Mosquitoes and Floating Villages

Sometime I'll have to tell you about the floating village we visited today.... another story for another day.

Cambodia is a world unlike any I have ever seen. It's the kind of place that leaves a deep impresion on you and you're not quite the same person after having seen it. What keeps coming to mind is "Where much is given, much is required," not only with the blessings and clear advantage we have been given in this life as far as education, opportunity and basic quality of life, but also with becoming a witness to the extreme, widespread poverty here (40% of population living under THEIR poverty line.) With life being as it is back home, it's easy to get caugh up with life and ignore the fact that there are people like many of those living in Cambodia who need help--of all kinds. Everywhere you look here it's a picture. Unfortunately, though, you can't really capture it all (especially if you are riding on a bus.) I've seen some pretty crazy things on the backs of scooters... like slaughtered pigs flopped over the back, full families of five (including very small children sandwiched in between), bundles of 15 foot long pipes, mounds of sticks, bunches of bananas, and the list goes on. Scooters are the main form of transportation around here so you see pretty much everything. I also saw a truck loaded high wigh boxes. The dad was driving and his son who could not have been more than four years old was sitting on top of the boxes...on top of the truck! I saw that on the first day and I did a double take. I have since realized that that's more the norm than not.

This morning we passed by the hospital in town and there was a large crowd of about 150 standing outside--all waiting to see a doctor. They were standing by the Red Cross sign that was asking for blood donations and warning of the outbreaks of specific diseases (which are not new, but are still a significant problem." The poverty doesn't bother me as much as I expected it would, but what does bother me a lot is seeing children who clearly need healthcare and obviously have no way of obtaining it. I know the locals come of the tourist traps to draw attention to themselves, and maybe what I have seen isn't widespread, but las night I saw a child whose head was huge--like a big balloon, and I had to look away. It's hard becase you want to do something to help, but there really isn't anything you can do that's going to fix the problem. It's places like Cambodia that people in the U.S. need to see so they can be reminded that good government matters.... it matters a LOT. People can complain about U.S. foreign policy and how we shouldn't get involved overseas in countries where the people aren't our own, but what needs to be remembered is that where the governments are corrupt, the people suffer. I saw it in parts of Russia. It's that way here, too, except worse. Things we consider basic necessities like clean water and um... clothes... are things that some of the people go without. I have seen many children over the past couple of days not only without shoes, but without shirts, and some completely without clothes. That's not right, especially in a country like Cambodia where there is a ton of foreign aid and the land is rich in natural resources. You would like that the government would use the resources it has to build simple things like roads, but even things like that are missing. That's one thing I was not prepared to see. I knew the infrastructure would not be as developed as in other countries, but I was not prepared to travel on bumpy dirt roads to most of our destinations. This is a place where you are continually repeating out loud: WOW. And, interestingly enough, it's a place to which I'd return. I enjoyed Thailand, but it doesn't have anywhere near the draw for me as Cambodia.

More to come next time I get internet access. Probably in Vietnam, and I'm headed there tomorrow night.