Hello folks,

This is Will Cirocco, and I’m your friendly guide for today’s blog. It’s currently 10 past midnight, Cambodian time, and suffice to say I’m rather exhausted, and don’t quite have a sense of space or time right now. Nevertheless, I shall press on!

Anyway, a bit about me. I live in San Francisco, CA, and heard about this program through Trent Walker and Kevin Fugaro, two friends I went to high school with, who are also on Project Cambodia, and whom you will be hearing from in the future. Both very upstanding individuals. I’m a rising Sophomore at Kenyon College, which is this tiny little school in The Middle of Nowhere, Ohio. A cookie for you if you’ve heard of it.

Well, here’s how our day panned out. I had gotten in on the 18th at 5:00 after about 30 hours of travel, and was rather jetlagged. I was kind of dissoriented when I woke up at 6:30ish. We got started quickly, though, taking a morning walk at 7:00 down to nearby Wat Phnom park. There, we spoke further about the particular goals of our project, specifically expounding upon our three word goal of Inspiring Arts Renaissance. We broadened this concept into five ‘bullet points,’ which included:

  • Building and conducting the workshops we will be working with the Cambodian Living Arts Students and high school students. These are the more general, group workshops, that we’re designing to give all of the students skills that can help them take leadership positions in the future. I’m personally working with Kevin on the Public Speaking worskshop, and also Alex Nguy on the Journaling workshop.
  • Building and conducting the more intimate sessions with one CLA student and one high schooler. These sessions are aimed specifically at organizing the concerts on the 25th and 27th, which the students will be running at the two different high schools to promote Cambodian performance arts.
  • Next is the blogging, which you are currently reading. Hopefully it won’t be too dull, and will give you a good idea of who we are, and what we are accomplishing.
  • Next is sharing with the group, and involves creating personal bonds with everyone, learning from each other, and operating in an effective and family-like manner, with as little of the associated dysfunction as possible.
  • Finally we addressed the idea of sharing with the world, which represents the broader goal of our project to relate to the world in a meaningful manner. This one is one that I think particularly much about, as one of my broad, vague goals in the project, and life in general, really, is to create something meaningful.

After that Kevin led us in several group bonding exercises. They’re a series of mostly physical things that involve building your own personal energy, and connecting with the group. A good example, and one of my favorites, is a passing of a clap, in which we litterally pass a clap (not the disease, mind you) to our fellow team members around a circle with as much energy as possible, accompanied by that person’s name.

After the park, we walked back and ate breakfast, an experience I barely recall. By this point, all of us had arrived except Vina. After stopping back at the hotel, we finally paid our first visit to the Cambodian Living Arts building. We climbed several flights of stairs to the top of a building set a bit back off of the road, to a large, well-lit room, with a large post in the center. After several more team building exercises, we began on our circle painting project. In the interest of space, I’ll leave elaborating on this to someone later, but this project, led by one of our mentors, and an incredible artist and human being, Hiep Nguyen, is part of the larger SEALnet project, and will hopefully be a part of the upcoming ASEAN conference.

After that, we had lunch, where our final team member, Vina met up with us. We returned to CLA, and did several more team building exercises, and further discussed the goals and logistics of the project. It was a long day, but I think we’re starting to pull everything together. We’ll see how everything holds up when the students arrive tommorrow, though.

Afterwards we had dinner, then returned to the hotel, where Hiep elaborated upon the circle painting exersise. It’s very exciting, and hopefully we can deliver a great product. If you’re interested to learn more about the idea, here’s a video of Hiep in action.

The rest of the night wrapped up with us scrambling to get last minute logistics together, with a brief session where Thearin and Yours Truly were subjected to a rather personal Q&A from our team members. Which brings me to where I am now; now 12:45, I am exhausted, and not quite sure who I am anymore. I still have some scheduling and memorizing for the talent show tomorrow. Hah.

Briefly, though, I wanted to comment on Phnom Penh, and what it’s been like. One thing that strikes me is how extraordinarily busy the streets were. People are everywhere, with motorbikes darting about chaotically. And yet, there’s a sense of ease I’m not really used to. People sit on sidewalks, talking or doing nothing, which you never see in the states. Combined with the openess of the buildings, it’s as though the character of the entire city is lying right out in front of you like a cat in the sun.

My team members are fantastic, our mentors are extraordinary, and I’m not entirely sure what I’m doing here, especially once the students arrive. It should be fantastic. I’m really excited.

Before I go, I’d like to make a personal plug for my own blog, which I’ll try and update every day while I’m here, at Hysterical Realism. It will be more of a personal reflection.

I’m exhausted, so please forgive me not uploading any photographs. I’ll also try and do some fun formatting, if I have time. Those will come, I promise. Goodnight.

peace,
-W