How to Check Out

Have you ever checked-out? We've all checked someone out (I mean, what is facebook for if not the ultimate stalking tool?). But have you ever checked-out? And not from a hotel. I'm serious, have you ever checked-out? Anyone who's ever lived overseas knows about checking-out. I've just watched my first slew of friends in Cambodia leave, some from church, some from my organization. When you know you're leaving, when you're down to the end, it's easy to simply check-out.

Here are the fundamental steps for checking-out.

• Stop caring about where you are.
• Stop thinking about where you are.
• Stop thinking about the present, but fantasize about the future.
• Stop making plans where you are.
• Stop trying because it's all going to end soon anyway.
• Stop making new friendships, and neglect current friendships.

Is checking-out bad? I don't know if I can say. At some point, we all have to move on. Sometimes we move on before we leave. Other times we move on after we arrive at the new place. Not preparing to leave can be damaging, but over-preparing is the other damaging extreme.

My problem with checking-out is that life is meant to be lived. I know what it means to hate where you live (gosh, do I know about that). I know what it means to have finished the present and feel ready for the next step (I've lived there, for months). But is there a better way to transition? Is there a way to honor the present while knowing it will soon end? Is there a way to intentionally and respectfully transition, instead of just...checking-out?

I remember my last transition, from Washington DC to New York (where I waited two months before leaving for Cambodia). I remember cramming in one more bike trip. I remember riding down the Met-Branch Trail in the drizzling rain. I'd rode that trail often in the daylight, but this time, I saw the Capital building aglow in the distance at the end of the trail. It was magical, a perfect evening, a perfect memory, a perfect ride, less then 15 hours before I left. If I had checked-out, I wouldn't have that memory. I've checked out before, and because I did, I don't have unique memories like wet rides down the Met Branch Trail at 9pm.

Two years from now, July 2013, I'll have a month left Cambodia. Two years from now, will I have checked-out? I hope I won't. I hope I drink lots of nasty coffee, watch a lot of bad Khmer music videos, and happily drive my little moto until the very day I leave. I hope I do something new, less then 15 hours before I leave. I hope I transition. But I hope I don't check-out.

How Google Changed the World (or my world)

I went into one of my offices last Tuesday and learned their Internet was down. They gave me a different computer, and then the office-wide internet went down. This happens quite often, and it's normally code for "drink coffee and play pinp-pong" which everyone does. Alas, on this last Tuesday, I wanted none of it. Because without internet, I cannot work, and while it's delightful to drink tea and read Newsweek, eventually reports are due, and emails pile up. So I went back to my main office to use their fast internet. 

I have a highly interesting work situation. The irony of it dawned on me recently, and it's so reflective of that global nomadic tendency to take chaos, and make more chaos. First of all, I work out of three offices…not counting my apartment or favorite coffee shops. I use over six computers, one at my first partner (exclusively mine, slowest machine on earth), one, sometimes, two at the other partner (depends on who's traveling). At my “main office” we share computers. I’ll use any one of four depending on who arrived first and staked their favorite. At my “main office,” we also use Ubuntu...does anyone know what this? Of course not. Ubuntu is a version of Linux…that’s right...not Microsoft, not Apple…the alternative’s alternative.

When I started working in January, I told my supervisor that I didn’t know how to use Ubuntu, and I didn’t feel comfortable using it. They didn’t respond to that. However, I quickly realized that virtually every computer that runs Windows in Cambodia runs an illegal pirated copy. The pirated versions can’t access updates and maintenance so they are exceptionally virus prone and eventually slow down. My organization wasn’t going to pay for licensed Windows for all our computers, so opened sourced it was. And so by February, I bravely taught myself how to start an Ubuntu computer and access Chrome. It was terrifying, which made mastering it highly rewarding.

By March, I tired of moving files around on my flash drive and files got corrupted between the Open Office on Ubuntu (the open-sourced word processor), and the pirated Microsoft Office. So I started using Google Docs, out of my Gmail. It’s similar to Office, except it’s in a Google interface, and it’s web-based, and I can access it from any computers. I never needed a flash drive. I never needed to store stuff on actual computers, and everything was always there. I enjoyed sharing my ingenious creativity, “oh I work entirely out of Google docs.” That’s right. I’m Gen Y dot-com-er. I’ve made this bizarre situation work. Alas though, this means without internet, I can only drink coffee and read Newsweek. And this happens quite often.

Once in a while, I wonder what “normal” people do. Most jobs don’t require three office locations, or if they did, they’d give you a laptop with a licensed copy of Microsoft Windows where you could store your stuff on an actual hard drive. I’m an intrigued convert to open-sourced software. It’s always evolving and improving, even if there are always strange and frustrating quirks. So on days when the internet is down, or when I have to use my personal (licensed) PC for complex Word editing, or when I can’t find the Ubuntu Control Panel...I crawl into a ball of over-caffeinated self-pity and whinge for the life in America that I never really had.

It’s fun being creative and innovative and I’ve had fun responding to the challenges. I like challenges, and most the time I like my strange work arrangement. But sometimes, can we seriously just have hot water…and street lights…and Pandora.

