A Tribute to a Parent

My Tribute to Papa

Those moments we shared I shall always keep,
They’re lessons which always made my heart to leap.
They made the roots of my tree to sink so deep.
I shall always cherish you as my book of life to reap.

Say hello to Mama for me
and thank you for being my father, my mentor, and my friend.

(My Father passed away last week on the first hour of the 17th of May at the ripe old age of 88.)

Religion and Social Communication Journal

I had an article before which I presented in a conference in Phnom Penh (9th Socio-cultural Research Congress) way back in November, 2006.

Today I received from the mail a copy of (vol.5, 2007) the Journal of the Asian Research Center for Religion and Social Communication where they published my article entitled: "Questioning Behavior and Communication Paradigms of Cambodian Students"

(click the picture if you want to see the journal's online website)

A day of my life "in a bus"

Last week I had to take a 400km journey back to the capital Phnom Penh in order to administer the entrance test of the University of the Philippines (Open University). I practically spent an entire day (7:30 am - 6:00 pm) in the bus. Here's what and here's why:

1. My ticket reads 7:40 am and they ask you to be there a few min before so I seat at 7:35. Bus leaves at 8:15. Don't ask why, that's the excitement of being in Cambodia.
Here's a common sight in Poipet as the bus moves out. Overloaded transpo!


2. Lucky for me, I get seated beside a Cambodian buddhist monk. Strange though, I speak Khmer with him and he starts speaking English with me. Anyway whatever the language, we had a grand time sharing stories for hours. Hey I got to know his entire 7 year journey as a monk, a journey that spanned from Prey Veng, Phnom Penh, to Poipet - that's practically spanning the whole of Cambodia from east to west... and all in a few hours. Well I could identify with it because that's the way my assignments went also... I practically lived in all our Don Bosco presences here.

3. Any exciting road trip here would not be complete without either a breakdown or a flat tire. A few weeks back I enjoyed the former, now this time it was the latter.


4. Again for some this period is called waiting, for others like my holy friend it's meditation, still for some it's cancer break (you can't smoke inside the bus). For me it's a time to cherish... well ok it's better than being bored and definitely much more fruitful. You know, smell the weeds, watch the cow carts pass by...

I saw this man climbing the palm tree and retrieving the palm juice extract. It's something like what I usually see them do with the coconut trees in the Philippines as they come up with that coconut liquor thing.

Others took the opportunity to buy such exotic drink which they do not usually get in the city.

5. There are many more things that happen along the road to Phnom Penh, but if everyone of them were written down , I suppose the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written (something like Jn 21:25'ish).

Educate with the heart of Don Bosco

Silethoa (morals or ethics).... this is what this class is all about. I don't really get it. We have a lot of classrooms with chairs and tables, whiteboards and projectors... and they (students and our technical director) prefer this class in the open air. It sets me thinking, this venue differs from their usual classroom or workshop environment. It's actually an environment where the buddhist monk sits in front of the people listening to him talk about how one could achieve enlightenment via the "moral" way.

In vocational-technical education - it's not only the head(conceptual), the hands(technical), and the feet(social) that must be trained, but more importantly - the heart(moral). Don Bosco's competitive advantage is not just the conceptual skills taught, the technical skills wrought, the sports and games fought, but more on the values caught.

Dream @ 9

The Dream of a boy called John....

This is where I live

I managed to find my location using my nokia handphone using google maps software. Then I saved the satellite pics. What a pity, I couldn't use nokia maps (they do not have Cambodia in their list of countries with road maps). Even google has to bear with these old satellite photos. People might think there are no roads here in Cambodia. Not true. They just change from time to time since they are unpaved yet.

How to become myself

Last night I watched this Japanese movie: “How to become myself” (ok I don't understand Japanese but they're subtitled in English).Based on a novel by Kaori Mado, this movie ‘Ashita no Watashi no Tsukurikata’ tells the story of Juri (Riko Narumi) a typical schoolgirl who acts the part expected of her – perky and cool, but lives in fear of the mask slipping and her true, unperky, uncool self being revealed. She admires a classmate, Kanako (Atsuko Maeda), who seems able to play the popularity game effortlessly. Then, in the blink of an eye, Kanako falls from grace and becomes the class sacrificial lamb. Juri sympathizes, but can say nothing until the primary school graduation ceremony, when she and Kanako have a rare moment alone to share what they keep in their hearts. A bond is sealed between the two outcasts, one actual, the other potential.

In high school, Kanako finally makes her escape as their family moves to a distant town. Juri then anonymously e-mails Kanako a continuing story about a girl named "Hina (Little chick)" who becomes popular with the help of some advice Juri takes from the Internet. Inspired, Kanako adopts the Hina persona and achieves a Hina-like success but comes to realize her act is a fake. Juri’s motivation was the novelist Dasai Osamu’s line: “If you’re a good liar (hiding the truth), at least do the right thing.” This is the rationale of us wearing masks in order to go about with the varied roles we have to keep in life. But at the end of the day we ask: How can I be true to myself? Which one is the "fake me" and the "real me"? And for Hina, what happens when her benefactor Juri, known only to her as "Kotori (Little Bird)," stops feeding her lines?

A lesson for me to cherish : "To be true to myself and to love myself as I am" is the only thing that matters. Because Someone up there (and maybe some others down here) loves me for who I am and not just for the masks I put on every time I perform a role in life.

Making Brooms 1.0

Here's a basic simple way of making brooms here in our place in Poipet.
The boarders of our vocational school demonstrate this in three easy steps:
Step 1- gather these "special twigs" from the farm or wilderness
Step 2 - Defoliage them and allow them to dry for some time
Step 3 - Bunch them together and tie them
Voila! new brooms for street sweeping.

Christmas is coming. I've got to start sweeping my room... the inner one, that is.

Angkor Wat - Veni, Vidi, Victus sum

Finally after staying and working in Cambodia for the last seven years, I finally managed to come to Siem Riep and see for myself the famed Angkor Wat (and the nearby temples of course) on the 4th of November.

Whenever friends or guests would come to Phnom Penh and get an occasional tour of the national museum from me. I would usually brief them with a short but tantalizing account of the religious history of Cambodia as we breeze through the different sections (periods) of the museum. I would narrate the exploits of various Khmer kings and their achievements, their temple palaces and their capital cities. At the end I would tell them of how the various museum pieces found their way there from Siem Riep. After they ask me, "have you seen those temples?" - I would usually just change the topic.


But now to Siem riep and the Angkor Wat Complex... I came, I saw, yet I admit I was conquered. The grandeur of it all for one who sees the stories in those stones is overwhelming.

A lesson I got for myself was when I saw how Temples and Trees (esp. at Ta Phrom) joined in an unexplicable intertwining. The the non-living mixing with the living.... or in cyberlanguage... technology blending with humanity.... but at the end we all know that "Life will always find a way."

CRD seminar

Recuperating from fever, I reluctantly rode the bus on an eight hour journey to Phnom Penh on the 26th of October. Whether I like it or not I shall be staying there in that vicinity for around a week or more.

27-28 October. I gave a seminar to the staff of CRD (Cambodian Researchers for Development) and some invited NGO researchers. The two day seminar on the English language dealt with an introduction to metaphorical speech - IDIOMS.