Wow, what is there to say. For the past few weeks, as you can tell from my lack of blogging, things have been a little crazy. With good friends leaving, week-long holidays, trips to Siem Reap with friends and backpackers I met, I've been lost in the expat world for some time now. Living in Phnom Penh is challenging in so many ways, but I can tell you one thing, I never imagined that one of the difficult aspects would be to try not to get caught up in college behavior and going out as though I'm on vacation. I don't even think I realized how much time had passed by and I couldn't figure out why. All of a sudden, I noticed it was the end of November and wasn't entirely sure where the whole month went! At that very moment, I realized it was time to come back to reality and stop pretending I'm on vacation. It's a tricky thing figuring out how to live abroad when my only experiences abroad thus far have been for vacation. It's easy, especially in the expat world, to feel as though that is actually the case, but as we all know, it's not. I'm here for something much more important than going out multiple days of the week and being busy all the time because I feel I need to be doing things. In complete honesty, for a few weeks I was just sinking in this hole of going out and enjoying myself a little too much, and had almost completely forgotten why I'm here.
The last couple of weeks, however, have definitely reminded me why I'm here. I'm not sure I can explain how what I'm about to tell you happened, but somehow I've managed to go to 3 different girly bars (or prostitute bars) in less than a week and a half. It started with just a simple curiosity while I was with a group of friends, which led us going into a place called DV8 Bar, which had sexy figures of women as part of the sign. Just by that, we knew what we were entering, but my curiosity got the best of all of us, and we went in. With girls dressed up in short dresses and heels all around me, I decide to sit at the bar. To make a long story short, for the next hour I was surrounded by 6 different girls working there and was engaged in conversation which was a mix of Khmer and English. I think one, they were really excited to see a young Western woman, and two, to see one who is able to speak some Khmer to them was a VERY exciting thing. It was actually an incredible experience that I'm not even sure how to describe. I sat next to one woman who spoke very good English and who was talking to me all about her family, kids, husband, etc. and it ended in her giving me her phone number and her getting mine because she was so happy and said she really wanted to be friends with me. After an hour or so of amazing conversation, we all eventually left. After leaving the bar, I honestly didn't even know what to think. Do I go to dinner with her? Do I be friends with her? Is this dangerous, or an opportunity to potentially help the very girls/women I've dedicated my life to speaking up for and trying to protect?
Then just a few days later, I got dragged to another girly bar, called Candy Bar. My time there started out very innocent and fun, just hanging out with a couple of my friends and the girls working there, playing pool and just chatting it up. Then all of a sudden I see a man (who I didn't know, but he was a young Westerner), start to make a motion like he was trying to stick his hand up one of the girls shorts, she backed away, he did it again, and she backed away once more. Disgusted, offended, and completely bothered, I took the pool cue I was holding and just gently tapped the guy and told him to stop. I'm not sure exactly what words were exchanged, but I was very calm and casual at that point. Some time passed and things were fine. Then, all of a sudden, as we were leaving, one of his friends said something to me and he and I got into a very heated conversation that resulted in raised voices, tears, and an over flooding of emotions that made me walk out. He was yelling at me saying something along these lines...
"Don't tell my friend what to do. That is how things work here, and you just have to deal with it. I've been here for 5 years and have been traveling for 10. What do you know? How long have you been here? You have no idea what it's like, so you can't say anything. That's just how things are here. Who do you think you are?"
As you can imagine that got me very upset, and I was yelling and crying back at him basically saying that "I don't care who you are or how long you've been here, and don't even try to tell me that 'that's the way things are'. There is no excuse for disrespecting a woman and I was bothered by it. I don't care who you are or if she's working there, you do not treat women like that." Anyways, I eventually walked out because I was so upset and bothered by the very fact that he had the exact attitude I'm trying to fight against. This horrible mentality from men and people, that "that's the way things are" as though it justifies and makes it right to disrespect women and treat them as something we can stick our hands or other things up in public or private simply for our own pleasure. Well I walked out crying and walked to the riverfront to sit down, and then all of a sudden one of the girls from the bar (who was dressed in casual clothes) came and sat down next to me with tears in her eyes. At that point we were both sitting there emotional with tears in our eyes, except I had no idea why she was upset. I tried asking, in both English and Khmer, but I got nothing. I could see it in her eyes though. Something got her emotional and I'm not sure what it was. The next thing you know I'm sitting at breakfast with her and my friends in the middle of the market having great food and conversation. Then before we left, she told me how happy she was and how much she wanted to be my friend, so of course I exchanged numbers with her and said I'd love to hang out with her.
The next night, I get a phone call from her when I'm hanging out with one of my friends and she asks me if we wanted to come by and hang out with her at the bar. So, my friend and I agreed, and start heading over. All of a sudden I hear my name and there she was - dressed in a really short dress, high heels, and lots of make-up, and not at Candy Bar. Turns out she works at two places, this one, well, is very different than the other. This bar had rooms that were sectioned off by curtains in the back, that were not hidden at all by the way, where periodically you would see a flow of men coming out of or men disappearing into with a girl. As my friend and I were sitting there chatting with the girls, we saw men of all sorts - older Cambodian men, old Western men, middle-aged Western men, and young Western men who were probably about my age. Sitting having conversations at this bar was VERY different than the other two, and I really cannot describe the feeling I had sitting there. I would see men coming out of the back and literally want to throw up/cry/punch them in the face. That's the best way I can describe all of the emotions I was feeling. After a while, I couldn't take anymore and had to tell my friend that we needed to leave.
I've continued to get phone calls the girl from the second and third bar, and after consulting other people who work at my organization, they agree that it's perfectly fine for me to hang out and be friends with these girls. You never know what can come from even simply having a relationship with people. I remember one specific conversation with one of the other girls in the bar, again with a mix of broken Khmer and English, where she was telling me how much she doesn't like her job at all. She said it out loud, but what I saw in her eyes spoke even louder - she was miserable. So, we got into a conversation about it and I asked her "why can't you get another job?" She said it's because she doesn't know enough English, and doesn't have enough money to go to school to learn more. Then I proceeded to try to get her to think positively and hopeful and asked her, well, if you had money, what would you do? She said with a smile on her face, I would go learn more English and then I'd love to be a translator. That conversation, to me, was amazing. All it takes sometimes is to be positive and show people that you believe in them and you never know - they could all of a sudden feel encouraged and hopeful, and decide that they are worth it and can get a different job.
Anyways, my thoughts on these experiences are not very well organized or thought out, but I just wanted to get it out and share a little bit about what's been going on. Beyond the emotions of simply being in those places, the relationships I've started to build with these girls working in the bars struck me in the head like a brick and reminded me why I'm here. I'm not here to get lost in the expat world and go out all the time, I'm here to work, and to help do this research that is going to create an awesome program which will help vulnerable families and the younger siblings of girls who have been trafficked for sex. This past weekend was incredible, and there was so much about it that was redeeming, and I have been experiencing so many emotions in the past few days, but in a great way that has made me feel as though I'm really getting things back together, and ready to keep working hard.
Work is getting much more intense and at this point, we are aiming to go out for our first interviews with the families the week of Dec. 5th. It's exciting that it's coming up, and it has put a lot more projects on my plate which is exactly what I need right now. I was lost for weeks, and now, thanks to the beautiful girls I've become friends with and a friend who I had an amazing weekend with, I have found myself again and am slowly putting the pieces back together. God truly is amazing.
