Roots and Wings

If I had two wishes, I know what they would be.
I'd wish for roots to cling to, and wings to set me free;
Roots of inner values, like rings within a tree,
And wings of independence to seek my destiny.
(from A Child's Bedtime Song by Denis Waitley)

I was reflecting on the past events. It was nice to see old faces as well as new ones gathering together once a year during the school's Christmas celebration. I noticed that many past pupils take this opportunity to visit their former school and get in touch once again with their classmates of yesteryears. When you see them in their seemingly-endless boyish and girlish chatter, you wouldn't even think they're men and women who work in NGO's, schools, or banks. They simply have that need of revisiting their roots in order to gain their wider wings.

Today, the last day of 05, You remind me once again of my roots - all those things you've sent me since I was in my mother's womb until the present. I am indeed grateful for them - they have shaped me into what I am today.
And as I look forward to 06 - "as I face my fear of falling when I test my wings in flight... Just be there when I need you, to tell me it's all right!"

Don Bosco SHV Christmas Presentation

Season's Greetings to All!

The picture portrays the Christmas Nativity scene adapted to the Cambodian way of life.
May Peace reign in us all! (photo courtesy of CCCC)

រីករាយបុណ្យនូអែល​និង​សួស្តីឆ្នាំថ្មី

Merry Christmas to all our readers:
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We thank you very much for your support.

Christmas is Family

They say that: “The best Christmas of all is the presence of a happy family all wrapped up with one another.” After all these years, I still feel homesick every Christmas because I'm away from my “natural” family. But I do have my “acquired” family here at Don Bosco. Both students and teachers are so enthusiastic preparing for this day’s celebration. I do believe that even if they are not Christians, they have earned the spirit of Christmas in their hearts – that of loving and sharing… and most of all that of family.

Christmas is when You left your family “up there” and was born to your family “down here.” By doing so You did not lose your family but rather You gained another… nay more, You got the latter family to join the former. Thus You made Christmas one big family reunion.

Computer Ethics at UPOU

This semester I'm enrolled at the University of the Philippines (Open University) via distance learning for a subject elective called "Computer Ethics" (IS 201). Besides the usual moral and ethical discussions on the uses and abuses of the computer today in cyberspace, resources and links are also given for us to read and further our worldview of what's happening globally and how ethical principles are applied locally.

As I do the study, I'm becoming more convinced of the saying "Think Global, Act Local" as a prime principle for approaching the subject of computer ethics and the formulation of its local policies.

And they also require us to put our thoughts down in web format. I've created another website for it and entitled it: "My Academic Journey" (PS. posting of Mr King's cartoon under "Fair use of copyright materials")

Amazing how amidst such technological change, universal ethical principles remain virtually intact. People long for an ordered universe to make this world a place worth living. In their search for the unchanging values of truth, justice, and order, will they find the Unchanging You as the Root, the Cause and the Source of it all?

I'll be Home for Christmas

"I'll be home for Christmas," so goes the song...
I met some Filipinas in Church this morning, two of them have finished their contracts with their garments company and will be back home for Christmas.

Meanwhile, the others (like me) will have to finish our Christmas song with "... if only in my dreams!"

Plinius once wrote: "Your home is where your heart is." This morning all of us were at home here with You in the Eucharist, for after all that is where our heart is. I need look for home nowhere else.

What is it with color?

A few years ago I was at the market in Phnom Penh with my two friends. They were our tall fair-complexioned male volunteers, one Dutch and the other French. Strangely some people accosted us and got interested talking to my two friends (whose first language was not English). And the Cambodian fellow said to them: "Oh you are Europeans, you MUST be very good in English. Would you like to teach in our English school?" My friends politely refused and told him that English is not usually spoken in their respective countries. No wonder many foreigners teach English here even without proper credentials.
Sometimes there are some Cambodians who see white-colored foreigners as rich (regardless of the reality). So if there's a gimmick or friendly gathering, the foreigners usually pay for the "poor" Cambodians.

This week I got my paradigm shift. Three days back, one Cambodian classmate of mine from our MBA class called me up by phone and we had a nice chat (in English). He didn't mind the cost.

The following day, another Cambodian classmate of mine visited me here in Sihanoukville (he had some business along the way). Then he treated me out for lunch and dinner in a good seafood restaurant. All for frienship's sake.

And oh, I remember, a month ago, I invited one of my classmates from UNICEF to give a one-day seminar to our teachers, and he didn't ask for even an honorarium. There are many Khmers that I know who are really great friends. They must be color blind!

I know YOU often sing that song: "Jesus loves the little children, red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight." It's consoling to know that many of these children are color blind too (won't distinguish between race). And oh, yes, and so is love!

My Experimental Video Blog

Today, I've updated "Sounds & Sights of Journeying" - my videoblog. Last time I showed you Don Bosco Poipet. Now you'll see a bit of Don Bosco Sihanoukville.

