Christmas Celebration and Freedom Hotel

Today I got up early, having gone to bed at a decent time last night and not being quite accustomed to the firmness of the beds.  I had a great breakfast by myself at the Freedom Hotel restaurant. This is a nice hotel reminiscent of British India from what I've seen in movies... lots of dark wood, wide staircases, stone floors and open balconies. The restaurant is open, by that I mean it is not enclosed with doors and windows. It is on the bottom floor of a large building and sitting there I look out on a central court with plants and orchids everywhere and onto the busy street.  I was the first customer this morning and watched the wait crew dusting, sweeping and setting up the tables. Unlike restaurants at home, our usual table of eight people gets meals one at a time as they are cooked and depending on how many cooks are working, things can go pretty slow.  I avoided all that, being here so early, and my meal was quite delicious; a large plate of fruit, a pancake with syrup, two scrambled eggs and  a coffee with fresh milk. The coffee is a bit different - very strong. The fresh milk (as opposed to the other choice of sweet milk) makes almost no change in color when you add it to the coffee and it comes in clear glass cups so you can see it not changing. I liked it. The fruit plate consisted of two small bananas, a wedge of mango, a wedge of pineapple, half an apple and a lychee. The lychee is sitting in it's own little shell which has hairy spines on it and looks for all the world like someone's eyeball.

We leave today for Battambang. I am back in the room now and I can hear hordes of children next door in Trish and Mike's room. Last night they came and visited all of us in our rooms and looked at all our stuff and watched my videos of their performances. Trish's room was full when I stuck my head in there and she was getting a massage from one of the house parents. They are such normal, happy kids and love to joke and laugh especially with Mike. Yesterday they went crazy over a bag of beef jerky that he shared with them and it was precious to watch them enjoy his attention. It is confirmation of how well they are loved and treated by their house parents.

The Christmas Celebration is probably the biggest event of the year for Asia’s Hope children and I could tell they must have had lots of practice time and much effort put into costumes and props.  We went to an auditorium close to the hotel. Someone had decorated ahead and it was very festive.  My little friend from the previous day’s fun evidently had been watching for me and grabbed my hand the minute I was in the door and guided me up to a seat she had saved – in the front where I could get good pictures, and right under the air conditioner, a good seat.  Each of the houses from Prek Eng and Battambang presented a song or dance and there was also a sermon from Mike and several scripture readings, so the program was pretty long but honestly, I never noticed. It was all very interesting to watch, and several times I was brought to tears by their moving presentations. It was the worship songs that they sang in English that did me in because I knew what they were saying. Words that I write don’t do justice to what it was like so the videos are going to have to make it into this blog.  We’ll see how that goes.

At the end of the program we helped Trish and Mike distribute the gifts they had brought to all the children and staff. They also had a gift for each of us foreigners – someone had actually chosen clothing that was a pretty good fit for each of us.

After lunch we went back to Angkor Wat for the “Olympics”. Hunsaders started that last year and previous to that the children had never done relays or competitive games for fun. This year they remembered what they had learned but it was still a major project to get them to stand in lines and take their turns when they were so excited. There was also a lot of relaxing, snacking and walking around in the beautiful grounds of the park. I got to try Grass Jelly Drink and that's where the kids got to experience beef jerky.

At the very end of the day, one of the house parents, Ravi, took us to Ta Prohm Temple which was on the grounds with Angkor Wat but out of the way. There were very few others there which made it almost like a private tour. The place was awesome with huge trees growing out of the ruins. I guess a movie (Tomb Raiders with Angela Jolie) was filmed there – I haven’t seen it yet. 

I am so obviously a tourist with my uncommon coloring and grey hair that the little vendor children  pick me out and work on me most everywhere I run into them. I avoided buying hats (this girl must have put it on my head at least 10 times to convince me how beautiful I looked with it on) buy I caved in and bought a bamboo flute from one little girl who couldn’t have been more than 4 or 5. Then I bought bracelets from another one way back in the temple ruins who looked too young to count but handled those dollar bills like a pro.  They teach them young here…

Bus to Seim Reap

Entry #2

In this part of the world privacy is not obtained through having lots of empty space around oneself. It has to be created in one’s head, or if you are fortunate enough to have a small room or house it can be there. I’m not actually sure privacy is an issue to Cambodians – I’ll have to ask. We, Anne and I , have a room to ourselves every night so far and are not suffering at all.

