Coopers in Cambodia

My parents came to visit in April, during Khmer New Year.  It was a long-awaited visit; finally their time off work, the frequent flyer miles, and my holiday all coincided.  For months before that, I was filtering everything I experienced through the lens of “What will my parents think about this?”  Things that had become normal sights for me suddenly struck me afresh.  And so when they came, I was eager for them to encounter my world – from everyday Phnom Penh to the ins and outs of Logos to the countryside where we visited.  They came equally eager to take it all in.  Their first impressions are some of my most lasting memories from their visit.

Our first full day together, we took the bus up to Siem Reap to see the Angkor Wat temple complex.  Why was I not surprised that while waiting for the bus to arrive, my dad made friends with a Dutch family standing near us and proceeded to chat with them for the next half-hour?  Nor was it a shock when he asked for a fried cricket at the first rest stop, pronouncing it "not too bad."  (It reminds me of a potato chip, as long as you don't look at it.)  My parents got a solid introduction to traditional Cambodian music and dance since music videos were played during the entire six-hour trip...there weren't enough DVDs to last the whole time, so they played a few twice.  They were not especially eager for more.  Khmer music has grown on me; there's some that I love, but on the whole I find that it's not my favorite either.

In Siem Reap, they fell in love with the night market, which amused me because they realized that vendor after vendor had the exact same wares, but they didn't realize that other markets had more variety.  It's baffling to a lot of foreigners how Cambodian stores or vendors tend to carry whatever their neighbors carry.  In Phnom Penh, there's a street where every shop sells wicker furniture, a street lined with toilets, a street for stuffed animals.  Every shop is nearly identical.  But this market was especially limited; it had almost nothing beyond T-shirts and jewelry.  My mom says she'd love to see vendors taught some marketing strategies and ways of distinguishing themselves from neighboring stalls, like selling banana desserts instead of plain bananas.  My parents thought of several potential niches for ministry.  I'm so not a visionary - I prefer to implement what others have thought of - but I love hearing new ideas.

Angkor Wat was of course great.  Not for nothing is it considered an ancient wonder of the world!  I enjoyed the lush greenery in between the temples, some of which are about a mile apart.  And it's mind-boggling to see what humans were able to accomplish with essentially no technology besdies the wheel.  Still, my dad and I got into a cool conversation with a Khmer-American Christian guy who's ministering in inner-city LA.  He says it's heartbreaking to him that ancient Cambodians endured this backbreaking labor for so many decades when it has no lasting purpose.  Modern-day Cambodians point to it as the nation's crowning achievement, but their country has not made significant progress since that time, instead being oppressed by neighbors or squandering its resources.  My dad agreed: as impressive as it is, it's built to honor long-dead kings and a religion (Hinduism) that Cambodia stopped practicing soon after its completion.  It doesn't seem to benefit Cambodia (besides the tourism it brings) in proportion to the massive sacrifices Cambodians made to build it.  

Angkor Wat was crowded with Khmer and Thai tourists, since both were on holiday while we were there.  There were even thousands of Thai people in red shirts who came especially to show their support for former Thai prime minister Thaksin, who received amnesty in Cambodia and became an adviser to the Cambodian government my first year (2009) after being ousted by his own government and charged with numerous shady dealings.  But the ones who made the biggest impressions on my mom were the monks.  There was a group of 30+ monks, among them many boys as young as 6 or 8, who passed us right as we were leaving.  My mom literally gasped aloud.  "I'm sorry," she said.  "I knew monks took in little kids, but it's so hard to see them in real life."  Many poor Khmer families send their young boys to monasteries because they receive a free education.  Some monks are very honorable; others are quite corrupt and mistreat or even abuse the children.

Back in Phnom Penh after the holiday, I was busy teaching, while my parents ran programs each morning for elementary students.  (My mom runs the children's programs at our church, so they've got experience.)  I wish I'd had time to go watch them, but I was at least around to help set up and hear stories after each session.  They did Walk through the Bible, an interactive presentation of the central storyline of the Bible, with older elementary, and ran Wednesday's chapel for lower elementary, which involved lots of silliness.  It was neat that they had their own experiences at Logos that didn't involve me.  When we were in the cafeteria during elementary lunch, kids I'd never noticed before were grinning and calling, "Mrs. Cooper!  Mr. Cooper!  Thank you for teaching us!"  The fourth-graders wrote some pretty spectacular thank-you notes afterwards.  My parents didn't really get to know any of my students, except Krumm and Veassna, who graduated last spring and are now interning at the guesthouse where my parents stayed.  However, they got to come to the middle/high school chapel led by my homeroom, the juniors.  That was cool for me that my parents could see my students in action, leading worship music, MC'ing a goofy game, and telling brief stories about how God has changed their lives. 

That weekend, we went to visit my friend Sovannary's brother, who has a banana plantation two hours outside Phnom Penh.  That involved a lot of firsts:
our first time picking mangoes using what looked like a lacrosse stick with an 12-foot-long handle...
their first visit to a traditional Cambodian wooden house on stilts...
their first conversation with a man wearing only a krama (large cotton scarf) around his waist...
their first interaction with people who spoke literally no English...
their first time showering out in the open.  (Men wear boxers; women wear a sarong, like a loose cotton dress.) 

Sovannary brought along her mother, her husband, and her two daughters; her brother lives with his wife and three kids, plus his in-laws; nearby nieces and nephews and neighbors galore clamored to catch a glimpse of the barangs (French/white people).  And since we rented a taxi van to get out there, the driver hung out with us too.  So there was always a crowd around us. 

One of my favorite moments was during dinner, when we found out that the guys had been banished to the ground level, beneath the house, so they could drink beer.  (Sovannary knew we were Christian and didn't know if we'd be offended by beer.)  My dad asked if he could go down and drink beer with the guys, so for the next 45 minutes, they hung out together, relying on Sovannary's husband's hesitant English and lots of laughter.  I also loved seeing my parents bond with Chrismoon and Elizabeth, Sovannary's daughters, ages 7 and 8.  They're really good at English and huge teases - especially Elizabeth, who's quite the ham.  But even Chrismoon warmed up to them.  Me, I preferred practicing Khmer with the nieces and nephews, ages 3 to 11, and the two grandmas, none of whom spoke English.  That night, my parents got one of the beds (no mattress - just a bed frame and some blankets) while I was assigned to a woven bamboo mat on the floor with the two grandmas.  Why both grandmas?  I don't know!  One of them lived there with her husband, and their double bed was inches away from the mat we three shared, which was a hair smaller than the bed.  Somehow I managed to sleep in those close quarters, probably because it was amazingly cool there compared to the city and had great ventilation - no windows, just openings in the walls.

Of course, all too soon, my parents had to head back.  I knew it would be too short for them to meet all the people and do all the things I'd hoped they could.  Still, they packed a lot into their 12 days here!  I'm really looking forward to talking more with them about Cambodia this summer.  It's so nice that they've seen my world here and can relate more than before.  And I think it'll take us a while to unpack all the experiences and impressions that accompanied their visit.