Part One: Son- Fondled, Slept- In a Bar, Living- Literally On Shit: It’s A Good Week, No?
Yes, I will admit that these past 30 hours have been more than I can handle. I’ve cried myself to sleep two nights in a row; lulled the kids to sleep to the drunkard cheers and the speakers of CoCo’s Bar massaging our butts, and have repeated “Anicca, anicca, anicca” more times than I can remember.
“Anicca” is what Orazi screamed mid-way through the roller coaster ride in Vin Pearl Land Water Park when he realized that begging Kobi to stop the ride wasn’t working and he, little man that he is, decided to enjoy the ride, damn it, and screamed “anicca” with arms waving in the air. ‘Anicca’ is the Pali word meaning “everything passes” that Kobi and I learned in our Vippasana Meditations [insider video]. It has become a family mantra for helping us get through sticky stuff, and these past days have been so anicca-requiring beyond what I can fully comprehend.
So, where should we begin? With our son being felt up, twice? Our parenting hall of fame putting-the-kids-to-bed-in-a-bar night? Or, breathing sewage pipes’ shit all day? (Breathing is so overrated.) Clearly, another point against us in Why Don’t You Get A Real Job and Stop Abusing Those Kids. Shit.
In Which We Fully Recognize The Lifestyle We’ve Chosen
But, those are just the highlights, there is so, so much more. In less than 24 hours we faced dehydration headaches, our first taste of homelessness (different from Voluntary Homelessness), not feeding our children properly, 8 hours of bus and boat en-routed-ness, and a deluge of energy drainage in searching, unsuccessfully, for a sane place to lay our heads down for the night. Overwhelming.
We’re cool with adventure, we’re cool with winging it, and we’re totally cool with experiencing the way out there with our kids. That’s what led us to seven weeks of Ecuadorian jungle indigenous tribe life [video saying goodbye], living off a tent in Peru, AAAAAAkindly host invitations throughout CambodiaAAAAAAA, life on the ranch in Costa Rica, that drunk Vietnamese wedding, the tarantula-overrun attic, and now a wooden hut on a pier off Koh Rong Island. That’s what led to the well-known I’m Sorry video.
We’re all into adventure, and yes, we’ve done our fair share of ridiculously stupid choices. We’re not into having NO CHOICES, putting our kids to bed in the bar, sleeping in dengue-ville without mosquito nets, and reaching exhaustion beyond functionally. Oh, and we’re not so keen on our children being fondled. I know, we’re so old-fashioned.
In Which A Few Scattered Things Get Straight
This series of posts isn’t a pure bitch-a-thon. There is light, and lots of it, in this story. And there’s tons of deep-down honest appreciation. Of course we have choices, we always have choices. We chose to come here because we love Cambodia. We adore Cambodian men and talk a great deal about their truest nature in this video, and throughout our most famous post ever. We’ve lived in Cambodia for seven months, and have now backtracked (which we DO NOT do) for our undying love of Koh Rong Island (unreal photos), AKoh Rong Dive Center, and the CoCo Bungalow’s team. We would not have gone back to a country we lived in for seven months when the entire world still awaits us unless it is something un-Earthily amazing. And Koh Rong Dive Center, and working for them, is such an honor and joy, that it was worth the hellishness our family went through.
That being said, it was pretty awful.
This has become a nice little instant playback series on what we went through. This series relays our adventure through exhaustion, homelessness, and sexual assault to salvation. So much fun all bundled up in one, and if you don’t want to miss any of it, please subscribe to the rss feed to get our posts directly to your inbox. We’re loving your comments on the blog, your likes in Facebook, and your subscriptions to our Twitter and YouTube Channel. That online attention directly funds our journey, as I use your measured interactions with me online to show organizations how worth it it is to work with The Nomadic Family. So, follow the series, subscribe to the blog, YouTube Channel, Twitter, and/or leave your comments. Knowing you are out there, seeing your e-footprints, reading your comments really truly helps us more than I can even tell you, economically and emotionally.
So much love from a slightly overcast hazy Koh Rong Island,
Gabi
It sounds like an absolutely awful week. I hope all of you and in particular your son is okay. Will you be in a position to prosecute?
yeah, this is just part one of the series. it gets even more sticky guy. and no, no system to prosecute through and no need to…. we’ll talk about it later but the fondling thing turned out to be a great lesson for our family, and our son is fine. i even asked him if it’s ok that i share the story and he was really cool with it. you’ll see guy. thank you.
