Morocco

It is not a matter of where, but of when. The passion I have to travel, to serve, to experience the world isn’t going to stop, it will continue. Travelling to Morocco this summer will be a building block for what I am going to do for the rest of my life. The answer I have consistently given to people when they ask me what I want to do with my life is: travel. I don’t know how, or where, or with who, but I know I will. I want to go to every country, experience every culture, teach and be taught, meet faces that I will treasure forever, and say “I love you” in countless languages to countless people across the world.

Hi, my name is Sarah Cotton I am 16 years old and I go to Battle Mountain High School in Vail, Colorado. In the summer of 2016 I will be travelling to Morocco on a service trip with Children’s Global Alliance, a 501(C) non-profit program based in the valley. The organization was created in 2010 to fill the void of large-scale volunteer experiences for teenagers, like me. The objective of CGA is to offer service-learning opportunities for students from the United States in some of the world's most poverty stricken countries.  In Morocco my team and I will be working at the Abde Salan Middle School which houses 520 students from grades 7-9. This school struggles with a high dropout rate, a mandated curriculum that the teachers don’t believe in, and not enough staff to cover the basic needs of the school. We will be developing the schools very first ESL program from the ground up, teaching daily, and visiting the homes of the students and teachers.

I want more. More of those people, those moments, that love. I want to come back with more memories, more stories to tell, more people in my heart. I miss their faces, their laughs, their hugs, their wide smiles, and open hearts. It’s for them, I do this for them. 

See You Tomorrow

Letting go of a hand, a bump in the road, a splash through a puddle, an abrupt left turn, and it was over. The trip that seemed to have lasted a lifetime ended in an instant.

            Waking up was like every other day. My alarm went off at 5:45. I got up, took a shower, brushed my teeth, ate breakfast, and sat on our 45 minute tuk tuk ride to the orphanage. Clambering out of our tuk tuks we saw the stage set up for the kid’s performance accompanied by blaring music. I sat in a chair with Srey Mao and the blaring died down and on came a love song. Srey Mao and I start dancing, and eventually everyone else starts to join us. It was bittersweet. I was with the perfect people dancing to the perfect music, but that joy was tainted, tainted with the fact that we were leaving. The song came to a close; there was no more time left to dwell on it.

            We walked over to the school, and I taught class 1 and class 3. The kids gave us all wishing letters.

I wish you get happiness

I wish you get safe

I wish you have good journey

I wish you get more benefit

I wish you success in your study and career

This just made me realize that once again we were leaving.

            We came back to CPO and it was time to watch the kids perform. Expecting to see traditional dancing, I was shocked when Lao, Roat, and Hoeun came out in tight jeans and bright green t-shirts and started doing hip hop. They were perfectly in sync along with all of the traditional dancers, leaving a smile on my face. But now the pressure was on. Evan and I were putting our choreographing skills to the test. Practicing for a whole ½ hour we expected nothing less than perfection; we weren’t disappointed. The crowd went wild for Troy, who was featured front and center, Karlina who had the break it down “down”, and EvEv who brought it home with her superb freestylin’. And our perfect performance of “Boyfriend” was the cherry on top. Dancing our hearts out to every song from the 2000’s and feeding the kids fried chicken, which made them smile head to toe, made me forget what was going to happen in a few short hours. But then it did. 20 minutes. That was the amount of time I had left with the kids, and I was doing the dishes. A knot filled my stomach, but there still weren’t any tears. I walked out of the office and into the back. There I stood in a pack of crying people. The first person I focused on was Srey Mao who buried her face into my chest sobbing. That was when it finally hit me. We were leaving, there were no more “See you tomorrows.” The rest of the night was a blur and then all the sudden we were leaving. We sat in the tuk tuks and started to motor our way down the street. Roat, Hoeun, and Lao chased us down the street. but eventually Hoeun’s fingers slipped out of my hand. We hit a bump in the road, splashed through a puddle, took an abrupt left turn, and it was over.

