Goodbye Cambodia

I am still not sure how to do this, how to go about saying goodbye to an entire country. Goodbyes to family, to friends, and to lovers are all different procedures. With countries, you are either with them or you are not. They also never seem to stop coming.

The process really began at the end of June. The teachers at Angkor Chum High School threw a big "Goodbye Adrian" party which lasted from two in the afternoon until midnight. Almost everyone I worked with showed up, even the deputy district governor. They all said awfully nice about me, and we all ate and drank until we could hold no more in our bellies. Four cases of Black Panther Stout were consumed, along with three cases of Crown Ale. By the end of the night, the geography teacher I worked with on the history project could barely stand. He tried to offer me one final toast, but he stumbled back into his chair as soon as his brain decided that they could not support the weight. I had nearly concocted a plan for my counterpart to wed one of the women teachers sitting next to me, but I could not convince her that it was a good idea. (Something having to do with primary school teachers not marrying high school teachers) The music was loud, but when the car batteries wore down the power went out and everyone decided to go home. I helped put my counterpart to bed, and then I went to bed myself. It was a fun night, but it was not something I could repeat. The following week, all of the teachers and students started leaving Angkor Chum. My co-workers either went back to their homes in different provinces or went elsewhere to help with the 12th grade national exams in July. The students dispersed to their villages or Siem Reap town in order to study over the summer.

And so I said goodbye to Angkor Chum high school.

That just left me and a handful of people I knew in town to spend the rest of June and July with. I busied myself with reading, packing, and making last trips out to see Angkor Wat on the weekends. But the days were long, and I found myself staring off into rice fields more than usual during the long hot afternoons after lunch. I even went out into the fields for a week and learned how to plant transplanted rice in the paddies. This was never something I actively wanted to do, but I happened to be on a walk behind the high school when I ran into a gang of people working in one of the paddies. A woman who happened to know my name called me over and asked me if I knew how to stooung (plant transplanted rice). I said that I did not, and would she teach me? She said she would be delighted to, and told me to take off my sandals before I got down into the paddy.

Some agricultural expert named said that the construction of a paddy is like "the fabrication of an aquarium." Sure enough, the earth ridges kept the water inside the space we were working, and the mud reached well above my ankles. It was also warm and sticky, and made a gurgling noise every time I lifted my foot. Ming (Aunt) showed me how to stooung with my right hand while my left carried a clump of rice shoots. With the roots of the plant lined up against my protruding thumb, I pressed the roots into the mud so that the plant stayed upright. Sometimes a boy with a pointed stick would come along and make holes in the earth and I would stick two or three of the plants in there. Ming yelled at me if I planted the rice plants too close together, but I kept insisting that this was my first time doing this. "I’m from the city! I have never done this kind of work. You must believe me!" Ming would not hear of it. When she finally approved of everything that I was doing, she got on to more practical matters like when on earth was I going to marry a girl from the village and stop this nonsense about wanting to marry within my own culture. The banter went back and forth, and the rest of the workers laughed at our antics. On television this kind of thing happens all the time. There is a program on Thursday nights where a man and woman on the stage, and they argue back and forth while an orchestra or a band provides brief musical interludes. If an old man were playing the long necked lute behind us, the scene would have been complete. It could have been memorialized as an exercise sentence in one of my Khmer books. "Grandfather plays the saa dee-ew while aunt argues with the foreigner."
I came out to help them a couple of afternoons each week, wearing an oversized Vietnamese hat that gave me excellent protection from the sun. The gang noticed this, and every time I took a break they called me a lazy yoo-an (not a nice word for the Vietnamese). We wore dark clothing and hats that covered us from the sun. Their company was delightful, but at the end of the week my back ached and could no longer keep up the work. The host family also disapproved of what I was doing, saying that a teacher would never stoop so low as to go and stooung with the people in the fields.

And so I said goodbye to my career as a rice planter.

In the middle of July, I went down to Kampong Cham town to help prepare the new language and cultural facilitators for the incoming group of new volunteers. It was a full week of meetings about what to expect from the trainees, both good and bad. Most of the sessions involved practice teaching sessions where the new LCF’s prepared lessons, taught them, and had them critiqued quickly in a session afterwards. A few of them had never been around Americans before, and they were understandably nervous. Three months is a long time for anyone to deal with a large group of Americans, but we gave them the best advice we could. After our work was done for the day, the other volunteers and I sat in the cafés along the banks of the Mekong and talked about the good old days. We stayed and passed the time long after the sun went down over the Japanese bridge and the students went home from their private classes. The company was pleasant, and it was a very productive week. It was also good to contribute to the K4 training sessions once before I left.

And so I said goodbye to the training staff in Kampong Cham.

When I returned to site, the only thing left to do was pack up and leave. There was little else I could do. The few remaining friends I had were also leaving soon, and it was better to say goodbye to them while I had the chance and leave after that.

In one day, I packed and walked all over the town saying goodbye to the people of Angkor Chum. It did not feel that terribly sad, but then I did not approach it as a terribly tragic event. I told many of the market ladies that I would come back to visit bearing a beautiful American wife so that they would believe all the excuses I made for not wanting a Khmer one. That kept them laughing as I left. Many of them thanked me for all the work I had done, wished me luck back in America, and asked if I would miss Angkor Chum when I was away in America. Miss Sopuhn asked me if I would miss her and her class of 36 students of 12A, and I said in English that I would. She then smiled and said, "I don’t understand English."

"That’s too bad," I said, "Because I would have brought you to America in my suitcase if you did." Both Sopuhn and her mother laughed, but I realized later that such an act would technically constitute as human trafficking.

And so, I said goodbye to Angkor Chum and the two years of my life that I spent living there. It was not so strange leaving the place because I had done that many times, but I always went back. Now it was different. An odd feeling came over me in a hotel room in Sisophon later that night after I left when I was staring at my bags and contemplating the events of the day. I realized that I had left and I could not go back for a long time. To make matters a little worse, I had a sudden craving for mee cha. Not just any old mee cha, but Si Nooan’s mee cha. The noodles she made were always dripping in grease, and if I told her I was really hungry she would put a fried egg on top. Now I will have to wait years before I can satisfy that craving.

This past week I took some time to visit other volunteers and reminisce about our two years together in Cambodia. I believe I once wrote on this blog that I was immensely proud of the work my colleagues and I were doing in Peace Corps Cambodia, and I am still proud of everything that we have all done. It may have seemed like very little over time, but it is remarkable to look back over it over time.

And so, I say goodbye to Peace Corps Cambodia.