there are ramboutan, mangosteen, lychees, and some little thing that's like a lychee but not that I can't remember the name of - langsat, says google. Dragonfruit, and green oranges; apparently the most outlandish thing I've said so far is, "How can it be an orange if it's not orange?"

I still don't have an answer, but green or not, it's an orange.

Though I'm still settling in, I already love living here. I met some fellow ex-pats last night, with the same idea as me to explore the local culture fully. Now equipped with a bike, I fully intend on exploring...

PS. The camera will have to wait until I have paying work. Until then, I'll do my best to make my words count.

Markets, Khmer, and Tuk Tuks...

I'm not sure where to begin.

HOW should I begin? With what, doing where, going how? I don't usually have expectations about things so I can't say it's what I expected, but it is...it is as expected nothing like anywhere I have ever been.

I am really terrible at writing descriptions and explanations. You'll find that soon, and hopefully sooner rather than later I'll have a camera and all of us will be spared my stumbling attempts. Either way, for the moment I'll stay away from them, and just tell you what I think is important.

Let's start this way: the roofs are colorful. Flying in, it's a mess of color, green of the trees, brick red, deep blue roofs, white, everything else thrown in for kicks. On the street you don't see the colors of the roofs, but it's still a mess. Umbrellas, carts, restaurants but without front windows. The streets are packed with motos and tuk tuks and a few cars, and nobody seems to care which side of the road you drive on. The motos weave in and out of everything -- often you'll see the moto taxis with one or two people sitting on the back, and if you walk down the street, the drivers -- moto and tuk tuk -- will offer rides incessantly.

The city is small but any time you don't know where you're going it seems bigger. There doesn't appear to be any street signs, only a few on the main roads. People seem to operate on landmarks and a solid knowledge of their neighborhoods.

Everywhere there is something to buy. It's cheap if you go where the locals go and extremely expensive if you go Western. Someone is always selling something, phones, bikes, water. Parking seems to be another adventurous activity -- my friend has a driver, and in being chauffered around, I noticed that almost all shops have an assistant whose job is to park the cars and make sure the tuk tuks go around when the car is backing up. They open the door for you to get out, and I guess receive a few riels in return.

Yesterday happened, and exactly what happened I'm not sure I could tell you -- I arrived in Phnom Penh around noon and the rest of the day existed in a haze, being bombarded with sights and sounds, information, and in the meantime trying to trick my body into believing that it wasn't actually in the middle of the night.

I managed to stay awake until 8:30, barely, enjoying a traditionally Cambodian meal for dinner with my friend's parents; chicken and ginger, a fish soup, and some kind of stew with some kind of eggs, meat, and veggies. With rice, of course, and fresh lychees and mangosteens for dessert.

What else --- I decided that my current wardrobe is drastically inadequate for the culture and the heat and have already set about rectifying that. It's somewhat conservative here, so I already have a pair of 'aladdin' pants, which are light and airy but cover a lot. I also bought a light dress, with small sleeves and calf length, and will soon add a very light shirt to cover my shoulders for the dresses I have. Apparently white skin is deeply coveted here, and despite the heat the locals cover most of their skin, even going so far as to use whitening creams.

I'm already working on learning the language -- it bugs me greatly to not be able to communicate with the locals in their own tongue and English is pretty spotty anyway. I can say basic things like thank you and please, I would like to go, etc, along with "I am a teacher in the arts," "more rice please," and how to count to twenty. It's not a difficult language, but the pronunciation is crazy and I don't think I will ever be able to read it. But most signs are in both English and Khmer, so I don't really have to. It's just the speaking that's the trick.

I also already have a Cambodian nickname -- while in English nicknames usually come from the first syllable -- for mean, "Gill" -- but here it's the last. My friend's mom has trouble saying Gillian because the soft g sound doesn't really exist here. So now she calls me 'yan', from the "ian" at the end. I actually quite like it.

