Mondulkiri Feb 26

I am now on my vacation from my vacation which turned out to be a lot of work. I left the hotel in Phnom Penh and was driven here in a 6.5 hour ride in a shared taxi. I bought the front seat for $25 and four Cambodians were in the back. I listened to loud Cambodian music and dozed off and on until we reached this amazing new road built by the Chinese which when finished is supposed to turn this area into a mecca for eco-tourism. So instead of heading to a beachside resort which Lauren and I already enjoyed in Thailand I am here for a home stay and a trek into the jungle and a night in a hammock. A khmer friend lent me his hammock as he says the net has a zipper and works great and it appears to be US Army issue.
Interesting was that the taxi ran on petrol and on liquid propane as the latter is cheaper.
Now waiting for my guide and my adventure to begin.

February 24 and 25th

I have been here in Phnom Penh meeting with our two personalities that we are featuring Boomer and Hengly in our film before taking a 4 day hiatus to Mondulkiri. I will post some of my photos. It has been a scavenger hunt for almost two months to come up with characters and a story line and I am sure what I have lined up will change by the happenings of filming and of course by the creative talent of L and L. ( Lyman and Lauren). Tonight I have finished my task and will now turn it over to the real artists who shall need to make art out of my palate. I am confident they will do so.
As I meet our characters I can not help but think what separates me from them. It is only the accident of birth. And they are separated also from a life of poverty and depravity by the accident of what?? A chance meeting of an American in the case of Hengly, a tut tut ride in the case of Chai, a shot at becoming a beautician in the case of Nak, getting deported in the case of Boomer.Life is chance. It is crazy why am I not a villager here. Or more realistically why am I not in my homeland some village in Russia where most of my ancestor's came from. No, I am through chance an American living with a wonderful woman Lauren with four children and four grandchildren and living the experience of a lifetime.

February 23

I am now in Phnom Penh starting yet another adventure. I flew here this afternoon and find this to be a real city with a vibrancy that is lacking everywhere else I have been. It is like arriving in NYC. Everything is more, more busy, more people, more traffic, more fancy cars, more crowded. I could not get into any of the sought after recommended hotels so I had to settle for the best deal which is a hotel with a casino. I figured it would be a good deal because as in Vegas the Hotel makes it on the gambling and not the rooms. I was right for $80 a night I have a fantastic modern room with all of the conveniences and my neck is still a problem so I ventured into the spa which was the best of any I have experienced in Cambodia.
So try and picture this for $25 they take you to a room which has in it a bed, a massage table, a jacuzzi, a steam and a sauna and after the massage you have 30 minutes of free time to enjoy. The masseuse was a lovely cute innocent 23 year old, all legitimate and I came out feeling like I had gone to heaven. I then went to the Italian restaurant in the hotel and had some insalata and pasta. They did not sell wines by the glass and I could not stand the thought of another beer so I bought a bottle of Valpolicello. They will keep what you do not drink for three days and yes I did leave close to a half bottle.
I sat by myself reminiscing to myself about spending almost two months helping create a film. What a gift to be so engaged with this project. I know the idea is to make a full length film but we could just do a number of short documentaries. I met one of our characters Boomer in his teen drop in center where they are doing rap, break dancing and they have a sound studio.Plan to spend most of tomorrow hanging with him. Also negotiating for a helicopter and met one company and will meet another tomorrow. The cost of an hour is over $2,000 but I think we must do it.

Feb 21 Jon's Birthday party

Lauren and I have met Jon Morgan who is from Rhode Island and been here in Cambodia for 13 years or more. He was the director of the Angkor Hospital for Children and now is the founder of The Lake Clinic which provides health care to 7 of the floating villages on Tonle Sap lake. Anyway he lives in the Village with his Japanese wife Mieko and their amazing 8 year od daughter Rikki who speaks English like a Rhode Islander, Khmer like a Villager and some Japanese.
I went to his Birthday party after my moto taxi driver got lost and we ended up in a Japanese agricultural farm cooperative. I finally arrived and it was not long that an American named Marvin from Arizona introduced himself. Well we did our Jewish geography and yes. He had gone to Umass Amherst and graduated 10 years before me and was a fraternity brother of mine and there we were in Cambodia singing " down at 136 that is where the Pi boys bring their chicks". I am posting a picture of us. I met Allie who we hope to have in our next movie and posting a picture of the doctor from ANgkor Hospital for Children who was in our first movie. Drank a lot of beer and stayed away from the recreational drugs.

