Chopsticks

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?