Saturday, April 5, 2014
Mira Costa School - Cambodia Cliff Diving
by Alex Jarus on April 5, 2014 in Letters From Cambodia
The sun dried hay pokes into my dirt covered feet as I catch my breath. With the sun beating down on me and my body visibly covered in sweat from the layer of humidity I rush forward into the abyss. The dry ground crunches underneath the weight of my rapidly advancing feet. The warm Cambodian air seems to all evaporate and I loose all feeling in my body for the next 10 seconds. My feet leave the hard embrace of the earth as they propel my body into a human sized armadillo. For the next 3 seconds the world around me becomes the video feed of a GoPro flying through the air. My once rotating body now comes in contact with the unforgiving surface of water, halting my flip at the conclusion of its spiral. All visual signals are lost but sound seems to be being piped in directly to my brain as I rush through the layers of Cambodian river water. The first real feeling that is felt within my decent is the squish of the mud between my toes as I come in contact with the bottom. Without hesitation I launch from the rivers basement, through the bubbling brown water. As I breach the surface all signals come back online and I survey the surrounding areas to pinpoint where I have struck. Eventually I come to the conclusion that it is in my best interest to swim to the shores edge. Inevitably I plan on repeating this process a few more times.
Cambodia is totally another world. I’m not sure I’m still on earth.
Today we went to the killing fields and although it is an extremely emotion place for some I found it really underwhelming. It was a massive tourist destination, which was disappointing. Then we went outside of town about an hour to a montessori school where we gave gifts and played with the children. Then I did some cement mixing and manual labor. Then all the guys went swimming in our boxers in the local creek (As written above). It was amazingly perfect way to end the day.
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