Click on the sidebar or you can click below:
Sounds & Sights of Journeying

and you must have Quicktime on your computer to view this:
Download Quicktime 7.0 for windows (32MB)

Building a website

After some experimental blogs and a freebie website, I felt its high time that our organization should have its own web presence. They say the best things in life are free! So I tried to negotiate with some people in the other end of the world who agreed to register us a domain name as well as host the site (yes, they're paying and with no banner ads attached). After a week of haggling for the domain name (got a TLD! but could not get a .kh which I wanted) and setting the conditions with them, I decided to give it a test run. So I used old contents (from the www) just to see how the links would flow. Ok I'm getting too technical.
In short, I've been working late nights on it. I hate "page under construction" so you'll find lots of potpourri pages even in the khmer language. I just needed to see how it would come out in the other side of the fence in order to further tweak it. And oh, you'll find lots of dead ends. Don't forget to e-mail your comments about www.donboscokhmer.org and enter at your own risk! lol :)

You (owner of 3W-Whole,Wide,World) know what that reminds me of? that my life is somehow like this website... with many pages under construction, with some good links and broken ones, and with a lot of dead ends too. But just like a web page, I could always click the "back" button and go back to You where it's cozy and safe!

He said, she said... whatever!

We opened our schoolyear two weeks ago. A very unique incident (for DB Cambodian schools) happened. One of the students accepted for the girl's sewing department passed off for a girl (looks like a girl, dresses like a girl, but really a boy- check out the picture!). She/he even got a place in the girl's dormitory until the girl's found out that she/he was not of their kind.

So the rector searched out the documents after a complaint from the girl's hostel. All school documents registered him/her as female.... but the family book entered his birth as a boy. After meeting with the parents, the rector concluded that obviously and definitely he/she could not be accomodated in the girl's hostel.

As for studying in the sewing department, the rector allowed him/her to continue on one condition (school policy)... that he/she dresses up like a boy. But he/she couldn't give that up cause "she was a girl trapped in a boy's body" and decided not to stay. So we wish him/her good luck in her next course of action.

I know You love us all for what we are, but sometimes we're never really contented with what you give and what we have. And as they say, true peace can only come with contentment.

School Pedestrian Lane

Normally in many countries, the policeman stops the traffic or the motorists stop by themselves whenever they see children crossing the street after school.
Today I saw two parallel lines of children, hand in hand, literally blocking the vehicles coming from both sides of the road, so that other school children could cross the street safely after class hours. It was like Moses parting the red sea so that the Israelites could cross.

Is it the lack of patience or the lack of concern on the part of the motorists here that made school children resort to such unique tactics? or is it just lack of discipline? There seems to be little regard for traffic laws in this country . On the roads you see both LHD and RHD vehicles (the latter being illegal). Motorcyles, bicycles and cars easily counterflow and are not caught. But an interesting thing is when you are caught by the police you could bargain for the fine (like from $10 going down to $1 - depending on the violation and how many policemen there are waiting for you).

This reminds me of religious discipline. Would I need an external barricade or would I stop on my own because I believe in it?
Discipline, they say, is when you do things you are supposed to do even without anybody watching! (hmmm... except You, of course!)

A longing to hope for

Captured these moments this morning:

(1) Little girl: Oh, goody, goody, here's the ice cream man!

(2) Little girl: Now, how do I get past these big guys...

(3) Little girl: See, small doesn't mean weak if you really want something bad enough!

After Sunday Mass at the Sihanoukville parish, children would run towards the ice cream man. Their excitement tells me that it's something that they've been longing to do for the whole week.... to grab an ice cream and relish it!

Now that sets me thinking... how wonderful it must be for us older ones if this is the same way we feel with our longing for YOU every Sunday. After all, isn't "The Bread of Life" far more nutritious than ice cream?

A Series of (un)Fortunate Events

Yesterday I met Albeiro again in Phnom Penh. Last time I saw him was when we gave him a send off some four years ago to proceed with his theology studies in Israel. Now he's back and at present is working in Don Bosco Streetchildren Center Poipet (that's at the Khmer-Thai border). More pictures of the streetchildren work can be found in his spanish site: http://tinyurl.com/c37pf

We both arrived in Cambodia in 1999 after Oscar fetched us and in turn, we saw him off to Africa (see previous post).

What astonishes me is the fact that Albeiro was ordained a priest the almost on the same week Oscar died. Only days separated the birth of a salesian priest from the death of one.

Now I believe that guy Job was right about You: You know when to give and when to take away.

The Times of Your Life

Yesterday some of my former Khmer students (whom I taught English, Computer, Marketing, Origami, and even Basketball) came to visit me. We then chanced to look at their picture of years back (like the one displayed here) and talk about those times.
How different things are now. This time some of them are already mothers (one even brought her two year old for me to play with).

I heard it once said that for a person's destiny to be complete one has to do three things in life: (1) plant a tree, (2) write a book, and (3) sire a child.

Well I've planted my trees but I don't think I could do the two latter ones. It seems my students are ahead of me now... But I'm not envious... I'm happy when I hear them call me "Father." And now to their kids, they point at me and tell them: "That's Lohk Tha (Grandfather)."

