Daily Journal

(Thursday)
July 13

Countdown To Cambodia:  Part II

 I’m sitting at my desk reviewing my lengthy sticky note of things I still need to get done before Saturday rolls around and I’m once more crammed into a decrepit wing seat on EVA airlines en route to Cambodia.  My suitcase is actually already packed, but I am positive I am forgetting something….

 Ah – that’s it.  I’m forgetting to pack Theresa this trip.  Much to my dismay, I must concede that my intrepid photographer actually has a life; family and her own non-profit to take care of and is unable to trek back to Cambodia for our July shoot.  I feel apprehensive about this in many ways.  The trip in March was an emotional roller coaster and I’m heading back into the heart of depression and destitution without the benefit of a good friend to rely on for support.  This will be a tough shoot – not only with the return to the garbage dumps but the continued journey into the remote countryside where these children are being driven from in droves.  It’s taken three months to clear my senses of the sights, sounds and smells of Stung Meanchy, but the images of the dump children never leave you completely.  They are always lurking on the corners of your mind as you give thanks for your own children and the life of security and comfort we often take for granted.

Theresa just called:  she’s bought me up a pillow for the plane.  J  Good thing…. I’m going to need a lot of rest to gear up for what lies ahead.

(Friday)
July 14

Less than twenty-four hours to go before the plane takes off and I’m having a hard time believing I’m actually ready.  Having learned the hard way from the last trip, I’m prepared with food for the plane, chopsticks that will NEVER leave my sight, boots for the dump and enough dollar bills to cover various Tuk Tuk driver expenses. 

As I review my schedule for next week, I can’t help but be slightly bemused at the strange juxtaposing of events.  I’m going to be spending the first week working in the ravages of the dump and the riverside community.  On the other hand, I also have dinner plans with a Cambodian couple my DP knows and dinner plans with a guy I met in Pasadena who is traveling to Cambodia next week to oversee his own non profit project of digging wells in villages.  I also have a frequent customer coffee card to the café down the street from my hotel and a business card and email address for Theresa’s and my favorite Tuk Tuk driver so I can engage his services ahead of time.  Mind you, the majority of the Tuk Tuk drivers are homeless and sleep in their carts, but still enterprising enough to be online.  By day I’ll be once more immersed in the reality of the street kids life and at night, I have a social schedule busier than the one I have here in LA.  Who knew I only had to travel halfway around the world to get a social life? 

(Saturday)
July 15

Travel Part I

My siblings are dying for me to post this first part of the blog for today.  Because they know once I do it will be open season on first class teasing and snarky messages they can leave on the message board.  The trip has not exactly gotten off to the most auspicious start.  Art and I managed to get to the airport with plenty of time to spare.  However, we encountered some confusion when we tried to check in.  “EVA airlines?”  Various airport personal would say with a puzzled frown.  They don’t open their counters till 2p.m.

When we explained our flight was 1p.m., we were met with more blank stares.  I began to have a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach and it wasn’t from the thought of the food on the plane.  At last, a kindhearted security screener asked to see our itinerary.  He looked at us with pity reserved for those that are not so bright.  The flight was at 1 AM he informed me in no uncertain terms, not 1PM.  Man, that little am or pm notation would have been handy on the printout.  EVA rose to the occasion, however, working with us diligently to try to get us rescheduled.  “Don’t feel bad,” the lady at the counter told me, “You’re the fourth people today to do the same thing on this flight.”

All that help didn’t solve a host of problems, however – such as getting a hold of our driver in Cambodia who was picking us up; getting a hold of our hotel to change our reservations; getting a hold of CCF to change our Monday meeting, etc, etc.  Plus now we are spending the night in Taipei as we try to get a connecting flight to Cambodia – so we needed to find a hotel to stay in later.  I discovered my anytime minutes DO NOT include international calling.  My new Production Assistant, Brie, stepped up to the plate and contacted everyone.  She’s just been promoted to Most Amazing Ever PA.  And thank God for Wireless Internet - I tapped into in the lobby of the nearby Sheraton Hotel.  I was able to book us a room in Taipei tonight.  Art has been very cheerful.  “I always wanted to see Taipei” he says as he drinks his lemonade.  I was too busy sucking on the lemons myself….

So now we are stuck at the LAX international airport where we have already been for 5.5 hours waiting to get a flight out.  And since I’ve already eaten the food I packed for the plane, I guess I am stuck with the airline food after all… 

Till later

(Sunday)
July 16

Finally- in our seats – large camera bag successfully slipped on board as a carry on – no one even in the middle seat between us.  The plane is taxing out.  Things are starting to go our way….

“Attention Ladies and Gentleman –a passenger has requested to be removed from the plane for personal reasons.  We will be taxing back in to let him off….”

Sigh.  Sometimes you just can’t win.  Plunk!  And here is my tray of food.  The tasty choices were pork or shrimp.  Now I won’t even buy shellfish at Von’s, let alone get it on an airplane, so I opt for pork.  Art is jealous.  “That looks way better than mine,” he whispers.  Looking is one thing.  Cutting it, is apparently another.  I dutifully saw away at the slab of pork with my serrated plastic knife.  It isn’t making a dent in the meat, but the force I am exerting causes the meat to flip up and dump a tray full of gravy in my lap.  Thank God I packed this ONE pair of jeans.  It is still at least 9 hours till we land in Taipei, but I’ll have the scent of gravy to remind me of the meal all the way there.

It’s eleven at night in Taipei and Art and I are ready to crash into bed.  We take a taxi to our hotel and can’t wait to catch our meager five hours of sleep before we have to rise again to catch a plane to Cambodia.  Our hotel is very swanky… and missing our reservation.  Yes, it certainly has not been my travel weekend.  Despite the fact I have a confirmation number, a conformation PAGE and a prepaid room, they have no idea whatsoever.  They do their best, but can only come up with ONE room with ONE bed.  Now I know that Art and I expected to get to know each other better on this trip – but this is a little much.  And I am quite sure his wife would not be thrilled.  So we are currently waiting for the hotel manager to send up a cot for us.  There goes another hour.

See you all in Cambodia….

(Monday)
July17

It’s five am and I’ve just spent a restful four hours in Taipei despite the fact I was sleeping in the hotel terry cloth robe.  (Did I mention our luggage went direct to Cambodia?)  As I sit here in this very nice hotel sipping some Earl Grey tea, I can’t help but think of how different things will be in a few hours.  Taipei is a bustling metropolitan.  Busy, well-kept freeways and overpasses, high rises and huge neon signs – we are in the New York of Taiwan.  Less than two hours away by plane, we will soon be touching down in Phnom Penh, the capitol city of Cambodia.  Economically depressed and dirty, it is a far cry from the view of my hotel room this early Monday.   I watch from my window as a smartly dressed military squad steps in a morning cadence march.   The hotel staff has gone out of their way to be accommodating after the mishap last night.  Though it is early, they have set out coffee for Art and I at a table downstairs and given us the paper.  Our white-gloved driver loads the bags.  This morning we will be taking the hotel’s Mercedes to the airport.  A little bit of luxury we were not expecting.  This afternoon, we’ll travel to the CCF in a rickety cart hauled by a run down motorbike operated by a man who most likely sleeps in the cart at night.  Guess it’s time to shed this robe and put on my emotional and mental armor.  My wake up call just sounded….                    

  The city is just as I remember.  It doesn’t take long to adjust to being back.  Familiar smells, sights and sounds overload my senses.  I feel like I never left as I walk the short distance to the FCC to have a cold drink and a meeting with our Cambodian crew.  Borom from Cardamom films has filled the role that once was Kulikar’s.  He has brought us all together – a group of former strangers who will work side by side for the next couple of weeks trying to capture the stories of the children who live here.  We have more in common than we think.  Ny, our translator, went to high school in Sacramento.  She wants to return to San Francisco to go back to college.  Borom was raised in northern California, but chose to return to Cambodia to connect with his native country and people.  Pou Mab, our driver and Pou Lee, our soundman are both native Cambodians who speak no English, but bring experience in filming in Cambodia to the table.  We hash out last minute details to begin our shoot in the morning.  As we get started, a familiar figure catches my eye.  The barefoot and ragged young girl with the lethargic toddler slung to her hip wanders by.  Theresa and I fed her almost every day in March till she disappeared.  She is back walking her familiar beat, hands held out – pleading with passing people for money or food.  I resolve to find out her story.  She will be one of the first of the “Small Voices” we try to capture.  I point her out to Ny and hope that I will see her again.  I wonder if she will recognize me. 

Someone recognizes me.  Much to my relief and excitement, Vantha, my favorite Tuk Tuk driver who faithfully carted me around in March is in his familiar spot by the hotel.  I make arraignments for him to bring Art and I to the CCF later and promise him more business in the coming weeks.  I’m excited to get to the CCF and see the children. 

CCF is quiet when we arrive.   Many of the children are in public school in the afternoon.  But it doesn’t take long to see a familiar face.  Meng Ly is working at a computer station.  I call his name and his face lights up.  He runs over for a hug.  He’s excited to be traveling to Kandal as part of the project and is even more thrilled to find out his best friend, Saroeurn, whom we are also profiling, is also coming along.  Saroeurn shows off his latest karate belt, which he got at his last examination.  Shy and sweet Layseng spots me on the third floor and attaches herself to my hip.  Scott informs me her family situation has changed.  Her family is no longer in Kandal.  They have all moved to the dump where Layseng was for so long.  Layseng, remembering her own experiences there worries about them all like a little mother.  The only one of the four children I do not see is Leakhena.  She is sick with a stomach virus and we leave our reunion for another day. 

