The New New Years Revolution

SMASH THE SCALE

I smashed my scale about four months ago, sometime in September.  Literally.  I was in my apartment, staring down at the cold, impersonal metal surface, one foot hovering over the body-fat sensors, bringing to the surface the constant insidious chatter that made up a devastatingly considerable amount of my internal dialogue.

I didn't want to step onto the scale.  I didn't want what it said to matter to me.  I didn't want to give it that power--to give away MY power.  I was so tired.  Tired of tying my personal worth to the digits displayed on the interface.  Digits that would determine, if only by a pound or two, what clothes I would wear, how I would feel looking in the mirror, whether I would "indulge" in a full meal for dinner or heat up some frozen vegetables and naw, unsatisfied, on a piece of fruit.

This exhaustion--mental, physical, and spiritual--weighed over 22 years old.  I can remember quite distinctly the first time I ever consciously expressed dissatisfaction with my body to myself.  I was at a gas station with my parents, filling up our Volvo station wagon.  I was in a tank top and flip flops.  I remember standing in the sun, looking down at my slightly protruding stomach and thinking:

It should be flat.

I wasn't more than six.  Maybe younger.

Where did that come from?  The media?  Barbie dolls I played with?  The Britney Spears poster in my bedroom?  Something my mother said about her own body?  I have no idea.  The specific medium is largely irrelevant to me at this point.  But somewhere, (see: everywhere) the message that we are not enough has been repeatedly (see: continuously) conveyed and digested.  Across gender, race and social class.  Across all walks of life.  No facet of society has been spared from the overriding and prevalent theme of NOT ENOUGH.  We operate within a framework that tells us that to be worthy of love, to be worthy of feeling safe in our own bodies (see: to be worthy of EXISTENCE), we must be or strive to be X, Y, and Z.  And this benefits who?
Not us.  Not me.

This message externally manifested itself for your young author, among other ways, with terrible body image and a dysfunctional relationship with food.  It's not a private struggle.  This shame assigned to our bodies is designed to keep us from connecting.  To keep us hiding.  To believe that we fight alone and against ourselves.  But it is a battle and you--me, him, her, hir, us--we've been enlisted and indoctrinated from day one.

Whether or not you believe the human, industrial and governmental powers that be are systematically oppressing and repressing everyone that is not themselves (and actually unknowingly themselves as well) through media, legislature and rape/shame culture in general, it is a simple fact that the culture many of us live in encourages our focus on losing weight, having perfect skin and generally investing huge amounts of energy (and money) in how we appear to others. This leads but is not limited to; depression, extreme self-consciousness and self-doubt, anxiety, calorie counting, excessive exercise and full blown eating disorders.   And this conveniently keeps us (see: kept me) from proactively meddling/challenging everything from the status quo to immigration policy, at least not with our full potential and strength in tact (see: exhaustion, see: compliance, see: obedience).

Women are the world's richest and naturally inexhaustible resource and instead of having our growth and development encouraged and celebrated, we are still largely and tragically, not just underutilized, but actively, and often violently, kept silent and dehumanized. And don't think that that number on the scale yanking your emotions and closing your throat with shame is superficial or silly.  Don't dismiss its effect.  Because associating your self-worth with that sterile, numerical measuring stick is just that.  Dehumanizing.  Defining yourself as a commodity let's your value be judged by others.  A woman sexually confident and at home in her body, a woman without shame, is a fucking POWERFUL being.  A woman not obsessively focused on when and what she can eat or what other people think of her is a woman who can make waves and move mountains.

It makes me sad to think of all the time spent and energy wasted on trying to make myself smaller, on an impossible and doomed mission to be what I thought was everyone else's version of enough.  Skinny enough, smart enough, accomplished enough, pretty enough (see: eating less than 1500 calories a day, see: binging, see: waking up at 5 am to walk through a snow storm to my gym at boarding school to workout before breakfast, see: not eating for two days to make weight for a tournament).  What else could I have been doing?  What friends could I have made and gotten to know?  What projects could I have pursued?  What lives could I have made a difference in, what causes could I have joined?

It's not easy, getting to the point where you are ready to smash the scale.  It's scary, letting go of the false safety of having something or someone else define you.  It can be a very slow road.  But the freedom, the feeling of coming home to your body and realizing your inherent right to respect, is nothing short of a miracle.

So, when I stepped on that scale for the last time, when I saw the innocuous disjointed lines that made up those numbers and caused my heart to squeeze, I calmly walked over to my tool bag, got out my hammer and went to work.

I have stories to write.  I have places to explore.  I have ideas to manifest and people to love, myself included.  I have SMASHED THE SCALE.

Join the revolution: http://bit.ly/1dSoLmO

The "Where in the World is Zilla?" Tulum Addition

My last entry left off after my appearance on the podcast "It's New Orleans" with my car loaded up, the rest of my possessions in storage and the intention of creating space in my life in order to let events and personal development unfold organically.  To learn to loosen my iron grip on the self-sabotaging concept of what I should be or should be doing. That was only two months ago but so much has happened since then that I find myself at a loss as to how to encapsulate that time in a few paragraphs or even several pages, especially since I want to focus specifically on where I am now.  And so, I will simply mention factually some of the major happenings that have taken place.

I did indeed drive up North.  I made it to Tennessee where I was staying with a friend before continuing to DC when I received a call for some stunt work in a movie filming in New Orleans the next week.  I continued to DC where I booked a flight back to NOLA.  I filmed for a few days, flew back to DC, got another call, flew back to NOLA and so on.  It was a fantastic experience.  I am now SAG certified.  I eventually managed to spend time with family on the Northeast, staying with my aunt and uncle on their new beautiful property, took horseback riding lessons, saw museums, got a tick bite and a subsequent cycle of antibiotics, spent a week with my mom and a week with a very good friend in Virginia.  And then finally, it was time to go to Mexico.