So You see, I'm happy calling You: "Abba" too. But I wonder how Your Name would sound had I sired a child?

Back to Basics

A few days back, my rector reminded me that the secretarial section's computer fonts have to be updated.

Let me explain. Normally an OS (Operating Systems like Windows, Linux) uses the fonts native to a specific country... like there's Japanese windows, Thai windows, Spanish windows, Arabic windows... but there's no Khmer (Cambodian) windows yet; and oh yes also the Philippines have not yet developed Bintana as of this writing.

Problem here now is I'll have to put the new unicode version of the Khmer fonts (which I do not have) to windows (OS) thereby changing the old Khmer fonts used for many years.
I had a hard time looking for free Khmer unicode fonts over the net after hours of seemingly-endless googling of so many technical sites. But just when I was about to give up, I thought: "Hey, the Catholic Cambodian Church's website has been using unicode for some time now." So I quickly surfed there and lo and behold, at its bottom is a link to the "how to's" pages of Unicode Khmer fonts installation.

Although the experience might sound technical, the moral lesson for me here is simple: The river always flows into the sea. Sometimes the solution to the most complicated problem could be found in its "Source". Does that not sound familiar to You?

In the film "Samsara" a Buddhist monk found a question carved on a slab of stone: "How do you prevent a drop of water from drying?" After so many twists and turns of the two hour movie in search of the answer, the monk found it carved at the back of the same stone: "Throw the drop of water to the ocean."

from Cinema Paradiso

Last June on the feast of the Sacred Heart, I kind of adapted Giuseppe Tornatore's Cinema Paradiso in one of my homilies. Here Alfredo tells Toto a story:

"Once...a king gave a feast for the loveliest princesses in the realm. Now, a soldier who was standing guard saw the king's daughter go by. She was the most beautiful of all and he fell instantly in love.But what is a simple soldier next to the daughter of a king? At last he succeeded in meeting her, and he told her he could no longer live without her. The princess was so taken by the depth of his feeling that she said to the soldier, "If you can wait for 100 days and 100 nights under my balcony, at the end of it I shall be yours." With that the soldier went and waited one day... two days... then ten... then twenty. Each evening the princess looked out, and he never moved! In rain, in wind, in snow, he was always there! Birds shat on his head, bees stung him- but he didn't budge. At the end of ninety nights he had become all dry, all white. Tears streamed from his eyes. He couldn't hold them back. He didn't even have the strength to sleep. And all that time, the princess watched him. At long last, it was the 99th night... and the soldier stood up, took his chair and left."

So why did the soldier leave? I personally think it's because the princess will marry (will love) him because he fulfilled the condition. In short, it was a conditional love. Perhaps when the soldier was asked why he left, he must have answered: "If I accept the offer of the princess, I know that she would love me because of the condition. Instead, by leaving I choose to love her unconditionally."

Ah, such is unconditional love... isn't this the same kind of love You have for me as expressed in Your Most Sacred Heart?

"Death where is thy sting?"

About year ago, I was invited to attend my MTh graduation in South Africa. I missed that chance because I had to present my paper here at the Royal University of Phnom Penh. A month ago I heard that my friend, Fr. Oscar Zamora, died of heart failure at the novitiate house IN South Africa.
Oscar was the one who fetched me from the airport when I first arrived here...
Strange but I was assigned in Tondo when he had left the place. I went to PNG after he left it also. He invited me to Cambodia but left soon after he got me in. So where is he telling me to go to next?

Thinking of death always gives me the chills. I always get bogged down whenever I start to think of my own. All the things I believe in come to be questioned. Is there really this or that? And what happens next? Will it be painful? How long does it take to make that crossing? Where to... next? This kinds of paralyzes me.
Of course, whether I like it or not: Death is inevitable.
But then I still have that choice. Will I just wait for it sitting down, or will I just let it try to catch up with me?

Believing there's life after it certainly gives purpose to living life here.

Wishing on the same star

I heard a song at MTV today by a Japanese songster - Namie Amuro. I didn't understand the Japanese lyrics except for the English three liner in the refrain which made me reflect:
"Wishing on the same star.
Looking at the same moon.
Talking of the same dream."

Be it strategic planning, or logical framework construction or pastoral plan formulation...
it all boils down to... having the same VISION towards that same GOAL.
We've been having a lot of meetings lately and a lot of squabbles in the process about projects and technicalities...
yet after all we Salesians have the same MISSION and it will never change... our same star, same moon and same dream, i.e. to be the bearer of God's love for the young.

Love Stays

A friend of mine e-mailed me a story. Oh, ok... it's a love story which ended in tragedy.
You know, the one where she left him, then she died... and that's it!
However the final sentence was worth pondering on:

"Once you have loved, you will always love.
For what is on your mind may escape,
But what is in your heart will remain forever."

Well, I suppose, this is true of You...
Hope it becomes true of my love for You too...