St. Patty's In Asia... And Then There Were 29

St. Patrick’s Day has always been a holiday of multiple importances for me. For one, having a birthday on March 1st and being named “Colin Doyle” pretty much gives you a firm attachment to the Emerald Isle. And of course there is my love for the Black Stuff by Arthur Guinness. Then last year my attachment to St. Patty’s deepened with an 18 hour work day at Ryan’s Daughter with my awesome friends there just feeding off the madness - I thought about you guys a lot and missed the Daughter… And last but certainly not least my dear old Dad has his birthday on March 17th.

So Asia or no Asia, I wanted to celebrate. However, I knew I needed to handle it carefully… being the big white volunteer is conspicuous enough without wandering home yelling “I bought a bunch of beer, Erin Go Bragh!!” Lucky for me, my LCF Sokha totally got into it (I should have forseen that wearing all one color would be a cool idea here) and we planned to have the party on the evening of the 16th since he was going to be gone on the actual day, and I wanted a go between for explaination! It went off really well – another LCF, Sophal, came in from Prey Chor, Natalie and Erica came over. We wore green, ate food (including dried peas for the continued green affect…) and toasted with green canned Cambodian beer (I bought some folks a round of Guinness before at the bar in Kampong Cham run by Simon… he’s from England, but no one is perfect). And the party was a hit – we started off listening to a little Van Morrison, but it soon turned into a singing and dancing fest. We would play an American song, Sophal would use his MP3 player to play a Khmer one, and it was totally awesome. Especially since Sophal can do a wicked Michael Jackson impersonation… not the traditional St. Patty’s, but I have to say I was damn proud and satisfied of how we brought it to our little village of Tropiang Chrey.

However, the high was tainted by the fact that we lost one of our cohort. Ryan Perry, who had a stellar sense of humor and just last off day had been singing some great Bob Dylan in front of Simon’s bar, resigned and headed back to Wyoming. It was all very sudden, with him getting a call from the administration and he was in a van within an hour and gone to Phnom Penh, and flew out that Saturday. While privacy is respected as to reasons for ending service, Ryan gave us the impression that it was a family emergency that had caused him to leave. He said to keep in touch as he will have a “particularly acute empathy” for all that the next two years holds for us.

It’s rough to see him go, to see anyone go really… even after just two months we are very much a closely nit group having shared so many crazy times. He would have made a great volunteer and we worried about his family as well as the loss that he is here. But I think it also hit home with each one of us what it was like to see someone go back home. We have ups and downs, but constantly try to focus on the fact that right now our life is here, with these people we work with, live with, and serve. And yet there it is, we are volunteers, and in the down times you can literally say “screw this, I’m out” and off you go. Having the option, and being abruptly reminded of it, is quite the double edged sword… and makes you think. But as we stand now, though we will all miss our friend and colleague, our paths still head into the Cambodian countryside.