Feb 19-20, office day and an adventure

I spent Friday by starting with a long skype conference call to Lauren and Lyman as time is now getting short before they arrive and we begin shooting. The heat for them will be oppressive and we have a tight schedule that involves two nights in a village and a helicopter ride. So I spent the day on the phone and at my computer lining things up. Skype for free is such an amazing service. I was even able to take a snapshot of my new grandson Zachary and post it as my picture on skype. I worked out in the afternoon and ate at home for dinner, so I had a sort of hum drum day for Cambodia. I also learned that Walgreens bought out Duane Reade so I doubt that my efforts during the last four months before I headed here in the NY burroughs will produce any results and now doubtful I have much of a career left with Walgreens. So I am 4 months shy of receiving social security and may now be a film guy and a fisherman.
Saturday I went to the top of a mountain about an hour and half out of Siem Reap to scout out a waterfall there and a river site where we hope to shoot monks giving a blessing. The Chief monk was not there so we were not able to shoot but we got all of the contact info and viewed the sites. The only real way to make anything happen in this business of film making is to meet in person.
Then we did a hike over basaltic lava and into the jungle for an hour in the sun and heat to see an elephant and three lions sculpted out of rock in the 11th century. Before that we visited a pagoda that is at the top of the mountain where you can see Tonle Sap ( the lake) and the town of Siem Reap. The khmer rouge controlled this strategic area until 1998 and there are signs around indicating that the area has been cleared on land mines by Halo and CMAC. Then we had lunch beside the river in a grass roofed hut. Beer rice chicken lemon grass and pork soup. We fed our leftovers to kids hanging around us who were also playing in the river. Some could not swim so they stuffed empty plastic water bottles in their shorts to be able to float. I took a swim underneath the waterfall. I rented a bathing suit for 50 cents.
Exhausted and dirty returned and showered and had dinner with Sam to discuss my project of getting his donors to now spring for money to build bio sand filters. I crashed around 10.

February 17 and 18th

I had a queasy stomach the night before which by morning I was OK. My " cast iron" stomach continues to serve me well. I think I ate a salad that was not good the day before at the local pastry ice cream restaurant where all of the westerners hang out called the Blue Pumpkin. The local advice is to stay away from the food on Pub street as this is the westerner ( barang) hang out; and that the local khmer food is more sanitary and better prepared and I tend to agree.

All day I spent at Phare Ponleu Selpak seeing their school, visual aids, animation studio ( told them about my star niece Danielle at Pixar) and watched the circus kids practice. I had an interview again with Det and met Phnom, who is to be one of our primary characters. Later in the day visited her home in the village and met her Mother and interviewed her. She is 18 and was a street kid rubbish collector. Her father died of aids and was a gambler and drinker and her brother died in a traffic accident. Her MOther has AIDS and she now is an international circus performer. She will make a great personality for us.
I had a chinese Khmer driver Mister Khor, who I pushed hard to get him to agree to drive me back the 2.5 hours to Siem Reap that night at 8 Pm. He told me he usually is asleep by 9 but does get up at 4:30 a.m to exercise by running around the gardens in front of the Grand Hotel where Lauren and I first stayed what seems like a very long time ago when we were just tourists, hesitant to venture out of our 5 star cocoon. My driver had to stop for a cold can of red bull to be able to deliver me home safely.
Spoke to Lauren on skype and got to bed way too late. I got up at 6 as I needed to bike to meet the Trailblazer van heading to the dedication of a school they built with rotary help in Ta Trav village. The school cost $51,000 to build and with double sessions serves over 400 students. Fortunately the speeches were short and the dignitary was in a hurry. The ribbon was cut and we dined at 10 a.m in the morning on rice noodles, fish sauce, green papaya salad and a wonderful green curry sauce.
Met an interesting woman from Canada who spends six months a year here giving out bicycles in poor rural areas so kids can travel to school. The bike with lamp, bell, lock, basket and kickstand, ( all the bells and whistles) oh a pun!)costs $31. She told me about refugee camps where the Burmese are escaping persecution on the Thai border. There are 5 camps and over 200,000 people there and " would make a wonderful documentary". Our next project, maybe. She also told me of a democratic movement in the country side lead by a former member of parliament who quit and is now going into the villages to talk to young villagers to tell them that they do have choices in the world. A week ago this is a lead I would have followed up on but now it is all about getting our filming schedule nailed down.
Had dinner at home after meeting Noung to plan a trip to Kulan mountain on Saturday and my vacation to Mondulkiri. I got up at 4:30 a.m. to be a witness to my fourth grandchild's ritual circumcision that was happening in Austin Texas; but Greta was I am sure too busy to remember to turn skype on. Understand it went well and Zachary age 8 days is now clipped.