But before I go don't let me forget to talk about the markets. They are cramped and busy and you can buy whatever it is you please. Bargaining is allowed and encouraged, and the shopkeepers either recruit customers or can be found napping in their stalls. Things are cheap, but apparently the prices jack up if you're white.

I suppose the most jarring for me were the piles of fresh fish and dead chickens, being gutted and cleaned as you watch. I guess it's a good way to see where your food is coming from, but it smelled too much of blood for me. I suppose it's something you get used to, and I want to buy fruit for breakfast. Overwhelming, busy, but fascinating.

I think, actually, that could be said for everything here.

Next stop, the other side of the world

As I've mentioned several times previously on this blog and haven't stopped talking about for months now (leaving my friends and acquaintances no doubt really really ready for me to actually leave), on July 6th, at 1:45AM, I will be on an airplane at JFK, heading for Phnom Penh, Cambodia. With a stop in Taipei for 3 hours and to convince myself to get back on an airplane after 16 full hours to get there.

Sass aside. I have a one way ticket. I have no idea when I am coming back, or where. I've started telling people I'll be there until I leave, which no matter what will be true. It should be somewhere in the six to nine  month range, I think, and sometime next March I will probably be found in Denver. Maybe.

As for what I'm doing...well, that's a bit up in the air too, but at least until the end of the summer I'll be teaching choreography workshops with Cambodian Living Arts, an organization with a mission to rebuild the country by bringing back the arts. I'll probably continue working with them during the fall, including an all-expenses paid trip to Siem Reap to teach at the School of Fine Arts there.

In the meantime, I'll be teaching English to pay the bills (I hope), collaborating with whatever arts organizations I can possibly collaborate with, and (hopefully) producing work.

It sounds fantastic, and I'm so thrilled, but I always get asked, why in the world - literally - Cambodia?

Well. My friend Nettra, my suitemate freshman year, is from there, and infused me with her passion for the country. Somehow, we decided I should go, but there was never time, until there was, and I threw the idea out into the world to see what happened.

Simply enough, I thought it was time to give back. I'm fascinated by how the arts are returning, having been entirely stamped out during the Khmer Rouge, and I have the opportunity to really be a part of the movement to rebuild.

And besides -- I love how I can get real experience teaching and working, and in the process immerse myself in a part of the world that is entirely foreign to anything I have previously experienced. I love how I can go and be whoever the hell I want, as accomplished as I care to be.

I'll probably have a camera, and at the very least, I'll be keeping up the blog, writing down the adventure as it unfolds under my feet. I have absolutely no idea where it's going to lead me, but I think I want to be there to find out.

See you on the other side! (literally)

Rolling Home

Well I don't know, I ain't been told
Everybody wants a hand to hold. 
They're so afraid of being old, 
so scared of dying, so unknown 
and so alone, rollin' home. 


You'll hear me talk a lot on this blog about being alive, and storming after dreams. I would say they're obsessions, and I do my best to always be doing both.

Recently I was talking with a friend, and he asked, "why wouldn't people just do what they want all the time?" Why indeed, settle for a job you hate or at best dislike, and put away what you truly want as being unattainable, silly, and generally impossible?

I can't answer that. If I could, I'd be very rich. But I think it has something to do with the above lyrics, from a folk song. Some deep fear -- maybe of being the only on the road  you're on, the outcast, the wandering beggar. Or maybe not. Maybe it just takes too much energy. Sit down, you're rocking the boat, indeed.

I don't know the way out. I think I have some inkling, what works for me at least. A few years ago, I thought I wanted to save the world. That was a pretty ridiculous thing to think, but it was hard to let go of. So scared of dying, so unknown and so alone, right? But I realized somewhere along the way, I don't need to save the world to make a difference. I don't even need to try.

There's nothing big I want to prove, no mountains that I need to move
or even claim what's right or true for you. 
My sights, my songs are slightly charred, but things are only what they are, and nothing new --
But for me, I think they'll do. 


Now I just have my dreams. They are what they are, and for me, they work, and I storm after them with an obsession that is if not blind, at least consuming. I don't have to move mountains, just climb them step by step.