We sit to review the shooting schedule and it appears we have an additional destination to add to our list.  Scott tells us the government is trying to clean up the slums in the city.  Their solution is to bulldoze the ramshackle huts, load all the people into trucks like cattle, drive them 30 miles out of the city and dump them off in the middle of nowhere with nothing.  No shelter, water, health care, educational opportunity for the children.  Nothing.  They are aptly named “Relocation Centers’ Scott grimly informs us it is a pit of disaster waiting to get worse.  Illness, lack of food, overcrowding…. Ingredients for outbreaks of viruses and violence.  I had thought nothing could be worse than the dump.  I’m afraid I may be wrong.  I’ll see first hand soon enough.

(Tuesday)
July 18

Last night Art and I had dinner with a couple he knew through friends back home.  Piseth, a native Cambodian and his wife Siobhan, from Australia,  met while Piseth was a monk.  Born in the rural countryside during the tail end of the fight with the Khmer Rouge, he became a monk at a young age to avoid being forced to become a soldier.  Dinner was an interesting affair – they are on the verge of moving to Hong Kong.  Siobhan has had enough of life in Cambodia for now.  They spoke of the relocation camps, lack of health care and the fear among Cambodians to speak out against a government that cares very little of the poor.  Journalists and filmmakers being arrested; shot at and bullied  - it was a sobering topic.  We’ve already been warned by Borom our film liaison to always have our permit on us and keep a 10% contingency handy for bribes.  In fact, customs attempted to extort a small amount from Art when we arrived.  According to Siobhan, the police are not fond of "do good" Americans.  Art and I agree upon returning that neither of us is interested in getting arrested or shot, so we plan on treading very carefully – especially at the relocation camps the government has set up.  We’re heading there tomorrow.                       

But today was an uplifting day of filming at the CCF.  Spending time with “our” four kids, catching them doing things they love:  Saroeurn, who dreams of being a karate instructor kicks his way through his martial arts class.  Layseng, who loves to sing, belts out her ABC’s and Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes in her English class.  We also have frank interviews with Allie, who speaks of the rewards and difficulties of living and working in Cambodia and with their new pediatric nurse volunteer from Scotland, Fiona, who talks about some of the medical milestones and setbacks.  Both issue a strong call to action to everyone:  Get Out and Get Involved.  It is something we plan to repeat often in this film.  These kids’ lives are being changed by individuals who are making a difference.  We all can enrich our lives by following their examples. 

We break for lunch and Art and I head to a little deli I remember to grab a sandwich.  I stroll across the chaotic intersection with cars, Tuk Tuks and motorbikes beeping and swerving around me.  Art is still on the other side.  He catches up with a grin.  “I’m still getting used to this,” he says.  Garbage lines the street and the ever-present smell of Phnom Penh lingers in my nose.  Allie calls it a mix of heat, pee and people. 

After lunch we head to CCF 2.  A new five story building that can house another 80 children.  They’ve also set up vocational training rooms here for hair, make up and sewing.  The building is impressive and stuffed full of narrow staircases.  I estimate I went up and down stairs lugging equipment today at least twenty or more times barefoot.  When we wrap for the day, I’m relieved.  My feet are bitterly protesting.  I plan on soaking them later and then hosing them down with Purell.  Siobhan told me a revolting story about the rains here and the “poo water” that floods through the streets.  She just got over a nasty foot infection as a result of walking outside.   As I walk in the rain, I’m now obsessed with poo water.  Great – something else to worry about.

(Wednesday)
July 19

I’ve been up since 5 am due to a combination of jet lag, a faulty air conditioner that shuts itself off every 2.5 hours, a mistaken call from the front desk informing me my Tuk Tuk had arrived and two drunk guys who mistook my room for theirs and fell against mine in an attempt to unlock it.  Either that or Theresa’s bad habit of getting up at 5 a.m. has simply worn off on me.  I wandered up and down the riverfront enjoying the early morning quiet beauty of the river.  The weather was still cool and I watched the narrow, pointed wooden boats with their fisherman in broad rimmed hats push themselves along with long wooden poles.  The children are still asleep in their usual spots – sprawled along the retaining wall in little bunches.  Three wide awake and naked toddlers play a game of hide and seek around an overflowing trash barrel.  I pause for a moment and look down into the face of a sleeping boy.  His long lashes frame his dirty face.  His little mouth is slightly open and he sleeps deeply, a picture of innocence.  I realize how attached I have become to Cambodia and her people.  How deeply woven my affections for her children have wound themselves into my being.  It has gotten under my skin in a way I believe will never truly be shed. 

Art comes ambling into the coffee shop where I am writing.  “I knew I’d find you here” he says with a grin.  Art’s easygoing nature and patience has been wonderful on this trip.  I think I could have searched forever and not found a more perfect DP for the project.  We have a little time to spare before our new soundman arrives.  After a hectic day yesterday, we told Borom we needed to replace Mr. Lee.  He worked very hard but it became apparent he did not have enough experience to overcome the fact he spoke no English at all and could not communicate questions or problems to us.  Our new soundman is a personable Cambodian American, who speaks perfect English.  He’s arriving early to work with the equipment before we head out to the dumps and relocation camps.  Till then, we’ll sit here writing emails in the brightly lit coffee shop and try not to think about the dumps this afternoon.

At eleven forty five my friend, John Whaley arrives.  I met John in Pasadena at our photography exhibit.  John is an unsung hero.  He facilitates getting wells dug and providing families with piglets in the Cambodian villages in his spare time and it turns out we are in Cambodia the same week.  I invited him to CCF and the dumps with us while we were filming.  We arrive at CCF and discover we have additional guests.  Cynthia and Brittany Daniel, identical twin actors from the popular teen show Sweet Valley High have heard about the work CCF is doing and have come to Cambodia to learn more about the issues.

Scott informs me the dump has moved to a new drop site for the garbage.  We make a pit stop first at a slum row of houses on the outskirts to bring two girls to visit their sick mother.  She invites us into her low slung home.  It is made of bricks and is about four feet high inside.  It must absolutely cook in the Cambodian sun.  Flies are very thick around us.  Scott gives us a short tour of the other huts and talks briefly about some of the families.  Nearby a drunken man shouts at his family.  He is disruptive and abusive.  Scott is very familiar with this man.  He’s seen his handiwork on this man’s children.  We met another girl who Scott is currently in the process of bringing into the shelter.  Her life is on its way up.  Nearby is another girl who has been pulled from the school to work at the dump because her mother is very sick.  The woman coughs violently and points to her chest.  She speaks in Khmer.  Scott turns and lets us know she has blood in her cough – it is possible she has tuberculosis.  Whatever it is, she is no longer capable of working – so her daughter must pick up the burden.  This little girl wants so badly to be in school but her life has taken a different turn for the worse.  One happy child, one desperately sad.  It is a reminder that not everyone can be saved.  And that is an unsettling truth.

We walk the short distance to Stung Meanchy.  On the way, we pass a little boy alone on the path.   He looks so ill and one of his eyes is infected.  It is painful to walk by him.   We continue on.  Even from a distance I can smell that rotten, cloying mess.  The smoke rises in the distance and I steel myself to step back into that hell.  We trek along, the group of us, through paths and mounds of garbage.  Suddenly the ground is dangerous spongy beneath our feet.  “Sink Hole!”  Scott quickly warns everyone and we carefully and nervously work our way across.  Small children here often sink in these unseen traps and suffocate.  We pass the dump inhabitants water source.  A small pond of contaminated run off water, green/brown in color and simply stuffed with floating garbage.  In this cesspool of germs and waste are people washing, filling buckets and doing laundry.  There are fly larva by the hundreds.  I will think of this spot every time I bring a glass of clean, cold water to my mouth.   In very little time we are at the main working area.  It is a slow day, but still enough to bring tears to your eyes.  The Daniel sisters and John are visibly moved.  Art and our new soundman, SoPhy, get to work capturing footage.  Suddenly, a familiar face pops up near me.  It is a little girl who Theresa and I photographed and videoed extensively in March.  In fact, she is in our promotional trailer – a little girl in a brown blouse digging in the garbage and sharing her fruit with her little brother.  Her little brother is close by as well and I am thrilled to see them.  I privately ask Scott if she can be considered for CCF.  We plan on finding out her story for the documentary.  I give them both lollipops from my pocket.   It brings a flood of other children around us and we hand them out quickly, along with some toothbrushes. 

Small items to be sure – and they seem so useless in the whole scheme of what they really need:  fresh water, food, and vitamins.  But today they bring a smile to their faces and to ours. 

Our time runs out and we decide to journey to the relocation camps tomorrow.  We pick our way back through the garage toward our air-conditioned trucks.  The kids laugh and wave as we leave, then we gradually lose their attention.  They have work to do.  And collectively, everyone who has seen through our eyes what we have seen – we have work to do too.  The sooner the better.

(Thursday)
July 20

While strolling through the market to buy Art some shoes, we came across a small fried food stand.  My DP is almost always hungry and I glanced down to see what fare was being offered.  There were four large tubs of deep fried larva, cockroaches, grasshoppers and beetles.  Art decided he wasn’t that hungry but encouraged me to give it a shot.  “I’ll give you five bucks,” he urged.  Until he gets up to the $50,000 Fear Factor is offering, there’s not a chance.  Besides, I had my fill of risk earlier.  We loaded all the camera gear into the wicked tiny elevator.  The button didn’t seem to be working so Art stepped off for a moment to check things out.  Suddenly the doors closed, lurched up about a floor and then the elevator clanked to a stop and went completely dark.  I was fairly certain this piece of crap elevator was going to plunge to the basement with me in it.  Plus it was stifling hot there in the dark.  Since I am writing this, obviously the power came back on and I got out, but it was a long few minutes in the dark contemplating what was going on.