We are in Seim Reip, the place where Angkor Wat is located. It’s a tourist attraction – a famous 1,000 year old temple which is supposed to be the largest religious building/compound in the world. It is big, with a moat and lots of walls, steps, platforms all made of large cut stone. It all looks very old and darkened with mold and age. I don’t think it’s used for worship at all although there are  Buddha’s all over the place and probably a lot of other idols and things that I don’t even recognize.

It took us six hours to get here from Phmon Penh which was a little more than 200 miles.  We had a nice chartered bus (air  conditioned) for roughly 40 kids, house parents and helpers and our party of six.  This was not however, your common bus ride.  In the states we have gas stations with restrooms and food service any time we want it. Here they stop every hour and a half near a field or ditch with bushes. That’s it. Watch out for ants and people with cameras.  For lunch we stopped at a nice shady ditch and spread out a Cambodian feast. I started out with things I recognized, the rice and ginger chicken, and then grew bolder and tried the salty eggs and fish spread.  I did not  try the fermented fish and egg dish but it was obviously a favorite of some of the local people.  Cucumber and oranges were good too. 

I met lots of children on the bus ride and as the six hours unfolded different ones would come and sit near me and we would try to talk. They are full of shy smiles and readily take your hand or come for a hug.  They know some English but I was always getting into words and subjects that they didn’t know how to talk about.  The bus driver put on some Cambodian videos for them to watch. I would have turned one of them off if I’d had a choice – it was definite nightmare material for small children and of course they were all fixated on it.  They also chose to show a Cambodian Charlie Chaplin of all things and some very strange music videos where men and women smiled at each other through the whole song and basically did nothing else.  They seem to love slapstick.

Out the window in the city the biggest impression that stuck with me is that they need someone to come over and start some plastic recycling business.  If they could figure out what to do with all the plastic trash they would have an endless resource. Trash is everywhere. Even very nice houses with clean space around them would be right next to a place with trash a foot deep. No garbage pickup I’m guessing. And all the animals are very skinny and hungry looking and are never on a leash or looking like they belong to anyone but themselves. Cities are quite crowded . The country was better with room around the houses for gardens in some cases. The cows had a little more meat on their bones and there was less trash.  All the houses are up high on stilts because the areas where people live are regularly  flooded.  The houses in the country were mostly made of wood, no windows and sometimes no doors, and definitely well ventilated .

Leaving on a jet plane (several actually)

Entry 1:

I am in a large jet going 625 miles an hour at 40,000 feet altitude. So far we have been sitting in planes for most of the past 24 hours as follows – 2 1/2 hours from Tampa to JFK in New York City, 15 + hours from JFK across the pole to Seoul, South KoreaI, and now our final leg of about 6 hours from Seoul to Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

 The nicest surprise has been how comfortable it is to fly Korean Air. The economy class cabin is more spacious than U.S. airliners and every passenger has an amazing little screen and a remote. With this I can access cameras that look in all directions outside the plane, I can track our progress on a map and see all the flight details, I can watch a wide selection of movies (I’ve seen four so far!) and play any number of the usual games. I am well entertained. I haven’t touched my Kindle yet.

The biggest challenge so far has been trying to sleep sitting upright. Others have been doing it , but  the task of keeping my head in place and my arms and legs comfortable requires so much attention that I haven’t been able to drift off like I’d like to. I took a sleep aid pill at the midway point of the long flight and did get a little groggy and it was still in effect at the beginning of this flight. I caught myself dreaming once – I was watching my horse look over a fence when he decided to jump it right in front of me. I snapped awake and made a little surprise noise but no one noticed. That was the only time I know I was sleeping, kind of.

I watched “Memoirs of a Geisha” and the nobleness of the geisha tradition reminds me of the bearing of our flight attendants (the women). They are quiet, speaking only when necessary, very proper and polite, quite beautiful, slim, strong and capable. Their uniforms are pristine and dressy. They must have a dress code that applies to everything including makeup and hair because they are all very similar.  I was told that they all begin their training in local flights and only the best ascend to international travel.  The jet we had on the long flight was the biggest with three levels, business class on the upper level, economy and first class on the middle level and a staff lounge on the bottom. It was an awesome, big plane. 

