"Pleased to meet you, my name is Death."

I've been out traveling in the villages for some time, so I haven't had access to a computer to update you guys on life in my corner of the world. I'm back in Phnom Penh, so I'll have some more posts coming.

The Friday before last, I had a chance to meet some of the other interns. There are two law students from Canada, two from NY, and one from Michigan. It's been great to have other American and Canadian students around to help navigate issues like living situations, food, tuk tuk prices, and how to handle trips to the provinces to meet with clients (more on that later). One of the interns also handed me a cell phone, so now I can stay connected with the other students.

While going through introductions with the staff, I noticed that a lot of people were having trouble pronouncing my name. I decided to shorten it to the more user-friendly "Ali", which seemed to go over well. I was discussing the name change with my office mate, Jacob, who's one of the students from Canada. He said he tried to do the same thing with his name during one of the group trips to the rural provences, which culminated in the following conversation and a rather unfortunate nickname:

Jacob: Hi, my name is Jake.

Client (mishearing): Chet?! Your name is Chet?!?!

Lawyers (dissolving in laughter): "Chet" means "death" in Vietnamese. Your name is Death!!

Jacob: No, I don't...I didn't say...

Everyone: YOUR NAME IS CHET!!

From that point on, the lawyers introduced Jacob to every client as "Death", which was always met with uncontrollable belly laughs. At least it's a way to break the ice with clients, although we both agreed that it might be a little uncomfortable to hear that Death is coming to visit you for the afternoon. 

It says "Lawyer" on my door. Guess I don't have to go back to school in August.

On my third day, I had my first day at work. The office is on the outskirts of the city, so it's a 15 minute drive without traffic, 30 minutes during rush hour. I take a tuk tuk to work, which is essentially a motorcycle with a golf cart attached. It's the coolest (literally) way to see the city, as it combines the open-air rush of a motorcycle with the stability of a car (well, a car-like thing). The only problem is that I'm swallowing enough exhaust smoke each day that my lungs now probably look like they belong to a Charles Dickens factory worker.

The drivers here are INSANE. Think about this: the majority of the population is under 30 years old. All of these people are driving. It's like an entire road system made up of reckless teenage drivers high on the thrill of getting their licenses, with no middle-aged people around to tell the whippersnappers to slow down. There are more motorcycles than cars, and they weave in and out of traffic in a manner that makes it look like they're writing cursive with their wheels.

When I arrived at work, I met the head of the legal aid group. He showed me around the office, and introduced me to the different clinics. We have four specialized areas of practice in addition to a general legal aid office: the women's law program, land law, juvenile justice, and a program focusing on settling civil cases for victims of the Khmer Rouge. The second of four big trials of KR leaders is going to start at the end of the month, so hopefully the interns will get to attend parts of the trial. I'm going to be splitting my time between juvenile justice and land law, although I'll also get the chance to sit in on the other programs from time to time. I'm really excited about my assignment, because the land law program is dealing with a lot of environmental issues and property disputes, especially illegal logging happening in the north, which means I'll get to visit some of the provinces later in the summer. With juvenile justice, there's no established juvenile court here; if you get arrested for something (most commonly, petty theft, which has a sentence from anywhere between 6 months to 15 years depending on the judge), you're thrown into adult prison. We're going to be working with kids so that they know their rights in the courtroom. There's also a program designed to combat child abuse, educating parents that there are other ways to discipline and letting kids know that they have legal protection against abuse.

They showed me to my office, which I'll be sharing with a couple other interns. It says "Lawyer" on the door, which makes it really difficult for me to remember that I haven't really passed the bar, interviewed a client, or even watched enough episodes of Law&Order for me to be considered an attorney. I was the only one there on my first day, so I spent some time familiarizing myself with the legal system, and catching up on Cambodian history since 1975 so I'll understand more of what's happening with the Khmer Rouge trial.


Some pictures of my office:

This poster caught my attention. It says: "Only the senior Khmer Rouge leaders and those most responsible for committing serious crimes will be tried. Ordinary KR soldiers have nothing to fear."

In the evening, I tried one of the most famous Cambodian dishes. It's called amok, and it's fish cooked in curry with coconut over rice. I'm not a fan of coconut, but I definitely wanted to try it since it's such a staple dish here. The fish and the curry sauce come in a bowl beside a pile of white rice, so you get to control how much to put on. A little definitely goes a long way; I only scooped a few spoonfuls of the sauce onto my rice, and it was almost overpowering with flavor. It's pretty good, but you have to be ready for a really intense, distinct taste.

Enemy, Thy Name is Mosquito

So I know the last post left many of you wondering what, exactly, I ended up doing about the scary cankles situation.