After spending a few hours at CCF this morning interviewing Scott Neeson, the executive director,  my crew, Scott, John, Brittany and Cynthia Daniel all piled into two trucks for the long ride to the relocation camp to visit the families there.  These are all families that have been gathered up out of the slums by the government and driven far out of the city, where they are simply dropped off with no resources.  The government has given their slum land to developers to build expensive condos for officials and other wealthy individuals.  The unfortunate previous tenants are now gathered in a large refugee camp.  They have nowhere else to go and no way work to provide for themselves.  So they sit and wait there for the government to dole out little parcels of land on the empty plots that measure around 12x12.  Just enough to build a shelter, but not enough to plant anything and make it sustainable, even if crops would grow in the wasteland they’ve been given.

We pull up to a sea of make shift tents stretching far back.  We are besieged with people as soon as we disembark.  They are desperate, sick and starving.  There is no food or medical care.  We meet a young woman who broke her wrist in a compound fracture.  Left untreated it is now infected with gangrene and must be amputated.  A desperate woman pulls on my sleeve.  The rains came down heavy last night and flooded the camp.  Something that has been happening regularly the last few weeks and the results are horrifying.  Her feet are rotting on the bottom and side and infected.  These people can’t get out of the water when in rains.  The shelters have make shift tarps for roofs and sit right on the ground.  Many have not eaten in days.  There are hundreds of people crying, begging, pleading for some type of aid.  Nearby in a tent is a young woman.  During the rain last night, she gave birth to a son in this unsanitary haven.  He sleeps on the ground wrapped in a shirt.  We gather to look at this sleeping innocence.  His mother is ill and most likely developing an infection.  She wants us to take the baby with us.  Rains are coming again and there is no protection for the baby.

Another aid organization has been through and promised the people there plates.  Which would be lovely if they actually had food to put on them.  The one small beacon of light is the large fresh water portable tanks UNICEF has trucked out here for the community.  The Church of Latter Day Saints is there setting people up on pallet beds so they are off the ground.  All the aid is coming from non-profits.  These people have been abandoned by their government and left to rot and ruin here.  As we drive away with three youngsters tucked in the back of Scott’s truck to take back to the shelter, we pass a government party sign.  It reads “Cambodian Peoples Party” 

They are nothing of the sort.

(side blog)

Fun Food Fare:

Otherwise titled:  never let your Cambodian Sound Man pick the restaurants.

You know, when Theresa and I were here, we were not the most adventurous food experimenters.  Rightly so, we were quite worried about the lack of sanitation and pure water.  Now that she has left me to my own devices, I am at the mercy of my adventurous Chinese DP and my Cambodian soundman.  After barely escaping the fried tarantulas on the menu last night, we sat down this evening to a heaping plate of baby sparrow in Cambodian lime sauce.  Heads, beaks and all.  John commented that they tasted a lot like liver.  That was probably because we were EATING the liver, as well as the heart, brains, beak, eyes, etc.  I took one back to the hotel to take a picture.  Then it is going directly in the trash.  Somehow I don’t think I’ll ever have a craving THAT bad in the middle of the night.

(Friday)
July 21

The Long, long, long (did I mention long) road to Battambang

The rains here are torrential.  We got our first real taste of it late yesterday afternoon while waiting for the doctor to arrive at CCF.  It had rained before, but this afternoon – thunder roared, the sky opened up and in minutes the water had risen in the streets nearly a foot.  Kids on their way back to CCF from public school sloshed their way across the street, soaked to the bone.  By the time we finished the last interview and headed back to our hotel, traffic was hopelessly snarled and the water was up to the doors.  I wondered where the street kids go to sleep during rainy season and thought about that newborn baby in that leaking tarp tent at the relocation center. 

The next morning we arrived at CCF to pick up Leakhena for the long drive to Battambang to bring her back to the pagoda she lived at before coming to CCF.  We also brought a little someone extra.  Sray Kong is an adorable tiny 11 year old that also lived at a pagoda in Battambang.  Scott had asked us to drop her off at her grandmother’s home there since we were headed that way.  We all set off in fine spirits, stopping at the gas station to fill up.  I spoiled the girls a bit with chips, soda and M&M’s for the road.  As we left the city and the miles behind, the country began to stretch out before us in the gorgeous hues of green of the rice fields.  Several hours into the drive, we pulled off at a river where a raggedly dressed clan was mining sand.  Nin, the chaperone from CCF quietly explained that the family could make up to $15 a month if they sold enough sand culled from the river.  We watched as an older man clad in a pair of shorts took a deep breath and sunk below the surface of the muddy water clutching a large scooped pan.  After a few moments, he reappeared with the tray full of sand.  He swam to the edge of the shore where his wife was shoveling the sand into large piles.  A short distance away, a young man maneuvered their wooden boat along the water.  We spent some time filming their activities before we thanked them with a gift of money and headed out.  We didn’t get far.  Nearby, three women were planting baby rice shoots in a watery field.  There was another group a further distance away with a plow and water buffalo, but it required a trek down an unmarked path that neither Art nor myself was in any hurry to test out.  While normally I like to travel off the beaten path in life, I prefer not to do it in a place I may blow myself up.  We opt for the three women instead. 

By two in the afternoon we have arrived and have found ourselves a restaurant for lunch.  I am busy congratulating myself in my head for the prompt arrival in plenty of time to get in some good footage of Leakhena and the reunion with her siblings and grandmother at the pagoda.  We also wanted to wire her up and have her talk about what she was feeling as she headed there for the first time in over a year.  But first we needed to “drop off” Sray Kong.  We bought two cases of rice and some condensed milk for gifts for the families and sat little Sray Kong on Art’s lap.  Scott had confidently assured us the Sray Kong knew where she lived.  Like a typical kid, when we asked, she nodded yes.  She knew where she lived all right.  Getting there is another matter altogether.  After about an hour of false starts and turn arounds, we finally get a hold of a neighbor who knows the name of the village.  Once she hears the village name, little Sray Kong nods in affirmation.  Looks like we are getting somewhere.

Or maybe not.  In very little time we are out of the main city and on the worse road ever.  Narrow, dirt, deep with ruts, covered with bumps, cows and peasants and slippery from the rains.  And let me tell you a little about our van.  It is a decrypted piece of ^&*^* which has no seat belts, stalls more often than not, occasionally won’t go into gear and has a broken seat that I am fortunate enough to wind up in.  I prop up the back with a camera case, but it still hangs drunkenly back on broken hinges.  We are all holding on for dear life.   It is worse than a roller coaster ride.  A truck in front of us loses traction, serves across the road and flips down the embankment.  About fifteen Cambodians run to the scene.  Apparently, this is a common occurrence.  We start to stop, but our guide advises because of the girls that we do not.  It appears that there is plenty of help.  It isn’t long before we need help ourselves.  We must stop for directions over twenty times and each time the village gets further and further away.  The road gets so rough, poor Nin is overcome by motion sickness.  We are now over three hours into the middle of nowhere and running low on fuel.  However, having come this far, none of us wants to tell Sray Kong we cannot find her grandmother’s house because she is so excited to visit.  We call Scott, but he has no idea where it is either.  We try to offer the neighbor money to come to where we are and lead us in.  They refuse because of the approaching darkness.  Four hours in.  We are exhausted, have been bounced literally out of our seats and are losing the light and the race against the gas gage.  Suddenly, little Sray Kong pipes up with happiness.  We have found the pagoda.

Four weary adults follow an excited little girl to a run down hut on stilts set back in the trees.  Her grandmother holds out her arms and Sray Kong runs into them.  She gracious accepts the rice and starts to pull out some basic plastic chairs for us to sit.  We thank her but must hit the road (literally) back.  We still need to get Leakhena to her Pagoda.  It becomes apparent and discouraging to realize we are not going to get any filming done today or be able to film a touching scene of reunion.  The road back is just as bad and poor Nin is sick every couple of minutes.  Leakhena is wiped out after nine hours in the car and is asleep on my lap.  I am slung in the broken seat, holding Leakhena with one hand, the camera with another and have braced my foot against a metal bar under the front seat to keep myself, Leakhena and the camera from flying across the van with every teeth rattling jolt.  I am positive we are going to run out of fuel but finally, our luck holds up and we make it back to the city and to Leakhena’s pagoda with less trouble than we had going in.  Leakhena is happy to be back but can barely muster the energy to reciprocate the hugs of her siblings and cousins.  We tell them we’ll return in the morning and weary head to our hotel for the night.

(Saturday)
July 22

Our seven am wake up call finds Nin and I ready to go, but there is no sign of the boys in the room next door.  I rap on the door to see what the delay is and discover them watching a movie with Britney Daniel it in – the actress we met at the CCF who came to the dumps and relocation camps with us.  What are the odds we’d find her on Cambodian television at the crack of dawn?

There isn’t a whole lot of options to eat in Battambang (fried cockroaches at the market notwithstanding) and our merry little band of doc filmmakers found ourselves back at the same restaurant from the day before planning the day’s shoot.   Man, I thought it was hard keeping Theresa fed every three hours.  My DP Art is always in the mood for a meal and such a typical guy.  At lunch he eyed my fries, which looked so sketchy I didn’t plan on eating them.  Art pulled the plate over, popped one in his mouth and announced, “these are horrible” he then drove this point home by continuing to eat the horrible fries.  Can’t let good food go to waste.