We’ve had three good meals so far. They were good in that they were all recognizable foods, not too much and not too little, and served hot. The only thing I miss is having breakfast. Everything has been a dinner meal which makes me feel like I’ve had three days worth of dinner and I don’t know if it’s been morning on any of those three days… something has been missing.  But since there are several other reasons why it’s hard to tell what time of day it is, I can’t really blame it all on the meals.  We are kind of like babies  - they feed us and then they turn off the lights and encourage us to go to sleep. But I’m probably not going to sleep for a while now since I’ve taken some Excedrin to ward off the beginnings of a headache. I am clear as a bell and alert as I ever am.

 It will be about 22:30 hours when we arrive in Phnom Penh and I haven’t heard what will happen when we get there, but I can imagine it taking a while to gather all our baggage (11 huge checked bags and 2 carryons for six of us) and get to where we’ll be for the night.  So the journey has been good so far and I have enjoyed it. That being said, it has also been a very long sit.

Countdown to travel

Haven't said much about this but I've been counting down the days all week and now after today there are only two left. If all goes well I will be on my way to Cambodia for two weeks. It doesn't seem real to me yet. I've been trying to finish packing the suitcase but I get so distracted. And I also hate decisions about what should go in the suitcase and am heavy into avoidance for that reason... Even though it's supposed to be up to 90 degrees in the daytime, about the same as our summer, it just doesn't seem right to be packing all my comfortable old T-shirts to go on such a special trip. I don't want to be burdened down with luggage either, thanks to recent travel experiences, so I'm wanting to be a minimalist in any way possible.

I'm going to be riding lots of buses, and hugging lots of kids. I will probably feel kind of lost and not know what to do with myself, but I am expecting many good things to happen. I'd better get back to packing now.

Inventory

My job the last two days has to be one of the most aggravating, frustrating, disliked jobs that I do. No, it has nothing to do with Christmas or shopping - those would be good guesses. It's Mary Kay inventory time. Every year I review and spend a couple days wallowing in the facts of my inability as a businesswoman. I was not meant to sell make-up, or skin care products as I prefer to call them, and yet I continue to do so.

I like to think I gave it a pretty good shot for the first two years and I did get some valuable experience. I learned a lot about taking care of myself and wearing cosmetics and I learned quite a bit about being bold and pursuing people. I'm really not in regret about having those experiences but they certainly came at a cost. What I regret is that I didn't learn how to make money doing it. So here I am, seven years later, writing off several thousands of dollars worth of unsalable inventory, just to get it out of my life. It's not marketed anywhere so no one is ever going to ask for it and I can't possible use it all myself, so I'm going to make a donation to the crisis pregnancy center. Those girls could probably use a little free glamour.

At present I think of myself as a personal use consultant, which means I buy enough to get my own products at 50% of cost and provide a few regular customers with their needs. I have a few regular customers, as I said, but they are becoming fewer. I just went through my online data bank and deleted about two thirds of my contacts because they have 1) never bought anything or 2) they've died.  The remaining dozen or so are faithful Mary Kay users. I don't call them, or bother them to buy - they just call or e-mail me, which is good because I don't have time for much more than that. I'm out trying to earn money. It was a relief the minute I stopped looking at everyone I met as a potential customer, although I accidentally get about one new customer a year. I don't know how it happens.

I've gotten everything counted and the shelves are neat and organized again. I've got a donation box and a box of things I can give as gifts. I'm sitting here at the end of a long day with blue eyelids and raspberry ice lips and it's going to be a while before I want to think about Mary Kay again (unless, of course, somebody wants to buy something...).