As for me, I think that'll do.

A late Father's Day shoutout

Father's Day was yesterday, but I thought it might be time to give a mention to my dad, who has been mentioned here briefly but never with any detail.

Dad used to be a lawyer. He wanted to go into music and writing out of college, but that wasn't going to pay the bills, so he went to law school instead. Some thirty years later, he got a shock from the maker on a ski slope, when he fell from a poma lift and shattered his pelvis.

That was in 2006. Since, his life -- and ours -- have never been the same. He decided he was done stifling a boundlessly creative soul, and hasn't stopped creating since. At the beginning, it was a multimedia show that he and I were partners in crime on, but it spiraled from there to screenplays, more shows, books, seminars.

None of his productions have come to fruition yet, but to say it was just the products that matter would be a great oversight. Not content to purely change careers in his mid-fifties, Dad embarked on a life-changing quest to find a whole new way of living -- a full-accountability, fully alive, fully aware kind of life. It was a journey so transforming that the whole family was touched by it, and are all on our own journeys in the same vein. Of self-discovery, forgiveness, lack of judgment.

Throughout the process -- well, you couldn't expect it to be easy, and it wasn't. There were many times when the normal person might have quit and gone back to the hated status quo, begged the universe's pardon for disturbing it, and forgotten how to dream.

Not Dad. He kept going, kept creating, no matter what happened. He is without a doubt the most courageous man I have ever met, and I'm constantly inspired by him -- and challenged to be a better person. I think, even if he wasn't my dad, we'd be friends.

I encourage you to check out his website, which just launched a couple weeks back: www.kevin-rhodes.com.

Happy Father's Day, Dad! Love you dearly.

And then life happened

And muttering constantly about how long May was taking to finish, I turned around to open the door and found weeks trailing behind me like little ducklings, wondering how long it would take until I noticed them.

It all just happened, just like every other moment of our lives, important and unimportant and essential and thrown away -- it doesn't change, each now unravels precisely as did its predecessor. If there's an apocalypse, it will be just like every other moment and we'll probably never know it happened, until much later.

I don't remember what it was like to be in school, to have homework, to go to class. That's probably a strange thing to say, but this is coming from someone who has trouble remembering what happened last weekend. I think it's a caveat - if that word is even appropriate here - of living in the now. But needless to say, I don't miss it.

Perhaps one reason life is happening behind my back, only to stop guilty when I turn but betrayed by its movement, is that I've been feeling particularly transitory -- unsettled in the most literal sense, un-settled, not settled. And no wonder -- I'm staying in someone else's apartment. I get my clothes from a suitcase. I'm leaving in four weeks (!!!!) from Thursday, to somewhere across the globe that promises to be exactly like nothing I have ever experienced, ever.

It's been many years of violent transition in the family -- the easiest way to describe it is Dad changing careers, but that doesn't cover how the whole family melted like steel in the forge and came out changed. How the life we had before is nothing like the life we live now, down to the way we think, act, make decisions. Inside it's easy to think this is all there ever will be, this uncertain wobbling as we try to figure out where and what to do, how to live when we can barely see tomorrow, let alone our hands in front of our faces.

Lately, I've had a couple thoughts. One, a simple bit of optimism: it won't always be like this. I can imagine a time in the not so distant future when I will have a little place, however small, that is mine, that I can buy little decorations for and come home to each night. Sure, I probably won't know when or where or how to make my dreams of dancing and choreographing come true, but I will have that one little bit of stability. Maybe even many years from now, my company will be well-established. Stability, like life, goes in cycles. At least, I'm willing to bet on it.

The second is something zen masters would probably approve of: until such time that I am settled, I must become settled in transition. Transition needs to be my home for now. Travel lightly. Dance from place to place like a sparrow, ready to fly at every moment.

In the meantime, I'm preparing for the move as best as I can, holding rehearsals, working. Thinking I'm paying attention to time and turning around to find it sneaking by while I wasn't looking.