Baby Powder, Planting, and the Jungle

With my final month in Mesang well underway, the landscape here in Mesang again changes with the start of the monsoon rains. Green again becomes the dominant color of the landscape, frogs and crickets once more sing me to sleep, and the mosquitos return to make up for lost time. The past few months have been full of variation in routine, which has been a welcome shakeup to my normal schedule. Since my last post a major holiday came and went, I traveled a few times to some new provinces, spent a lot of time in the rice fields with my family, and managed to get a couple big projects done at work as well.

One of the biggest things to take place about two months ago was Khmer New Year, the biggest and most widely celebrated holiday of the year in Cambodia. I had a five-day weekend that left me feeling more tired at the end than when it started, but it was very worthwhile and full of memorable experiences. As is traditional for most big Cambodian holidays, most people leave the cities to return to their ancestral homeland for a few days, so the quiet little countryside town I have come to recognize and feel familiar with became a noisy crowded travel destination for the weekend.

This change was actually a fun change of pace, and it was made even more exciting by the fact that I was helping my host family sell flowers and fruit in the market for two of those days. I spent two long days at the market from well before dawn until the sun was sliding behind the buildings main street in the evening selling with my host family. I’ve spent a lot of time on the shopping side of market stalls, but this was my first experience in the role of shopkeeper.

Khmer New Year is best known for the water and baby powder free-for-all that envelopes the country for three days, where anyone who steps foot outside is an open target, from babies to grandparents, and especially foreigners. I found myself soaked and powdered white countless times over the weekend. I also went with a friend to Prey Veng town about an hour away for an afternoon, where tens of thousands of Khmer young adults gathered to celebrate together as a group of complete strangers in a packed city square bursting with water and baby powder.

My neighbors powdering passerby's at an impromptu road checkpoint during Khmer New Year.

The rice fields were pretty quiet for a few months in the depth of the hot dry season when most farmers are not able to raise a crop, but now that the rains have started, so too have the farmers gotten busy. After burning leftover crop residue from last season’s crop, fresh seeds were planted and the ground now glows with the vibrant green of baby rice shoots. I spent a lot of time in the fields on weekends and after work in the evening helping my family prepare the fields for planting, and really appreciated the effort and patience they showed to help me learn.

My neighbors burning crop residue on their rice fields to clear the land for the next planting.

Every morning from first light, farmers work away in their fields to beat the heat. Traditionally, all fields were transplanted in rows by hand, but nearly everyone has moved away from that in favor of the more expensive but far less time consuming method of broadcasting seeds through the field. A job that used to take an entire family several days under the heat of the sun now takes one skilled thrower an hour or two. I accompanied my host grandfather to one of his fields while he was doing this job, and had a fun time watching many of my neighbors out in their own fields doing the same thing.

My host grandfather seeding one of his rice fields by broadcasting seeds over the freshly plowed ground.

Another big experience from the past few months was a two-week trip I took to visit two provinces in the rural northeastern portion of the country, Kratie and Mondulkiri. I traveled to Kratie first, starting my time there with two other MCC staff to visit another MCC partner called Cambodian Rural Development Team (CRDT), an organization doing similar work to the organization I work with. We spent three days visiting project sites, speaking with farmers, attending meetings with village savings groups, and connecting with the CRDT staff. The highlight of this experience was spending a day and night on an island in the Mekong River where CRDT works. This island, not connected to the power grid, with no advertising posters, all the houses in traditional Khmer style, and an hour drive and half-hour boat ride from the town of Kratie, made it feel like stepping back in time to a much older version of Cambodia.

A CRDT farmer working with pumpkin seedlings in his garden on a Mekong River island in Kratie province.

After the two other MCC staff left to return to Phnom Penh, two of my friends who are also volunteers with MCC for the year came up to Kratie to spend a few days with me on vacation there. One of the most memorable experiences of this time was a kayaking tour on the Mekong River to see a pod of Irrawaddy dolphins. Irrawaddy dolphins are one of the most endangered mammals on the planet, with an estimated 300 left in the wild. Incredibly, the best place to see these elusive freshwater porpoises is just a few miles from the main town of Kratie. Seeing the dolphins up close was a very memorable experience, but just as incredible was the eight mile route we paddled to reach the dolphins on one of the world’s great rivers.

Two Irrawaddy Dolphins come to the surface on the Mekong River in Kratie province.

After a few exciting days with my friends in Kratie, we parted ways and I went on alone a couple hours further east to Mondulkiri province. Mondulkiri is the least densely populated province in the country, and is host to sprawling jungle, diverse wildlife, and rolling mountains. All very different from the vast delta paddy of Prey Veng. I spent my days here chasing geckos around my porch at night, hiking through an elephant sanctuary, and cruising down the red dirt roads on a rented mountain bike. Trees by the roadside were loaded and sagging under the weight of durian, jackfruit, and avocado, and the market was full of forest produce not found elsewhere in the country. I love my home in Mesang, but the fresh and powerful landscape of Mondulkiri holds rank as my favorite place in Cambodia.

A Tokay Gecko feeds on flying termites on my porch in Mondulkiri province.

At work, my supervisor and I just finished a big report we have been working on for a few weeks. This part of my job didn’t used to make me excited, but I have grown to see the importance and satisfaction in this part of my assignment. I’ve also paid visits to some of the farmers I have gotten to know through my job over the past few weeks to check in one final time and say goodbyes.

With now less than a month left in Mesang, I feel the weight of my time in Cambodia approaching a conclusion. If you happen to think of me in the next month at any time, send me a little mental thought bubble to stay present and create meaningful goodbyes with the people who I have connected with here over the past 10 months.

Below are a few more photos from the past two months...