Me being blessed

Mmm... I love not waking up until it gets light. I love having breakfast with Dennis. I love cleaning up the kitchen at my own house. I love finding things that have been lost for a while. I love fixing things that have been broken for a while. I love stopping when I feel like it and sitting down for a moment of peace. I love being able to change my mind about what I'm going to do next. I love being able to choose some music to listen to while I work. I love thinking about and planning for the trip to Cambodia - it's coming up fast! I love throwing away junk mail and getting rid of "stuff" we haven't used for a long time. I love wiping away dust. I love hanging clean clothes on the line outside to dry. I love pretty much every simple, little thing about being home. I am so grateful God has provided this time of freedom/recovery (I don't even know what to call it really). I can actually imagine that I will be able to go back to work January 10th refreshed and ready for whatever comes next. I just have to thank Him.

The trip I'm not on

It's probably true that at any given moment I can think of places I'm glad I'm not. But sometimes that feeling looms larger on my emotional landscape than others, this being one of those moments.  I am so glad I'm not working up in Chicago with my employer. I was at the airport Tuesday night helping her and her friend and one of her nurses get ready to get on a plane and left them in fairly good shape - wheel chair all dismantled and wrapped and ready to stow.

This morning I woke up to find missed calls, voice mails and texts on my phone. Seems when they got to Chicago and put the chair back together it didn't work properly so Tanisha went someplace to complain and try to get help with that while the other two went down to get the baggage. When they reunited at the transport van with all their beaucoup bags and paraphenalia they all thought they had all their luggage. But no, the one most necessary overweight suitcase full of medical supplies for taking care of a quadriplegic in a motel room was MISSING. Big problem. They didn't discover it until later at the motel and it wasn't pretty.

 At some point around 2 am Tanisha called the paramedics thinking they would certainly want to go hunt for her suitcase (I guess the thinking is that they would be avoiding a medical emergency and not have to come later???). Cathy, her LPN who wasn't really crazy about the idea of going on this trip in the first place, was ready to take her suitcase and start walking home to Florida. Midway Airport baggage service doesn't answer the phone after 10, nor does Airtran so there were no real people they could talk to so calling me was the next best thing, I guess. (Yeah, I know it doesn't really follow. I don't get it either.) So my first free morning was spent on the phone leaving messages for "unavailable" attendants in every location I could think of and waiting to see if they ever listen to them. Tanisha finally called me around 8:30, sounding absolutely catatonic. I don't think she slept at all. And from the look on Joy's face when she skyped me later, she didn't get any sleep either. The phone conversation with Tanisha had so many long silences that I didn't know what to do with, but didn't dare hang up on, that I actually felt sorry for her. To make her feel better I told her I would go down to the Sarasota airport and see if I could find someone with some influence to help find her bag. About half way there I got a call from Midway saying they had the bag and just needed to clear up some needed paperwork and get it delivered. Sigh of relief.

I know there's no reason for me to feel guilty, since I had nothing to do with all this trouble, but I know the others are wishing I were there instead of them, and as I said, I am so glad I'm not. Tanisha is not keen on seeing how little she can survive with. However, I know she's probably going to be okay because the last thing she said on the phone to me was "Could you please mail my nightshirts that didn't get packed, and while you're out getting them would you also give the cats their pills and comb them."  Yes, send the paramedics back to the station. She's not on her deathbed yet. I'm just sayin'...

I am saying that sometimes my own faith is so wrapped up in having answers, and of course those answers don't always come. I want God to show he loves me in some way that I recognize. There are things that I've asked for myself that haven't materialized but somehow those are not the things that really bother me.  I can always imagine how not getting what I've asked for might actually be for my good. It's actually harder when I see my children going through emotional or physical pain - kind of like in the movies when the bad guys go after someone that the hero loves instead of the hero himself. See how it can subtley creep into one's mind how God is the bad guy?

 I know that by definition faith has to occur in a void of evidence.  I need enough evidence of the really big, most important thing God has done that none of the other non-answered things matter.  If I could grasp the importance of being with God for eternity, I would be grateful and not sorrow over the disappointments and pain of life here and now... maybe I wouldn't, I don't know. I think I understand that it's the job of the Holy Spirit to help me when I feel this near the edge of faith. I need him to present himself as an unlimited supply of emotional strength. He needs to reassure me that there is a whole lot more going on than what I see. He needs to remind me that the things that are good in my life are not just my own doing or coincidence, and that the things that are not good will have a purpose and will pass with time. He has to remind me that God has already done the best, most loving thing for me and is watching and hoping that I will believe it and hang on. For sure, time is passing so quickly that it will soon be the day of questions being put to rest. And until then I will continue to ask him for what seems right - he says to do that - for my children, my friends, the world. I'm just saying that sometimes it is harder than others...

