A Eulogy

As my one year anniversary in country approaches and the new K6 volunteers move in with their first host families, I’ve reflected a lot on the past year and considered what advice I might share with the new group at an upcoming training session. I think one of my top three recommendations would be to build a support network for yourself to help you through all the challenges of the next two years. (My other two suggestions complement each other: adjust your expectations to the Cambodian reality, and set boundaries for yourself.) To put it shortly, make yourself comfortable in preparation for the work you’re about to do and the obstacles you’re about to face.

While so many people have cared for me, taught me, listened to me, and comforted me here, no one has been as supportive in Cambodia as my two friends Heather and Gilbert. Fortunately, Gilbert lives only 16 kilometers away in a smaller village, and today he made the trip into the “big city” for a visit. We spent the day riding our bikes through the countryside, taking pictures with dusty children, chatting about the past and coming years, eating noodles and Pringles, and playfully perturbing each other with our slightly unparallel personalities and senses of humor.

While Gilbert is a Latino-American Baptist urbanite and I’m a bucolic Methodist of European descent, we get along well together and are comfortable sharing our thoughts, difficulties, successes, and indulgences with each other. An affirming listener and a fun playmate, he makes my life in Cambodia tolerable on the hardest days and especially delightful on the best. Few volunteers are as lucky to have a friend as near (literally) and dear as Gilbert is to me.

 Gilbert forging through the water with three stunned onlookers. (Who wouldn't stare at those legs?)

 Some boys I've seen a few times on my bike rides who never speak to me but who clearly enjoy taking pictures.



Gilbert posing inside a church we found in the countryside. Can you guess the denomination?