February16

I spoke with Tobias Rose Stockwell in California, who is a 29 year old dynamic humanitarian who came to Cambodia as a 22 year old. He had previously been a volunteer working in Thailand and then came to Cambodia and met Chai as a tut tut driver. Tobias has founded an NGO called Human Translation whose major accomplishment is to be reconstruct a reservoir and is now in the process of rebuilding the canal system. Chai is a Khmer who will be one of our major characters and Tobias and I spoke of how to present Chai’s story to the screen in an engaging way. Chai was a boy soldier for the Khmer Rouge and his memories are very painful and hard to get him to verbalize. The conclusion I got was that a visit to Chai’s village or the lingo here is a visit to the “homeland” , aside from the vital visual beauty and interest, would be the optimum way of extracting his story.

This conversation was all in preparation for my scheduled day with Chai to visit the canal project. Chai picked me up in the four wheel drive Toyota work horse truck and we then want to his fiancee’s house to pick up supplies for the canal workers, that consisted of about 40 shovels. However, these shovels, made in china by the way, come with no handles as the workers fashion them from wood from the forest.

Chai is getting married in April after a very difficult 7 year courtship. This is a modern love relationship in which Chai is marrying well up in class from his humble homeland beginnings near the Thai border. Apparently the first three years of dating was kept a secret from her parents and Chai had to earn the right to marry into the family. A significant dowry is customary to be given by the groom to the bride’s family to help pay for the elaborate 2-3 day wedding which is the Cambodian style. I met the financee and took pictures of her family’s home.

We went to the canal, where there was 280 local villagers from the community that the canal will ultimately serve, digging the canal by hand It will take about four months to do and should be open to coincide with the beginning of rainy season that begins in July. By using these workers it makes the community a vital part of the project and vests their interest in the success. Chai is the engineer of the project and now is a principal in a local NGO ( Community Translations) that is in partnership with Human Translations in a model of an international NGO ( HT) working with an indigenously registered NGO ( CT) to provide sustainability and empowerment to Kkmers and in this case by not using an outside contractor with heavy earth moving machinery, providing employment to the community as well as a psychological bonding to the project. Taking pictures of the scenery ,the hand digging the canal with the colorful people and the exotically beautiful dry country side was such a joy. I walked down the canal and photographed the people after stopping for a while for them to comfortable with me and my greeting them and conversing in my very very limted Khmer language. I know Lauren would have been in heaven with such an opportunity and I tried to do it some justice photographically, as Canon G10 is becoming much more friendly to me.

I had lunch with some of the workers and Chai. It was rice veggies and pork and I avoided the hot chili used by most to spice the bland food into a level of spiciness that I can not tolerate. The last time I ate some of the chili spice I ended up with a bad case of the hiccups!!

Got dropped back at my apartment at 2 and then had the wonderful luxury of a hour of AC and a hot shower to rid myself of the ingrained red dust from my half day in the field. My driver picked me up at 3 or so for the trip to Battambang. But before heading to Highway 6, I went to a video store to get some copies made of our Drop in the Bucket film so I can give a few away; and dropped a Diesel Bag that Lauren had bought for $5 in Phnom Penh market to have the zipper replaced, as it broke the first time I tried to use it.

Checked into a nice hotel for $30 a night and then met Kathy and Joanna at the Riverside Bar and Café for drinks and dinner to brief me on the next day interviews at the Circus school. Kathy is an American volunteer and Joanna is from the UK, a PHd candidate, doing a thesis on the “ Cambodia Open Face” as seen in the Bayan smiling faces at Ankor Thom and the black and white photos at S 21, of the victims killed in this Khmer Rouge prison, run by the infamours Douch now on trial.

The circus school could be a film in itself. An idea may be to come back in December and do a documentary on the Circus Festival which is to be a gathering of circus people from ten countries and performances of their circuses.

