Back in Battambang

I remember it all now…
The uncertainty of crossing the road, the smell of sweet roasted duck mixing with the sewage running down the sidewalk drain.
The beautiful pagodas with architecture like a twisted kings crown.
Monks talking on cell phones and smoking cigarettes, still make me smile.
Sunsets over rice fields as I ride on the back of a motto on my way home from the center. The wooden houses perched on stilts, crooked, looking as if they will soon fall into the muddy yet beautiful river.
The river lined with the greenest vegetation you have ever seen.
Banana, jackfruit, pineapple.
Oh the pineapple! Like you have never before tasted pineapple =)
Tuk-tuk! Tuk-tuk lady! Hey Lady!! Ladyyyyyyy!!
Everyone on the bus is throwing up in bags and it stinks and this nice lady next to me is making me eat something stringy, wet and black and I don’t want it,
I don’t want it.
but I just smile as she forcefully slops it in my hand and I say mmmmmm… ah koon =)
The potholes you hit with that crazy guy driving you.
He doesn’t care! HE has a helmet!
Wedding season outside your window, everynight, everyday.
The lady who rips you off at the market for a massive grapefruit.
Her toothless smile, you cant help but love her a lil, you smile as she waves and thinks “stupid tourist, HA!”
When I run outside of the town, people clap.
I liked it at first =) made me run faster.
Now I run in the park, people stop clapping after the second round.
The outlet is smoking….
The outlet is smoking a lot…
The shower is cold and refreshing.
How many 18 year old boys work here?!
Do you work here…? My outlet is smoking.
Karaoke bars are bad places
=( unfortunately.
Money spent on gambling and beer when there is no rice at home.
Abandoned, raped, sold, broken.
Our boys and girls and their survival…its barely.
Their strength and ability to persevere… they are the worlds tiniest heroes.
The stories are beyond and above what we don’t want to know,
Yet they smile, and they are only 7, 9 or 14.
They all have a story.
Now they all have some hope, and a pen.
And a teddy bear to hold at night, to replace a mother.
Laughter in the garden.
Games, games and more games.
They try to teach me but my shoes get caught in the tree.
We just laugh.
I’m digging in the garden and they think I’m crazy,
And I am. =)


-Maya Tucker (CFI volunteer)