Impressions of Cambodia_Outreach

(Please note that this blog update is written over the course of time and may not always have correct time references.)
I am sitting in the bathroom with my notebook writing this so as to not disturb my roommates I must be experiencing jetlag or something, wanting to go to go to bed at 5 or 6 and waking up at 3 or so in the morning.
So my impressions of Cambodia? Well, the first one when we stepped out of the airport at night was that it brought back many memories of living in Brazil. It feels very much like that.
We are in Phnom Penh right now and it has a lot of tourism and western influence, but it still has a host of smells, from exhaust fumes, to sewage, to incense, to street vendor foods. It is very similar to what you would experience in one of our cities.
Yesterday was our free day and we were able to venture out in groups from our hotel to explore the city a little. In the morning Dan, Connor, and I strolled down our street past watching eyes to the bank to see if we could figure out the exchange rate. It's 4000 Riel to a dollar. We didn't exchange our money because the Cambodians use US currency interchangeably with their own.
It's very convenient for us.
We met up with the rest of our team and set out on the streets to find breakfast. We found a lady selling a sort of deep fired bread stick. I don't know if that sounds good, it's hard to explain many things here but it was quite tasty.
We then all split some pineapples which we watched another lady cut up for us. (It's generally a good rule of thumb to watch a street vendor prepare the food instead of just giving you fruit or whatever that has been sitting around cut for a while.)
For lunch we sat at little tables in an open-air restaurant and were served some sort of thin noodle and meat soup. I will say that tastes are very different here, generally not bad but different. You just have to a positive mindset! We bought some burgers from a bakery and the meat patty was a little thicker than paper, and it had different condiments than ketchup and mustard. It was different but good still.
Something I noticed but didn't expect was that few people were walking the street. Almost everyone either drives a car (not many of those) or they take a tuk tuk (motor bikes). There are a lot of tuk tuks everywhere. Traffic is insane. People drive on either side of the road sometimes, tuk tuks go up on the sidewalk to get around others, they drive inches away from each other. There are even children driving the tuk tuks. However, there is no yelling in anger or cursing, though lots of honking but that is just a way of courteously saying "here I come'. Instances that would cause us to jerk our wheels or slam on our breaks just cause them to swerve gently aside. Everyone remains so calm here. Anybody who has an issue with road rage should come here and see and learn that that we really don't have that much to complain about. Of course most of the vehicles here are motor bikes and easy to maneuver, but it is also shocking to see what they what they will carry on the back of their tuk tuk, dozens and dozens of dead chickens, geese (most dead), boxes and boxes of who knows what, 3 or 4 family members of friends, their infants etc.
The people are very friendly and warm. As foreigners we get watched a lot, but if we smile at them they most always smile warmly back.
We took tuk tuks to the market where we got to try out our bargaining skills. I... probably spent more than I should on certain things that I bought. Oh well, it was certainly a learning experience.
Most of what this first week has been is about learning.
We all are trying hard to learn the language. It's hard and slow but we are learning a few phrases. Thankfully many people hear know a little English. That helps a lot.
We teamed up with a DTS outreach team from Germany and had our orientation on religion, history, and culture  of Cambodia. We then visited a temple. The place was filled with the swell of incense . Great stone lions guarded the many steps that led up to the towering temple building. There were cages packed with fluttering finches that one could buy in order to release as a religious act. Men with but one leg hobbled around tying to sell postcards to the many tourists there. They were probably victims of the landmines that riddle the country of Cambodia. Many of the western tourists were offering incense as well.
Speaking of tourists it almost feels a little strange for me to see white people now. I am getting used to seeing Cambodians. So when I come back to the States I might feel a little overwhelmed at the way everyone looks. I hear that is how many people who spend time overseas feel when the come back. It's kind of funny.
One of the other places we went was very sobering. It was the museum/previous prison/concentration camp of the Khmer Rouge. We strolled quietly through the cells where Cambodian men, woman, and children were kept by other Cambodians and tortured and killed. We saw horrible pictures of bodies and of people before they were taken to their terrible fates. We saw tools of torture and the actual skulls, bones, and clothing of those killed.
Later that day we went to the Killing Fields and saw the pits where hundreds of bodies had been dug up. We saw a tree where babies had been beaten against next to the grave that their mothers were killed and thrown into. We walked beneath the branches of another tree that they hung speakers blaring music to cover up the cries and groans of those dying and suffering. We walked respectfully up to the glass and stone tower that housed thousands of skulls and bones of those killed during that terrible time.
Cambodia has had a dark recent past, but I am reminded of the smiles I receive from the people now and I know that Jesus loves these people.
Mankind/we ourselves are capable of great evil, but Jesus heals and restores.
I look forward to ministering and blessing these beautiful and gentle people in any small way we can over the weeks to come. And I have a feeling they will teach me many things along the way as well.