We shared experiences and impressions and Kathy told me about her trip to Mondulkiri. I decided if at all possible I should try and squeeze the time to do that in between meeting and prepping our two characters Boomer and Hengly in Phnom Penh and Lyman’s arrival on March 1 to start filming. The other thought had been to head to the beach at Kep or Kampot but I can go to the beach in so many places to the world but being in the mountains with ethic tribes who believe in animism in Northeast Cambodian jungle with elephants and waterfalls and catching trout in the stream by clubbing them , is a unique experience that I need to find a way to do.

Feb. 15. Went to TB and gave them pix of boy scout and Sras trip, that I had downloaded on my thumb drive. I need to have Steve do a picture of Nak and me and bring it to her.. Initiated Rattana to set up visit to Sras on March 9-10, as March 8 is Women’s Independence Holiday. It seems that the number of three day weekends rivals that of the USA.

Nuong, my unsuccessful house broker who also touts herself as a fixer and nature tour guide, broke her lunch meeting with me and rescheduled for later in the day at 5:30 pm.

So I did some errands. I needed to extend my visa as I was not able to get a business visa at the airport and ended up with a 20 day visa which expired on February 17^th. Guess that means I have been in Cambodia for a month without Lauren, as I re-entered the day Lauren left for home on the 17^th of January. I will be fined $5 a day upon leaving the Country if I do not extend. The strange part of it is to get an extension, other than paying the fee of $45, I needed to surrender my passport so it could be sent to Phnom Penh for processing which takes a week when the 3 day holiday for the Chinese New Year is accounted for. I am trusting this process !!! I have a copy of it so that when I travel to Battambang I can use the copy when checking into the hotel, which always wants to copy it.

You go to a travel agent to do the extension, so while I was there I bought all of the tickets that Lyman and I need to return to Siem Reap from Phnom Penh after a week of filming there and the tickets for all three of us to leave on March 19^th, with Lyman catching his flight home from Phnom Penh and us from Bangkok.

I met Nuong for a beer and to hire her as a fixer to arrange for us to be able to film a traditional dance ( Aspara dance)., a shadow puppet performance and a trip to Phnom Kulan ( Mount Kulan) where there is a waterfall and a pagoda to arrange for a blessing by Monks to be filmed at the waterfall. We shall go the waterfall on Saturday and I need to figure out if we should try and film it now with Steve and save a day from our shooting schedule with L and L. I had dinner at home and ate a home made dish of pasta and Bolognese sauce that I had cooked earlier in the day. This is the first real dinner I had made for myself and I froze most of it for another night.

Valentine's weekend Feb, 13th and 14th

This is another one of the scouts whom I had the privilege to present her with her kerchief and beret. I gave the three fingered salute and learned the left handed three finger handshake and salute. Pretty cool for me who never made it past Cub Scouts.
Getting a little better at catching a moment.
I had a busy day on Saturday and a quiet Sunday. On Saturday I had breakfast with Chai one of our key people to be in our new film. I thought about having a Cambodian breakfast which is a noodle soup. You have a choice of chicken pork or beef. Then you put some greens in, lime, chilis and not sure what else. It costs 5000 real ($1.25) and my lousy scrambled eggs, hardly edible was $2.00. So next time I will try soup for breakfast.
Chai came back to my apartment so I could make a copy of an animated german film that he has on the water systems of Angkor Wat and ended up in a 4 hour history lesson of Cambodia from the French colonization through the current day. He had videos of Sihanouk, Pol Pot, Lon Nol, and the Khmer Rouge as well as the Vietnamese invasion in 1979 throwing out the Khmer Rouge.
On Saturday night I went to a birthday party for a 6 year old who is the child of a family who owns Koro restaurant; which is frequented often by the Trail Blazer crew. Too much beer and they had a birthday cake and sang our Happy Birthday song and we were the guests of honor. I ended up talking with the Dad, who spoke perfect English as he had lived in Providence RI for 14 years. He unually opened up and talked of being a worker slave with the Khmer Rouge at the reservoir where I swan in Battambang, called the Killer resevoir, where over 10,000 died building it.
This morning I saw baby Zach on skype video. How fortunate and blessed am I. Matt looked more exhausted than Greta!! Biked around Siem Reap and decided to take advantage of having some free time and I went to the National Museum and learned all about the history prior to French Colonization, all the back to the 3rd century. I appreciate more and more the Temples and getting to better understand the Hindu and Buddhist gods.
Today was the first time I really missed home and know that when it comes time to go home I will be ready.

