Fingers crossed! It looks like I can blog FROM Cambodia again. Looks like I've been un-blocked. (I just got an error message on my screen while I typed that - no, no, no!) I don't know how to process a lot of what's around me. The second time around it should be less shell-shocking, right? The lack of capacity to teach well and perform well because no one taught them otherwise after genocide killed all the professionals in the last generation. The ignorance, callousness, and corruption of a government that raked a room full of NGOs over the coals for not doing more for their country while they pad their pockets with bribes and "taxes" on those that can't afford to filter the water that's killing them. The lack of compassion by most villagers - so much so that one father was dying of a broken hip in his daughter's own house, my friend had to go get his brother off the highway in a wheel barrow after an accident because they didn't have/couldn't collect enough money to pay the ambulance driver, and a lady not far from our property suffered massive domestic abuse while her neighbors listened and did nothing because "that's her bad luck". The daily struggle to have enough money to buy food AND pay to send your kids to school. And then choosing which child you think has the most potential and telling the others they have to drop out and find and income, thus labeling them sub-par and damaging their confidence and psyche. It doesn't make sense. I can't process it, almost to the point I can't breathe because everywhere I'm looking needs something. This is so much bigger than all of us. Oh how they need to know there ARE absolute truths in life to follow, that the creator of the world and all mankind elevated women to an equal footing, that every single person has potential because they are made in the image of God, and that we will all have to give an account of our lives some day. This "normal" that they know doesn't have to be normal! I just wanna scream it out. (There's a lot on my mind tonight...)