Breath in, Breath out

This week I was doing yoga in the rice fields. I will try to make it a habit because it is so mind and soul refreshing. You feel the energy running through your body and afterwards everything seems to be back in balance. Every step you take is more light. I am sure that I am not the first person who discovered that for herself, but for me it was a very special experience. I met this girl named Jael, that is from Switzerland. She was planning to help us in the Learning Center for two days, but as she arrived on Saturday evening, we could spend the whole Sunday together. She is practicing yoga since over two years and when the sun went down a little bit, we decided to do some sport. We walked through the rice fields to the island and lay our mat on the ground there. Paul told me, he thinks this place is a source of natural energy and I believe he is right. The trees around us let the rays of sunlight draw their pattern on the earth while the calming sound of wind was searching it’s way through the rice plants. We began with a breathing exercise. Breathing in and out in four different steps while opening your hands to the sky to receive the energy. The whole atmosphere calms you down and shuts everything stressful out, to give body and soul the chance to harmonize in peace. Jael showed me the most important positions: the downward facing dog, the warrior, the cat-cow stretch and the child’s pose. In the end we just lay down, I felt exhausted in a very good way and every inch of my body was connected to the ground. Just lying there, listening, you can hear how the nature breaths with you. And the world stops turning.

This week we said goodbye to our volunteers that worked at the Learning Center for over one month. They were really nice and as all of them want to become English teachers it was a really good experience for them. Their names were Mony, Makara, Daro and Senath. Mony is the only one who lives in Angtasom. The others come from small villages and as they don’t have enough money to study, they live in the local pagoda where they don’t have to pay anything. Mony promised me to teach me how to drive a motorbike, of course only in the court in front of the Bookbridge building. Now I can already start the engine and drive straight ahead. When I can trust Mony with his promise, I will be able to drive perfectly after two weeks. On the weekend we had a celebration in our pagoda that is traditionally one month after Pchum Ben festival, called Katan. All the trainees asked me to go with them to the festival and cook some food together before we leave. It was the first time I could wear my traditional Sampot. Ratana borrowed me a shirt of her sister and so I actually had a real Khmer outfit. At five o’clock they picked me up from home and then we went to the market. The reason why we didn’t just started to cook with the food Mony already had at home was, that they felt quite overwhelmed with the idea of me not eating meat. I had to show them which things I could ingest. We bought morning glory, cucumbers, carrots, mushrooms and tofu. Actually quite normal, everyday stuff. – Shocking! When we got to Monys home I was quite surprised that his house was so big. His parents sell motorbikes, so it seems like they are one of the wealthiest families in the community. When you go inside their living room, there are incredibly high walls with many, many professional family pictures, that look like the advertisement of a bad reality show. Everything is clean like in a hospital and when you walk along the hallway that leads to the kitchen, you can see an exhibition of beautiful Khmer dresses for every occasion, apparently the mothers wardrobe. I have experienced before, that in Asian houses that are owned by well-endowned people , the ground is made of tiles and everything seems to be so sterile. There is not much furniture in the rooms and I somehow have to say I prefer the tiny, wooden village houses. After the tour through the house, I was led to the kitchen. I greeted every family member with “Chumriabsua” (das bedeutet “Hallo” Mama, ist aber ein bisschen höflicher als “Suerstey”) and indicated a slight bow. We all began to cut the vegetables together, talked and listened to Khmer songs. It was only until Mony asked me what kind of pans I would like to use, that I realized he expected me to cook the food. And not only him, his whole family was standing around, curious glances on their faces. Because it lays not within my talents to find witty responses on short term, I just pointed on the next pan within eyesight and said “that will do”. Five minutes later I was standing in front of the stove, trying to figure out what kind of spices and sauces to use with the ingredients that were put next to me by the anticipating family. I decided to be a little bit creative and threw everything in the pan that smelled delicious. I tried not not to get nervous because of all these people that were standing around the fireplace watching what I was doing. I couldn’t help but to feel a little bit concerned, but not as much as everyone else would have felt, if they knew I couldn’t cook Khmer food at all. I mean I have helped with chopping and watched the steps, but really cooking is something that I might never learn. In the end I made omelette, tofu with vegetable in lime sauce and beans I dusted with an unknown pulver. I can’t exactly describe the taste of the food, but it was definitely weird. Lucky me, that Cambodians are too polite to tell you the truth about your cooking skills. Monys mother even announced, she thinks my food is so much healthier than the one with loads of meet and that’s probably why I am so tall.

