Sensory overload.

I can hardly begin to share what I have been experiencing lately. There are so many dynamics, layers and people in my life right now. The difficulty has always been that I feel everything and everyone at once. How (and why) is that?

So maybe I will just unload everything here because I can't remain silent.

After a month and a half, I moved out of my homestay. I know I haven't fully processed the circumstances and emotions that led to this decision because, the truth is, I don't want to. I do have to recgonize that it gave me many things. It showed that my treshold for enduring awkwardness has reached new heights, never thought possible before. I've also realized that as this point in my life, the only family that I am interested in is my own. Which says a lot, given the amount of neglect I've shown towards them since I started college.

There are cultural and political issues at the organization. I don't know how to resolve the ethical conflicts I feel since I love the people I get to work with yet have no respect for the man who carries the title of "National Director". And with some shame, I have felt harassed by the Educational Manager. It's nothing extreme but I feel incredibly uncomfortable around him. There are just some men who give me the creeps and I am not going to apologize for it. I feel embarassed yes, but I can't take back or invalidate what I am experiencing. In response to his words and actions (for even a pat on the shoulder sends creepy chills down my spine), I have been mostly rude and short with him. I know, that doesn't boast well for my belief in heatlhy communication. I have decided that if anything explicit happens (because maybe it's all just cultural misinterpretation?) that I will definitely be very direct with him. I have not yet been able to trust the hospitality of Cambodians so I think that might also be causing the suspicions. It doesn't help that I am already so sensitive to these sort of social dynamics.

In coming back to Phnom Penh to begin my two-weeks of travels, I have been thinking a lot about my differences. As I sat at an Australian bakery tonight, eating my ice cream, I thought about how every single thing about me has the potential to harm someone here in Cambodia. It can be dangerous to be myself here because every apsect of who I am can be offensive. I am this young, Chinese-American girl, with a full body and I have the social and financial freedom to come and go as I please. I have light skin, I prefer leaving my hair down (uncommon for women), my earlobes have these big holes, I don't always sit with my legs crossed, people who are older or younger than me have to wait on me - beg me for money, beg me for attention. The manager of the guesthouse I will be moving into is a woman who will never be able to afford a month's rent to live there herself. The people I long to develop deeper relationships with are the ones who provide a service to me, who have to be stationed at their jobs 12 hours a day. Here, I have the power to cause others to feel inferior simply by being who I am.

So after being knocked with this overwhelming sense of guilt, I then had to think about, why do I view Cambodians as such fragile people? Why do I feel the guilt to completely forsake who I am just so I can avoid the potential that I might be making other people feel bad? Coming here, I thought I had to dress down and lie about how much money I made in America. But would those things really make a difference? Isn't the fact that I was even able to come here in the first place immediately put me in a separate category?

Yes, so my differences could make other people feel bad but is it my responsibility to decide what people feel about themselves and how they perceive the differences of others? I have been working towards a "no" about that one.

Lastly, today I saw the most horrific thing I have ever seen in my life. I don't even know if I want to repeat it on this blog because then you guys would all have a mental image of it because after the incident happened, I have had the image constantly flash in my head. Without being too frank (you can email me if you really want to know), I saw a 4-year old boy exploit a 2-year old boy in a very sexually foul way. I was in shock. They were definitely street children and could have been siblings too. It was such a strange juxtaposition because only a few hours before arriving in Phnom Penh, I was with my village kids in the morning and though they are also often naked, malnourished and neglected, I had never seen anything remotely close. I didn't even know such small children were capable of doing that to each other. Was he taught that? And was the other baby too young to realize or really feel what was being done to him? Is this something they do all the time, all day long?

I feel my mind and my spirit troubled because as long as I am in Cambodia, I cannot escape these realities. In Pursat, rural poverty is unavoidable. In Phnom Penh, urban poverty is unavoidable.