I am slowly beginning to get a sense of what I'm going to be doing this year. Yesterday, I took a walk along the river (the Tonle Sap) and had a chance to talk with many Cambodians who wanted to practice their English. I also got to practice my limited Khmer with them. It's great to meet new people in this way, even when our respective language skills makes it hard to communicate. But I am continually amazed and overjoyed by the friendliness of the Cambodian people, even in a hectic, modern city like Phnom Penh.
Today, Parker and I went to buy some Khmer newspapers and magazines in order to make collages with them. Making art is both calming and centering, and I feel more balanced and ready to live more carefully after doing so.
Tomorrow, I am going to visit Tep Mori's pin peat class in the Bassac community (more on this after I tomorrow). I actually briefly visited her on the first day I arrived, when we were on our way to visit Kong Nai, a blind chapei (Cambodian long-necked lute) player and improvisational singer. He's known as a sort of Cambodian bard, whose words and music express the popular sentiments on the people as well as his own personal flair. CLA is now working to produce an album of his music, part of an upcoming release of three albums of Cambodian music on the CLA label. It has been great to watch this project unfold, from meetings with the Thai embassy to secure a printing house in Bangkok to press the CD's to listening to different cuts of Cambodian musicians at the studio. As the project moves further along, I will probably get more involved to make sure everything runs smoothly. It's really exciting to be a part of this organization and I am hoping to learn more about how CLA and World Education work in Cambodia, as well as about the general model for NGO's in developing countries.
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