Posts

Leaving for Cambodia Again

Image
Leaving for Cambodia for my longest stay…in a while. I must admit that I am scared.  I am returning to Cambodia to do some work with Reconnecting Cambodia/DNA Cambodia.  Our mission is to collect DNA samples from as many people as possible from Cambodian population, to help families find each other.  Many have been separated for over 50 years, don’t know if their lost relatives are even still alive or if they were among the millions killed during the genocide.  Others, like me don’t know if there are family members out there…or even who they might be.  The work is important; to a forgotten group of people and to all the individuals who just don’t know. I know how important it is and am super happy to help in any way that I can.  I’m also going alone this time…for six weeks.  I haven’t been away from home on my own for a little more than a week at a time for thirty years.  That was when I was adventurous and full of life.  Now I’m a person...
Post a Comment
Read more

What I've Learned This Time Around

Image
With full transparency I am writing this post at home.   I have been physically home for three days, but I am still in Cambodia too. I believe I always will be. I feel more at home there than I have in most other places.  I cannot express how good it feels to be surrounded by people who look like me.  For most people on this planet, they get to grow up with people who look like them, stay with the people who look like them, or get to return to those same people even if you visit somewhere where people look different.  It is a big deal to me, and it makes Cambodia feel more like home...I don't feel noticed there...I don't feel out of place and I don't feel judged.  Except for my own personal fashion choices.   Just like my last trip home, this time I learned so much I can't possibly cover it all, but I might as well take a shot at it.  1. My skin feels amazing in the heat and humidity of Cambodia.  I thought that skin is always supposed t...
Post a Comment
Read more

A party of Five

Image
 In this blog I have mentioned several times that there were four of us orphans on this trip.  The fact is there were five of us...sort of.  I would say in the ways that matter there were definitely five of us.  Suzy, the wife of Cale (one of the orphans) can along with her two kids, Max and Olivia.  The three of them arrived a couple days after the start of the tour, the day before we left Phnom Penh. Just in time to miss our first bike ride.  From the start of planning this trip, Suzy showed a great deal of interest, and feeling that this was a great opportunity for her children to introduced to the country their father came from. I was very happy to know that she was going to make it once everything was finalized... I greatly admired her for making this trip...traveling to a drastically different country, to meet and be with a group of people she has never met, and to experience things that she might have never expected.   I'm not that brave. I...
Post a Comment
Read more

All the good one man can do.

Image
To be honest with you we are on our way home, and I'm getting starting to think about returning to my normal life. This includes the great stuff, like my wife and kids, the good stuff being in class lecturing, and all the rest, most of which fall off the scale when we get past unbearably meaningless.  As an educator, I believe that I am doing good.  As a father, I believe that I am doing good...in the long run, I kind think my influence is not too far aways from what most people do.  I think I want this to change, partly because I know I can do more but also because of Tree.   Tree is giving a new definition to the idea of improving you own community.  I really appreciate the tour that Tree put together for us.  I imagine it wasn’t easy, balancing the needs of the adults, some of who are the orphans, as well as plan somethings that will be of interest to the kids after the initial excitement of being somewhere new wore off.   Tree is widely connec...
Post a Comment
Read more