Three Things to Survive

Up until a generation ago, in South East Asia there was a saying. “There are only three things you need to survive: land, a cow, and water.” Having all these things meant villagers could work their land, produce a crop, and provide for their families.

As the growth of globalization now reaches villagers in some of the most remote areas, this saying has mutated to reflect the changes of time, causing an alteration in two of the three aforementioned necessities. The motorbike has replaced the cow, and the TV has replaced water (or at least the need for clean water, anyway).

The motorbike not only provides better transportation than a cow, but it is also more reliable. It can be used to find employment in the cities, and perhaps more importantly, it is a status symbol for the up and coming generation. The motorbike as a sign of wealth is clearly evidenced by young boys, sometimes three on a bike, driving slowly and aimlessly around town on their shiny new motorbikes. Where are they going? Who knows? They probably are doing what the Cambodians call darling, driving around town looking for fun. A sight none too different from the average character on BET glorifying the notion of sittin’ sideways in a cherry low-low.

While the motorbike switch makes sense, the fact that TV has replaced the desire for clean water shouldn’t baffle one either. Rather it should illustrate the priorities of the villagers.

Imagine you decide to go camping, and in the haste of your decision you are in such a hurry that you just get in the car and drive. Then imagine driving into a hot and tropical land amid a milieu of rice fields far from any semblance of a town or city. For the sake of this exercise you then sell your car to buy a hectare of land with a bamboo hut on stilts and now have $100 left. You need water so you decide to dig a hole and water starts to collect. Soon the water turns brown because there is nothing to protect the hole from the elements, and mosquitoes make it their new home.

What would you do with that $100 (and had no other options) - Would you use that money to buy a TV, or buy a water well?

These are the decisions that villages are forced to make on a regular basis, and often villagers chose the TV. Even in remote villages with no electricity, villagers watch their favorite soap operas with the help of used car batteries that are jimmy rigged to the appliance’s cord. To a certain extent, it makes sense. It would be damn boring living in the countryside. While it’s great to go camping for a week, I don’t know about having to do it all the time.

It’s true that some villagers do not understand all the principles of hygiene, sanitation, and health standards so education is a factor contributing to choice of purchasing a TV over the water well. Yet, villagers need a conspicuous and direct cause and effect relationship. If they drink from the pit 10 times and don’t get sick, how can you tell them that when they are sick, it is from the dirty water?

Nevertheless, all villagers would love to have a water well that gives them clean water. One reason is that it tastes better. Another is the water looks cleaner when it comes from a well. There is a belief that if you drink brown water from a pit, your skin will become darker. But water from a well is clearer, and thus your skin will become whiter. Seems logical, yeah?

So while many can’t save up enough money to buy a well, there are many villagers who do have the money, but choose to spend it on other things, like TV’s and motorbikes. Unfortunately health does not top villagers’ priorities until they get sick. So as globalization brings wonderful new technologies to even the most remote corners of the globe, villagers who make about $200 per year now face increasing desires that challenge their ubiquitous notions of what is needed.

~ J-Dub

Leaving the BKK

My time in Asia is coming to a close so it is time to give a recap of the last few weeks up to today...

It has been absolute madness finishing up the last few weeks in BKK. Had to interview, hire, then train our new staff as best I could in a very short amount of time, deal with all kinds of crazy legal issues because we got screwed by our formal "lawyer" who turned out not to be a lawyer at all, accounting B.S. with back-taxes like wild because of false legal/ accounting advice, find and move into a new office, and basically hand over all of the work, structure and systems I have created over the last 2 years... oh, and pack up our entire house.

So on the night before J-Dub and I departed for Cambodia, I was at the new office with my successor/staff going over last-minute details until midnight, raced home to start packing, packed until 4am, up again at 8am and left in a van around 11am. It's a really weird feeling to know that Bangkok is not my home anymore, that all of my life now exists in two duffle bags and a small box. That's it. As we left Bangkok for the first time in about three weeks I had the time to just sit and think, and it was a really strange sensation to recognize I'm gone from here - don't know when I'll be back... and that I have no idea where I'll be next.

Our drive to the border went fine. Then we had the process of packing ALL of the boxes (an absolutely huge quantity of stuff) onto a wooden cart and having two Cambodian boys push the cart through the border for us, stopping to wait while we checked out of Thailand and again while we got our visas to go into Cambodia. They were really nice kids, though we were quite wary at first. Part way through - between Thailand and Cambodia - some Cambodian Immigration officers stopped us and wanted us to pay them for the goods going through to Cambodia. J-Dub and I pointed out that they were IMMIGRATION (which deals with people), not CUSTOMS (which deals with goods). The guy finally said "up to you" and we said "in that case, bye, have a nice day" because we knew they had no authority to stop us. When we did reach the Customs, then we hit bigger trouble. They demanded a receipt for the towels (about 100 branded towels for our B&B) and that we pay them the fine. We said, ok, if you give us a receipt then we will pay the fine, so our business can see the receipt from the Customs Agents... of course they weren't going to give us any receipt because their demands were - well - not entirely "legal." Finally we negotiated from $100 US Dollars down to a $12.50 bribe. Still annoying, but what could we do?

See, I think that the city of Poipet (the Cambodian city just past the Thai/Cambodian border) gives Cambodia such a bad name, particularly among the Thais. The police are so corrupt and the poorest of the poor come to this area to beg from the toursits passing through and the Thais who go there to gamble and generally look down upon Cambodians (which in turn give Cambodians a bad view of what the average Thai is like). Everywhere else, the people are so nice, so gentle and so sweet. Poor and poorly educated, but generally really good people. Poipet is to Cambodia what a sphyncter is to a Supermodel - a shitty part of an otherwise beautiful thing.

Anyway, once across the border we got in two taxis with our staff, Narla, and began the incredibly bumpy ride to Siem Reap. It had rained really hard earlier in the day - so hard that the taxis had to drive up onto the bus station passenger waiting area so the passengers didn't have to wade through knee-deep chocolate-brown water to get into their Camry. Needless to say, the road was absolute shit for a while. What took about 3 hours just a month ago, now took about 5 hours, and was a miserable ride. In the end, we made it safely though.

Just two quick days here in Siem Reap that have flown by too quickly. I leave with The Jaw tomorrow afternoon for Luang Prabang to begin the guide training and meeting with our partner companies. From there, on to Vientiane, Hanoi, Hue, Hoian, Saigon, back to Bangkok, Chiang Mai, then down to Phuket for J-Dub's Marathon, then to Krabi for a few days, back in Bangkok for three days, then... back to the US. After that, I don't have a plan in the world... except maybe a long nap.

~Bear

How Good Are You Hopping?

(Click to Enlarge)

Seen in the countryside of Northwestern Cambodia. Sometimes graphic pictures are needed in places where many can not read, and children play with unexploded ordinances.