A River Lesson

Cambodia is a water country…the people live off the water, live in the water, clean in the water, eat from the water, play in the water, have festivals around the water…I’ve noticed a love and respect of the water…with that being said, I don’t think I want to swim in the river running thru down town…the Tonle Sap which runs into the Mekong which has the Tonle Bassac flowing off of it to run past our house…

One day while our for our run on a particularly hot summer day, Zachary wanted to jump off the pagodas into the water with the other “Big Kids”…I wouldn’t let him and told him he was too young, the river was too fast and he would probably get sick because we weren’t used to the water…this was about 2 months ago…

We were sitting at the house last week and he said he wanted to go and throw rocks in the river by our house, but he promised he wouldn’t jump in…and I said, “That’s a good idea…it’s very dangerous for you.”…to which he replied, “Yeah, only those brown kids can get in the river.  You know Phavy, she can swim in the river, because she is brown.  You know, I want to get brown like you Mama so that I can swim in the river too.”…What?  Where did he get this from?  I never told him he had to be brown to swim in the river!!  He is still talking about getting “hisself” brown so he can swim in the river…