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Global Urban Trek 2008
Iconic BeginningsJune 23, 2008
It has been fun getting acquainted with Phnom Penh, in all of its busyness and beauty and dirt. This morning we all went to our volunteer placements: Tricia and Ari and David to Servants to Asia's Urban Poor, Sam and Brian went to Mercy Team International, and Diana, Traci and I went to Children at Risk.
Over time the slum residents have been moved from their homes to the outskirts of the city as Phnom Penh is further developed. So today the three of us went to the relocation site to be with the slum dwellers who were removed from Phnom Penh. I had my first really iconic moment when I met one of the women in the relocation settlement.
While we were walking through the market meeting people, we met a woman who was lying down on a wooden flat. She is pregnant, and her husband had beaten her, then left her for another woman. She's all alone! And she is due soon with nowhere to give birth. She can't work right now because she is so pregnant and soon she will have a baby!
I spent a lot of time talking to Daniel, the person from Children at Risk, about what we can do for her, and he isn't really sure. We gave her some money for food, and we created a birth plan with another woman in the settlement so that she can get to the Red Cross Hospital. We stayed close to her and prayed with her, but I felt totally incapable of offering anything. What do I know about her life? At school I study the ways that women bear the brunt of poverty and yet obviously here I am, and theories and development economics – even the Gospel – seem somehow insufficient.
In sharp contrast was an iconic moment filled with joy! The little kids running around this community really bring light to everyone there, and one set of sisters in particular charmed their way into my heart this morning. My favorite moment was when I was washing the hair of the oldest sister, who is nine. Her hair is all the way down to her hip, and she is growing it out to sell it. The kids laid on a low table and I sat behind them on a stool rinsing and shampooing, and I just felt so lucky to be here, doing this small thing for this little girl.
Their parents have left them, and they are living here with relatives. I just kept remembering Joel's quote from Mother Teresa, that it is only when we get to heaven that we will understand the debt we owe to the poor for helping us to love Jesus more.
It rained this afternoon as we were walking, and I just settled into Cambodia. We are here for about a month, and hopefully by the end I will really know this city and these people and maybe even this language!
- Kim
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