Right before falling asleep for my 12-hr nap on the first day, I got online and googled swollen legs after flight". You know what comes back? Lots of "get to a doctor right away" and "you will die" websites. Back home, my friends have had to monitor my exposure to WebMD because each time I read it, some variation of the following conversation tends to happen:

Me: Well, it looks like I have, now don't freak out, but I think I have some form of the plague.

Patient Friend: You don't have the plague.

Me: But my eyes are scratchy. I think they're bleeding.

Patient Friend: That's an eyelash. Stop it.

But here, no one was around to hold me back. I scanned through page after page showing scary swollen pictures of what  legs look like when someone develops deep vein thrombosis (DVT). Each site detailed how blood clots were forming in my legs from sitting still too long, and how a clot could break off and cause a heart attack or stroke.

So there I sat, alone with my DVT Wikipedia page (always my most trusted doctor), wondering what to do.  I saw that it was typically treated with anticoags, so I made a deal with myself to take some aspirin, sleep for the night, and if they still looked bad the next day I would go to the clinic. Luckily, when I got up for breakfast in the morning everything was back to normal. Crisis #1 averted. Well done, body. 

All of this, by the way, was happening at midnight Phnom Penh time. There's an 11-hr difference between here and home, and I did not handle it well at all. I woke up ravenous, and snacked on some protein bars while I watched the sun come up, inch by inch. At 6:30 a.m., I bolted downstairs for the hotel complimentary breakfast. 

Many of you have been asking what the guesthouse is like. I'm staying at the Frangipani Villa 60's, which is a villa that was built in the 1960's and has since been converted into a guesthouse with 7 rooms. Like most of the hotels and guesthouses in the downtown area, the villa is separated from the road by a wall and gate. The roads can be dusty, load, and crowded with motorcycles and cars, which is why its so startling each time I walk through the gate and see a quiet garden that acts as our dining room. They've planted trees and flowers everywhere, so that when I look up all I see are leaves and sunshine. They have a small open-air bar to the right of the gate, and 5 tables. There isn't a traditional front desk, as they've used all the building space as rooms, so we check in and out, leave our laundry or keys, and get tourist information at the bar. 

Here are a couple of pics of my room:

There's a really helpful guidebook in my room. It has recommendations of stuff to do in the city, as well as an explanation of the history of the guesthouse. It's completely Khmer-run, and hires from local neighborhoods. There's a lot of students who work here, so they give time off to let staff members study for exams. There's a big emphasis on conservation at the guesthouse; lights and AC need to be turned off when not in use, shampoo bottles are refilled instead of replaced, etc. The breakfast food is bought locally, but it's a western breakfast of eggs and toast with cooked tomatoes on the side and always, always a fresh fruit platter that, to my delight, has pieces cut into different shapes :). I eat outside, and always early, because by 8:00 a.m. it's already hot and muggy. The first day I made the mistake of going to breakfast without bug spray, and within minutes had 7 bug bites. As soon as I noticed them, I ran, arms flailing, up to my room to drench myself in Deet and choke down my anti-malarial. I can already tell that my 3 bottles of bug spray won't last, especially when I start traveling out to more rural areas with the legal aid foundation and I'll be outside for more hours. 

I started my first day in the city with a tour of the Royal Palace, where King Norodom Sihamoni lives. His private chambers are closed to the public, but the majority of the buildings are open to tourists. When we got inside the gate, there was a huge Khmer Riang Phnom tree, which is a sacred tree in Cambodia because it's believed that Buddha was born under one. It has beautiful flowers that only bloom for a day. Pregnant women drink water with the blossoms because it's believed to bring good health to the baby. 

Next we walked through the throne hall, where I was able to see where the coronation ceremonies take place. The outside of the building is made up of 4 main colors: white and yellow, representing the two major religions in Cambodia (Hinduism and Buddhism, respectively); green, symbolizing the color of the forests in the countryside; and blue, the official color of the royal family. Inside the building, there are life-sized statues of every king and queen to ever rule. I got to see the throne, on which the king on sits one time, during his coronation. After that, he moves to a chair right in front of the throne. 

We then walked next door to the Silver Pagoda, which functions as the royal temple. It has marble pillars  surrounding it that were given as a gift from Italy, and it gets its name from the flooring, which is made up of over 5,000 silver tiles. Inside, there are hundreds of Buddha statues, including an emerald Buddha and a life-sized gold Buddha with over 9,000 diamonds, including one that's 25 karats. Many of the smaller statues (rows upon rows of them, many of which are about the size of a paperweight) are gifts from the people to the king or queen, usually on their birthdays. There were people praying inside, and it's still an active wat (Buddhist temple). 