February 11 and 12th and Zachary arrives

Nak receiving the english teaching books and a dictionary, all a gift from Lauren and me.
I presented this scout with her kerchief and her hat.
Se and his brother in their home with yours truly.
The head table at Se's assembly
One of the things I have had to get used to being on the other side of the world is the 12 hour time difference to the East Coast. Some of you have experienced the amazing instant communication of skype where one can talk and see video for free, so certainly except for the time difference I can stay in touch and even have conference calls. However, I do feel pretty remote in experiencing being a grandfather for the fourth time with the arrival of an 8lb boy Zachary Elias Carey at 12:38 pm February 11. I learned in an email from Greta when I woke up on the morning of the 12th. I am excited but for the first time feel alone. Not a big deal just something I am observing in myself.
The last two days I have spent in two different village schools at ceremonies, sitting through two hours of speeches in Khmer. Yesterday I was with Se whom we are sponsoring to graduate school at an assembly of his school of 350 students hearing about career possibilities. A NGO worker, a translator, an accountant, a doctor, and a teacher all spoke giving inspiration to the Village student that it is possible to advance. The translator and the NGO worker were the most interesting to the students. Meanwhile the long thank yous and formalities are quite tedious when you do not understand anything, except my mere presence to support Se in this program which he structured and by the way which he spoke at was important to him. There was also a group of Australian volunteers who had worked building a life skills center and they were leaving after a month and there were lots of tears and goodbyes from the Villagers and dancing when the formalities were all over.
Today on the way to visiting the remote village of Sras on the back of a moto, we went to another village to participate in the installation of an international boy scout troop. We distributed kerchiefs and berets and as a westerner they had me even making presentations.
Sras was great and I think we do have a story to tell there about Nak a young woman who is now trained as a beautician but has no customers ( woman in the village heading to Thailand to work) and is trying to teach English to make a living and is threatening to leave the Village. Just wish we had a film crew there today as a reenactment may not have the same punch.

February 9

I am caught up!!

Today did a lot of paper work and blog work. I had a meeting on my own personal project which is to work with Sam who is the original guide by whom most of our own personal wells that we gave were built. He has done over 400 wells and he estimates that there are another 400 or more that his guide friends have done; however, as wonderful as this is to provide water for his people none of these wells have been tested and none of the water is being filtered. So it has been a patient and deliberate process over time to get Sam comfortable with the idea of testing and filtering his wells. Today we had a meeting with the principals of Trailblazers where I have been volunteering together with their Khmer director Rattana to acquaint Sam with their program of selling - giving thru donations biosand filters. It was suggested by Chris Coats that there be a partnership with Sam. There was a lot of discussion in Khmer between Sam and Rattana and I do think that Sam is interested in the program. I have learned to read Sam and he does not show much emotion or enthusiasm. So I am cautiously optimistic and does take a different dimension of my deal making skills to understand his customs and practices and not to be a western know it all. After all it is his country and I have seen that so much of the country is without a potable water supply and that a well even without testing or any filtration is a vast improvement over a hole in the ground.
This afternoon Steve Curtis, who did some video work for us in the Village where we are now building more wells, came over and we downloaded his video work on my computer and hopefully some of it will be useful.
I was going to bike over and work out in the pool but decided to take it easy and watch the sunset and read on the roof deck. Also took a quick dip in the pool there, which is quite small but certainly a huge luxury. I am reading an amazing book called The Gate by Francois Bizot, who was inside the French Embassy in 1975 and previously had been held and released by the KR and Douche or Duc who later became the executioner at S21 in Phnom Penh. He ( Duc) is currently being tried and the trial has gone on for more than a year at a cost of over $70 million dollars and is a total stupid charade.
Having dinner at an Italian restaurant with an American friend Bryse Gaboury who is here with Engineers Without Borders and worked on the reconstruction of a reservoir that we shall have in our film. Bryse was introduced to me by my brother's friend Mike Shuller, whom Lauren and I met here 3 years ago. So I am caught up.. and took no pics today so I will find something intriguing to post.