            I left behind 12 brothers and 18 sisters. I left behind 30 unbreakable bonds. Sitting in the tuk tuk beside me holding my hands were 4 more. One to my left, one to my right, and two right in front of me. These were the people who I had spent every waking moment of the last 3 weeks with. They had seen my highs and lows. They reminded me of what true friendship is. They are the people who I will be reliving this experience with, them and 12 others scattered in surrounding tuk tuks. Everything I thought I would be leaving in Cambodia I am bringing back with them. They are the ones who understand the love, joy, and passion this trip brought. 

My Ikigai

/Ikigai/ (n) is a Japanese term that is defined as the thing that gets you up in the morning. Every day we wake up at 5:45. There are few things that can get me out of bed this early in the morning. The kids are one of those things. It usually takes me 10 minutes to fully wake up, and another 5 to get up. But here the second my alarm goes off I am ready to face the day. Just thinking about them inspires me. They are what get me up in the morning; they are my Ikigai.

These past few weeks have gone by in a blur, and suddenly we only have 4 days left. I have been trying to savor every day. To think Friday is the last day we have with the kids makes me want to savor every moment even more.

Saturday I went to the market. The market was full of different colors, products and smells. We bought ingredients for a fish soup; for some weird reason watching the lady at the market descale and cut the heads off of fish fascinated me. That is part of what I love so much about visiting other countries the way they operate is so unique. Instead of buying fish in a nice sealed Styrofoam package, you buy them alive and have the killed and cleaned right in front of you. After the market we went to CPO and we just got to hang out with the kids. Being able to spend an entire day with the kids made the tight bond tighter. I was able to meet and hang out with different kids. I read, played volleyball, made bracelets, gave baths, etc… It was a jam packed day full of different activities. Seeing the kids eat their soup was another gift. They all said it was the best food they had ever had. It only cost $35 dollars to feed 30 people! That opened my eyes just a little more, and reminded me that I would never trade any of my experiences small or large, good or bad, for the world.

Throughout this trip I have realized that I remember the little moments. To give a bracelet and see a little kid’s face light up with joy is memorable. To see the joy that the kids in the slums get from a simple wave and saying “Sua s’rei” is memorable. The shrieks and laughs the kids give when you are giving them bath stay with you, and then there are the simple moments weaved within the little moments. The moments when you see Srey Mei clamber her way up onto the stage with no help from anyone. The moments where I am sitting on the stage with Srey Mao in my lap coloring, reading, or sometimes just sitting. Everything else seems to fade with the kids and it’s just me and them, them and I, all sharing one love.

The Power of a Shoe

Day by day. Street by street. Brick by brick. This is Cambodia’s lifestyle. It’s fluid, plans change, streets close, all you know is what is right in front of you. Cambodia is slowly teaching me to live in the moment. You never know what is going to happen next. You could be prepared to teach preschool and the be building a house. You could be building a house and then be taking a kid to the hospital who may have broken his back. You could be at the hospital waiting for the doctor to read the x-rays when you learn he is taking a lunch break. You could be waiting for the doctor to come back from his lunch break when you learn he is not coming back to the hospital at all. Even the roads we take to the orphanage change. Amidst all this fluidness consistencies are a gift. Everyday the kids run up to us the second the tuk tuk enters the orphanage. Everyday when we leave the kids chase yelling “See you tomorrow”. The consistencies may seem small or insignificant. But they aren’t; they are a blessing that I will cherish forever.

Preschool, least to say it was interesting. We were supposed to be observing Khmer School in the morning, teach in the afternoon, and smush lunch, a nap, and baths in-between. Instead we walked into the class and immediately we were in the front teaching. We were unprepared. I started the class with an alphabet lesson. I completed it, but gradually the lessons from other team members got worse due to their difficulty. This resulted in our lesson plans that were supposed to take up the afternoon being completed in an hour. We had the “wing" the rest of our morning. I did a body parts lesson that the kids ate up. They were engaged and having fun; seeing that made me think that we could be successful with teaching this class. We went back to the orphanage for lunch to prepare more lesson plans. Sitting in a big circle we thought of childhood songs, and based lesson plans off of those. The afternoon exponentially improved compared to that morning for our group as a whole. The kids were interested, and almost more importantly were the teachers. The teachers were absorbing every word we said. They wanted to learn. They wanted to be better teachers. Even after we leave our lessons will stay with teachers who will continue share. 

