Notes from a tiny village...and a big city

So I went to Dom Dek... Yah it's small, yah it is oh so rugged, yah it is where my beloved friend Meg lives and will continue to live for the next year an a half.  I was lucky enough to get to attend the school where meg teaches English, to experience just the slightest beginnings of the life of a peace core member, I hung out with her host family and ate some delicious food (although there was one hairy moment where, with cook looking on, I came across a mystery bit which looked like a chicken bladder, popped it in my mouth, and with one chew swallowed... Turns out it was a mushroom!) and I got my fill of being ooggling over as the big white man with a beard... All that i will say about the experience is that life there is hard, whether you are born there or just move there to try and make a difference... Now I am not one to make silly claims about the lives others lightly, material wealth does not predict happiness, indeed the people I met were quite the lively upbeat bunch, ever quick to laugh and even faster to smile.  That being said, I repeat, life is hard for reasons other than a lack of creature comforts, or rather in addition to said lacking.  Life is so very hard because in it's simplest form, you are what you are born...
Born poor, stay poor, die poor... Born the son of a noodle vendor, guess what, I see noodle vending in your near future... If education is your dream, better dream up some extra cash to pay for all those private classes to supplement your 3 or 4 hours a day of education the government will pay for... and find yourself a magic lamps cuz u need a genie to grant the  even more cash you are going to need for university because no bank is going to give a loan to the son of a fisherman here... It is that harsh reality which beats down the people of Cambodia, new and old, by birth and by desire... They call it the third world not because it was the last to be "discovered," but because it is in places like this that dreams are the least likely to come true... Yet the people here remain bright and cheery, hopeful of a better world and a better future, despite a lack of  iproximity to their own likely future..
Yah, the whole Angkor Wat temple complexes where amazing, but I am in no mood to write of them... There beauty and magisty only serve to remind me of the theme of my journey: "juxtapositions." Perhaps I should be pleased that such a place only makes me think of the contrast between the wealthy tourists and the people whose monuments of lost glories these are, perhaps I should be pleased in my notions of humanity... Never has so good a thing felt so retched.  Ignorance is bliss, perspective may make things more precious to us, yet right now, no matter how grateful I am for my wealthy and liberal upbringing, I cannot get the bitter taste of guilt out of my mouth for winning the lottery of a privileged birth.

And god gave us ears to hear, eyes to see, hearts to feel, and death to end the suffering they would bring.