Cambodia

I woke up this morning with a start. For a moment I didn't know where I was. I'd had a dream about my dog, Ricky and he was having gay sex with another dog. I had that awful feeling in the pit of my stomach, like the one you get when you can't really remember what you did last night, but whatever it was it wasn't good. Drunk dialing? Falling over? Drunk texting, maybe making a pass at someone that you shouldn't have had. I went over the events of last night. I napped in the afternoon. Sent an email to my friend Pam to ensure that she wasn't really pissed at me for me telling her that she didn't look like Portia De Rossi, went for dinner, had two glasses of red wine, read my book. Met some street kids and taught them the names of capital cities. Tourists give more money when the kids know the name of their capital city. Now there's a bunch of kids in Phenom Pehn that know that Ulan Baatar is the capital of Mongolia. That should get them some brownie points. I then went back to my suite. Watched CSI NY on AXN, a little CNN, the Obama v. Clinton thing sent me to sleep. So I hadn't done anything wrong. Then I thought maybe I'm just depressed. I haven't really spoken to anyone in ages. I've been sleeping a lot, but it is 36 degrees outside. And as much as i love Cambodia it's so depressing.

Cambodia comes in at 185 out of 230 in the CIA world fact book GDP per capita, the average wage here is less that $1800 a year. That's less than all it's South East Asian neighbours. Ireland comes in 10th with an average wage of $45000 per year. Life expectancy is 58 for a man and 61 for a woman. In Ireland life expectancy is over 80 for both genders. 35% percent of the population live under the poverty line and most of the people live a hand to mouth rural existance. Literacy is at 73%, most of the country doesn't have tarred roads, there's no real rail system and the entire place is rancidly impoverished. It comes in 38th out of 168th in the percentage of people infected with HIV, and it has no real health card system to care for those infected. In fact when I crossed over into here the first time I was given a notice saying more or less if I got sick I was to leave and go to Bangkok. While the kids on the street sell you postcards of Angkor and happy peasants plowing rice paddies, they don't selling you post cards of this ...

I got up and had breakfast, I was determined not to spend another day laying in bed asleep, dreaming of dogs having gay sex, so I went outside got a tuk tuk and went to the National museum. It's amazing. I'm glad that I visited there after being in Siem Reap, it sort of put it in perspective. The building itself is impressive. Red brick turrets, and a beautiful garden , with ponds filled with gold fish and water lillie's. It was so pretty. The entire museum was filled with relics from Angkor, statues, carving and paintings showing ancient Khmer fairy tails.

How could a nation so rich in it's own History, the keeper of these wonders be so gravely ill?

The Jews can blame the Germans for the Holocaust, the Irish the British for the Famine, the Blacks the Whites for apartheid , but here the people have no one really to blame for this terrible mess but themselves, and it wasn't even tribal like in Rwanda or Iraq (although they can easily blame the Americans or Saddam either) and that somehow makes it even sadder. Over 50% of the population is under the age of 20, they have to come to terms with a history so ugly, so nasty and so traumatic. I really really don't know how they are going to do it. And the heart wrenching part is that they are doing it with a smile on their faces and an optimism which, although not misplaced, certainly belies the reality of the fix they have gotten themselves into.

After the museum, I went to the shooting range and shot off an AK-47 and a colt 45, for a few moments I felt better but only for a few moment.

I have never in my life felt so desperately and utterly useless. Phnom Penh is a much prettier city than both Bangkok or Ho Chi minh, it has long impressive boulevards, beautiful villas and finely manicured lawns. I'm leaving here in two days to go to Bangkok. I want to stay and help, really do something useful with my life. But I have to go home, and get a job and get paid a ridiculous amount of money to talk shit to some morons on the phone, have the same argument with the same solicitor about the same contract every Thursday. Maybe I'll write a couple of memos which will never be read and chair a meeting about a meeting that in the end amounts to fuck all. Give a seminar to a bunch of people who would rather not be there and in the end on Friday go out and get pissed with my friends and really wake up on Saturday morning with a start in my fancy apartment in the IFSC because I really did do something stupid the night before.