Imagine a cement truck. Imagine the big white barrels that churns the cement together. Now imagine that 3 little people are inside the barrel and shovels and hoes mixing the cement. Now imagine these peoples names are Hana, Lydia, and Sarah. Now take away the truck. This is what it is like making cement in Cambodia. No machines. Only sand, cement mix, water, shovels, aching backs and blistered fingers remain. You might think making cement is the hard part. But then you have to build a wall. By the time I was done with one wall the locals could have been done. With everything. Our wall may be neat, but there’s are neater and made in 1/2 the time. This was my morning. 

Throughout this trip i have had many missions. This afternoon my mission was to find a shoe. Srey Mao was sitting on my lap we were enjoying the cool breeze the tuk tuk bring as it winds through the streets on our way to the dentist. Her feet were dangling out, we hit a bump, and her shoe went flying off. We watched it fall onto the street. When it had vanished from sight the tuk tuk turned quiet and tears were quietly streaming down her face and leaving tear stains on my shirt. The dentist put everyone in a worse mood. There were teeth being pulled out and cavities being filled all without pain medication, only after were they numbed. Even after all this my mind was still set on retrieving a shoe. I looked at every building we passed looking for “Sopah Family Dental” which was the first English sign we had passed after Srey Mao lost her shoe. Yelling “Chop BuChin” we stopped and our tuk tuk driver bewilderedly looked back at us. Overcoming the language barrier of communicating with BuChin about a lost shoe was another challenge. When he understood us and we slowly puttered along the side of the street. We spotted the shoe and BuChin the fearless tuk tuk driver crossed the crazy street and grabbed the shoe. The rest of the tuk tuk was more cheerful. The throbbing teeth seemed to dull and smiles appeared on all the kids faces. And all of this was because of a shoe.

This was living in the moment. I could have been worried about being late to the orphanage, trying to write this blog on the tuk tuk, or what the rest of my group was doing while I was gone. Instead I was completely focused on taking care of the kids. It didn’t matter if it was cleaning bloody spit off of a kid’s face or searching through the streets for a shoe. I was completely absorbed in what I was doing. To busy to check my watch or have a care about anything except for what was right in front of me. 

Love, Love, Love

       Sweat. That is the first word that comes to mind when describing Cambodia. Coming out of the airport in the dead of night I was covered in it. Performing the simplest actions causes sweat to stream down my face. Our first day at the orphange I was playing with Srey Mei and while carrying her in my arms she directed me to the stage took a tissue and wiped my face from all the sweat. And that was from playing. Working in the heat multiplies that amount.

      The rain was the perfect way to end a perfect first day with the kids. In the morning I went to the village with Lisa-Maire, Karlie, Mama, and Meng. We saw Srey Chan who Lisa-Marie knew from previous years at CPO. Meng asked her if she was in school; she wasn't. If she had a job, she did; working at a club serving beer. At 16 years old. I am 16. I am in school with 6+ to go. I have no job that my family is reliant upon. I have never been inside a club. I have never drank a beer. To imagine my life like this at 16 is unimaginable. The amount of stuff we have done in just two days is already starting to blur together. Troy and I picked up trash and old clothes to put in a tuk tuk that goes to the dump. Or more like I hoisted bags into the back of the tuk tuk while Troy, who is under 5 foot, put trash into the bags. This morning we deloused the kid's hair, and it is one of the most challenging things I have ever done. You comb the kids hair to get the eggs out, and time after time you continue to see eggs in their hair. You can do the same section over and over, but the comb isn't fine enough to get every single one. This resulted in me hand picking eggs out of kids hair. It would have been easy to leave the eggs in their hair. No one would notice, no one would know. But I would know. I would know I left a kid with lice when I could have prevented it. Besides that, if someone was delousing my hair, I would want it all gone not just 50% or even 90%, all of it. I had to remind myself that every kid I was delousing had someone who loved them within a 10 foot radius of me. And everyone else who has delousing the kids was in the same boat. So even if I had no personal relations to the kid I was delousing, somebody did. And that somebody deserves to see their loved ones lice free. They all deserve to be lice free.