I am now based in Quintana Roo.  Specifically, I live in Tulum.  If you've heard anything about Tulum, it is probably in reference to its celebrity visitors, its pristine beaches and coral reef, and general status as an exclusive tropical paradise.  And you would have heard correct.  This place is awesome and I feel comfortable here.  Comfortable in the same way as I do in Cambodia, and Southeast Asia in general.  Comfortable in the same way as I do in New Orleans.  What draws me into these specific areas, what vibrational frequency attracts me to these similarly humid, wild, swamp/jungle, off-beat and often partially off-grid hybrids of first and third world?  Just that.  The razor thin edge separating developing and developed, the intermingling of Western amenities and technology, with the preservation (hopefully) and immediacy of indigenous cultures and ways of life.  It's the option of how to live; the option of living well but simply.  You can stick out your tongue and taste the potential along with the moisture and heat; a chance to set things right with the world, or at least a part of it.  Rebalance and harmonize industrial advances with the environment.  Reshape the collective consciousness in a blending of ethics, cultural and environmental preservation, and technological advancement.  Without the rigidity of cemented regulations and cultural preconditions, the power to effect change is permeable.  There's the haunting and pressing urge not to let this precious piece of earth gather the momentum of going down an increasingly steep path to which other parts of society have succumbed, oblivious.

Much of the Yucatan is collectively owned by the Mayans.  The land, and the beach front in particular, is largely off grid and cannot support extensive power usage.  These are both good things, as it sets natural limits on potential development and exploitation.  This area will never be able to support the crowded high rise hotels of Cancun or Miami.  Thank God.  Still relatively exclusive, there is already much that needs to be addressed; the bleaching and inevitable pollution of the reef, blatant corruption, increasing taxes and a backwards incentive system that gives rise to an underground economy that functions particularly ineffectively (yes, some underground economies function well enough, having been created in response to a system that doesn't...not optimally though, obviously), and--this is the part that interests/concerns me most--terrible waste water management.

The land in this area of the Yucatan--and certainly elsewhere though as of this moment I am not familiar enough to address other geographical regions outside of my immediate area--is particularly vulnerable to bad environmental practices.  The top soil is very thin and there isn't much underneath it; any natural filtration system provided by that layer is nonexistent.  Sewage, bleach, pharmaceutical refuse, are dumped and all sink straight into the aquifer, untreated.  It's not just hotels and restaurants who are culpable but local residences without viable alternatives.  Quintana Roo also has the largest underground river system in the world that remains an essential source fresh water and ecological support.  While I hold to the fundamental economical, environmental and spiritual principle that everything is interconnected, this basic tenet has never been so obvious or immediate as it is in the ecological system dynamics that make the Yucatan so unique and beautiful.





I came down here with no real agenda other than to get better at Spanish and put my professional SCUBA diving license to good use.  I was hooked up through a mutual friend to the two premier cave divers in the world who have been discovering and mapping the underground river system here for over a decade and who I now work with.  I am leading eco park tours, learning Spanish and Mayan, and getting my cave diving certification.  I am also watching, waiting and gathering as much information as possible.  As it must be obvious to anyone who knows me or reads any material I write (mom!), I like to get my hands dirty and keep busy.  And I see something on the horizon, right now, telling me to get ready because when I zip around town and back roads on my scooter, explore Cenotes, and visit with the small business owners trying to proactively impact and contain the development of Tulum, I stick out my tongue and I can taste the opportunity.

It's New Orleans; Zilla Does a Podcast

Whew!  It's been a while! An action packed, pack your bags (and apartment), exciting rollor coaster while.  And I've been remiss.  Logging on, staring at the computer screen and then opening a new tab to facebook instead keeping up with this blog.  But, you know, while I've diddled here and there, etching out a paragraph or a page, I haven't felt compelled to write.  And although all the How-To websites like to stress the importance of cranking out a new post at least once, and preferably twice, a week, I don't want my writing to become a chore.  In addition to that not being fun, it also produces crap writing.  If I'm trying, I'm not doing it write.  Organic blossoming is what I'm going for here and so far so good.

As you may have surmized from the fact that I am, indeed, typing again, the urge to word vomit on the internet has stuck yet again and I have so much I want to spew all over you (read that: share); protests against the government in Cambodia, my last weeks in NOLA, new directions and thought processes, etc.  So to buy me some time while I blurt it all out in draft form, I want to share with whomever is reading this (mom!) a podcast I was invited to speak on.  It's New Orleans does a segment some Thursdays called "Happy Hour" where three people and host Grant Morris sit down at Casa Borrega, drink and talk about whatever comes to mind.  There are no rules, just interesting people from New Orleans.  And I'm one of those interesting people.  HA!

Getting schooled by Hugo, the owner of the fantastical Casa Borrega, on Mexico!

When I told one of my closest friends and mentors that I had been asked to be on the show, she replied, "Why?  Did you ask them specifically why they wanted you?"  Nope.  Hadn't even occurred to me.  To be honest, no false modestly or lack there of intended, I've never thought of myself as particularly interesting. Rather, I'm constantly curious and often find my self in circumstances, that when I look back or step outside of them, are themselves, quite interesting.  I'm just an innocent bystander to my own shenanigans.  Innocent, I swear!

I was a bit on the fence about doing the show at first.  I was rearing to leave NOLA a few weeks before the recording date and was getting itchy.  And talking...for a whole hour...about God knows what, but most likely personal information I hadn't entirely come to terms with myself.  Saying that I'm in something of a transitional  and questioning phase would be a flattering way to put it.  But I decided to do the show and am very glad I did.  That day, I had breakfast with my coach and some close friends, said goodbye to others, loaded up my car with everything I hadn't shoved in storage and drove uptown to Casa Borrega planning to take off North right after the show.

