Sihanoukville

Sihanoukville is deceptive.  On the surface it is this amazing beach paradise.  As I write this in my journal, I am sitting in a papasan, drinking a fresh pineapple shake, with an adorable puppy playing at my feet, my toes are in the sand.  I am 20 feet from the Gulf of Thailand, gentle waves are crashing, an amazing mix is playing on my iPod, and life is really good.  On the surface.  But then you look a little closer, and it is not as pretty.
You notice the older white men with significantly younger Khmer women.  You notice the kids hawking fireworks and bracelets descend on tourists like locusts.  And it's a little less spectacular.
Today I woke up early to say goodbye to everyone heading to Vietnam.  I still had two hours and 3/4's of a tank of gas left on my moto rental, so I set out to explore.  I drove past shacks built along the fence of a five star resort.  I stopped at a hundred foot stretch of public beach, that after that hundred feet belonged to the private resort, with a security guard there to enforce the boarder.  And there along the public part, playing on the rocks and in the water, were around 15 Buddhist monks.  I sat there and just watched, just watched them playing on the rocks and in the water, and thought how amazing.  It was truly beautiful, and I felt like I was spying, seeing something I wasn't allowed to, but it was just mesmerizing, and untainted.  There was nothing seedy or suspicious, which was a nice change.
Maybe I'm more sensitive to it, but as much fun as this weekend was, and as beautiful as the setting was, at the core of this place, it just feels wrong.  And I feel powerless to really do anything about it.  When I first looking into coming to Cambodia to volunteer and focus on human trafficking, I had so many ideas.  I was going to take pictures of these men, and post them on Facebook.  Maybe someone would recognize their dentist, or neighbor, and there would be some sort of justice. I would go into the brothels and physically rescue these girls, and then help at a shelter and teach them English, to give them more options for a different life than they are currently living.  Unfortunately, that's just too unrealistic.  It'd be the equivalent of the informant joining the DEA to bust the dealers, then going into the crack dens to take the addicts to the rehab center that he runs and is the sole counselor for. The problem is just too big, so you have to choose.  Where do I fit in, what part to I want to play?  Do I want to go and find the brothels and help coordinate busts of the pimps and johns?  Do I want to go in and actually extract the women from that hell?  Or do I want to help prosecute the johns, since many countries will prosecute pedophiles in their home countries for crimes committed abroad?  Or maybe I want to focus on restoring these women to a place where they can see a brighter future?  Where do I fit in?
I thought long and hard about it, and ended up at the decision to help with aftercare.  I looked into several organizations, and found one who's model of restoration I believed in,  Then I worked on getting myself over here to Cambodia.  But now that I am here, and faced with they reality of  it, I'm back in the I want to do everything mindset.  I want to confront these men, call them perverts in public, post their pictures for the world to see.  I want to take these women away from them and get them to a shelter.  But I didn't do any of those things.  I felt helpless.  I'm outnumbered by them, and there are still a lot of people who, unless it's obviously a child, still don't see if as a problem.  "That's just how it is here.  It's part of their culture."  I hear that a lot.  Occasionally I'll talk to that person, and point out how slavery used to be a part of ours, our country was formed by a bunch of rich white male slave owners.  So does that mean if I want to go back to owning another human being that I can, since it used to be a part of my culture and history?  And at least that will get most people thinking, which is a great start.  I realize that there are some people who like the surface of Cambodia: the beauty, the cheap fruit shakes, the puppies playing at their feet.  And that's all that they really want to see, which is totally fine.  (As long as they aren't using the women themselves.)  But that just doesn't work for me, which makes this weekend bittersweet.

I had my first cry in Cambodia on the way to Sihanoukville.  I was looking out the window, taking in the trees, the hills, people, rice fields, everything.  Then we started passing lily ponds.  They were everywhere.  Beautiful pink and white blossoms, the leaves so perfect they almost looked fake.  And it reminded me of the Lily Pond Festival I went to with my aunt and uncle.  I was maybe 12, for sure in my awkward phase, and at a time in life when I preferred the company of adults to people my own age.  Probably because adults weren't nearly as mean as my classmates and peers.
So we were at this festival, and it was acre and acre of lily ponds.  And they were beautiful and amazing (but I'm sure that I complained the whole time, "Why are we here, I'm bored, I want that shirt, etc etc.") but looking back, it was a happy time, and a good memory.  Outside of the normal meanness of middle school kids, life was pretty good.  I was with my aunt and uncle, who I love, my mom wasn't sick yet, and I had a step-father who, even though we didn't get along at that point, stepped up when biodad disappeared.  Life didn't suck too bad back then.
So I cried looking at all those lilies.  But it wasn't an entirely sad cry, it was more of a remembering a happier time, and realizing that that happy time is gone cry.  Which is ok.  I'm making new happier time memories here, and genuinely happy for the first time in a very long time.
My aunt introduced me to the full moon ritual of writing things you want out of your life down on pieces of papaer and then burning them to help remove those things from your life.  I would do it from time to time, mostly when things weren't particually great in my life, maybe twice a year when I remembered to and the moon was full.  I would have handfulls of these little scraps of paper, of all the things I wanted out of my life.  I didn't want to think about a relationship that had ended, or a person that I wanted out of my life.  I didn't want to be so angry and mean and bitter anymore.  And on and on and on.  Things that I felt fairly helpless to get out of my life on my own, I needed the moon to help.  I KNEW they were beyond my control.  So I would burn these little pieces of paper, and wait for the moon to fix my life.  The moon either sucked at fixing my life, or took its sweet time, I haven't decided which is true.
Fast forward to a few nights ago, when I notice the moon is full.  I sat there and though about what I wanted out of my life now.  I couldn't come up with anything.  So I thought harder, and for few minutes, just looking at the moon, and still couldn't come up with anything.  I realized I was content.  There are a couple of things I want in my life (an apartment with a huge balcony and AC in the bedroom, and a job) but there isn't anything I can think of that I want out of my life.  And that made me smile again.  (Like I said, I smile a lot more here.)  I still get angry over some of the things that I see, but I've accepted that I can't fix it all on my own, and that I am doing what I can to help.  And that's enough for now.  I decided to take a few minuted to enjoy the ocean, enjoy the feel of sand between my toes, enjoy the puppy playing at my feet, and enjoy that the beach was empty of the old white guy, young Khmer woman couples, and just enjoy my last hour in Sihanoukville.
I apologize for the lack of pictures, but I forgot to charge my camera battery,  I'm holding on to the beauty of the beach, and will focus on the problems I saw there another time.