Some other pictures from the Royal Palace:

Court servants wear color-coded uniforms, based on the days of the week. Sunday starts with red, Saturday finishes with deep purple.

 Water lilies

 Funeral tower for the cremated remains of a king. Each king gets his own, so there are several towers around the grounds.

After the Royal Palace, I went up the road about 3 blocks to visit the National Museum. There's a beautiful garden in the center of the museum, which can be seen from any part of the museum (there's no AC, so they keep the windows and doors leading to the garden open at all times). The museum mostly has statues of Buddha, Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. The most impressive was a partially reconstructed statue of Vishnu sleeping; it was hundreds (maybe thousands...I can't remember the date) years old, and was found by a farmer who had a dream that Buddha came to him and asked to be released from the soil. He went out to his field and started digging, but instead of finding Buddha he found the Vishnu statue. They have the head, upper torso, and arm displayed in the front hall, and it towered over me. Note to lawyers and law students reading this: it was embedded! Ratione soli!

National Museum: 

I wrapped up the day at a French Khmer fusion restaurant called Le Wok next to the museum. I can't even describe how much I loved the food there. I had a penne chicken and spinach dish with feta (REAL FETA, Katerina, not the crumbled stuff :) ). I followed up with honey and strawberry homemade ice cream. Oh...and a Coke. They've got real Coke here, with real sugar instead of HFCS, so I'm ordering it all over the place. I was the only American in the place; every other table had French tourists and expats. I tried to listen in to see if I could pick up anything from my 2 years of classes in undergrad, but apparently I've got the conversational level of a fern. And not even a fern that lives in a French house. I'm the fern that lives in an American house with Muzzy commercials on loop. 

So that's what flying through half the world's time zones feels like...

Hey everyone! I'm going to keep up a blog while I'm working for the summer in Cambodia, so feel free to check in for updates and pictures of my life in Phnom Penh.

Katerina, Dimitri, Sean, Steve, and Sonia were nice enough to see me off at Logan on Sunday. I was late for the flight, so I only had a few seconds to say goodbye, but it was so cool to have my close Bostonian friends see me off for the first of four flights. I also got to see Arielle, in a whirlwind breakfast/last suitcase drop off. I'm really looking forward to this experience, but I also know I can't wait to see them again in August.

So first flight. I took JetBlue from Boston to JFK, and absolutely loved it! This was my first time flying with them, and I was super impressed. Usually when I'm doing a Boston to NYC flight, the attendant will get on the intercom and give the "Due to the short duration of this flight..." speech regarding why I can't get a soda and some pretzels. Not JetBlue! The attendant was super fast, going around not once but twice with snack selections. Awesome :). Plus, the woman at the check-in desk was joking with me about my trip, and the pilot and flight attendants actually looked like they wanted to be at work. I think I'm going to use JetBlue for all of my trips to VA from now on.

Next came six hours in JFK, which included getting lost on their monorail. Twice. I switched to Delta, where they informed me that my luggage was 13lbs overweight, and I would therefore incur a charge. I didn't think this was a problem; usually it's what, $30, $50 at most? Try $150. FOR 13 LBS. That's not even a small child! That's my bookbag on a con law class day! Moral of the story, check the weight limits and penalties before flying.

The next leg of the trip was from JFK to San Francisco. This one was BY FAR the worst of the flights, mostly because I got to spend the next 6 hours on the plane from hell. (Actually, 6 and a half; we had to sit on the runway for 30 minutes waiting for other planes to take off. They kept turning the air on and off. It really was exactly like the 30 Rock episode, complete with my stomach growling for turkey wraps.) What made it even worse was the family sitting behind me; there were two young girls, who by the end of the flight we all knew were named Cecilia and Sophie based on the number of times the mother gave them ridiculous compliments ("Sophie, you did a great job buckling your seat belt!", "Cecilia, I'm so proud that when I said to name animals that start with the letter B, you were clever enough to think of a bear!"), which contrasted starkly with the multiple times she snapped at them, whining that they were being unreasonable ("Believe me, I want your Jungle Book DVD to start working too! I never get some piece and quiet! Cecilia, stop kicking the seat! Sit down. SIT DOWN.") Cecilia kicked my seat for the entire flight. Just think about that for a minute. The. Entire. Flight.

Their dad was across the aisle, and it was startling to hear the way the mom talked to him. At one point he asked if she had any snacks in her bag, and she venomously shot back that she couldn't get any time to herself. If he asked what time it was, she would snap that she wasn't a clock. It was if all the sugary sweetness she used on the kids was spent, and the only things left for him were terse, sarcastic comments and disgusted sighs whenever he tried to start a conversation.

