Pe pour la Paix: Through the Lens

Loads of churches and church related schools and unis

Loads of armed security men at every entrance

Roads are like a motor-museum, as entertaining as polluting: Classic english models from the fifties to modern art graffitied glow in the dark busses

Red earth and scattered clouds contrasting the the blue on top there

Down here trees stand relaxed, secure of themselves , this is THEIR place

Massive woman heeling up and down, their femininity dressed up in as many colours as possible

And how do walking men keep their shoes shiny and their suits clean will forever remain a mystery

Kindness

Surprise

Sadness

Distrust

Are some of the feelings their eyes show, from the littlest ones to the most senior ones

Attentive and happy is what they are despite all

Proud is how they stand

Africa is Africa and you can feel it in its beat , a rhythm of its own

Elephants inside the supermarket , giraffes directing traffic from atop the roundabout and the feeling that all those things that would be oh so inconvenient at home, are what give this place an air of romance, a sight of when in Africa ...

YET EVERY TREE is botanically signalled

Angkor Wat (Hindu? Buddhist? What are you, what am I?)
Trimmed as neat as a soldier's head. It commands you to relook at yourself, within this environment, to reevaluate yourself upon such an expression, such symmetry, such decadence ... such perfection. Even before you are done with the amazement, you are ordered to question life in ways have never done before.

What lies upon your eyes, the grounds in which you stand, the buildings that have been telling stories for thousands of years and never finish falling apart. No. You haven't been in a place like this before. Or will you ever do again, rest assured.

Sun can be killer. When it is, think what it was like for those erecting and maintaing this with zero robotic technology. All of a sudden your soul feels heavy (with guilt if you are a good catholic girl) or with whichever heaviness you choose to put upon your shoulders. The sun becomes colder than the arctic circle.

Many other little temples
The many other minor temples visited before Angkor Wat, each in a different way, are all screams of magnificent majesty. Only humans believing themselves gods could have, not only foreseen, but carried away such constructions. A clear reflection of what they thought they were.

Bayon(?)
Bayon looks back at you from e v e r y s i n g l e c o r n e r . Happy to receive you, stern and so imposing.

Confusing on the first level, intriguing on the second, again this questioning phenomena, doubts, imagination: it's all triggered at once in this playground for the mind. And a feeling -still wondering which one it is- cooks up slowly in your stomach. What is it? Will someone ever know ? Will I ever be able to let go form this?

And Angkor Thom (literally, in Khmer, The Great City) Is it the Monastery or is it the Jungle? Eclectic poem, decadent ruin, ruined while trying to ruin the jungle. Jungle keeps winning. Roots taller than people (and though yeah, it doesn't take much to be taller than me, they are taller than many other people). Roots adapting to every building set on stone and blood, bricks give up. Roots grow up. The sky is always there to reach for. Always a bit higher. There go the trees. Higher than high.

Incessantly elevating their bodies and souls to those heavens that belong to Gods that we don't know but that still look after us, minuscule beings, under their shade. Take a deep breath. Relax. Take a while and inhale it, absorb it all . These gods, these trees, they know we need a place to stop and let things sink in, and here is where that happens.

All expressions are exaggerations, I promise I'm not exaggerating. The centipede was big as my hand, and my tears were real, as real as every day gone by here.

It's dark when I arrive and the ride is fairly short. I can't see as much as I wish. But I feel it enough. Vibrant, with a character that can't wait to show off. Seems like it will have some style too.

The sun rises right in front of me. I sample a variety of local and exotic fruits: each one of them deserves to be savoured.

The dust of the street and the smog off the exhausts,
The lactic acid of the pineapple and the sweetness of the mango,
The freshly baked to french perfection baguettes and the amok, lok lak and other spices,
The style... NOthing else than remains of French Influence
...It all comes together in one big sticky darkish cloud, don your light blue mask, blend in:

Welcome to Phnom Penh

Contradictions, horror, poverty, beggars, endless tuk tuk offers (scientifically proven about 472 in 3h).

I name the next bit of my thoughts DISAGREE, because you might.

I don't dine in 5 star hotels/restaurants (not all the time), I dine in USD5 beer included shacks with plastic chairs and riverfront view, only 'coz life happens in the riverfront.

At some of them the risk is that miserable poverty will walk into you. Choking you if you dare take that ready to go spoonful. I walk through this misery every day, trying to ignore as gently and peacefully as their existence. But truth is such misery, such poverty is never gentle or peaceful, not even to the strongest soul or the most stubborn mind. Not psychologically.

There they are, staring at you, them, their potential costumer's meal. Here they are, staring at mine. And yes, I am weak and vulnerable. I can't help feeling awful. Even though I have earned it. I can't feeling blessed, for the chances I had and they didn't.

I invite him in . 'Can you read? (the menu - and I hope he didn't take it bad), choose something, keep me company if you want, because I'm not getting a book from you'. And it was fine with him. And his little -what I thought: sister-

I was beginning to feel better until he started telling me his story, how one day the Khmer Rouge Regime came in, split the family and never saw anyone again. And how when it was over he had nowhere to go, no education, not a thing.

'But how old are you?' I inquired, trying to hide my disbelief. To me, before he told me the story, he was 15 years old.
'31' he shot back at me, 'and you?'
Only after choking I was able to reply my own age. How sad is it that he just looks like a 13 16 year old because he just never grew up! Not enough food. Dear me, dear you, dear all of US! And me carrying these few KG extra.... He could do with'em.

Then, he went on with the story, a friendly restaurant owner allowed him to sell books inside his establishment, to leave a bag with a set of clean clothes, to take a shower each morning before school and wash up the other set of clothes.

Until here we are, one evening like any other, talking as if friends. He's desperate to get another 40USD to pay the monthly school fee because he doesn't wanna let go the whole year for not being able to pay the last month. I salute him.

Oh man, you can see in his eyes how hard he tries, but even more, how much harder life tries on him. And just like him so many other "kids" (that probably are 20 years older than what they look, because they starved so many years).

And as well as I know that comparisons apply only to bitter people (and the only bitterness in me is the sense of humour) I can't help comparing. Thinking parallelisms with my own people. There is misery, there are forgotten places. And also there is fomented poverty and happy poor people. Poor form the soul, that prefer a social plan than a decent job. That prefer free money (for drugs and alcohol, and who am I to judge?) than a decent job. Even if they wanted to go to school, back home, it'd be free. I rest my case by saying that most people in Villa 31 -THE shanty town– have a satellite tv. Here in Cambodia: little money but a clean spirit.
"English? Is the future, I learn at school"

And that's the dark side of the city and not the annoying tuk tuk drivers. It's the misery, the desperation, the insistence. At the same time, they are respectable human beings who treat you as such and expect nothing less but the same.

The bright side?
There is no violence.
There is no fear.
There is no paranoia.
There is optimism.
There is a moral to be learnt.