Safe Arrival in Phnom Penh!

The flight from Phoenix to San Francisco was really pleasant. I sat next to Laurel who was traveling from her home in Austin, Texas to celebrate her 27^th birthday with friends in the Bay Area. The plane was packed with San Francisco 49ers and Green Bay Packers fans all dressed in team gear, rowdy and eager to get to the big game. It was a long flight from San Francisco to Frankfurt. The United crew was great though and they made the flight much more pleasant than it  easily could have been. They constantly fed us and they played a good selection of movies: “Pitch Perfect”, “Arbitrage”, and “The Bourne Supremacy”. It was also fun following our flight path on the tracking screen: we flew just South of Greenland and it was cold! The screen read minus 80 degrees Fahrenheit! (Of course, that was at 36,000 feet, going 600 mph, and over the Atlantic Ocean, but still it confirmed for me that I was no longer in Phoenix). I sat next to a businessman from San Francisco named Rick who was traveling to Germany and the UK for his work. I am grateful for meeting both Laurel and Rick. They are both really nice people and made the long trip to Germany fly by – literally “fly by”. The first thing I noticed when we touched down in Frankfurt was the “Welcome to Frankfurt” sign painted prominently across the wall of the first building. I was surprised and actually a little disappointed when I saw that all the other signage on the building walls facing the tarmac were also in English. It was as if we had not really landed in Germany, but instead landed on the set of a bad Hollywood prop airport. The layover in Frankfurt was shorter than I thought it would be and so I did not go into the city. Well, at least that is part of the reason why I didn’t go into the city. I was going to try going there for just a quick lunch, but when I tried to purchase a train pass from the airport kiosk my credit card didn’t work. I hope that Mastercard didn’t suspend my card for unusual activity (I had earlier used it at the Frankfurt airport Starbucks). I am not using my cell phone for this entire trip and so if Mastercard calls me about unusual card activity I will not be able to respond and I may be emailing friends and family to send cash. J

As I write this part of the entry I am waiting for the last of four legs of travel (this leg from Bangkok, Thailand to Phnom Penh, Cambodia). The Bangkok airport is absolutely beautiful and the airlines I took to get to this leg of the trip (Thai Airlines) is by far the best I have ever flown – the crew was dressed in beautiful traditional Thai garb, they bowed and said welcome when we boarded and thank you when we left, there were individual screens on each seat with tremendous depth and breadth of music, movies, games, and more. Plus, the meals were top notch (better than most I have had in first class on most America run airlines). We flew on what appeared to be a brand new A380 and I am sorry, Jake, but I thought this Airbus was the coolest plane I have ever been on. It was beautiful on the inside with wood floors in the doorways, colorful panels and carpeting. It was a smooth and quiet flight too. I sat next to a Georgetown University International Relations student, Andrew, who is on his way to Myanmar for a semester of study abroad. To my other side was Reba (“Barbara”) a director at the University of Maryland. I have been so blessed with great row-mates on these flights!

The final leg into Phnom Penh: has it really been two days of traveling? It feels like I just left this morning! On the final leg I sat next to a young businessman from Tokyo, Japan. His name is Daisuke and he was intrigued that I am Japanese, but do not speak Japanese and have never been to Japan. After I shared with him the 10 words I know in Japanese and also explained as best I could the WWII internment of Japanese-American citizens he showed me how to write my last name in Japanese characters. As we approached Phnom Penh I could see from the sky that the landscape was very different from any of the other three cities I had seen on this trip. Instead of seeing crowded neighborhoods and a city center filled with glittering skyscrapers there were open fields. As we got closer to the airport the Mekong River came into view and then there were houses dotting the river banks of the green colored river. Closer to the airport still and we could see that the river became shallower and brown in color – there were houses built over the water there and lots of boats that looked like large canoes. I could also see a lot of dirt roads and rusty metal roofs. Children in uniform were playing in the school playground.

Once I stepped out of the airport I noticed the humidity. Two days in the same clothes with almost no sleep and there I was standing with my luggage sweating like I had just gone for a run. My friend from Daughters, Jenny, came a few minutes later in a "tuk tuk" (a motorized scooter with a cart attached to the back). We threw my bags into the cart and began the 30 hour bumpy ride to the “She” Guest House where I will call home for the next month. (I cannot describe accurately where She is located mostly because in Phnom Penh the streets do not generally have names or numbers. It is close to the Russian Market though.) I am staying on the fourth floor and the narrow staircase is much steeper than American stairs (probably 18-20 inches of rise each and no more than 8 – 10 inches deep). Wearing my backpack and carrying a 50 pound rollerbag that was exactly as long as the staircase is wide further added to my sweatiness. We met a friend of Jenny’s (an Australian named Dave) who gave me the tour of the home. Apparently, I will be the only male staying at "She" and we will all share the one washer that is located on the first floor. I need to go back now and describe the ride in the tuk tuk. I was facing backwards in the tuk tuk and so for the entire trip I saw a constant parade of motor scooters buzzing by us – literally within inches and on all sides. The drivers here seen fearless and perhaps even reckless. I saw many young children riding on motor scooters without helmets - sitting on the driver's lap or on the back. People ride 3 - 4 aside; they pass and turn dangerously and later in the day when I went out for a walk my eyes and throat began to itch from all the dust and fumes and I was nearly hit multiple times by scooters buzzing closely by. There were sights, sounds, and smells that I have never before experienced: the constant buzzing drone of motor scooter engines; the sights of abject poverty – buildings that were literally crumbling to pieces yet that people call home – in fact, Jenny said that many of the girls whom Daughters work with live in those areas and she pointed out one area in particular where a bridge had been demolished and there were crumbling homes set down below the bridge in the rumble of the bridge and the houses. She said that many of the girls that Daughters works with live there and it is called “Smelly Water”. That brings me to the smells. We encountered a cacophony of smells when getting from the airport to She Guest House. There was the constant smell of dust and exhaust fumes, but then there was also an occasional restaurant or food cart we would pass and smell a delicious food, and then there were smells that nearly made me choke – the smell of sewage and/or other things rotting.

I am already overwhelmed with so many feelings already. Grateful beyond what I can describe in words to be here; excited about all that God has in store; tired from a very long journey in the sky; overwhelmed by how these brothers and sisters of ours live with so little when what I throw away and/or use for my own comfort in a month could feed and clothe a whole family for a year. Jenny, who is wise far beyond her years summed this up beautifully. She said that she had a dream that there were two rooms - one stacked high with garbage and another full of beautiful flowers. She said that she has long struggled about which room she should be in. It is easy to feel overwhelmed and feel depressed when you are in the garbage room because you feel like you are facing a world of garbage with just a toothbrush. But how can one possibly spend all their time in the flower room when there is so much need? Then she had a second dream that they are really the same room and sometimes we are called to do something walking down the path and looking at the garbage. Other times God draws us to the flowers or tells us not to look at some garbage because we are not ready. It will never be all up to us anyway. There were people before us and there will be people who follow us. Another thing that Jenny said is never to get so focused and consumed with the garbage that you miss seeing the flowers because they are both there together.