I drove right by the cafe the first few passes before I realized where it was.  It's hidden behind tasteful foliage and set back a bit from the street.  When I stepped inside, not quite sure what to expect, I was warmly greeted by the host, Grant Morris and Graham da Ponte, who orginally contacted me about being on the show.  Casa Borrega is a place I wish I had discovered earlier in my years of NOLA exploration.  I think the first thing I said after shaking a few hands and looking around was "Is that Llama a giant piñata?"  The pomegranate rum ice tea they kept refilling my glass with was delicious, too, although I've found that it really doesn't take much alcohol to get me to talk about my favorite subject--ME.  All jokes aside (I haven't actually made any), the show was a fun way to connect with and say goodbye to this chapter of my life in NOLA and it was a pleasure to meet the other resident New Orleanians on the show, listen to some explosive live music, and field Grant Morris' wonderfully direct questions.  And yes, I laugh/giggle that much normally.  Please check it out and let me know what you think!

http://bit.ly/kikkit

Sanitation Brigade: Part 2--There is No Part 3 or 4, I lied

That night in Prek Toal, Osmose arranged for everyone in our group to do the homestays they offer as part of a package to the tourists who come to their village.  About three people per family were dropped off in a big boat at a number of floating shacks situated right next to each other.

                “He he he,” my father poked me, “Bet you get the house with all the kids.”

                “Yeah, dad, very funny.  Bet you get the house with all the crocodiles.”

I and two other women from my father’s team, Irina and Solyka, got off the boat and hopped onto a plank that lead to the front porch of a comparatively large house...and were immediately greeted upon entering by four screaming kids.  I was mildly irritated, not because I don’t like kids, but because I don’t like my father’s glee at being right about anything. ANYTHING. I’m on a personal journey to prove him wrong about everything.  Dad: It’s raining right now.  Me: *eyeroll* No, dad, it’s drizzling.

“HELLOOOOOO!!!  HELLLLLOOOOOO!!!!!!!” The kids shouted.  Little hands started determinedly pushing towards the edge of their front porch, suspiciously in the direction of their bait farm, a sectioned off area of water, which, according to one of the proud women housing us, contains 50,000 tiny fish.  What was this?  A guest initiation right?  I’m not much for initiations and I was definitely not for anything that included ending up in this water.  I circumvented out of the grubby, pushy little hands and the kid squealed and shrieked and started chasing each other.  I wandered inside the house where it was surprisingly modern and well-kept, given the rather ramshackle outside appearance.  It was also obvious that this family was specifically selected and paid to house tourists; a generous section of the living room was quartered off and housed four clean floor beds with colorful sheets lined up neatly side by side, each separated by individual mosquito netting, giving a small but appreciated illusion of privacy.

Irina, Solyka and I spent most of our time before bed watching the children wear themselves out.  We sat on the front porch, slapping mosquitos and staying out of the way while they dive bombed each other, wrestled,  and played “rock, paper, scissor” in Khmer.  Or as one of the girls insisted, “rock, paper, SHIT. SHHHHHIIIIITTTT! SHIT SHIT SHIT!”  When the little munchkins got bored, we took pictures of them as they posed and then showed them the frames, their faces avid in the small glow of the camera screen.  One of the children, a small girl, had rickets, a bone deformation caused by a lack of Vitamin D.  Often this happens during infancy, if the mother’s milk dries up and there is no good formula alternative. Her shins curved outwards quite noticeably.  This, I am happy to say, did not stop her from jumping around the house, tackling her little brother and shouting out the occasional, “SHIT.”

At some point in the evening, I figured out where the toilet was and was making my way along the side porch towards the back wash room when I happened to look out over the railing and froze, for the second time that day, as I stared into the utterly disinterested, reptilian eye of another huge croc.  Once again, only chicken wire and some flimsy wood planks were separating me from forty or so of the scaled beasts.  One roared-THEY ROAR??-and I, again for the second time that day, jumped theatrically into the air before resuming my walk in what I hoped to be an unruffled, nonchalant manner.  And yes, crocodiles roar.  Like lions.  In my case, all night long right next to my bedroom.

The next morning, Rick, Alex and I headed out for some last minute exploring, this time in one boat, propelled by a motor and steered by an appropriately aged man.  We saw…

A really cool Watt

The murals depict the story of Buddha.  It's amazing to see the interplay of the Hindu and Buddhist religions.  Some of the panes and themes seemed very...medieval.

A floating garden

Garden herbs!

And lots of friendly kids!

Everybody headed back to Siem Reap that afternoon, with nothing remarkable happening except for the briefly disturbing and invasive event that occurred as we stepped off our boat and started slip sliding through mud to our bus.  A girl walked up to me and handed me a photo.  Of myself.  From two days ago.  My mind was caught between the polarity of being creeped out and reconciling that with the innocent, harmless face of the little girl showing me the photo.  Blessedly, it turned out just to be another harmless way to make a buck.  The locals snap your picture before you leave without you taking any real notice and then put it in a kitchy frame and sell it to you when you come back.  My father bought mine.  More, I think, because he didn’t want a random picture of me floating around rural Cambodia than for sentimental value.

The rest of the crew went back to Phnom Penh, while my Dad, Rick, Alex and I all stayed in Siem Reap for a few more days.

We saw…

A reclining Buddha

A thousand lingas/yonis (can you see the faint outlines in the riverbed?)

A link to more about lingas with a more Hindu orientation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingam

A picture a self-appointed guide drew of a hard-to-see statue, also on the riverbed

An awesome waterfall with some great swimming and fun!

And another less traveled temple complex…

…where I got the opportunity to wander off a bit on my own and climb the side of the mountain where I found a secluded spot to chill and take some pictures of the view

We also had a lovely dinner with a friend of my father’s whose husband gained professional recognition through his photography of the famous Angkor Watt complex and we all lamented over wine at the increasing number of tourists swarming the ancient ruins.  I have been to Angkor Watt many times, my first visit as a child of five, and each time the surrounding area gets more developed.  Hotels and 7-Elevens sprout up faster than jungle vine and droves of buses shuttle in tourists from all over.  We decided to forgo our usual Angkor excursion, but if the temples are something you wish to experience (and I still recommend that you do), then avoid the crowds and either go early, very early, in the morning or at midday when everyone sane is basking in a/c.

And that’s that.  I spent most of the rest of my time Phnom Penh; helping my dad, pouting when monsoons got in the way of my allotted pool hour, and stocking/holing up for the protests that occurred last Saturday.  But more about all that later.

