Rooftop Conversations

“When you came here, did you come here for others, or for yourself,” Mauritz asked a slightly tipsy Gemma and me. The three of us sat drinking wine and milkshakes atop Equinox’s rooftop, overlooking the touristy golden street of 278.

“For myself,” we both respond. “Me too.”

We are twenty-somethings, being selfish, living in Cambodia; saving ourselves from boredom, inactivity; the stagnation of living of at home. We never thought we could save the world, much less the people we’ve come across in SE Asia. We all know we can make a bigger impact back home, in our own communities. I, for one, constantly ask myself why I’m not in Mexico or Latin America, or somewhere I can actually speak fluently.

Earlier that evening, Maurtiz had invited Gemma and me to dinner at Souky Soup, a local Cambodian restaurant to have dinner with his GTZ work colleagues, including two Mongolians. When I asked the Mongolians what they typically ate back home, they responded, “Camel, horse, chicken, beef…. A lot of meat.” Well, I’ve never heard camel and horse before. The meal was cheap and delicious and at the end, something happened which spurred our rooftop conversation later on. We invited them all out for post-dinner drinks. Whether it was too late (9pm) or perhaps the cost of a drink (roughly $2-3), they all declined and the three Westerners were left to keep the night going.

“I love to travel and work closer to the problems on the ground, but I want to go back to Germany. I’m fine here, but this is not my culture.” Though he had just told us he didn’t want to go back to Munich were his friends just played video-games all day or did boring technical engineering internships, Mauritz had just said what we all felt at traffic-stops, in the market, on nights like this. This was not our culture. He continued, “In a way, we are just the sons and daughters of rich parents, with choice. We come across Cambodian colleagues that are willing to work harder, study more, be self-sufficient, the difference is that we have choice and they don’t.”

We have the choice to get up and leave or stay. We can move between worlds. We are flexible and adaptable and it is those very characteristics that make it harder for us to fit somewhere.

Staring out at the popular bohemian backpacker guesthouse Top Banana, we moved on to discuss neocolonialism, politics, economics, long-distance relationships, the rebellion of our generation against set paths, and everything else one shouldn’t discuss on a Friday night at a bar. It’s amazing how three 23, 24, and 25 year-olds from different countries feel the same thing, still ask the same questions. Where do we belong? Not here, but maybe here now.