This is Cambodia, after all...

The more I look, the more grossed out I get. I’m so perplexed by it, though. But by about the third time I take a peek, the nauseousness hits me and I’m positive it’s from this bizarre phenomenon rather than the carsickness. It’s an Asian thing, and after living in Cambodia for a total of seven months I’ve seen a lot of it, but this time it’s the length that I can’t get over.

I’m talking about the long, extremely unattractive hairs that sprout from facial moles.

Thought you were going to read a pleasant little update about the latest happenings in Cambodia? I’ll get there in a minute.

 Our bus driver, whom  I’m sitting directly behind, has a medium, black colored mole on his bottom right cheek so when he turns his head to the right I not only see the mole, but also the half dozen long hairs that he has so delicately grown springing from its center. When I say long, I mean it. His are at least six inches, which actually doesn’t even rival that of many moto and tuk tuk drivers, market vendors, and dvd salesmen I have had the pleasure of interacting with. Two things always happen when I see this strange occurrence. First, I suddenly lose my appetite, and second, I always ask myself if the lucky owner ever braids, straightens, or gets creative with his scraggly, wiry collection. This image stays in my head for about .03 seconds before my gag reflex forcefully distracts me and I move on to thinking about how hot it is. I guess that’s one good thing about living in 90 degree heat. Distraction when you need it.

Speaking of heat, it’s hot on this empty 20 passenger bus, but I see that the AC is on high so I suck it up and try not to think about how hot it will be when there are twenty-one more bodies on board in fifteen minutes.

Katie and I (and our finely groomed driver) are on our way to pick up the Angkor Thom junior high students to take them on their first class trip to the city. By moto, this journey out to the countryside takes a good forty minutes; today we’re commuting out there on this small bus to load up the students and bring them to Siem Reap’s National Museum – a bumpier version of the same ride at twice the length.

Once we arrive to the junior high and the students load, we repeat the rough journey. Most of the students are excited to take a seat; others are too thrilled to relax. They choose to stay standing through the entire ride despite their skulls being wounded from the violent bouncing – their balance is impressive, I think to myself. Helmets would be nice.

It doesn’t take long for two things to quickly happen. First, one of the boys suggests a group sing-a-long. This takes me back to my sixth grade choir concerts where we’d load the school bus and head to the ‘performance’ of the year – the local Lion’s Club quarterly meeting. A big deal. On the fifteen minute ride my classmates would prompt one of these same sing-a-longs and I remember always thinking ‘really?’. We’re on our way to sing, why do we need to give ourselves headaches by shouting in this acoustically unfriendly bus?

Today the student who initiated the singing suggests No Doubt’s ‘Say That You Love Me’. He asks Katie and me to join him and I lie and say I don’t know the song. Instead of this cop-out working, it just makes the young choir director initiate a new song – Justin Bieber’s ‘Baby’.  Are you sure these are village kids?

The next occurrence is less pleasant and reinforces the fact that these are village kids. Because of their infrequent car and bus rides, their carsickness hits fast. There are a few girls who do their best to hide their discomfort, but after about thirty minutes into the ride someone has communicated to the driver the need to exit the vehicle. Immediately.

Two minutes later she’s back on the bus. I hand her a water and she’s given up hiding her malaise. All I can do is tell her we’re almost off of this bumpy road before I’m interrupted by her peer sitting in front. “Teacha, please help!” I ungracefully walk to Yen and see that as her friends are barely managing to hold their stomachs, she’s reading the English-Khmer picture dictionary given to her on the first day of EGBOK Mission class last week. She’s opened to the seafood section, and wants to hear my pronunciation of ‘salmon steak’. After lots of practice, she’s moved on to ‘filet of sole’ (“Why no ‘t’ sound?”) and  ‘shrimp’. I envy her skill of reading while in motion. I also envy her skill of acting like everything is completely normal as the half dozen students surrounding her were wishing they hadn’t had lunch.

Once at the museum, the students’ energy seemed to perk up. It was clear they were not used to air conditioned or tourist-filled rooms. As we walked from room to room, I was repeatedly blown away – these students were actually taking notes.  I’ve never seen someone open their notebook so briskly and uncap their pen with such fervor in my life.

Walls upon walls of information (in Khmer and English) about Angkor rulers, temple architecture, and Buddha statues. Rooms filled with traditional artwork, maps of the world, and timelines dozens of meters long.  The students were interested in it all – Katie and I gave up sticking together as a group early on as we saw some students were documenting the information like their life depended on it. The students who meandered ahead became just as mesmerized with the short video clips about the origin of Kampuchea that in the end it didn’t matter how spread out we’d become because everyone finished together.

We just went from a rural village, to Justin Bieber, to a history museum in one of southeast Asia’s tourist capitals. And now some $2 pho for lunch - with piles and piles of added MSG. This is Cambodia, after all, and there are some things I just won’t get used to.