The Great American Vacation

It started with a toothache. 

For Christmas, my parents got me the greatest gift a PCV can get (besides Western food, a cold glass of good beer and a long hot shower): a trip back to America for the holidays.  I planned to leave a day early in order to be sure to catch my flight and then it happened:  I had to go to the dentist.  I always have to go to the dentist.  Because of this I had to go into Phnom Penh a day earlier than planned. 

Imagine you have spent the last year and a half in a third world village and you were looking forward not only to seeing  your family and friends, but celebrating the holidays with them amidst snow and Christmas and first world food.  Imagine you had been looking forward to this trip, had packed to a T and were ready to jet set back home for a vacation. 

Now imagine the worst possible thing that could happen.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what happens next: I was robbed. Again.

This time they got my passport.

I was on my way to the dentist at 8:30am and wearing a money belt so all they got were things that I expressly needed to get out of the country: money, access to money, and my passport. 

I remember curling up, sitting on the ground as I sobbed into the phone, “They have my passport, I’m supposed to go to America tomorrow!” while attempting to relay what had happened to the Safety and Security Officer.  It was Saturday morning, my flight was Sunday night.  The embassy was closed and so was the Peace Corps office. 

In a few minutes, Khmer people surrounded me and someone located a policeman.  They must have chosen a spokesperson who could speak English because a man sat down next to me and asked me some questions.  I surprised everyone by answering in a mixture of Khmer and English – one language wouldn’t satisfy me at this point.  I could barely think in English so there was no way this would get done in Khmer. 

One of the boys on a bicycle had come over and offered his opinion.  He told me that the men on the moto had followed me for minutes, maybe even from my guesthouse (I had been walking for about half an hour), waiting for the moment when I was distracted or careless to snatch my belongings from my body. 

Which was great because that’s exactly what a girl alone who just got robbed wants to hear: that she’s stalked prey. 

Just in time, my guardian angel arrived in the form of another PCV, Christin.  She helped me get to the police station, file a report, and figure out all things that were necessary for me to do in order to get out of the country the following day. Without my passport. 

When a Volunteer officially joins Peace Corps, they send in their passport and receive separate one – we call it a “Peace Corps Passport” and the original one a “Tourist Passport” so I wasn’t as lost as a tourist might have been because I actually had a passport to leave. The problem was that all of my visas making my stay in Cambodia legal were in the stolen passport.  So if I tried to leave the country with a passport that I didn’t arrive with, there would be no entrance stamp, and if there was no entrance stamp, Cambodian police might wonder how I got into the country, when, why, what I had been doing, and all sorts of questions that I don’t have enough Khmer for. 

Luckily Peace Corps really came through for me, pulled out all the stops, and managed to get me out of the country on my original flight.  Which, in the end, is what really matters, right?

I remember sitting on the plane in Phnom Penh about midnight that Sunday night after what may well go down in my history as the worst weekend of my Cambodia experience (and I am generally an optimist) and wondering if I was dreaming.  I did.  I sat there and wondered if it was real life that after what had happened that I was actually going to get back to the States for the holidays.  There is a very small part of me that still thinks my visit home was an extensive daydream. 

Getting back to America was overwhelming, to say the least.  It was a mishmash of a million different emotions all at once: comfort and change chief among them.  My sister picked me up from the airport and as we were heading out of the parking lot, I commented on her hair.  Our exchange went like this:

“Oh, I like your hair, did you get a haircut?”

“No.”

“…in the last year and a half?”

“Haha, well yea.”

“Ok then, I like your hair!”

That car ride to vacation set the stage for the reverse culture shock that I was about to experience.  Perhaps, on second thought, just the realization that I was over a year behind everything that was going on was what really happened.  I think that on some level, all Volunteers, though we know that life goes on, have this small idea in our heads that the life we traded when we left America for two years freezes and waits for us until we return.  It isn't until we encounter the remains of the lives we left behind for our own grand adventure, that we realize just how far away we really are.  

I never before realized just how much I missed sports until I got back and was able to watch literally any sport I wanted on a couple hundred different channels.  Football, basketball, hockey, O my! Am I even that big of a football fan? Who cares, sports! Give me any team playing any other team and I will be super content.  I even got to see the Bulls and the Blackhawks play at the United Center while I was home (Thanks, superfamily!) Nothing beats live sports, especially when they have been seriously absent from your life for over a year. 

And then there were the social situations, the incredibly awkward social situations.  I am kind of a socially awkward person anyway, and my distance from American culture for the last year and a half hasn’t lent anything in terms of cures to this predicament.  I remember sitting with a few friends at lunch one afternoon listening to them talk about a bunch of different random things, mostly involving pop culture – a reasonable lunchtime conversation.  As I sat at the table and listened to people, I realized that I had no idea what they were talking about it.  It was incredible.  And not only that, I wanted to ask what seemed like very dumb questions probably showing them just how out of the loop I was.  For example, hashtags on TV shows - that's a thing now! Was it when I left? Hashtags are all over TV. And then there's the music - everything on the radio was new to me, and all of the artists were new as well.  I remember texting a friend about all of this new music I saw on TV New Year's Eve.  "Who was it?" he asked, and I responded, "I don't know but they kept singing 'safe and sound' over and over so I assume that's the name of the song." Yea. That song* is huge in America.  You know who it is. 

I was torn, too, regarding my own Peace Corps life, suddenly far away itself.  Generally, when I talk to friends and family back home, they inquire about my host family and any new projects and then we move on to American life and general catching up.  Talking about village life, for me, is kind of like this: you know how when you're in class, studying something really intensely, and then you go home after class or whatever and the last thing you want to do is talk about that class?  I've been in class for a year and a half already, 24/7.  Can we talk about something else?  But then again I was torn - yes, please let me tell you about my awesome host family, did I mention I have photos *pull out about a few photo books of my host mom and Khmer brothers*? By the way I am starting this new project, any ideas on how to improve it?  

It's hard to continue a conversation when someone asks me, "What is Cambodia like?" or "Tell me everything about village life!"

Really? Do you have about a year to listen? Can you rephrase your question and be a bit more vague?  

But even those are ridiculous thoughts - my friends and other people I met were genuinely interested in what was going on, hearing about differences and similarities, finding out how people on the other side of the world live, they just didn't know what questions to ask, or how to get to what they really wanted to hear about.  

But enough complaining about the best vacation ever - because it really was just that.  I got to see friends and family, stuff myself silly with delicious food, enjoy hot showers and cold beers (not simultaneously), and even skiing and snow-playing.  Nothing beats Christmas morning with the family or drinks with my brothers and sisters.  

Then I got back to Cambodia and re-assimilated right back into Khmer life. Because really, I am where I am supposed to be.  And America life will be there for me when I come back after this stint, more prepared to reintegrate.  See you again, USA, in about 6 months.  Get excited. 

xo-Amanda

*Safe & Sound by Capital Cities