       It's Day 2 and the connections are already starting to be formed. Srey Mei is a four foot bundle of love. No matter how tired arms are or how sore my back is I still want to play with her, be with her every second that I can. Today she was upset because she lost 35 cents, that was intended to be used for snack money. I saw her, asked her what was wrong, and she had no answer. Her playful personality had turned quiet. When I saw her with her head down on the lunch table still crying, I wanted to make her happy. I dragged her off the table into my arms and out into the rain. I spun her around in circles, and the tears became mixed in with the rain and a smile worked its way onto face. Her smile turned into a laugh. There's a moment when you are whirling somebody around in a circle and everything is blurred except for their face. I was experiencing that moment of clarity with Srey Mei. Her face was lit up with laughter, there was rain streaming down her face, and it was perfect. I wouldn't trade that moment for anything. This is what I strive to do every day, to reach the 100%. 100% effort; at picking up trash, at delousing hair, at teaching, at playing, at loving.


HAPPY FATHERS DAY DAD LOVE YOU!!

With Strength

1975. For most of us this year represents Rock & Roll, Mullets, Jaws, Mood Rings, and Paul McCartney. But in Cambodia it was Year Zero. It represented a cleanse, a new beginning. Starting from scratch, it sounds like a nice idea. In Cambodia it was not. April 17^th 1975. That was the day when Pol Pot became the leader of Cambodia. In 4 years he killed over 3 million people. During those 4 years terror lived in the hearts of every Cambodian. Pol Pot desired an uneducated society, a society that could be manipulated. If you had pale skin you were rich. If you had smooth hands you weren’t a farmer. If you had glasses you were educated. These people were undesirable, these people were the ones who were immediately killed or tortured. Their fate was already decided for them and there was nothing they could do to change it.

Toul Svay Prey High School. It was an average high school; everyday students walked in and out of its doors. August 1975. Toul Svay Prey High School wasn’t a high school anymore. Not close. During the Khmer Rouge this school had been transformed into a prison. The classrooms were divided and transformed into small tight cells. The hallways were lined with barbwire. Swing sets were used for hangings. The beds weren’t used for sleeping. If you were lying in a bed it meant you were being tortured. You couldn’t cry, couldn’t laugh, you couldn’t show any emotion. This was the Toul Sleng Prison. This prison was not officially named this. It was called this in hushed voices of surrounding locals who knew of the prisons existence. Toul Sleng literally translated means “a ground from which flows bitterness, guilt, and death.” Toul Sleng: that name that couldn’t be spoken a loud.

2015. Lush bright green fields. In between the butterflies and flowers you see something, something that doesn’t fit. Bones. Rewind 40 years. These are what Cambodia’s Killing Fields are like today. For a place that has so much life, you wouldn’t expect it to represent so much death. The Cheung Ek Killing Field holds 8,985 bodies. This is one of many killing fields that are scattered throughout Cambodia. Many people upon arriving in the Killing Fields thought that they were finally free. For many of them this was the first time they had been outside years. They took a breath of the wild fresh air, relieved. Then they smelled that terrible smell, the smell of death, the smell of rancid meat, not of pig or cow, but of human flesh. Dread consumed them. They weren’t free. A blunt force to the head, falling into a pit; that was how their life ended. They didn’t deserve that ending, they deserved something better.  They deserved more than being thrown in a pit along with thousands of other people. That wasn’t supposed to be how their story ended. But it was.

Strength. This what Cambodians embody. They endured a terrible event. But they came out on the other side. Every day brave individuals enter a place where they were tortured and imprisoned. They tell their story. Every day. I can’t begin to imagine how hard that would be. This is strength. Strength is facing your fears. These people inspire me.

“Tough times never last. But tough people do.” Robert H. Schuller