Feb. 9

Wow I am catching up.
In the morning I again toured the remainder of the tourist sites around Battambang. Saw how they make rice paper for spring rolls, how they make fish paste, visited a memorial to those slain by the KR, saw a gambling past time of men betting on fish fighting each other and bid my guide adieu. I had a 2 pm appointment with the artistic director of the circus Khuon Det and so I had some time to kill so back to the green gecko for internet connection and lunch.
At phareps had a 3 hour interview with him that Jean Christof translated and I took notes and used my tape recorder. See pictures of the two of them and of Jean Christof with his adopted grandson.

Arrived back in Siem Reap in the dark around 7 pm and went out to dinner with Se at what he calls the "train " restaurant. You sit and next to you is sort of a conveyor belt with plates of all sorts of ingredients that you put in a pot of boiling broth in the middle of the table. We had crocodile but no rat. I will post a picture of rats that they are drying. It was a one time experience and definitely low calorie.

February 7-8

On Sunday I met Jon Morgan for breakfast and we arranged for an interview and filming on Allie, the Vietnamese Khmer girl that captains, cooks, fixes the engine and does just about all of it on the boat TLC#1. We then talked about what drives people to do humanitarian work as he was telling me about an American dentist that his work and doing missions has gotten him into emotional trouble. Jon believes that in order to do this work one has to be a missionary, a mercenary and a madman!!
In the afternoon took a 2.5 hour drive to Battambang and on the way had a snack of sticky rice, which is rice, coconut milk, and other goodies put in a piece of bamboo and then cooked in the fire. It is yummy. Next day had sugar cane juice which was also great.
Battambang is a sleepy town and went to a beer garden with my driver and had sort of a weird time listening to live Cambodian music and eating spicy beef salad and of course some beer. Here it is often served with ice and a straw and it is very refreshing this way in this hot climate. If I order red one it is usually hardly drinkable and then often it is either chilled or the glass is chilled, so beer is the better option.
The next day I had a meeting at the Circus school called Phareps. There I met an American named Kathy who was very helpful in giving me the lay of the land. She is writing a book profiling all of the performers ( with really great black and white photos) that will be sold when the troupe does its tour in Europe starting in April. I was told that I was in luck in that there was a dress rehearsal of the First Generation group doing a new work called Kingdoms, which I did go to that night. Kathy told me all about the artistic director of the circus Det and as well about an 18 year old girl, Phenom. ( I remember the name as to me it is short for phenomenal)
I also played tourist in the afternoon with my guide Sirbath and did a ride on the bamboo train, climbed a mountain and visited a vertical cave where the Khmer Rouge did mass killings by pushing the villagers into the hole at the top and ended up a very hot afternoon with a visit to a reservoir built by the Khmer Rouge that cost the lives of 10,000 people; and I went for a swim in the sluice in a rented swim suit.

Ended up after the show having a glass of wine with Jean Christof who would like me to help promote a tour in the US as well as help fund raise. I could easily find employment here. Dinner was very late at the Madison Cafe. Lunch at the Green Gecko where I could connect my finicky PC directly with a plug in and not rely on the WiFi, which continues to plague me. Next laptop I must give in to an apple.

Feb. 6 trip to Angkor Chum

I was told by Mieko Morgan who runs a water testing lab that this district was in dire need of wells so my guide friend Sam agreed to a scouting trip there. He picked me up with his well drilling foreman, another friend and me in a 4 wheel drive Ford pickup and we were off for an adventure; which of course did not start without breakfast.
At breakfast I had an omelet but my Khmer friends had beef and rice, a full meal. I was told by one of them that he was building a business to make swallow nests. It was explained to me that the spit of swallows that is in the nest is thought to be a tonic for energy per Chinese medicine for older people like me. This guy was now going into the business of harvesting swallow bird nests and wanted me to try the drink. I did that as can be seen by photo and when I looked at all the ingredients I noticed that another ingredient was a " white jew's ear"???
Then went to this district where we did find many wells and water sources of every conceivable nature, pit wells, concrete pit wells, rope wells, pull pump wells, drilled pump wells and I am sure puddles and ponds. Also visited another Temple and this one was unusual as it is made of pink sandstone and only Bantas Rea is like it. We got lost driving around in cross country mode in spots where there was hardly a road and many washouts of bridges due to the fall flood. Just me and three Khmers on a frolic with occasionally your head hitting the ceiling of the trusty truck.
I needed to get back to do a summary of all my work and ranking of characters to be in the film and these guys kept driving around. I had a conference call with Lyman and Lauren in the morning and needed to get this promised summary to them. Alas they headed in a new direction to look for wells down by the Lake ( Tonle Sap ) and it was now getting late and they stopped at a friends house and wanted me to hang with them while they caught some of the ducks running around and netted some fish out of the fish pond to make a barbecue and drink. I awkwardly and apologetically told Sam that I did need to get back by 7pm to write my report. So we left this shangri la but not after checking out a floating village on the Lake.
Got home got the report done and I think I made my first tuna salad.