Kindle love

Well, I was in Sam's Club last week and walked past the tech section and there was Kindle, smaller, thinner but also cheaper.  There's something about the ache you get when you lose something you really liked - it just doesn't go away easily except you replace it and pretend you never lost it. I bought it. I'm wanting to get an iPad at some point (and they had them too, but they are expensive no matter where you get them) but just to have a way to easily purchase and read books when I'm traveling, the Kindle made a whole lot more sense. I like the e-ink look instead of the backlit computer look too.  So after a bit of a fuss getting my old library transferred over to the device, which is named Shirley's 2nd Kindle, I am all set up again. I don't remember if I named it like that or it just knew...
 So I was talking on the phone with Mom tonight and asking if she'd read anything good lately and she gave me three book titles.  I bought Secret Life of CeeCee Wilkes, and Peace Like a River, and decided to get a free trial book by James Patterson instead of the one she read. But within 10 minutes of our call I had the books to read. This makes reading so much more possible now that I don't have to go to a bookstore OR the library. I love it. Kindle should pay me to publish this.

"Tanisha, I’m not going to travel to Chicago again this month. Even if I started to feel better it wouldn’t be smart to immediately do something again that I know is likely to undo any recovery.  I’ve put aside my own concerns for the last two trips, and am not sorry that I went, but now I need to be at home.  I know you were hoping I would go and I am sorry."

This is all I told her in an e-mail last Friday - when I knew I wouldn't see her again for two days and she would have time to digest it. She evidently got busy planning another way to do it.  One night early in the week Cortney kept me up till midnight asking questions about how much she should ask to go and what the conditions were like. Sounds like Scottie talked her into it (after giving her enough to buy winter clothes and upgrading the hotel to one near a shopping mall...) Gail is also going along to help and they are leaving on the 13th.  So that's that. I not only do not have to do that trip again, but I will get a week off at home! It will be so good.

Tanisha hasn't talked to me about her plans except to have me working on the supplies needed to go, checking meds, etc... She's been pleasant as possible considering that she hasn't felt good. I know the stress is making all her physical problems worse.  Today I'm going to work knowing that I'm getting a cold for the first time in three years, that I can remember. Dennis has had it for a week now and I thought I would escape but I guess not.  More later about my busy week...

Decisions

Tonight I've been thinking, sitting by the fire outside, wondering how to set boundaries and yet be kind. I'm in agonizing decision mode complete with upset stomach, headache and tears. I've just gotten home from a week long working trip to Chicago, had one day off and have already been asked to go back again next week.  I would like for there to be other answers to Tanisha's need to be with her mom other than my going with her - other people who could also supply her need for physical care. I don't want to go again and I have to tell her that somehow, even though I know she might not be able to find anyone else to take her. If this job were simply that - a job - it might be easier, but there are too many aspects to our relationship that are un-job-like. I have a lot of compassion for her dillemma. If my mom were almost certainly dying soon I would want to go and be with her. But it is not a simple decision for Tanisha who has to be taken care of herself, even as she tries to take care of someone else.

I've been gone from home so much - it seems that way to me. There was the two week trip in August after which I told Tanisha I didn't want to travel with her anymore. Following that there was the week long trip to Atlanta which I did because it had been scheduled a year ahead and she hadn't had time to find anyone else to go - but again, it was to be the last one for me. Then somehow I found myself saying yes to her wanting to see her Mom again because she was doing so poorly with her cancer treatment - another week away, this time over Thanksgiving. And at some time there will probably be a funeral to attend. My body is tired of working so much and I'm missing my own life to a certain extent.

Logistically, my trip to Cambodia is coming up and I need some energy for that. If I'm up in Chicago where the timing of things is totally out of anyone's control, what if there is a long wait? It doesn't make sense to keep coming back and going again since it is the travel that is the hardest part. In the next 25 days I don't want to have to be worrying about Chicago over and over and having no time to prepare for Cambodia.

I'm looking for answers but somewhat afraid that the answer will be difficult to implement no matter what decision I make.