Made by Mony

When we went to the pagoda I was quite surprised. First of all I never saw so many people at one place in my life. Everyone from Angtasom and apparently every surrounding village came to join the festivities. And it didn’t matter if the people were old or young, whole families came and blended in the never ending crowd that was swallowed by the holy gates. Inside the pagoda were not only stands with food but also places where you could play balloon dart, jump on a trampoline and go with the merry-go-round. It was just like a fun fair! We walked around for around an hour, stopping every few minutes to greet someone familiar. There was also a big stage where a traditional drama should be performed later in the evening. We all sat down on mats in front of the stage and once again I was surrounded by people talking to me. As my Khmer got a little better, I could even answer them for about 2 minutes. When the actual show began everyone also stopped touching my hair, what was quite nice and focused their attention on the curtain. First there was some Apsara dancing what is part of every big Khmer cultural gathering. The Apsaras are beautiful young women that learn a language, entirely expressed in movements and gestures. There are over 3000 different words the girls have to learn in the dance academy. They begin at the age of six till they end their training in their early twenties, afterwards they are able to tell whole epics without saying a word. It’s a very slow dance and the dresses and makeup they use take a long time to finish. This art is so old, you can find statues of Apsara dancers in Angkor Wat where they decorate the walls of the temple. Back then they were dancing for the king and that’s what they stilldo today, but because they represent the ancient Cambdian culture, they have appearances on various occasions. In buddhist and hinduism mythology Apsaras are women that live in the palace of the god Indra. They are also seen as ghosts of water and clouds, comparable to our nymphs. After the Apsara dance I was completely confused, because the next act featured some guys in capes that were dancing hiphop. Horrible background music and steam didn’t make it better. The elderly women next to me didn’t share my opinion, her grin was showing off her two left teeth and she was clapping in the tact of the music. Finally the actual play began. It was an ancient Khmer legend and the costumes just as the stage design were really magnificent. The story was about this prince who has to rescue the girl, but another guy who is bad wants to steal her and then the good guy has to fulfill three tasks to show his honest character and in the end the gods help him to get the girl back and the bad guy is punished. Of course it’s a little bit more complex, but that’s basically the plot. I still can’t believe, that all this is happening in the pagoda, next to the house where the monks sleep, the studying rooms with the words of buddha and the stupas where the people are buried. Nobody in Germany would allow to throw a party on a graveyard. But everyone is loving it, so maybe that’s something the catholic church can learn from.

  

The exercise programm with Ratana in the afternoon is really exhausting. I am running, jumping, turning and everyone besides me seems to be completely resistant to the heat. When I go jogging in the morning and biking four times a day, I have enough sport for making up the loss of a fitness studio. Just think about that we go to fitness studios and pay for machines to run with energy, that we need to use up our energy, to lose the weight that we gain because we eat to much, while people somewhere else in the world are starving. This is the frightening truth about Western lifestyle and the worst thing about it is, that I was part of it, going to the fitness studio twice a week not long ago.

We are going to make a big Bookbridge party and invite everyone from the community to come to the learning center on the 1. of January. We are rehearsing various things, including a song. That’s why we are practicing in the morning from now on, but I have only two boys that are joining until now and this needs to change. This week school started again and suddenly I see children in black and white school uniform everywhere. They had a really long holiday as the government made the rules about the final grade 12 test more strict and all the corruption and cheating suddenly stopped this year. The result was, that over 80 percent of all students in the country failed the test, the universities protested, some influential people had some conferences and the school start was postponed one month ahead to give the students the chance to repeat the exam. So now, after four moths the children have again access to education. To boast a little bit: in our learning center they studied every day, no matter what the government decided. As my host dad Mach is a school director and my host mum Siphen is an English teacher, everyone was going back to work. Stacy said she would take me to one of her classes soon, as in her opinion the public school and Bookbridge have to be seen as night and day and I should experience it.

