That's a great question [pause]...

A traditional Cambodian (Khmer) proverb muses, “If Heaven could cry, then Cambodia would never know drought.”


And the Heavens do cry.


During a job interview a few months back, the interviewer asked me, “What has been the most emotionally challenging experience of your adult life?”

A few situations came to mind…

The daunting task of convincing my family that Aaron and I were soul mates. Losing family members and friends. Living with the constant underlying stress of knowing that my family has a mortgage worth of student loan debt.

But one experience in particular was nagging at brim of my consciousness.

Setting:

• Phnom Penh, Cambodia
• January 2012 (junior year in college)
• Beautiful cloudless day
• Garbage dump (and also small village settlement)
• Group of 20+ college students

Purpose:

• Study abroad

I’ll start from the beginning.

Early that morning our group of 20+ students were split into teams of 4 and given 20,400 riel (about $5 USD) to shop in the market. Our task was to purchase as many basic essentials for a family of 4 as possible.

My team purchased:

• 5 pounds of uncooked rice
• 8 pack of shelf-stable milk
• 4 pounds of various fruits
• 4 pounds of various vegetables
• 2 loaves of bread

Phnom Penh "Russian Market"

I do not own this photo.

Negotiating prices at the HUGE outdoor market/labyrinth would prove to be the simplest task of the day.

Our next stop was the Phnom Penh garbage dump, also dubbed Trash Mountain.

We entered the dump and walked about 1 mile to a small village only hundreds of feet from the nearest 3-story trash pile. Rivers of liquid black stench flowed through the stilted homes. Children ran half-naked and barefoot over broken glass, plastic fragments, soiled clothes, and millions of other rotting and foul things-once-loved.

We walked deeper into the stilted village and were rapidly swarmed by residents. Hungry, dirty, and thin. So very thin. And there was this moment when time seemed to slow. Minutes may have passed and I just stood there paralyzed. How cliché right? But feelings of anger, sadness, privilege, guilt, and confusion emanated from every fiber of my being. And I froze.

What seemed like hands upon hands outreached in my direction for food. For sustenance. For survival. One women, with an infant at her breast repeated over and over again “Please, please, please.” I realized that she wanted some milk for her baby.

I froze.

How was I supposed to choose who would receive food and who would go hungry?

What power. To choose. To distribute life.


This decaying mountain cannot be someone’s reality. Someone’s home.

Finally, another student gently took the food from my locked grasp and began distributing it as fairly as possible. “There isn't enough!!!” I was screaming inside of my head. There would never be enough. I would never be enough. Tears swelled in my eyes and I...

I. Just. Froze.

I didn't like many aspects of this moment (for obvious reasons).

Internally, I was pissed about my competing identities. White American = corruption, consumption, and wealth. Which were a part of my daily life. But I also identified as a global citizen, social (justice) worker, life-long learner, and very intentional in making the world even fractionally better in any way humanly possible.

I could not imagine a life on the outskirts of society, on the edge of a garbage dump, on the brink of survival. So much uncertainty. So much fear.

2.5 years later and I am still processing that moment. Because the implications of that experience extend to a much greater depth and breadth far beyond that moment. This moment is intricate and complex. Where are each of those individuals now? Pillaging piles of infectious trash in hopes of finding items to sell? Moved onto the next existence? Alone? Happy? Hungry?

I had a very similar experience in Guatemala City, Guatemala in April 2013. However, I was an observer from a cliff positioned hundreds of feet above the garbage dump. Feelings of safety, sadness, anger, and concern rose up on clouds of dirt and reek to meet me atop the cliff. What a privilege it is to be an observer of such poverty and strong will to survive.

Despite these intense moments I experienced in 2 garbage dumps on either side of the world…




So, what has been the most emotionally challenging experience of my adult life?

I told the job interviewer about my experience being a first generation college student in graduate school.
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