We pile into the van for the short drive over to Leakhena’s pagoda.  Leakhena runs into my arms and I give her a kiss.  We are lead to her grandmother’s small room where she lives with four of her grandchildren.  Despite the fact they are extremely poor, they present Art and I each with a large bag of oranges.  I am touched that a family with so little would give so much.  This is a precious gift.  We ask permission of the family to have our cameras present.  This is our first full day spending it with one of the main children of the documentary.   Each of the four kids:  Leakhena, Layseng, Meng Ly and Saroeurn were given journals back in March to write about their lives.  Leakhena’s story is touching and tragic.  Abandon by her mother to live at a pagoda with her grandmother, Leakhena was often lonely and the victim of abuse.   Her words are more powerful than mine could ever be.  She is the first of our “Small Voices” She writes of living with her grandmother, aunt and uncle:

            “Constantly they didn’t get along that well, I saw them fight a lot.  Sometimes they stabbed each other with pieces of glass, sometimes they drown each other in water, sometimes they chock one another and sometimes they beat me too….”

            “Even though they hit me I would never be mad or anything because I think that we’re family, we depended on each other and suppose to help each other, count on each other and if we don’t help each other who else will?”

Leakhena had not been back to the pagoda in over a year and to her delight, her three brothers, who had not lived with her at the time she was there, were now living with their grandmother.  She proudly introduced them and we spent some time talking to the family members on camera.  We learned that Leakhena’s mother had abandoned the children years before and they did not even know where she was.  Leakhena’s eight-year-old brother misses her terribly and doesn’t go to school because he doesn’t have the proper clothes.  It isn’t long before the grandmother and family must go to the main hall to begin preparing the monks food.  Here at the pagoda, the poor families that live on the property take care of the monks.  The old women prepare the meals and the children help set the elaborate temple hall for the seventy plus monks that live there.  I am humbled to watch this very traditional routine take shape.  At precisely the right time, a procession of monks marches into the temple hall to sit in long rows on the floor where the children have set their place.  It is a beautiful sight to see these devout men with their shaved heads and simple saffron robes file peacefully into their place at the table.   They offer up a chant to bless the food.

Now at this point the one person who can truly understand what I am feeling is my still photographer, Theresa.  Back in March, we couldn’t find a chanting monk to save our lives.  Despite our best efforts, the only thing we can up with was a funeral at 5 a.m. and a randy monk at Ankor W’aht who asked me to marry him.  To suddenly find myself surrounded by scores of chanting monks brought a smile to my face.  However, I am sure Theresa is going to spit nails when she reads this. J

It is a busy day.  After the meal we follow Leakhena around as she plays with friends and interacts with her family.  They are all eager to hear of her schooling and the grandmother begs me to speak to Scott about taking Leakhena’s younger brother.  Leakhena is only too happy to speak of her experiences at school and the shelter.  Later, she and her friends play hopscotch and tag and we all discover hide and seek is NO fun with a movie camera involved. 

As the afternoon begins to fade, we set up for Leakhena’s formal interview.  Luck is not with us however, as the afternoon rains roll in.  We frantically grab the gear and hustle over to the temple overhang.  We attempt to set up there, but the sound of the rain, coupled with – yes – more chanting monks – make it impossible for good sound.  We try to outwait the rain, but the skies really open up and we gracefully give in to mother nature.  But all is not lost.  The children of the pagoda scream with laughter as they scamper out into the rain, splashing and playing, slipping and sliding along.  Art grabs up his camera again and we capture the moment.  It was totally worth getting soaked for.

We end the day by taking Leakhena and her brothers to the market to buy them school shirts.  When I open the door to the van, I am nearly knocked over by the most pungent, nasty, nauseous inducing smell outside of Stung Meanchy.  SoPhy gleefully tells me it is Durian, a fruit that is considered a delicacy and wants to know if I want to try some.  Now I’ve actually been ill the last few days and not eating that much so the smell of this rancid cross between sour milk and rotting fish is not exactly doing wonders for my constitution.  I hustle the boys past the fruit stand and towards a garment booth as briskly as I can without dropping all my dignity and simply running.  We find some white shirts appropriate for school and drop the siblings back off promising we’ll see them tomorrow.  It’s been a long day and we’re all tired.  Art, no surprise, is quite hungry and we tromp over to the one restaurant for our third meal in less than two days.  Art clearly doesn’t want me sitting next to him because he orders a Durian shake and I subtly scoot my chair over as far as possible.  He says it tastes fantastic.  I will take his word for it.

As I finish writing this blog this evening, I am once again thinking of Leakhena – a small, sad lonely girl abandoned by her mother who has found new life through the chance at education and love.  I will leave you all with these poetic works of an exceptional young woman:

            “I feel like I was born again.  My life back then was like a flower that grew in the dark and never see the sun or feel the breeze or get watered and had nobody paying attention.  But now this same flower is placed in the right place that it need, with a lot of sunshine and a breeze and get to be watered when it need it.”

(Sunday)
July 23

By now we should own stock in White Rose restaurant in Battambang.  I wonder if the staff, which includes a couple of fairly little boys who clean and bus, actually leave or if they sleep there.  We have been there for breakfast, lunch and dinner our entire stay and the only thing that changes is the shirt they are wearing.  The panhandler is the same too –a teenager boy with one diseased milky eye whom I gave 1000 rels to the first day.  He has taken up sentry at the doorway and stares at me each meal, It’s a little disconcerting but effective for him.  I’ve given him rels after every meal.

Our plan this morning is to get some footage of the rice farmers in the countryside.  SoPhy has relatives that live in Battambang and they have agreed to escort us to some scenic farmland.  We drive down a forested, narrow dirt road and arrive at their house.  It is a very nice house by the neighborhood standards and within moments of disembarking, there are fifteen or more family members hugging, kissing, laughing and good-natured wrestling around with SoPhy. They are thrilled to see him.  SoPhy was born in Cambodia, raised in a refugee camp as young boy before being brought to America with his family by a Lutheran Church charity program.  They settled in Amherst, Massachusetts.  His mother is here today at her relatives house visiting.  It is only her second trip back to Cambodia since fleeing the country.  Like all the Cambodians we have met, hospitality is something they take very seriously.  Chairs are brought out, cold drinks materialize before us as soon as we sit down and the gift of fruit we brought is immediately shared out for all to enjoy.

Unfortunately, we cannot stay to long and we pile into the van again with SoPhy’s sister in law Chook. She is our escort to the farmlands and is quite excited to be part of the production.  We soon run into trouble on the roads.  The heavy rains have made the dirt roads into treacherous mud pits and the van skids alarming along with water and rice fields on either side of us.  After a long thirty minutes of basically getting nowhere, I am frustrated and concerned that we will eat up our entire day trying to get to their family farm.  We need to be back before the rains start again to film Leakhena’s interview.  There is a lone boy in the rice field with a pair of cows, but he is a distance away.  A little further up the road, a group of men are trying to repair it for travel.  Another factor that weighs against us.  We get out to try and capture the boy and the cows with the zoom lens.  Neither Art nor myself are too thrilled with it but can see no other options.

However, our new set coordinator, Chook, is on the case.  She wants things to be good for SoPhy’s Hollywood film crew.  Within minutes she has sent one of the workers from the road out to the field to tell the boy to plow closer to where we are.  Like a crusty old general, she barks orders at the men and tells them to get back out in the field and start working.  The road can wait, in her opinion.  The camera crew cannot.  She continues to shout instructions and within moments, she turns to us with a pleased grin.  A gorgeous scene now unfolds before the camera of rice harvesting and plowing.  I may have to fly Chook to the states the next time I shoot a movie with unruly extras.  She can organize a scene better than any AD I have seen.

Little Sray Kong is waiting at the Pagoda with Leakhena when we return.  Her mother has brought her down from the village to save us the ride up there again.  Nin, for one, is extremely happy.  She wasn’t looking forward to that journey again.  We have our first formal interview with Leakhena.  The kids of the pagoda are all fascinated and we have to continually chase them away from the set.  Leakhena’s little brother, the scamp, makes off with her journal.  Such a typical little brother.  I chase him down and he hands it over with a sheepish grin.  SoPhy asks him where his front teeth are and he tells a very entertaining story of how Leakhena told him to chew on rocks because they were candy and they crushed his teeth.   I’m half inclined to believe him.  I grew up with older siblings.

There is a formal goodbye in which Leakhena sits on the porch of her grandmothers hut and listens to her grandmother dispense advice about life:  be honorable, do not lie, cheat, steal….  She blesses Leakhena, who touches her forehead to the ground before her grandmother in a sign of respect.  The family bids farewell and we all pile into the van.  I thank the grandmother for her hospitality and she touches her forehead and templed hands to my forehead and blesses me.  I am moved, emotionally and spiritually.  There is a tingling in my entire body and I feel this blessing it in every fiber of my being.  It touches the very life of me.

We head to town to film some establishing shots of the market and get lunch for ourselves and the girls before we start the long drive back.  Art and I leave everyone at the van and head into the market to film.  I realize this probably wasn’t the best idea BEFORE lunch as we watch an old woman with a butchered pig hacking away at a side of pork with a large hoof and leg resting on top of the pile.  Nearby, a man is tossing handfuls of intestines on the pile for her.  I make a mental note to stop eating pork.  You might think being in market like this would make one a vegetarian, but really, it just inspires you to stop eating altogether.  The sun, flies and garbage-strewn stalls don’t do the vegetables any favors either.  We make our way back to the van and I am anxious to get in and head to lunch to leave the smell of durian fruit behind, but alas, the smell is coming with us.  Turns out SoPhy has bought a plate of durian for Art.  Art is thrilled, I am not.  SoPhy is grinning like a fool and I just know he thinks this is the funniest thing ever.  What I wrote about the smell before was no lie.  It is so horrible; it is actually banned inside the hotel we were staying at.  It literally is written right into the guest rules.   NO DURIAN FRUIT.  That is my new rule in life as well.