We finally pulled into SFO, and I raced out of the airplane, eager to relax during my hour layover before I boarded my longest flight from San Francisco to Taipei. At this point, I was switching from Delta to China Airlines. When I arrived at security and handed over my e-ticket and passport, the officer informed me that China Airlines wanted an actual ticket, not the e-pass provided by the Delta kiosk back in JFK. I ran to their ticket counter, where a long line of passengers snaking up and down the roped rows waited while 5 agents called each passenger forward so that they could weigh our carry-ons. Having been burned with my checked luggage earlier in the day, I began pulling out heavy items like my laptop and hiding them in my giant purse so my bookbag would make weight (they weren't weighing purses). I passed with flying (ha!) colors.

The repeat check-in cost me my entire hour (I was the last person in the line), so by the time I made it through security and got to the gate they were already boarding 1st class. I got onto the plane, and instantly had a flashback to my first international flight from Washington to London in 1999. I think this was the same plane. There was a projector at the front of my section that played No Strings Attached, and then two kid action movies. I slept through all of them. This was a much quieter flight, which I appreciated. The China Airlines flight attendants were super strict; the guy beside me wanted to lift the window shade and look out for a bit, but because they try to simulate nighttime during long flights, the flight attendant told him immediately to shut it (this happened 3 different times). For dinner I had a chicken-esque thing on top of rice wrapped in foil. For breakfast, I got to choose between eggs and sausage and Chinese soup and noodles. I took the former on this flight, and went with the noodles on my last leg to Cambodia.

I ended up talking to an elderly man sitting beside me during the last 2 hours of the flight. He was from Vietnam, now living in Dallas, TX. He came to the US in the 70's and originally lived in Philadelphia. When he talked about Philly, his nose wrinkled and a look of disgust came over his face. He said he was definitely happier in Texas. I asked him if he was visiting his family, and he said that he received a call from his relatives saying that his mother was dying and that he needed to fly home immediately. He said in such a matter-of-fact manner, it startled me. I told him I was sorry, and he just shrugged and said that as people get older this is what happens.

I got off at Taipei, and again only had about an hour to make it through security and on to my gate. I had a terrible headache that started during the last 30 minutes of my flight, and was looking for a store selling Advil (or the Taiwanese equivalent) but couldn't find one anywhere. Instead, I found myself passing multiple high-end stores. It would have been easier for me to get a Gucci purse or Prada shoes than for me to find some over-the-counter medication. I settled for a water fountain that talked to me (I'm not sure what it said, but it sounded super happy) as I filled up my plastic travel bottle, thinking that hydration would stop the unbearable throbbing.

At this point in the journey, I looked like the Swamp Thing's hygienically-challenged little sister. I was actually going to do a photo of myself as I made it through each part of the trip, but as a public service to society those shots were abandoned. Let's just say that I tried dry shampoo for the first time, and got to feel first-hand why it didn't catch on as a toiletry sensation. I had dark circles under my eyes, and was covered in a thick layer of human cough/sniffles/sneezes accumulated through 3 flights of recirculated air. When I sat down next to other passengers waiting to board the flight to Phnom Penh, I think I saw several of them recoil in fear. I contemplated embracing my new role completely by bursting into "The Music of the Night" from Phantom, but the headache stopped my musical ambitions.

I stumbled onto the last plane, which was pretty empty. This was welcome news, especially since the last two flights were booked to the top. I moved to my own row, and whimpered to the flight attendant that I needed some medicine for my headache. She said it was against China Airlines policy to give medication  without a doctor's note. I was too tired to fight, so I just collapsed across my three seats, trying to sleep.

It was at this point that I noticed my legs. I recalled that they had felt funny after the last flight, but I had just written it off as a result of sitting still for 13 hours. When I glanced down at my ankles, I realized that they had swollen to the size of softballs. My calves were HUGE, and my feet were spilling out over the sides of my shoes. The skin looked shiny and tight, like water balloons about to burst. I wouldn't realize the full extent of what was happening until I got to the hotel.

I made it through customs at the Phnom Penh airport, where I encountered my only rude person so far. The guy checking my passport shouted for me to go, because apparently I didn't understand when he was finished checking my papers. I walked over to pick up my luggage, and was startled to see armed guards everywhere. I know that they're part of the security checkpoint, but it was still a rough welcoming committee.

A representative from the hotel came to pick me up. He had my name on a sheet of paper, so it was really easy to find him. He grabbed my luggage, and took me straight to the hotel. On the way, I had my first exposure to Cambodian traffic (more on that later). I entered the hotel, where they had mango juice waiting on me. I filled out some paperwork, went up to my room, and gratefully fell asleep for 12 hours.

End of Day 1.