What is adventure without travel? You must enter new cultures, eat new foods, meet new people, and live as others live.
I have learned so much from the people of Cambodia; learned about gratitude, servitude, and most importantly, joy.
Back home, we have so much to be grateful for. But are we truly aware of it? I have learned to be grateful for running water & electricity, yet at home those are such constants I do not even consider them blessings. When I offer a child a banana, or a sip of the soda I bought at the store, the chorus of thank you’s that pour out warms my heart. The smallest gesture recieves the greatest gratitude.
Through being grateful, I have also learned the importance of serving. The peopke here are so insistent on giving, despite the fact that we have come here to give to them. Our hosts feed us amazing food, day in and day out. The children pick us flowers and offer us bites of their snacks. Their example shows me that for everything I have, I should be willing to give every last piece of it back. Giving is the best way to recieve.
Although I have learned so much about life in the past week alone, the most important virtue I have witnessed is joy. Joy comes in the simplest of times, and maybe that is why Westerners struggle with it most of all. Nothing is simple back home. There are constant messages of buy more, be more. MORE, MORE, MORE. Less. Less is the key. Within a week of being in rural Cambodia, I have lived more primitively than ever before, but have never felt more blessed. Who needs alarm clocks with Sean the rooster will wake you up at 4:30 with ample time to watch the sunrise from start to finish, each moment stealing your breath with a new assortment of pinks and oranges. At home, a sunrise like that would be the highlight of my day. Here, it is just the beginning of back to back beautiful moments. As the day progresses, I learn about joy from the people around me. Whether it is our host, Vandy’s smile first thing in the morning when he picks us up to get coffee, or the childrens laughs through out the day, I know joy is the purest, simplest human emotion. You don’t need fancy things to make you happy, only a chicken to run after or a dirt road to skip down.
This village is where I will learn to step back from everything I have ever known in order to live the way I am meant to. The orphanage down the road is where I will learn to open my heart to love, to laughter, and to life.
It is here that I will live simply, and it is here that I will learn how to simply live.