Like a guest that will simply not go away, the durian is trucked into the restaurant with us.  Apparently it is going to be dessert for the boys.  I would love to know who discovered this fruit and how hungry they must have been to try it in the first place.  Of course, the whole restaurant can smell it.  It actually brings a man from Australian who was sitting several booths away over to investigate.  He wants to know if he can try it as well.  This of course gives SoPhy and Art ammo to peer pressure me into tasting it.  By the time they do, the smell has attracted a lot of attention and the Cambodian staff is watching me with grins to see if I’ll do it.  I never like to back down from anything, so I suck it (and the durian) up.  Let me tell you… the taste is NOT worth the hassle of the smell.  I don’t care what anyone says.  Little Sray Kong apparently agrees with me because while Leakhena is enjoying a piece, she has a napkin covering her nose and her face scrunched up in dismay.

It is quite dark by the time we return to Phnom Penh.  The girls are exhausted and Leakhena is carsick.  And let me tell you, durian doesn’t get back regurgitated.  We are all happy to unload and unpack before turning in for the night.  I stop in the CCF to say goodnight to Scott and find the Daniel sisters have delayed their trip to Siem Reap to spend more time with the children.  It thrills to me see how moved they have been and how giving they are with the children.  These kids simply deserve all the love and attention we can bestow.  My own sponsored little girl, Lyda, slips under my arms for a quick hug before scurrying shyly away.  I think how much my life has been richly rewarded by coming to the some of the worst of places and finding the purest of souls in these children.  May we all seek that same purity within ourselves.

(Monday)
July24

Art and I got up at 5:30 this morning to head out to the riverfront and shoot some footage.  As many of you already know, I am totally not a morning person and there’s nothing harder than trying to be cheerful in front of someone you don’t know that well because you don’t want to let on that you are a bitch in the morning.  There’s not too much to see this early dawn.  Turns out the daily afternoon and evening rains keep most of the normal street crowd seeking drier ground.  We spent about an hour and decide to get a catnap before the crew arrives.  Today, we are interviewing street children about themselves, their lives and their future. 

Hunting down good interview subjects requires a little finesse and a lot of luck.  When you are not looking for them, street kids are all over you.  I sometimes find them clinging to my pockets as I head into the hotel.  But when you need them?  A totally different story.  I thought about pulling out a dollar and waving it over my head, but that would have brought us more attention than we really needed. 

We started at W’aht Phnom, a large national park with a pagoda. Ny  and I have developed a system.  She and I walk around and target a likely subject.  She introduces us and asks a few of the questions to see how they answer and how open they are.  Then, if they agree, we ask them to appear on camera and bring in the crew.  

Things are going marvelously for the first twenty minutes.  We find a homeless beggar girl who is carting around a baby on her hip.  Turns out her entire family – mother and eight siblings – are homeless and living in the park and around the streets.  She is very open about her abusive father and the fact she carries the baby sister to make her more sympathetic while begging.  We are just about to call Art over from where he is shooting B roll when trouble hits.  Two policemen corner Ny and I and demand our papers.  We hand them over and they make quite a show of examining them.  One of them gets on the radio and the next thing we know there are nine policemen around us.  Art wisely and quietly slips out of sight.  Ny  is talking back and forth with them in Khmer.  She even gets the minister of the interior on the phone that signed our permits to no avail.  Apparently, there is a new form that we must have.  It is clearly an intimidation meant to generate bribe money.   I don’t have enough money to bribe all of them and we don’t want to cause a lot of trouble, but I am really frustrated.  This is one of the main areas we are suppose to conduct our interviews.  Borom, our production coordinator and SoPhy our sound guy head over to the ministry to try and sort things out.  But for now, we are out of W’aht Phnom.  It is a disappointing set back and a waste of a couple of hours.  While we are heading to the National Museum area, Borom calls.  Apparently, they have made up a new city permit just for us.  How convenient and thoughtful.  For the bargain price of $50.  However, rescheduling on our tight schedule is going to be tough.  The only thing to do would be to shoot it on our one open day that was for R&R.  Which means an additional $450 for the crew as well.  That thoughtfulness just keeps on giving. 

We run into trouble again on the waterfront with another police officer.  We saw him walking towards us with his bullhorn and crisp hat and uniform and did our best ostrich in the sand impression.  It didn’t work and we once again handed over our paperwork.  Thankfully, this time, some fast-talking by Ny sent him on his way with a copy of our permit.  We heaved a grateful sigh of relief and spend the rest of the day avoiding spots we see military or police. 

As for the children we spoke to – it was a day of intimate moments.  We met a 12-year-old boy who cares for his little sister.  She had a thick scar on her arm, he explained, because a car had hit her.  He lived on the streets with her and his mother.  His father was dead.  His mother was abusive and bad tempered.  We had the pleasure of meeting this foul-mouthed excuse for a parent when he brought us back to the pagoda to show us where he slept.  She was angry with him and let him know it.  This poor guy actually chased us down after to apologize for his mother’s bad behavior.  He spoke of wanting to go to school, any school, wherever, however.  Without school, he told us, he had no future.  So badly, he said, so badly I want to go to school.  He has never been. 

The next girl we met had no parents.  Her father was a potato farmer and he tripped a land mine one day and blew himself up.  Her mother moved them to the city and began to drink.  She died from alcohol poisoning leaving her daughter to fend for herself on the street.  She lives with a community of homeless people on the riverfront and sleeps on the retaining wall.  When it rains, she takes cover in a nearby prayer station.  She is lucky, she tells us, because she earns a good living of 2000 rels a day (about .50 cents) peeling the skin off frogs at the market at 3 a.m. in the morning. 

A sad looking sixteen year old with a baby slung around her hip catches our eye and Ny  and I chase her down.  She agrees to tell us her story.  Both her parents are dead from alcohol related issues.  She used to live in the Bird’s Nest, which is the slum that recently got “relocated” to the camp.  She was, in fact, burnt out of her home by the government.  She tells us she saw them coming and saw the flames and was able to get her belongings out in time.  She wishes bitterly that she could burn those men in return.  One of her brothers is at the relocation camp.  But she prefers the street.  It is hopeless and awful there.  I agree.  I’ve seen it.  When asked if she wanted to go to school she simply shrugged.  School has little interest for her.  She is only interested in getting enough food to survive day to day. 

Our last boy of the day is strutting along with his arm slung around his best friend.  They are glue addicts.  He is 16, but looks 10.  He is from the country and ran away to the city because he has been hooked on glue since he was twelve.  He used to steal from his family for the money and couldn’t face them so he ran away.  He has been living on the streets as a trash picker ever since.  He says he knows it does bad things to his brain and the hallucinations and trips are really bad but he can’t stop.  He hasn’t tripped today because he hasn’t any money.  I give him oranges, muffin and water and wonder if he’ll eat it or sell it for the glue money. 

It’s been a long day and tomorrow we are headed to Stung Meanchey to interview dump kids.  After listening to the stories of these kids today, I can’t imagine what tomorrow will bring.  But it will bring one ray of light.  I called Scott to tell him about the day and told him about the 12-year-old boy with the abusive mother that wants to go to school so badly.  Scott tells me I can bring him to the CCF.  I am thrilled.  Now we just have to find him tomorrow.  Send thoughts, prayers, energy, good wishes and good luck – that we find this child and convince his mother to let us take him to the shelter.  I’ll bribe her if I have too.  Apparently, that works very well here.

(Tuesday)
July 25

It’s amazing how I keep winding up back at a place I never want to see again - Stung Meanchy.  We pass the dump’s sign on the way in which reads “Helping to keep Phnom Penh beautiful” Ironic words for the ugliness that lies within.  We get there early before the worst heat of the day and discover that it is apparently the height of garbage picking rush hour.  It is absolutely crowded with kids and trucks and the flies are so thick, they rise up in clouds of black by the thousands.  There is plenty of footage for Art to shoot for the B roll between the tractors and the scavenging children:  pulling apart plastics here, separating out garbage from a pile of discarded noodles there.  It is revolting to think that they will consume those noodles later.  I’m thankful I skipped breakfast today and then I’m ashamed of the very thought that I have the freedom to simply skip a meal while these kids pick noodles from fly and maggot filled piles.  

We are having no luck at all getting kids to talk.  Many are too busy and don’t want to miss the good garbage as it comes through.  Others are simply illiterate and cannot really answer the questions with complete thoughts.  They know nothing beyond the dump about life or opportunity.  We meet one girl who was born here.  She is fourteen.  She has been raised literally in the dump and knows nothing else.  Her world is limited to the mountain of rubbish and the sound of dump trucks coming.  For her, there is no future.  Having never been to school and with no hope at her age of starting an education, she is content with her life with no expectations of the future.  Perhaps when you put it in perspective, she is fortunate – she has a life here in the dump with her family and she has not been sold into prostitution.  We here a couple of chilling description from kids on the things they find:  a lower leg, a bag of fetuses…. It chills to the bone. 