February 4 and 5

Way behind in my blog and I apologize. Took a few photos of fishing boats in front of the hotel on the Mekong in Phnom Penh; and wishing Lauren would be with me to give me a few pointers as I was trying to catch the sun breaking through the cloud cover; and at the same time enjoying the struggle to learn on my own.
Flew back to Siem Reap and now such an old pro I took a tuk tuk home to my apartment and the driver spoke good english and was complaining that he was down on his luck and not getting much work and in desperation want to the airport. I paid him $4.
Friday I went to work sifting sand at Trailblazers and was by myself there with no other volunteers;and so decided to try and do a sand sculpture with my sifting as you can see by the photo.
Later took a 30 lap swim workout in the Sokhar pool and arrived for drinks with my interviewee for the day Damian Evans a bit perspiry. He is an archaeologist from the University of Sydney who is an expert on the Ankorian water system which he says is unparalled in world history in its sophistication for pre industrial man. He is an important contact and a handsome and personable Aussie and will add credibility to our film.
I went then to Quiz night at Rosy's guest house and was on a team with Chris and Scott and a new 23 year old intern named Dale. We did not win but did OK and it was fun. Missed where the tallest building in the world is ( right answer Dubai, we guessed KL) and did not know that John Dory was a bird . Then headed out with the boys to the X bar but they did not show up, or as I later found out they were on the tippity top crow's nest of this roof top bar where the cognoscenti go. Wonder why I was not there!!

Februay 7 -8

February 3 Phnom Penh

I was picked up in the morning by Heangly who is a 26 year old Chinese Khmer who used to work for Rainwater Cambodia and now works for the WTO, the World Toilet Organization. He came from the village and tells a Abraham Linclon type of story of studying by candlelight to 3 in the morning to get ahead. But he recycled candles from the pagoda. He now has an MBA and is marketing $35 flush toilets for sale to the Villagers on a capitalistic private model with local businessman working the ccommune woman to market and sell these toilets without any subsidy or aid. His entrepreneurship is very cutting edge thinking for Cambodia. I was mesmerized by his story and he likely will become a core character in the film.
After a 6 course lunch with him and his colleagues from France Australia and NYC of rice with beefm fish chicken and lots of chili, I went to the French Culture Center to see an Exhibit of paintings by Chath. I ended up buying a set of portraits of his family, who were in their earlier life Khmer Rouge.
Then I hired a Tuk Tuk to take me to meet a bus to get a video on arenic poisoning and the bus was late so I waited around at a cafe until it arrived. While waiting I dashed over to the Java cafe to meet Dana the owner, who is managing the sale of Chath's paintings and made arrangements to buy the works I wanted. Last stop on my busy day was visiting with Seckon, who is suppose to be Cambodia's most prominent painter with his work being shown in Galleries in London Hong Kong and Bangkok. He showed me pictures of a 225 meter naga( snake) that he made out of recycled plastic. He is a political artist and seems fearless of the Government, which I did not understand. It took me over an hour riding around Phnom Penh to find his as the streets are not numbered sequentially . I was not a happy camper and then got into a fight with the Tuk Tuk driver who wanted to charge me $25....I felt like I was in NYC, except here I was afraid he was going to hit me if I did not pay him. I did pay him and guess it was my own fault for not settling on a price before we started our lost journey.