Sanitation Brigade: Part 1

This past week the heat has been no joke.  And my dad doesn't believe in a/c, which is also very not funny.  It's the kind of hot where it feels like there is no barrier between you and the sun.  Where the heat is actually another person in the room and you walk around (or lie around not moving as the case may be) perpetually oily and hungry, unmotivated except for the small rivulet of sweat running down your butt-crack that forces you to do an kind of half-hearted shimmy in your seat so that it absorbs into your pants.  Bleh. Basically, I'm giving excuses for why I haven't updated this blog and have already eaten half a bag of my father's prized and very expensive cashews he keeps hidden in the fridge.  Note to dad, don't hide anything from me in the fridge.  We're in a committed relationship.

Besides the heat, there's the ever present chorus of "You're-not-doing-anything-with-your-life-and-will-die-with-no-significant-accomplishment-other-than-possibly-through-other-people-and-then-only-if-you-have-kids-which-is-very-unlikely-as-that-would-take-energy" that is making it difficult to motivate myself to do anything besides order fancy cappuccinos, work on stuff for my dad and read David Sedaris.  I know people, life is hard.  In all seriousness, I'm going to take this running soliloquy as a sign that I'm on the right path.  Because honestly, not having a plan or laboriously striving to some far off goal that requires a mountain of hard work that I can fall back on comfortably to define myself, is the toughest, loneliest thing I've ever done.  I can't claim that I have been through shit relative to the suffering in most of world, but that's sentence up there is still saying something.  And if I'm this out of my comfort zone, I'm pretty sure I'm in the right place, or at least heading there.  I'm trying to picture Jesus as an air-traffic controller, robes flowing as he frantically (or in a holy dignified manner) makes landing motions with neon orange traffic batons. "Don't stop Zilla, you're getting there!"

So what has my life of new found meaning, soul searching and non-attachment so far led me to?  Well, contrary to the taste my last little post left in your mouth, it has resulted mostly in deep thoughts such as "I should, like, really order purified water instead of, like, diet coke as it would be karmically kinder to my enamel."  Just kidding!  Sort of...I really can't stop drinking diet coke and it's horrible for your teeth.
Anyway, this long rambling explanation/intro is just background to inform anyone who cares (my mother and aunt) that I am now posting further about my trip to the floating village.

You can't tell, but the old lady paddling on the back is wearing a pair of badass aviators.

Off to Prek Toal!  My dad, his team and I boarded a surprisingly comfortable bus for a surprisingly comfortable trip to Siem Reap where we stayed over night at a guesthouse called Sweet Dreams.  There I met some super cool people doing super rad things.  Namely, my dad's cousin Alexandra and her husband Rick who live in Australia and were visiting Cambodia for a couple months.  After staying with my dad in Phnom Penh, they had been teaching English to children in a village not too far away from the guesthouse we stayed at and they accompanied us to Prek Toal.  A very good thing, too, as otherwise I would have been not-so-proverbially stranded on an island by myself while my dad and his team surveyed the villagers in their floating homes.

Intrepid surveyors!

The night before we went to the village, we had some mini markable events, such as going to a Khmer BBQ joint where you pick out the ingredients yourself buffet style and cook them yourself on a little stove.  I'm still not sure what I ate but I do now know that the tapioca dessert is not supposed to be eaten by itself but with the coconut milk and sugar that are provided right next to the dessert table.  Blech.

Also, I was very frustrated to notice that when I tried to use the computers at Sweet Dreams a "K9 Security" message would pop up and not let me go to any sites.  Some further exploration into the system showed me that the security settings had been programmed not to allow sites with content pertaining to "social media, entertainment, sports and life style."  When I mentioned this to Rick, he informed me that it was the work of a nefarious long term guest at Sweet Dreams; a greasy French guy who didn't want people taking up the computers he could potential be on and who enjoyed feeding the stray cats on the dinning area tables.  As this man was already not a popular figure at the guesthouse and it was easy enough to get one of the staff to change the settings on the computer, I contented myself with the knowledge that a couple of the other guests had taken to hiding his shoes.

The next morning we took a little van to a port.  Or at least, an opening to the lake where lots of boats were packed side by side, floating on brackish, smelly water that dense vegetation and the occasional flip flop were trying unsuccessfully to hide.  We hopped on board and with much trouble and positional adjustment, our driver backed out of his parking spot, turned the engine on full speed, and with frogs leaping desperately out of the way, we propelled up the muddy stream.

Arriving in Prek Toal, the boat pulled in and dropped us off at Osmose headquarters, which also serves as a center for their recently enervated eco tourism program.  Comprised of three moderately sized, open air rooms, bobbing gently up and down with the current, the Osmose headquarters house a restaurant, where we had all our meals, a small school room for village children, and a workshop that employs low income women--mainly heads of households--to weave bowls, hats, mats, hammocks and almost anything else you could come up with, out of hyacinth.  Hyacinth is an invasive water plant species that quickly over takes the surface area of bodies of fresh water, pushing out native plants and the animals dependent on them and making water traffic a pain.  The inside of the stalk is, however, rather squishy and soft, lending itself to being easily shaped into laundry hampers and snazzy purses.  Alex and I partook in a weaving class offered, resulting in two beautiful, tidy coasters with a pleasing and subtle pattern.  They were beautiful and neat because after showing us the basic weaving patters, our instructors became rather proprietary and discouraged our continuing efforts to help.  I still very much recommend that should you ever find yourself in the middle of a lake in the floating village of Prek Toal in the Battambang Province in rural Cambodia, that you take a weaving class supporting the livelihood of the women working there and maintenance of their ecological infrastructure.  You will also get a very well made coaster.  No thanks to yourself.  But that's why it's well made.

Beautiful, right?