Finally, after traipsing through the sinking mounds of filth and rot, we venture to a quieter part of the dump.  A boy calls to us from the top of a small dump truck.  He is willing to be interviewed if we will wait for him to finish his work.  His name is Hov Ngan.  He is 13 years old.  Smart and articulate, he discusses everything from his family life to his work in the dump to his future ambitions.  He doesn’t want to wind up like his father, a life long trash picker.  He tells us foreigners care only for the girls and not for the boys.  Girls are rescued more often and the boys are left behind.  He shows us a wound on his foot where he stepped on a piece of glass the week before.  The entire interview, Ngan is covered in flies and one even perches on his lower lip completely unnoticed by him.  For my part, I am madly waving off the army of bugs coming from the curious boy who has perched at my side.   We decide to cast all our fortunes with this bright, well-spoken youngster and ask if we can visit his home in the dump village.  I privately go off to the side and call Scott to ask if I can bring a 2^nd boy with me.  Scott had previously given me the go head to bring in Chharram, the little street beggar with the little sister from the day before.  He tells me to bring Ngan as well.  While I am talking, a pretty little girl with tears running down her face comes up to me and throws herself in my arms.  It is Layseng, one of the girls from CCF and a child we are profiling in the project.  She came home to the dump the night before to visit her dying father, who is suffering from sclerosis of the liver.  She missed the Tuk Tuk back to CCF for school that morning and was sad and worried about her father.  Mind you, this is a man who has beaten her and treated her like an animal in the dump, yet her love and affection for him is like that of any child with their beloved parent.  She hasn’t eaten, needs to get back to school and is worried about her hungry family.   I hug her and tell her I will take care of everything.  We follow Ngan and Layseng to the village and spend time with each of their families.  Layseng’s mother, father and baby sister live in a well built hut that Scott at CCF financed.  It is still rough and meager by any standards, but it is on stilts off the ground with two levels.  One for sleeping and one for gathering.  Each space is about 8’x10’.  Her family speaks to us about surviving the Khmer Rouge, the government and its abandonment of the poor and how they miss their daughter but are happy she is getting an education. 

Over at Ngan’s place, his mother is thrilled to see us.  Turns out she knows the CCF.  Two of Ngan’s sisters, much to my surprise, are already there at the shelter.  I instruct the mother to bring Ngan at 2 p.m. for an interview to be considered and she is very grateful.  Although Ngan is the best garbage picker and earns the most money for the family, she wants him to get an education instead.  She quickly cleans her hovel with pride and invites me to sit inside and speak with her.  As we talk, I can’t help but notice the muddy, dirt floor foul with run off from the dump which is a mere hundred yards from the door.  Our conversation is sound tracked with the roar of the bulldozers and flies buzz around us in swarms.  Seven people live in this little hut of mud and wood.  

When we have finished, we take four large bags of fruit we have brought with us and hand them out to the children in the village along with gumball vitamins and lollipops.  Layseng takes all of her fruit and keeps none for herself.  Instead, she brings it to her family.  She is returning to CCF and wants her family to enjoy the fruit instead.  I am touched by her selflessness.  We drop her off on the way back to our hotel for a much needed shower. 

After lunch, Ny  and I head to the National Museum to try and find Chharram, our little beggar.  He manages to find us instead and takes us to his mother, where some persuasive talking on Ny’s part and a couple hundred rel on mine, convince her to let us take Chharram to CCF for an interview to be considered for school.  Chharram will not leave his baby sister unattended, knowing full well his mother will simply roll back over on her pallet on the sidewalk and go back to sleep.  His little sister is adorable, devoted to him and at 3, very bright.  Both she and her brother are quick, intelligent children with charming personalities and we are all instantly in love with them both.  Chharram is beside himself with happiness.  He is so excited for the chance to possibly go to school. 

We get to CCF and are met there by Ngan and his mother as well.  Both boys are a little overwhelmed by the facility and feeling a bit out of place.  Chharram privately tells us he is ashamed to be seen there because he is just a beggar boy and the kids there are so smart and clean.  We tell him how precious and smart he is and that ALL the kids there are street and dump kids just like him.  The staff gets bowls of food out and the kids wolf it down in minutes.  Scott’s father sneaks in some ice cream and Ngan doesn’t eat his.  He later tells us, shyly and embarrassed, that he didn’t know HOW to eat it.  Can you imagine?  Before we start his paperwork, we have Fiona, the registered CCF nurse, clean the foot wound and dress it. 

Both of the boys’ interviews go very well and we are thrilled that Scott agrees to take both boys.  However, there is a catch.  Chharram's mother must return with us in the morning for an interview and give her consent to let him start classes.  Ny  and I are very nervous.  We both want Chharram to get the chance to have an education and are not sure we can convince the mother to return with us.  We return to the sidewalk where she is and Ny  basically flatters her into agreeing to return with us.  Both of us are grinning like fools.  Hopefully tomorrow will bring the start of a new chance for Ngan and Chharrom and for all of us, a chance to witness potential growth into something so much more than we could ever imagine.

(Wednesday)
July 26

It has been the most rewarding and amazing day.  We were a little nervous as we headed to Chharram’s street corner, worried that his mother would change her mind at the last moment.  Chharram was grinning from ear to ear when we pulled up.  His little sister jumped into my arms and his mother greeted us warmly with the traditional flat clasped hands and short bow.  We loaded in the van and headed to CCF for the mother’s interview – the last step in getting Chharram enrolled as a student there.  All of our worries were put to rest.  Chharram was not only a perfect candidate for the shelter, but his mother agreed to let him live there and study full time.  Ny and I were exchanging high fives out of sight of the camera during the interview process.  After the formal paperwork was done, we had our driver take the mother and little sister back to their street corner.  Unfortunately, the little sister is not old enough for CCF yet, but here is hoping that in two years, she too will be enrolled.  She has already won the hearts of the whole staff.  Giggling, playing and throwing herself into everyone’s arms.  Even Art is charmed by her as he throws her in the air a couple of times, then settles on the floor to play alphabet puzzles with her.  I am fairly certain she will fit in my carry on and Cambodian customs is very lax, but the other LAX in my future  - not so much.  Los Angeles airport is a bit stricter and I’m fairly certain they will notice a three year old in my bag. 

It is transformation time.  Chharram is brought to the showers and scrubbed down.  He reemerges wearing a school uniform, slickly combed back hair and a smile to break your heart.  He is overjoyed and cannot quite believe his dream that he so wistfully told us about Monday in an interview on the side of the road, while he was clad only in shorts and filthy dirty is coming true.  To see this life transforming before our eyes is richly rewarding.  When you look at the big picture in Cambodia and see everything that is wrong, you cannot help but be discouraged and wonder what good any small amount of help can do.  I promise you, these little things matter.  Seeing that bright, exceptional boy dressed in school clothes and beaming with pride, made every difficult day here worthwhile.  The staff gave him school supplies next and a new backpack to put it in.  Then he was brought to class and introduced.  It didn’t take him long to fit right in.  He chatted animatedly with the other kids.   Ny  and I watching on the video monitor were completely enthralled at the transformation before us.  Suddenly, Ny exclaimed in delight.  Sitting two seats over from Chharram, unnoticed by us was Ngan!  He was so changed from the boy we met in the dump yesterday we didn’t even recognize him!  Apparently, Scott agreed to his admission late yesterday evening after we had already left and he was in class that morning starting his new academic career as well.  Talk about exhilarating.  Ny turned to me and smiled.  “Two lives.”  She said.  “Two lives changing before our eyes.”  

We were not the only ones smiling.  Leakhena was flashing a thousand watt gem.  Her little brother, still clad in the school clothes we bought him in Battambang that he wore to his interview yesterday, was there in her arms.  He also has been accepted.  It was a red-letter day.  Three boys - one from the street, one from the dump and one left at a pagoda by his mother  - all have found a new future and home at CCF.  How privileged we are to witness this moment.  I can only pray that their fortunes stay favored.  It is not a stretch to see Chharram’s mother pulling him out of school because she runs low on money and needs him to beg – or for Ngan’s family to need him back at the dump.  His mother told us only yesterday that he earned the most money for the family.  But today we will not think of such possibilities.  Today is a day of celebration. 

With perhaps a small exception.  Chharram’s teeth are in wretched shape.  Twelve years of street living and neglect have left him with a mouthful of problems.  We bring him to the dentist in the afternoon – the first he has ever seen.  It is quite a job to tackle.  He gets a cleaning and several crowns.  He also needs teeth extracted, but he has had enough for one afternoon and has a headache.  He is scheduled for the extraction another day.  On the way back to CCF we stop at his street corner so he can show his mother his uniform and backpack of supplies. Sadly, for the first time ever, she is not napping on her pallet.  The squatters nearby don’t know where she is but they are watching his sister.  He hops out for a few minutes with her and a quick bowl of rice the neighbor’s provide.  Then it is back to school for our budding scholar.  He has an education and a future to get too.  And he is in quite a hurry.

(Thursday)
July 27

Today was a fairly light film day.  Art and I went out to get some establishing shots of the city and made sure to have our hotel call for Vantha, our favorite Tuk Tuk driver.  We made the mistake of not using him yesterday instead of waiting for him.  Art wanted to film a sunset and we asked another driver to take us to a spot on the other side of where we were in order to film it.  He insisted he knew what we meant, but of course did not.  We wound up getting a very long tour of the city, not getting the sunset, but we did get a nice close up of him stopping to pee on the side of the road.  You think I would have learned my lesson in March when Theresa and I didn’t use Vantha one time and wound up lost in a dark alley in a remote part of the city.  There is only one thing I have learned for sure here in Cambodia.  There is NO other Tuk Tuk driver but Vantha.  

After getting our city shots, we went to CCF to interview Layseng.  Fate doesn’t always unfold your way when working with kids and Layseng is in bed with Pink Eye.  As it is contagious and not really a good image for the camera, plus the fact it makes her feel lousy, it is not going to be the best moment for the interview.  We hope it will clear up by Monday; otherwise, her interview will have to wait till January.  Such are the breaks of the documentary filmmaker. 