On Tuesday I went to Takeo to visit Sopheak. I said in another article that she’s wonderful and I am more and more surprised by her attitude towards every aspect of life. She is confident and funny and making up her own mind about things, rather than listening to others. It’s very interesting what she has to say about politics, but you can basically talk with her about everything. She told me I should stay the night at her house so we could do something together on the public holiday the next day. I already described Sopheaks “house”, it is a tiny room with only a wooden bed without mattress, a little camping stove and a faucet. Four girls live in this room and they all sleep together on the bed. I really love being there as everyone is super nice. We always cook together and eat outside, but this time was the first time we ate lunch together and I stayed there over night. After the dinner we went to a concert that was hosted that evening in Takeo. The singer was apparently very famous and had some hits on Cambodian radio. At the same place you could walk around and visit market stalls where local people sold natural products like fruit, vegetable and rice from the region but also crafts that are being produced with reusable resources. There were little birds made of bamboo and jars out of banana trees. Pereah and Sokna, two of the girls I went with, bought me some things, a tiny box and a piece of coconut shell in the form of a leave. This is so astonishing, they never expect anything back from you, they just see you looking at something and think: “oh, she might like that.” and then they buy it, no matter how much it costs, just because they are such good-hearted people. The concert itself was pretty horriblel. I haven’t got a good relationship with Cambodian music, especially when the loudspeakers are not properly working, what they never do. It was a very interesting experience though, a lot of people were there and the background dancers that were part of the show were moving in a way I simply cant describe. Because moderator was talking the whole time in Khmer, I zoned out and didn’t realize that she was saying something in English, until everyone around me was staring at me more than they normally do, until I felt a little bit uncomfortable. My glance fell on the stage and the women there was waving at me and saying “Hello Miss! Thank you that coming to here tonight. We are so very happy!”. I couldn’t quite believe that she was addressing me, as I had this feeling of blending in this huge crowd, on the other side, I am probably one head taller and a lot blonder than everyone else, so I am not that difficult to spot. I waved back,not sure what to do, and everyone around me smiled and nodded as if I did something great. Some things I will never ever get used to.

The next morning after I woke up facing some spiders on the ceiling (this also happens at home, I don’t even shrink), we headed off to our trip destination, about 20 kilometers from Takeo. It’s a little fisher village where you can go swimming. We all went together, Sopheak, Pereah, Sokna, Chanthou and me. We went with out bicycles through the countryside, I am sure I described it many times but it’s just wide, flat areas where farmers are working on the fields, palm trees are full of ripe coconuts and everything is very green. When we got to the lake we first just splashed in the water, but then Sopheak asked a local family if we could have their boat and of course they said yes. We began taking turns in rowing, until we found ourselves in the middle of the lake. Chanthou tried to teach me a Khmer song, but after the concert I had enough of slow, high love ballades. Every time when we saw some flowers we stopped and put them in our hair. Waterlily leaves became our sun hats and the stalk our snack because it is edible. But that’s not the only thing we harvested and just ate on the spot. Every two minutes Sopheak completely freaked out and pointed to some plant that she evidently absolutely adored. So we paddled there and just started eating right away. I felt a little bit (very much) strange, but all of them were really delicious. For example morning glory is growing there, it’s just as good as when you buy it from the market and there it is for free. The whole boat trip was just a dream of beautiful flowers in the wide landscape of the riceland lake. We let ourselves being dried up by the sun and finished eating the vegetables we harvested on the water. It was one of my most favorite days in Cambodia. Everything was just so simple and perfect, that’s how mans relationship to nature should be. Take as much as you need but leave the rest to live and grow, so that you will find more next time you come back. Afterwards I just fell asleep in the shade under the tress, my head lying on Sopheaks legs. Slowly breathing in and slowly breathing out, just like in the yoga meditation.

      

Nature is the secret place where people can find peace and this shouldn’t sound like spiritual balderdash, it’s quite simply the long known and today too often forgotten truth. And many people just forget to actually breath from time to time.