After lunch, Alex, Rick and I hired some paddle boats for the day and took off into the unknown, to explore and to not bother the Wetlands Work! team who were actually getting stuff done.  And when I say we took off into the unknown, I mean we took off with guides giving us a structured(?) tour and paddling for us.  And by guides, I mean children.  Little girls to be precise.  And before you become appalled that two little girls were paddling us around in the hot sun, I'd like to point out that they were helping out their mothers (also paddling us) and that they only had to suffer in the sun for a little bit before they got some relief in the form a rain storm.  Feel better?  We didn't either.  Rick managed to commandeer a paddle and take over for one girl and Alex and I did our best to hold an umbrella over the girl in our boat.  We would have taken over as well, but the girls are startlingly proficient and we were afraid to move in the tiny rickety boat which had the tendency to rock alarmingly every time we tried to adjust our long limbs.  And there was the fact that we would inevitably embarrass ourselves paddling around in little circles to nowhere while the village children pointed and laughed.

One of our awesome paddlers.  She liked us, I swear!

The tour turned out to be awesome.  Having no idea what to expect and increasingly gaining appreciation for the size and scope of the village (it would be easier to get lost here than in cookie cutter suburbia), we let ourselves be taken to wherever we were being taken to...aaaaand we ended up at what looked like a store front.  We were resigned to hand over money and buy the customary trinkets and souvenirs, but a woman led us through the house, past the surprised old man hanging out in his hammock, scratching his balls and onto to something of a floating back porch where the woman took my hand and pulled me up to what appeared to be a tub.  I peered inside and squealed a dignified Zilla squeal of delight.  Baby crocs!  Dozens of them!  Looking up at me balefully and doing a weird croak/coughing noise which is surely croc speak for "pick me up!  pick me up!"

I was cooing over a particularly cute baby glaring at me resentfully for having the audacity to try to cuddle it when Rick interrupted with an ominous, "Ummm, hey there.  You might wanna look under your feet."  In comic slowness, I looked down under my flip flops, past the chicken wire and thin wooden plank holding me up, and gazed into the giant gaping maw of what had to be a 10 meter croc.  As my eyesight adjusted, I realized there were maybe 30 or so other equally as big crocs spread out under the porch, or as I now realized it was, the crocodile farm.  The lady who had shown me the baby crocodiles motioned for me to watch out for my toes.  I stood rooted to the spot, curling my precious mini-appendages as far into the flimsy safety of my rubber soles as possible.  Pleased with my reaction, she encouraged us to walk around.  Hesitantly at first, like the baby chickens these monsters probably ate, we began to move, exclaiming at the size and number of the animals.  One of the little girls from the paddle boats had ventured out with us and when two of the crocs roared and started belly flopping onto each other and into the water, we both jumped a rather impressive height (in my humble opinion) into the air.  Besides fecal contamination and poor visibility, I now had another reason not to go swimming.  There were no discernible markings on their scales and I could conceive of no way to keep track of how many there actually were, given the large amount of entangled reptilian limbs.  Soooo...how did they know if any escaped?

With that experience under our belts, we were herded back into what we now viewed as the woefully vulnerable, precariously balanced boats.

Next in Prek Toal: A homestay on the river, floating gardens and a reclining giant Buddha!

Monkey Bars

It has occurred to me, through some divine insight that must, in it's simplicity and obviousness, be a miracle, that all my future projections and alternate past scenarios, swinging from monkey bar to monkey bar and back again in this fantastical whirling gymnasium, are but rehearsals for a play that will never happen.  A compulsive defense against illusion and an imaginary version of my self that exists no where and in nothing.

Sanitation Brigade: The Introduction

The last ten days have been jam packed and I mean this in the best possible way.  I’m not going to lie, a good amount of my time spent here is what you would expect; reading, writing, pool, smoothies and occasional forays into the surrounding urban jungle from which I emerge sweating, slightly rattled and bearing hard won bags of tropical fruit (meaning that I bought them in a market where I did the least amount of bartering possible).  However, this past week I had a unique opportunity to expand my expat horizons, upon which I packed up my bag and saddled myself for an adventure.  Little did I know what was in store!  Crocodiles, floating gardens, giant sleeping Buddhas, sacred phalluses, huge toilets, no toilets, bright red bananas, and of course, tons of other fruit, floating houses, temples in jungles…the list goes on.  “What’s this?” you ask.  “Has the Zilla been participating in ritualistic fruit orgies?”  No indeed, friends.  But I did go out into the field with my father and his team of intrepid environmental cohorts.  Armed with clip boards and extensive biological and ecological engineering knowledge and waste water treatment techniques, we set off to the floating village of Prek Toal in Battambang Province.  Actually, I have no background other than what I’ve been exposed to as the daughter of a scientist in ecological engineering and economics.  I didn’t even get to hold a clip board.  But I did get to meet my 2^nd cousin Alexandra and her husband Rick, have some seriously surreal experiences, and watch/kinda sorta (not really) help out my dad.

                I want to share everything that happened, but to do that is going to require a 4 part blog special to which this will be the introduction and I’ll jump into it by laying out a bit of background about my father and what he and his team at Wetlands Work! Ltd are all about…

                Most of my childhood memories of Papa Zilla, when he was not wolfing down a hamburger or exclaiming excitedly about some supposedly rare and fascinating insect species he had stumbled upon and insisted on showing me (and then preserving in the freezer), are of a serious man at a desk covered with manila folders, loose paper and various texts books, all scattered about like offerings to the gods of higher education.  Perhaps absently rubbing a temple and adjusting the thin gold wiring of his glasses while his eyes flicked back and forth over a now monolithic computer screen.  My father’s dissertation took him, and occasionally my mother and I, to all over Southeast Asia.  Often he was there during times when it wasn’t safe to be anybody, let alone a foreigner.  In the 90s, when the Khmer Rouge still operated in scattered pockets, taking pot shots at passing boats from the dense wet foliage of the river banks, my father would travel between two guards commissioned by the UN, armed with AK-47s an rocket propelled grenade launchers, to wade into the wetlands and collect water and plant samples for his work.  His Ph.D. took him my childhood, but when completed, it was a five hundred page tome, intensively thorough and impervious to contradiction or further questioning.  It was the first of such work on the Tonle Sap flood plains and he dedicated it to his only child and daughter.