We take advantage of the extra time and decide to try and get into the S21 Genocide museum and The Killing Fields with our camera gear.  Ny, our amazing translator, not only talks our way in, but we don’t have to pay at S21.  I ask her what she said and she shrugged.  “You know, I just tell them non profit project, spreading awareness, blah, blah, blah.”  I will try Blah, Blah, Blah the next time I need to sweet talk someone.  The Killing Fields lets us in as well after I fill out an additional application and fork over $25 in fees.  We spend some time shooting footage of the skulls, bones and bits of clothing left from the people who were murdered there during the genocide.  Two women from Idaho stop to ask what we are doing and leave with the website info and a promise to spread the word about the project.  Building awareness of the film one random person at a time.  

Now I’m taking an hour to myself before we head back to CCF to film a music class.  Then we are calling it a night and getting ready to head to Kandal countryside tomorrow with two of our boys, Meng Ly and Saroeurn.  Chances are we’ll be out of touch for a few days again so I expect lots of messages and emails when we get back!  

Peace and Love – Heather

(Friday)
July 28

Was it only last weekend I was complaining about the road to the village in Battambang?  We didn’t know how good we had it.  Poor Nin, she of the car sick prone constitution, is once again installed in the front seat of our decrypted van as we bounce and slide precariously along on the road to Prek Dach, the village in the Kandal province where Meng Ly, one of our documentary boys, grew up.  We stop at a market before heading onto the village roads to buy a case of noodles for the family as a gift.  SoPhy returns with a little something extra – Durian fruit for Art.  I swear he’s going out the van door down an embankment when he least expects it. 

Our Cambodian fixer, Borom, had confidently reassured us that Kandal was only twenty minutes away.   After spending so much time here, I have discovered that asking for directions from a Cambodian is like getting directions from an American male.  They will never admit when they are lost or heartily insist the village is just around the next bend.

The roads are in terrible shape and washed out in sections along the way.  The van screams in protest as our driver forcefully shifted gears trying to maintain control on the backcountry road to Prek Dach.  The mud and holes are so deep in certain areas, we have a real concern we may get stuck and actually begin discussing sleeping in the van if we cannot get out.  At a particularly bad spot next to a large tree and a small hut, the van loses traction and begins to slide sideways.  We narrowly miss taking out the hut’s front porch and slide backwards down a short incline missing the tree by inches.  I am concerned we will hit the tree trying to power our way back up and I have Meng Ly and Saroeurn switch seats with me in case we crash and the window breaks.   Three tries later, our masterful driver, Poun Maub, however navigates his way out of this mess.  We applaud his efforts but he smiles and assures us it is far from over. 

It takes two hours to wind us through this thriving farming village to Meng Ly’s house.  Cows and kids are everywhere.  Simple wooden huts on stilts are built close together with a real sense of community.  To our left, a large lake muddy brown and choppy.  To our right, acres of corn with their tall green stalks bending in the breeze-  the local farmer’s mainstay.  The local children are getting a kick out of the stupid westerns in the large van trying to navigate the treacherously slick and deep muddy roads.  Suddenly a bridge loomed before us.  Art and I look at this dilapidated structure in dismay.  The bridge is framed in rusted metal with planks and saplings spread across it for support.  There are rather large HOLES in the side big enough for, I don’t know, perhaps a van tire to simply fall through.  We start over very slowly, slowly enough to read the sign on the side with a picture of a truck with a big X through it.  I poke my head and camera out the side to snap a picture of the giant holes mere inches from where our driver is slowly navigating along.  Art makes the helpful comment that the metal is rusted through in some spots.  We make it over, much to our relief and promptly get stuck again.  But at last we get through it and arrive at Meng Ly’s home.  By western standards it is a simple affair.  A large basic wood home on stilts with two levels.  Below the first level under the house are spots to cook and to the manger the cows.  Meng Ly introduces his family:  Mother, Father, Brothers and Grandmother.  They all bid us welcome and spread out their best mat for the floor and ask us to sit.  The grandmother is fascinated with me.  She tells Nin, our CCF chaperone, that I am a funny looking Cambodian that doesn’t speak Khmer.  Nin explains I am a western.  She pokes and prods at me like cattle on its way to market.  After she feels up the muscles in my arms, she declares I am worthy.  They offer to let us spend the night, but the crew is exhausted and not really interested in anything other than an actual hotel.  We start back the way we came and it isn’t long before we are deep in the quicksand of the road again.  The locals, especially the children, are highly amused by us.  We can almost see them thinking “What are these nutty foreigners doing trying to traverse the road again?  At one spot, I am fairly certain I see a group of men giving odds and taking bets on whether we will get through.  We don’t.  After narrowly missing a traveling butcher on a motorbike, who nearly loses control of his bike as we fishtail by him, we are stuck fast in the mud.  We decide to use the amused locals to our advantage and wave a few dollar bills out of the window.  Instantly, we have a half a dozen boys pushing the van.  As soon as we are out, I hand the bills to one of the boys.  He takes off yelling down the road in the rain, waving the two dollars over his head like it was the Stanley Cup.  The other boys are hot on his heels and we are finally on our way.  

Our hopes of finding accommodations in Kandal are quickly dashed when the town simply comes to an end at the river.  There is a ferry crossing and it appears that is our only option to find lodging for the night.  The ferry-crossing roundabout is a beggar’s haven and children and street vendors are everywhere.  A badly disfigured girl with no hands and awkwardly bent legs shuffles toward us.  She is quite adept with her stumps and makes the rels we give her disappear into her bag before any of the other children ever notice.  I suffer a moments frustration knowing that her parents, if she has them, are probably somewhere nearby and not begging themselves when they can send out their daughter with her sympathetic disabilities to do it for them.  So while they sit, she wanders for hours walking on the sides of her bent feet.  The ferry arrives and we drive aboard.  I am mentally rehearsing what I will do if this rust bucket tips over when SoPhy calls our attention to a train in front of us.  We ohhhhh and ahhhh before we realize that it isn’t a train but the moving shoreline.  We’ve already disembarked.  Yeah, we’re a little tired. 

On the other side of the river, a cracked, half lit sign reading “Chinese otel” seems our most likely bet.  IF they can’t afford the H in the sign, it can’t be that expensive.  SoPhy and Nin hop out to negotiate a room rate and within a few minutes, we are the only ones renting three rooms there for the night.  $11 sounds like a steal till we saw the rooms.  I checked out the prison style bathroom first with its showerhead protruding out of the wall next to the toilet.  A couple of cute lizards scurried across the wall, much to Nin’s dismay.  When I went to lock it, the lock fell off and bounced across the floor.  My sheets were a suspicious tint of white and brown and the air conditioner hummed at a steady 80 degrees.  The boys thought we were lucky.  Their toilet was completely broken off and black with grime.  We settled in for dinner at the hotel restaurant, as we were rather limited on options.  Limited indeed.  The menu boasted such fair as beef intestines with squid sauce and stuffed whole frogs.  My stomach roiled in protest and I opted for the safest looking item on the menu with a beer to kill any germs.  We headed to bed only to be woken up by an overzealous construction crew around 4 a.m. banging their hammers.   At 5 a.m., my angry sound guy was yelling out the window at them in colorful Khmer phrases to no avail.  Welcome to another morning in Cambodia.

(Saturday)
July 29

After the pleasant fare on the menu the night before at the hotel restaurant, I opt to skip breakfast altogether.  I have no desire to get sick or have to use a bathroom here after a rather vivid description of a local water closet and the need to “deet” my backside because of the amount of flies.  We head back to wait for the ferry and SoPhy continues his quest to revolt me by buying Art a large bag of deep fried crickets.  Art, ever the hungry one, is eager to try and encourages me to participate.  Since I wouldn’t even eat breakfast at our sketchy hotel that morning, I have no idea why he thinks I would suddenly be craving toasted insects.  And certainly not after SoPhy warns against getting a “soggy” one.  Art pops a few in his mouth and decides they are not so good after all.  Well, I certainly could have told him that BEFORE he put one in his mouth.  

We slip, slide, curse and glide our way down the slick mud road to Meng Ly’s house once more.  I am fairly certain we have left portions of our van in various places along the way.  The boys are happy to see us and we spend some time talking to the parents about their lives and the difficulties of surviving as farmers in the provinces and the lack of opportunity for the young people there.  They are so happy that Meng Ly is living at CCF and getting a chance at a better life.  We film them as they go about their every day activities.  Meng Ly chops wood, builds a fire and helps his mother prepare food.  His father digs large baskets of dirt from the cornfields and hauls them back to work on a barrier against the rain.  We spend some time getting some establishing shots of the cornfield and quickly discover how boring corn looks on film.  Then Art notices a large frog on the ground.  In an effort to stage a small boy farm scene, he tells Meng Ly’s younger brother to catch the frog.  He happily obliges and we smile in amusement as he pounces through the corn stalks chasing the frog. 

            “WARNING TO MY GUY DYLAN THE FROG LOVER – DON'T READ THE NEXT PARAGRAPH” 

Our happy scene takes quite an unexpected turn however, when the boy catches the frog and before our shocked and quite unprepared eyes, he grabs the frog by the back legs and rips it apart, flinging it in the air.  I am treated to a rather gross close up of this on the monitor and Nin, Art, SoPhy and I are a bit speechless.  I accuse Art of involuntary Frogacide and we decide this is footage that will never see the light of day.  Then we realize his little brother has caught yet another frog.  We holler at Nin to tell him to stop killing the frogs and hustle him out of the cornfield to where the family is preparing to eat lunch.  We decide now is a perfect time to take a break in the air conditioned van from the oppressive heat and disturbing serial amphibian killing and drink some water.  And try not to think about stuffed frogs on the menu and how they might have gotten there. 

