Cambodia, here I come
I made it here. The immersion trip to Cambodia is a missionary dream come true. Thank you all for your support and prayers. I'm renting internet service at a guest house, in case you wonder.
 
Here's my journey dated 3-4 to share with you:
 
Looking down  from the plane, Cambodia is a vast piece of green fields where houses are very scarce. The airport is not big at all, about 3 or 4 terminals, everyday the flights that use the airport are very countable. When I went through the custom with my other two American friends, the custom guy saw my Chinese passport and stopped me to check on the baggages. But anyways he didn't look into it in details.
 
There were four Maryknoll missionaries waiting for us at the airport. On our way to the 'hotel'' Sr Regina acted as our tour guide. The buildings and general look of the city reminded me a lot about China. There were so many vehicles on the streets, but the missionaries said today was Sunday, that was considered not much.
 
Although Phnom Penh is the capital, the look of the city is messy. On every street you will see unfinished construction and material and trash all over. The 'hotel' we rented is actually more like a guest house, very narrow, more like a personal property. The ceiling is very high. Although I stay on the 3rd floor, I feel like climbing 6 floors. The room is simple but sufficient, the towels are so worn out. But after all, it has AC and fan, and that's a big deal.
 
I chatted with the female owner a bit, she speaks Cantonese. I also asked her to teach me how to ask price and numbers. She told me that in Phnom Penh, children can go to many different classes, such as English, Chinese and other interesting classes.
 
It is very hot here, afternoon is the worst. We lunched with Maryknoll missionaries (as we will do for the rest of the trip). I learned that in Cambodia political power is so tightly controlled by the Government and corruption is very serious.
 
In the afternoon we walked to a nearby Wat(temple), in our standard it is dark and dirty and messy, but the missionaries told us this is their standard and they consider wats very respectable and sacred places.
 
The most scary thing in Phnom Penh is crossing the street, cars don't go in both direction, they go in ALL possible directions. After some walks and refreshments we decided to use tuk tuk(motorcycle with cabin in the rear) to go back to the hotel, we'd rather let the driver do the dangerous crossing.
 
At dinner Fr Charlie told us the mission work needs resources very badly, the training process is lengthy. There are so many things that need to be done, it's just very hard to start and plan, as long as they see where the needs are, they will jump into providing service.
 
During our dinner, a young boy came to do shoe shining for Fr Charlie. He was paid 1000 riel ($.25). Charlie said that it was good that he was able to do something to bring money home.
 
Some other facts before the I leave for afternoon's program:
-out of 300,000 motorcyclists, only 500 have license. When they get caught they will bribe the police, thus the police don’t give out ticket too often to encourage people to get license.
-1/4 million deaf, only 1,500 receiving service.
-only 17 psychologists in the whole country, think about how much healing people need given the bloody history.
-17% population have access to electricity
-60% schools have no bathroom.