                In 2006, my father made Cambodia his permanent home, working as a consultant for a conservation agency and establishing Wetlands Work! Ltd in 2010, a social entrepreneurial business dedicated to the preservation of wetlands and their usage in sustainable and affordable waste water treatment.  Wetlands are nature’s water filtration system.  The bacteria that live on the roots eat the potentially dangerous bacteria introduced to bodies of water by human and animal excrement.  For the large populations of people living off the water in Cambodia, who fish, bathe, cook, clean and play in the same water in which they are forced to poop due to a lack of basic infrastructure, safe water is an essential issue.  Higher and condensed population areas + decimation of natural wetlands and ecological systems mean more disease and death, especially among children.  This is the meat Wetlands Work! chews, spits out and presents with a cost effective and minimally maintained solution.

Primary School in the Floating Village

And so, last Thursday (or perhaps it was the Thursday before that) we packed lightly, hopped on a bus to Siem Reap where we then met up with Rick and Alex who had been teaching children English in a nearby village before heading off to the floating village of Prek Toal where a water treatment option was sorely needed.  And thus, epicness ensued…

For more info and updates about cool people doing cool things, here's the link to Wetlands Work! on Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/WetlandsWork

Join me next time for Part 1 of 4: Sanitation Brigade; Saving the Wetlands One Shit at a Time!

*There is a prevalent and ritualistic usage of phalluses and vulvas (the carving of which is called a "Yoni") in religious ceremonies among the Khmer.  These structures are called “Lingas” whereby water, after it has been poured on top of the phallus and flowed out through the yoni, is made holy.  In one of the sites in the Angkor Temple complex, on a river bed under the water, are 1000 carvings of lingas, making all the river water that flows over them and downstream sacred.

One Baby Zilla Stomp at a Time

I have been traveling back and forth from the United States to Southeast Asia for most of my life.  My mother, father, and I moved to Patumthani, right outside of Bangkok in 1995.  We lived on the Asian Institute of Technology campus where my father could further pursue his doctorate on the system dynamics of the Mekong River.  We were back in the States little more than a year later but would return sporadically during winters and summers with my father making his home in Phnom Penh, the capital city of Cambodia, in 2006.

                Though I have visited my father on extended trips as often as possible, this stay is different.  Previously, timid and intimidated, I would try to hide my tall frame and blond hair behind the welcome figure of a chaperon.  Trips to the market were in the company of my father’s former wife or one of her employees who would direct, translate and deflect Khmer and customs from their shy, awkward charge.  I would like to say that at 22 years old, educated, tested and tried, that my first inclination is no longer to withdraw to the background, that I have outgrown my awkwardness and embrace opportunities for exploration with relish.  And to a certain extent this is true, but it is an on-going process…

                I transferred my junior year of high school to Deerfield Academy, where, it seemed, the cultural and circumstantial shift brought to the surface latent and subcutaneous tendencies.  Supremely uncomfortable with myself and my environment, I barely spoke, avoided eye contact and emanated disdain in a desperate attempt to defend myself from…from what?  From seeing my own self-dislike reflected back at me, I suppose.  Needless to say, junior year sucked ass.

                But it is not human nature to give up on ourselves.  Our journeys, while varied and unique, have a common thread of redemption and as my depression grew, so did the unwavering and ever-present voice that attested to my value and inherent self-worth rise from a whisper to a shout and from a shout to action.

                My senior year at Deerfield, I made the conscious decision to jolt myself from my self-imposed protective layers.  I registered for acting class, a creative writing workshop in which personal work is exposed and critiqued, tried out for the school play and got a job at the school grill.  Anything and everything to force myself from my shell.  It was terrifying, and for a time predicable panic attacks and discomfort ensued.  Slowly but surely, I started engaging with other students and faculty.  It was a slow process during which I often had to remind myself to smile and to respond to polite inquiries with polite inquiries of my own.  At first, this felt forced and unnatural.  Opening to people, even marginally, means giving them the opportunity to reject you.  But I found that being genuine, or at least on a path towards a semblance of it, feels so much better than imposed isolation, that it is worth any risk.

                For my senior meditation, I wrote an intensely personal essay detailing parts of the upheaval of a period of my life before Deerfield which I titled, “Waiting to Breathe.”  It was selected by a panel to be read during a school meeting at the end of the year.  I remember walking up to the podium, shaking, sweating, afraid I would stutter or sneeze or cough or not be perfect and I remember afterwards the silence and then the slow clapping and the standing ovation as well as the tears of some of the faculty to whom I was closest.  I realized in that moment and in that being of connectedness and sharing with my school, that my fear and loneliness had been my choice, as had been my acceptance.

What this boils down to and what I’m trying to convey, is the lesson that I’m continuously learning wherever I go and whatever I do.  A lesson in vulnerability and the power we choose to give our self-judgments.  That above all, there is a pervasive fear of being vulnerable.  That our judgments of ourselves are so harsh that we remain closed or only parcel out genuine pieces of who we are in certain circumstances to certain people as if love is a limited resources only accorded to a worthy few.  And yet, it is only when we let go of who we think we should be and share ourselves, only when we let ourselves be excruciatingly, devastatingly vulnerable, do we find that we are, in fact, invulnerable.  The only harm we are capable of is blocking our natural state; that of sharing.  Of loving and being loved.  When we allow ourselves the possibility of being vulnerable, we allow ourselves to truly live.  What we are is not subject to the destruction and shame we fear we are hiding in the recesses of our mind.

                Whew!  So, what does this have to do with Phnom Penh and adventures in general?  Well, I want to go to the market on my own.  I want to travel independently.  I stick out like a sore thumb and have little to no grasp of the language.  Self-confidence and the ability to handle confrontation with grace and skill (essentials for bargaining and getting around in a foreign country) are attributes I’m in the on-going process of building.  But I know that being afraid is something you learn how to deal with.  It isn’t something that goes away and getting comfortable with being uncomfortable takes practice and the willingness to experience discomfort.  So here I go, off into uncertainty one baby Zilla stomp at a time, armed only with the readiness to look silly, get lost and have fun doing it.  Here’s to vulnerability and the courage to fail.