There is only one option for lunch at a small “restaurant” in the village.  Restaurant is a strong word.  Let us instead call it a hut with a couple of fly covered plastic tables and chairs.  There is an open fire and a pot, on which the proprietor is cooking the one option for lunch.  Noodles in broth with pig’s meat.  There is a picture of a pig on the sign out front and raw pork sitting in a bowl with bugs on the floor.  Art and I politely ask for our noodle soup sans pork.  Our three Cambodian crewmates don’t seem to be bothered by this and apparently have steel lined stomachs.  A glass of brackish warm water with used plastic chopsticks is placed on the table for our use.  Art urgently asks if I brought my disposable ones with me but Nin is one step ahead of us.  She has asked for a glass of boiling water and is busy disinfecting the chopsticks.  I watch in fascination as a boy rigs up a fan for us by taking the exposed ends of two stripped fan wires and shoves them into a socket.  When he doesn’t fall over from electric shock, a nice breeze emerges to cool us off.  I eat about a half a dozen bites of the noodles and opt to wait for dinner.  I may lose weight this trip after all. 

When we return, Meng Ly and Saroeurn have changed into old clothes and wide hats and are carrying home made fishing poles to head to the river to fish.  We follow them to the river and learn a bit about their fishing technique.  Art and I try a hand at it, but none of us actually catch anything – the river is too high and the current to fast this afternoon.  We finish the day with Meng Ly’s formal interview and wrap it up just in time.  The rain clouds are rolling in and we need to get out of the village fast before it starts to come down and floods the road, trapping us.  We hustle the equipment back to the van and say our goodbyes.  We’re heading back a day early but don’t dare stay with the rains coming.  We’ve gotten what we came for however and all of us are eager to be back in the city for a shower and a real bathroom.  On the way, we stop at a roadside stand where they are boiling corn and buy some hot ears for the road.  We can’t go all the way to Kandal and not have some of the corn we reason.  Of course, once I unwrap my steaming brownish stalk, I realize I probably COULD have done without it.  But when in Rome – I bit in.

(Sunday)
July 30

Being back a day early has left Art and I with little to do on this hot and humid Sunday.  We sleep in for a change and head back to shoot W’aht Phnom’s pagoda from a distance since we were banned from filming there.  We find a spot to get a good shot with the wide-angle lens and I point out to Art that we are next to the giant American embassy.  A guard waves at us and we wave back and point to the pagoda to demonstrate what we are filming.  However, once we pack up our bags and climb back into our Tuk Tuk, we are pulled over by two security guards.  Welcome to a post 9-11 world.  They are friendly but persistent.  No one is allowed to film the embassy.  We identify ourselves as Americans, show him our film permit and explain we were not filming the embassy.  He asks how he can believe us and Art offers to show him the footage he just shot.  The guard agrees and Art shows him the footage through the viewfinder.  Satisfied we have not breeched national security, he shakes Art’s hand and we continue on our way. 

We decide to head to CCF to see if we can get some footage of our kids on the weekend when they are not in school.  Turns out CCF is fairly empty on the weekends.  Most of the kids are off visiting family, visiting friends, out at extra curricular classes, etc.  The only one there from the project is Meng Ly whom we just returned with.  There is no English speaking staff there for us to communicate with either so we opt to head back to the hotel.  But first I spend a few moments with my sponsor child, Lyda, who is there.  I also buy a ton of junk food across the street and distribute it to the kids.  I put Meng Ly in charge of distribution.  He holds up his hands and announces, “Candy for everyone!”  We leave a bunch of happy kids.

On a side note, I thought you might all enjoy an update on the baby in the relocation center.  I spoke to Fiona a few days ago.  She had been back out to the camp to do medical checks on the woman with the gangrene hand and the new infant baby.  The woman with the hand was not there, having been taken to a hospital for surgery.  However, the new baby and his parents were.  Happily, a non-profit had bought them a pallet bed and they were up off the ground and out of the water.  The baby was thriving and the mother was much better and no longer fighting her infection.  The family was just beaming with pride over their new addition.  Fiona said despite where they were; they were doing much better and enjoying being new parents.  The little baby boy was healthy.  A bit of good news. 

Art and I decide to head to the Russian market to do a little shopping – Art for his wife and for myself, a large selection of the gorgeous Khmer silk scarves and bags for the next fund raiser photography exhibit.  Several are already earmarked for people who put in requests for them before I left.  While we were finishing up, the rain clouds rolled in.  We made it to a restaurant near our hotel before the skies really opened up.  Also avoiding the rain was a French teacher from Holland and her daughter on holiday.  We struck up a friendly conversation with them as the torrential rains and leaking roof drove us all from our original tables.  The mother was very interested in the documentary project and we exchanged emails so she could be kept updated on the film’s progression.  She also wanted to check out the website to share with her class back in Holland.  From Idaho to Holland to New Zealand to England, we have really been spreading the word and building the email list here.  It’s really been thrilling.  We spent the rainy afternoon at the documentation center at the S21 museum watching a French documentary on the Khmer Rouge genocide and have headed back to our hotels the enjoy our one day to ourselves.  I plan on getting a nice foot massage to wrap up the day and look forward with some sadness to tomorrow, our last day of filming here in Cambodia.  It will be a day of farewells to the children and to our Cambodian film crew who has worked so tirelessly for me here during this production run.  I can’t wait to see the kids and will be sorry to leave them behind.  And by this Internet extension, I hope you will miss them too and keep following their stories as we do.  Till tomorrow then.

(Monday)
July31

We’re nearing the end of our run here and both Art and I are tired and ready to come home to California.  (I’m sure Art’s wife is ready too)  It will take some time to process everything I have seen and gotten footage of and now I am about to embark on the exciting third phase of the project, the beginning of the editing process.  Hopefully, by the time we return to Cambodia in January, we will have a rough cut ready of the film. 

We began our last day filming by heading to CCF for Layseng’s formal interview.  On our two previous attempts to interview her, she was either sick or in a distraught mood.   Honestly, I was expecting to arrive and not have her available thus putting off the interview till January.  However, not only was she finally ready, she was in quite a talkative mood, speaking for more than a half an hour about her life.  She basically talked longer than all the other CCF kids put together.  It was wonderful and she shared many moments about her life that were insightful and touching.  Layseng is a child from Stung Meanchy.  She worked in the dump for long days scraping through the trash heaps looking for things to sell.  She spoke of her alcoholic father and how her parents would fight.  She also told how afraid of the big trucks she was - her uncle fell asleep on night at the dump and had his head run over by one of the trucks, killing him.  She also wants very badly to learn English so she can speak to foreigners that come to visit.  Layseng has always been a sickly child and suffered tremendously in the dump while she lived there.  When she came to CCF she had a host of medical problems that they are still working to solve.  She had just returned that weekend from a visit to the dump to see her parents and small baby sister.  The evidence of the trip was quite visible – she had picked up lice while she was there.  Art has been teasing me the whole trip about my cuddling with the children and coming home with it myself.  He’s got me so paranoid, I’ve been checking in the mirror three times day. 

After lunch we brought our little guy Chharram to visit his mother and sister.  He was very excited.  We got another lesson in just how smart this street boy is when I told Ny something in English about heading over there in a Tuk Tuk and he proceeded to translate the whole conversation into Khmer.  Although he cannot speak it very well, his English comprehension is really outstanding.  Once we got to his family’s street corner we greeted his mother.  Chharram spent a few moments with her but his primary mission was to find his baby sister.  He ran through the courtyard of a nearby pagoda calling her name.  Suddenly, she appeared buck naked and soaking wet from where she had been playing in a tub of water.  Her mother stuck some pants on her while she flirted with us from a distance.  As soon as she was clothed, she ran with outstretched arms into Chharram’s.  They both laughed with delight and he scooped her up in his arms.  They spend some time hugging and chatting and playing for the camera.  It was so touching to see how deep their bond us.  Everyone is determined to make sure as soon as she is old enough, his sister will join him at CCF.  Art decided they both needed shoes so we walked with the kids to the corner market where he bought them both a pair of socks and shoes.  I always suspected he was an old softie.  They were delighted with their new possessions and strutted back to their mother’s pallet to show them off.  Too soon we had to gather Chharram to return to school.  He said his goodbyes and hopped back in the Tuk Tuk.  As we drove by his old beggar stomping grounds by the National Museum, he couldn’t resist calling out to and waving at his old gang with a bit of smug pride at his new status as a school boy.  Who could blame him?  A lot has changed in this boy’s life in just one week.  Once we returned, Allie told me Chharram had just been enrolled in a photography class.  He was very excited.  We said our goodbyes to the kids for a few hours to head back to the hotel to freshen up.  Borom, Ny, SoPhy, Pou Mab, Art, myself, Nin, Allie, Fiona and Scott are all having a wrap party dinner tonight to celebrate the end of the shoot.  Art and I are flying to Taipei tomorrow and will be attempting to get on a standby flight to Los Angeles once we get there otherwise it is another night in Taipei and then on to Los Angeles Wednesday.  This will be the last blog entry of the trip.  As we get ready to embark on that long 24-hour travel day, I’ll be leaving with a sense of pride in what has been accomplished, not simply for the project, but for two boys – one from the streets and one from the dumps, who have found new life in a safe haven.  They are just two out of thousands, but their stories, lives and voices are just as important.

(Tuesday)
August 1

Heather and Art are Traveling Home!

(Wednesday)
August 2

Heather and Art are Traveling Home!