How Driving is Still Dangerous

Several weeks ago, I finally crashed my little Honda moto. They say you aren't a true Cambodian driver until you've had an accident. Over eight months of driving, I'd had two scrapes with crazies trying left-hand turns in the right-hand lane (no harm done). I hoped that these qualified as "accident." (I also tried to drive a water filter home and crashed in the gravel, but that was my own stupidity.) I just didn't want anything to happen late at night, because calling my supervisors at 10pm has potential to be mortifying.

But alas, I crashed into someone at noon on a Monday. I was headed to lunch with one of my Khmer partner organizations. There were several of us "moto-ing" to a farewell lunch for a departing staff member. The road outside my partner is like a freeway, but it's a residential street. I was likely driving around 40km with another MCCer on the back when someone pulled out in front of me from an apartment complex. He was trying to balance whatever he had on his moto (I can't remember what it was) and was driving erratically while trying to pick up speed. There was oncoming traffic, no shoulder, fast traffic behind, no space to decelerate, so I crashed into the left side of his moto. He seemed shocked. I was angry...and it was painful.

So yes, I crashed into him. But he didn't look before he pulled out. The Khmer rules of the road dictate you are only responsible for the space directly in front of you. You are not responsible for anything behind you. You are also not responsible to help the other party when involved in an accident. In fact, it's discouraged, because they might get your contact info and sue you, so it's better to hit-and-run.

I didn't fall over. He didn't fall over. In fact, he drove off instantaneously which I didn't notice because I was in so much pain. When I realized later he left, my internal sense of civil morality was extremely violated. My right foot had been crushed between the motos, but after a while, when I could move my toes again, I decided that to get on with it.

We had lunch, I went back to work to finish a presentation I was giving. I wanted to finish it, so I did, while my foot got increasingly painful and swollen. Afterwards, Nicole and I went to the hospital. I got a tetanus shot, and an x-ray (using some 70s-era x-ray machinery straight out of LOST) and was told that there was no lasting damage. I was quite skeptical of that snap judgement of a foot so swollen it couldn't fit into my Chaco. But it's healed just fine. 

Thus concludes the tale of my "you are now a certified Cambodian driver" accident. In the moment, I was frustrated that I had lost control of the situation. Thoughts were racing around my head like fruit in a blender. When you can't move one of your extremities, you've pretty must lost all control of the situtation. In hindsight, it was one of those situations that I'll never fully understand what happened. It was strange, it was surreal, and it was entirely stupid.

So how can this be turned into a learning experience? Well...who knows...it wasn't my entirely my fault.

How to See Angkor Wat

When my family came to visit in May, of course we had to do temples. I'd been holding off on it because I moved to Cambodia in October knowing they would come in May, and with other visitors later in the summer, so it only made sense.

Cambodians are intensely proud of Angkor Wat. Cambodia is the only country to have a architectural symbol of their flag, Angkor Wat. Several studies I've read about Cambodian ethnicity show that they consider Angkor Wat the symbol of Cambodia. There's no comparison in any other culture I've encountered. Angkor Wat is revered in the absolutist sense. It's not just a UNESCO World Heritage site, it isn't just the largest religious site in the world, it isn't just a very old 12th/13th century temple/palace. It's a symbolic cultural icon on a bygone era. Once upon a time, the Angkorian Kingdom ruled Cambodia and much of Thailand, Vietnam and Laos. It was the Cambodia superpower of the 12th and 13th century, which eventually eroded due to an undiversified economy (too much rice), and over-centralized state, and deforestation (sound familiar?).

Since the decline of Angkor, Cambodia has been passed between Thailand and Vietnam, fell to France, self-destructed into the Khmer Rouge, more occupation, and finally fragile independence in 1991. Somewhat understandably, the Angkor period is idealized and held in astute reverence. In Western cultures, we look to the future for our hope and identity, they day when we will be superpowers. In many Asian cultures, they look to the past as a source of identity, the bygone days of super-states and super-cultures.

I wasn't sure what to expect. But I've seen the Great Wall of China, Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower, the Great Zimbabwe, the Axum Obliques and the Churches of Lalibela...so I was mildly skeptical. Until, I saw it. I was impressed at the size and the scale. It's impressive for it's age, and while preservation is inadequate, it's coming along slowly.

(Photo credits, Jon Nofziger, May 2011)

The most challenging aspect is the scale. You can't see it all in one day. Cambodia is just so hot, it drains you after only a few hours. There are so many people at the main Angkor Wat temple, it's obnoxious. Siem Reap over-markets on the temples, and this is also obnoxious.

The ruins of the Angkorian Temples are interesting, but I find the sociology behind them significantly more engaging. I've spent years in Eastern/Southern cultures, but I was educated at a liberal Western school where I learned to over-analyze identity. And because of this, I do look forward. However, as a global nomad, I can't shake my own past. That's my identity. It's not the glory-days, but my global nomadic past holds good times and great stories. While I look forward to a bright future, I live in the attitudes and stories formed around a global nomadic past. Is life a balance of past and future? I hardly know. I'll conclude only that the clash of cultures lives on, peripherally.