Language Class, Cooking Class and Markets! Oh My!

A great way to ease into Cambodian culture, or any foreign culture, and meet new people while you're at it, is to take a class.  I was lucky enough that one of my dad's staff members introduced me to LINK--the Language Institute of Natural Khmer (naturalkhmer.com).  What's especially special about this nifty joint, besides the friendly teachers and $4 price of admission for a 50 minute class, is their method of teaching, a la Rosetta Stone, for those of familiar with the popular software.  Basically, at least in the beginner class, no one is allowed to speak Khmer, except for the instructors who speak only Khmer.  For the duration of the class period, they communicate with you; miming, telling stories and using pictures.

My awesome teachers and the white board full of drawings!

This splendid debacle gets you used to the rhythm and unique tonal system of the language as your subconscious picks up and stores visual cues and associations with the sounds.  This is all based on the premise that we learn languages by listening not speaking.  A choice of course that can be corroborated by babies everywhere.  Bonus point: the miming, stories and white board illustrations quickly descend (or rise) to hilarity.  Case-in-point, my female Khmer instructor miming laying an egg complete with clucking (and much straining--she really got into it).

Beware! In every class you get some asshole who insists on practicing the little Khmer he knows.  Unfortunately one of these creatures was sitting right next to me, ever so helpfully nudging me with his elbow and translating for the teacher in a whisper, "she's asking you when your birthday is," and "that means chicken."  Why, those of you who know me ask, did I not verbally castrate and/or create physical space between this Helpful Henry and myself?  Well, for one thing, I didn't want to disrupt the class.  And for another, he is my father.*

This is honestly the most fun I've ever had in a language class.  Just don't bring your parents with you.  Kidding!  Honest, I looooooove my father verrry much.

Another must-do I highly recommend while trapezing through Phnom Penh is a Khmer cooking class!  On Street 240, not too far from where I'm living, is Restaurant Frizz (http://www.cambodia-cooking-class.com), which offers cooking classes (half day $15, full day $24) complete with a tour of a nearby market place.  Markets are super cool.  A make-shift army of large umbrellas provides cover from the tropical sun for an array of fruit, spices, clothe, toys and meat, most of which are impaled on hooks.  If it's your first time (or tenth) the abundance of smells, people and still-floppin'-around fresh (and some not so fresh) produce can be overwhelming and having a guide showing you around isn't a bad idea.

Fruit fruit and more fruit!

I showed up outside the restaurant 9 am sharp, ready to get cooking, and greeted my fellow culinary students.  There was a nice lady from Norway, another quiet woman who I know nothing about or where she came from but was pleasant enough, a cool couple from Briton, and an interesting guy from Australia.  That's another awesome side benefit to taking a class--the people you get to meet are going to be a whole other kind of exposure to different cultures.  During down times when we had to wait for the food to finish frying or steaming, we got the chance to lounge around and learn about each other and our respective origins.  Cool beans!

Making spring rolls!

Our teacher was a hoot, too.  He'd come by our little cooking stations and taste the finished product, make a funny face, pretend (I think) to retch and then tell us we were doing great.  On the menu we had spring rolls and the national dish of Cambodia; fish amok, a thick curry steamed in a cup made out of banana leaves.  And it all turned out delicious!  Well, except for the sweet and sour sauce.  That was crap.  Something about me adding too many limes but I call bullshit on that, I think the Aussie put in too much fish sauce.  But hey whatever, blame the American.*

*I totally put in too much lime

It's a Holiday in Cambodia! OR The Place Where You Can Blow Up a Buffalo with a Rocket Propelled Grenade Launcher for $500

There’s a lot to say about Cambodia, and about Phnom Penh, in particular.  An overwhelming amount.  History, current political tension, cuisine, the arts, the people, my shenanigans here past and present…it goes on and on.  A prevalent theme that I’ve noticed while researching other blogs and successful posts are the ever popular top ten lists.  A nice, simple, consolidated way to give the reader useful information, presented in a user-friendly format that’s short enough not to bore and long enough to give the impression that the topic of choice has been adequately covered. 

Well, I don’t have a top 10 list for Phnom Penh.  What I do have is a random conglomeration of tips, observations and whatever else I feel like throwing in.  I’ve got to start somewhere.  Enjoy!

1.      You can drink the water now!  Sometime in the last five years or so, Phnom Penh’s previously death inducing (if you were already sick or had open scratches, which you most certainly would, given the mosquito population) water supply was purified.  In most places.  It’s still a bit touch-and-go.  I would recommend using a filter.  Alright, screw it, just buy bottled water.

2.       People are finally wearing motorcycle helmets!  Mostly. At least it’s now a law.  But not at night.  Because there are no cops at night...yeah...  Most of Phnom Penh traffic consists of motorcycles and last time I was here I was the only one wearing anything resembling protective gear.  If you are visiting be sure to purchase a motorcycle helmet before getting on a moto-taxi.  This is a land where traffic lights are suggestions, NO ONE has the right of way and there is no right way to drive.  Or wrong way, apparently.

3.       DON’T flush toilet paper down the toilet.  You dispose of it in a bucket conveniently located next to the toilet.  Start rewiring your brain now—call it “bucket paper.”   Also, you clean yourself with a small hose attached to the toilet.  Multiple jokes and suggestions running through my head aside, this is actually a much more sanitary approach toilet hygiene.*

4.       A reasonably priced two hour massage is $12 + tip.  $12 PEOPLE!!!

5.       Open air markets are awesome.  And also terrifying.  But mostly awesome.

6.       The FOOD.  There has been a huge boom in the restaurant scene in the last couple years but don’t neglect street food and market vendors (if you dare!).  I will be doing a photo guide as an ode to all the easily accessible and delicious tropical fruit that I’m surrounded by.  Which will probably just turn into an ode to food.

                                  Passion Fruit!

7.       Art, silks, watches, pretty much anything you can think of is available here (see #5).  Be prepared to bargain.  Vendors can smell fresh meat and will charge you about four times or so what something is worth.  This is an excellent opportunity to engage in a cultural phenomenon and to practice your Khmer!  Remember, it’s all in good fun (and if it starts not to be, just walk away).