Hi Gabi,
oh my gosh! Sounds insane, crazy and yet so much fun…way better than the last few weeks of challenging teenager hormones to deal with…hey would you like to do house swaps – I would love some excitement!!
Seriously – how did you manage all of that and still smile? xxx
how do you manage love? i get tastes of pre-teen attitude and i want to kill the source or myself sometimes. teach me o wise one. yeah, pretty exciting around here. too exciting really. i’d be very happy with some quiet stability and not sleeping in bars and other fun family adventures. thanks for being there lisa. smile? you have to, or cry, or both. i do both a lot. love to you and your naturally healthy growing family
I hope this will end up solving itself, this story. I hope everything gets better from here. Miss you guys, and miss our dance party in the hostel of Peru. Many hugs from Sara, Sweden.
hi sara love. we miss you and our dance party, which i still watch every once in a while and can’t contain my smile. it got worse, really tough, really miserable and then better. i posted part two a few days ago, and the rest will be coming next week+. we’re hugging you right back and love it that you’re still with us today sara. we love you. tell us how you are doing. gabi, kobi, dahnya, orazi, and solai
Looking forward to reading the rest of the saga! Travel can be so much “fun” at times!!
oh Sarah, it was so fun i could barely contain myself. it gets worse, and then better. i hope you’ll be around for the saga dear.
Wow…I’ve never saw that video (i’m sorry) that was so powerful! Its really amazing how you an open up your heart like that… It looks like that was a while ago,,, and I know that you post a lot ( and I love it) but how are you keeping yourself for not falling into that numbers, stats, and likes and shares trap again???
hi vanessa. i love that we keep meeting here, sharing, talking. thank you for being here for that sharing. i loved the I’m Sorry video and I meant every word- that I was too busy living, being that i lost my online world. You know, i’m still ok most of the time. I do get lost and overwhelmed on Facebook and when I enter too many forums, too many articles, too much stimulus for me. So, today, i still never check my stats, only once in 3 months I see if Google upped my rank. That’s all. I love writing and do that. I do want to continue to grow but mostly for that growth allows us more income. I also am working on focusing (which is so hard for me anyhow) on specific projects and not get lost in the mayhem of it all. what works for you?
Hi Gabi. You know what I liked so much your “Im sorry” video? Its like if I “fast-forwarded” into my life and I could clearly see what could easily happen to me.
and this is without me actually starting a blog or anything at all. I already feel overwhelmed for all the info, travel blogs, reservations sites, etc. i am really getting dizzy with so much info -I am sooooo obsessed with the idea of “rtwing” that I basically do nothing else in a day. I don’t really plan (im more of a spur of the moment kind of person) I just read, and read all day long. Like you, I also need to start focusing a little ( or a lot). Sadly, i wanted to do this format least a year and my husband informed me that he can only do it for 4 months ( just so he doesnt loose his job) . My idea is that I have 4 months to prove him this lifestyle is feasible and I hope we can meet your family in person so you all can help me with that. 
wow. i’d be honored to meet you guys. honored to death. and no one can get into your financial life, but if you try hard and be creative and learn to live with less, you’ll make it. have your hubby read our posts on the ‘money’ tab. i’d love to talk to you more about it all. yes online does intimidate, there is always things that weigh on my mind to do, always and i’m working on being more single minded. meditation helped me so much with that, sooooo much. i’d like to go back to that now. thanks for reminding me to do what i can do to help improve my own level of inner peace. i love you vanessa and every every every time i see a note from you, i’m so happy.
hope things look up!
yeah, they do eventually, in parts four five and six. thanks jessie!
I think writing about the negatives can be one of the toughest subjects to write about – it plunges you into those same feelings over and over again. Still, I appreciate when bloggers can be honest and put it all out there. No one said travelling with three kids would be easy, but you can do it!
Thank you Cat. It is hard and it does bring it back but it also brings me relief to look at it, reflect on it, learn from it. I love sharing all the sides of travel, most of them are awesome! Thank you so much for taking the time to give me an e-hug.
I wasn’t able to watch all of the video – lousy connection at work – what I did see was great. Might have also made me take a hard look at myself. In this business, it is hard to stay in the present, and not let the moments pass you by. I think I’ve done that a lot lately, and who knows what all I’ve missed…