Had a lousy dinner at the hotel bar and two glasses of chilled red wine..yuk and to bed to fly home to Siem Reap in the morning

February 2 Phnom Penh

It is hard to keep up this blog as it is Saturday February 6 and now I need to remember what I did? Guess it is good that I am so busy and having such a great experience, as before I left I felt like I was about to jump off a cliff and was concerned that I would be lonely and also looking forward to having some introspective time. Needless to say I have not found a cliff; and not lonely and scarcely even just by myself and am able to do some thinking. Right now it is hard to imagine returning to my Walgreen developer life!
So now to return to Phnom Penh, My friend Brandon and I just made it on time to what is called the Wat-San meeting of the MRD. ( Water-Sanitation Meeting of the Ministry of Rural Development) A Combination of cell calls to Brandon's guide in PP and to Mark Hall of RDI got us there just before the doors closed. Picture a long Ushaped table with a microphone in front of each chair and about 70 people with the Mininster of Rural Water Development chairing the meeting at the bottom of the U. Because Lauren and I had met him three weeks ago and because we learned that his only daughter is pregnant and living in Lowell Ma. and so Lauren had a long dinner with them and sent me pictures, was I invited to sit down next to him sort of on the podium. What an experience with all of the high powered NGO's there like UNICEF, The World Bank, World Health and many more and me " the observer". The byplay between the NGO's stroking the Government and the Government's no holds barred response was fascinating. Got involved in an imbroglio over arsenic poisoning, as I was to visit a village effected the next day. But the Minister, my new friend, the night before got a call from Voice of America asking him to respond to a film that debuted in the U.S about arsenic poisoning. The Minister was very upset that Cambodia was being put in a bad light and told the reporter that there was an active government program to respond to this issue; but my trip needed to be canceled.
In the afternoon I interviewed other potential characters for our film, two American Cambodians one a lawyer and social critic and one a gay poet-artist, as well as visiting the arbitration council to see if I can find a professional Cambodian to interview. Had dinner with Brandon at a upscale Indian restaurant and early to bed.

Am posting some pictures of the city of PP, fancy cars and new buildings, it is cosmopolitan.

Feb 1 Phnom Penh

I flew to Phnom Penh this afternoon. I took a tut tut to the airport for $3 and Brandon my travel partner from JWOC was nervously pacing in front of the airport because he could not get me on my cell phone. This is a typical phenomenon here that sometime the calls just do not connect. Sometimes there is a rational answer that we make up that in the early evening the high volume mesees things up but mostly it is unexplainable. I must say I am really now adjusted to life here so take a flight to Phnom Penh when I did it about 3 weeks ago is like taking the shuttle to NYC.

We checked into a large gaudy hotel right on the Mekong river built by a British company as all fo the electrical outlets required adapters. Had to pay for wireless in the room and never would have been able to hook up if I did not have the IT guy present as the code to turn it on interpreted a U as a V!!!

I got an appointment with Sopheap.Pich who is an American Cambodian that chose to return to Cambodia after getting a master's in fine arts from the Chicago Institute of Art. He is 39 years old and was "born into the eye of the storm" and lived his early life in a Thai border camp before immigrating to the United States and ending up in Amherst Ma. He is now a world renowned sculpture and works in bamboo and rattan and has a studio on a Lake with three assistants. He is articulate and thoughtful. He explains that he tried to teach art but his Western background of utilizing critical thought as a means of teaching his students to be " daring" backfired and the number of students attending his classes diminished. He said that his students were "slow" and he literally and "metaphysically" slapped them so they would learn to question. But it did not work so he no longer teaches. His work is in galleries in Bangkok, Hong Kong and Chelsea.

Then I met Boomer at the Metro cafe. Boomer is now 27 and is another American Cambodian who was born in a Thai border camp but he did not chose to return but was deported. He lived in Stockton California and was a gang member. He sports a large tattoo on his forearm, identifying himself as a gang member. He arrived in Cambodia at age 20 with "$80 in his pocket" He is now married with a 2 and a half year old daughter and he has a project where he teaches rap and hip hop to kids to in this way intervene and take them off the street. He has three of these kids living, ( " adopted" ) with him now and this is the second group that he has taken in. He is very much driven by God and doing God's work. In response to my question about the Government he said" Gotta live here, need to keep my mouth shut and go by the rules, a whole different ballgame ". " I believe in developing the country and Khmer ( pronounced Khmai) believe in developing their pockets". So we went to Happy Herb Pizza where we are told the franchise in Siem Reap will put a little illegal weed on the veggie pizza, but this remains unsubstantiated!! I will let others more inclined to confirm this. By the way Boomer had a burger and fries, the only food that I refuse to eat here given past experiences of food poisoning scarily suffered by Lyman last year.