8.       The weather/climate.  There are four “seasons.”  June to August is hot and rainy.  September to October is cooler and rainy.  November to February is cooler and not so rainy.  March to May is HOT and mostly not rainy.  Overall, think humidity.  My NOLA people know what I’m talking about.  Also, be aware, when I say rainy some people say “monsoon season.”  Plan accordingly.

9.       The people.  They are very friendly!  You have a few buttheads everywhere, but hey, if you are looking for a place where everyone is the pinnacle of kindness and virtue, I suggest you try the bottom of the ocean.  Practice common sense, reach out to people and have a good time opening your mind to another way of life!  If you are a tourist, you are a driving force of the economy in Phnom Penh and this is a mutually acknowledged mixed blessing in your interactions with the locals.

10.   Last and not least, Southeast Asia is most obviously and most applicably the place where if you have enough money, you can do pretty much whatever you like and the consequences will likely only be moral and between you and God.  Hence, the shooting range where for $500 you can blow up a buffalo with a rocket propelled grenade launcher.*  I implore you not to do this.  I might.  Just kidding…

Well there you have it.  It even came out to ten!

*If you think that’s bad, don’t go to Senegal.  I was there on a service trip when I was fourteen and all you were allowed to use was a bucket of water and your left hand.  Any contraband toilet paper that found its way into the plumbing was to be removed manually by the unlucky culprit.  I was informed of this last bit by my home stay mother.

*My father says that he’s not positive that for $500 you can blow up a buffalo.  He says it might be $350…actually he just said he isn’t positive the place exists at all and not to spread internet rumors.  I’m pretty sure it exists, folks.

When Life Hands You Lemons

I have no idea what I’m doing.  I have no idea where I’m going.  I have no idea what’s going to happen.  Obviously, I know that right now*, I’m drinking coffee at the café down the street from my apartment in NOLA, writing my first blog entry (of which there will hopefully be many).  I know that I’m going to Cambodia to see my father and create some much needed space.  And I know that when I get there, I will give him the biggest hug he’s ever gotten and start to work on a business plan to revamp his socio entrepreneurial business Wetlands Works! (more on that later).  What I mean to say then, is that for the past month into now, for the first time in my memory, I have no meticulous and ambitious life plan.

In the sixth grade my teacher pulled me aside to tell me I was failing my classes.  Apparently blatantly reading Sci-Fi during homeroom wasn’t the way to honor roll.  Simultaneously, a guardian angel came into my life and impressed upon me the importance of hard work and taking responsibility for myself as a practice of self-respect.  I put my nose to the grindstone as a way to escape from and better my circumstances and never looked back.  Seventh and eighth grade were devoted to raising my grades to get into a decent high school.  Starting high school, I maintained an A average, joined clubs and made sports teams.  Applied and was rejected, applied and was rejected, applied and was finally accepted to the prestigious Deerfield Academy on financial aid.  After an awkward junior year of painful adjustment, I excelled at creative writing, earned my first real paycheck working at the school grill, and made high honors.  The summer before I went to Tulane University on scholarship, I worked as a life guard to raise some money and spent that and my savings in life thus far on an intensive summer internship to get my professional SCUBA diver’s license.  My next summer and subsequent semesters were usually spent interning at Banks and Financial Institutions. 

While in New Orleans attending college, I met the pivotal character who became my boxing and kickboxing coach, and together with a friend, we established GOW Martial Arts, a small dojo.  I became the ICMAC Heavyweight World Champion, a Title National Boxing Silver Medalist and won the Louisiana State Golden Gloves.  This past May, I graduated from Tulane Summa Cum Laude with Departmental Honors in Economics and that’s about when everything I was holding together shattered in helpless and long overdue release.

I began to experience shortness of breath, constantly feeling as if I could not get the air I so desperately needed.  Panic attacks, an ordeal I hadn’t experienced routinely since the sixth grade, left the metallic taste of fear in the back of my throat.  All the expectations and external motivations driving me to attain more and achieve greater were suffocating me.  I was (rather painfully) shedding outdated mechanisms I developed in adolescence to keep me safe.  Of course, I ignored this.  I did not stop, continuing to train three hours a day, jogging along the street car tracks on St. Charles, my lungs shriveled plastic bags refusing to fill.  After a week or two of this, I was at my gym sparring and my body stopped.  On a cellular level, I did not want to be where I was, physically in the ring, mentally forced and spiritually repressed.  I watched as a back leg round house cracked across my jaw and down I went.  My heart and mind weren't there to support the blow.  I tearfully confessed to my coach that I didn't know what I was doing anymore but I knew what I was doing wasn't working.

We both decided to see this as an opportunity for growth.  When life hands you lemons, examine the fucking lemons and decide what to do with them.  I canceled my tournaments and decided to focus on personal growth.  And fun.  Lots of fun.

So here I am, having sold my piece of the dojo and hopped on a plane, creating space with no plan to go pro or go to the Olympics, no distraction of academic pursuit and accolades, no high powered job to keep me climbing a ladder of loftier and loftier goals.

I dedicate this next year to me. 

To do whatever I want, to have fun, to travel, to explore, to be instead of always just doing.  This blog is here to record and share my adventures—the places, the people and the random happenstance.  Today, I leave for Southeast Asia.  I return to NOLA in a month for some more photo shoots, to finish up filming in a movie and to take a few stunt classes.  And then, who knows?  I certainly don’t and I’m enjoying the fuck out of it!

Stay tuned for my next entry:  It’s a Holiday in Cambodia!!  Or alternatively titled:  The Place Where You Can Blow Up a Buffalo With a Rocket Propelled Grenade Launcher for $500*!

*My computer’s wireless was, for some unknown but irritating reason, not working.  It's fixed (for now) so I’m still in a coffee shop posting this but the coffee shop is in Cambodia two days later.

*Please do not come to Cambodia and blow up Buffalo.  Not cool.