The Cambodia Water Project: January 31 Peam Village

February 15

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 17th. 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 17th 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 19th, 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.

Sunday, January 31, 2010

January 31 Peam Village

Buying orchids with Narla

Teaching villagers how to brush teeth with homemade model ( teeth are parts of an egg carton)

Narlan, narrating and Steve, shooting

Me with the kids whom I can not stop taking pictures of.
Peam Village is the village that our prize winning funds are being used to bring 12 wells and education to the Villagers. The B team was there filming consisting of yours truly, Narla as narrator ( wonderful Cambodian who visited the US with Andrea and Brandon) and Steve my new friend and enthusiastic photographer now turned videographer. We tried using his boom mike for Narla to narrate the scene of the Villagers learning how to brush their teeth and general hygiene, well repairs and filter maintenance.

On the way back Narla and I stopped and bought some orchids to make my apartment a little more homey for when Lauren and Lyman come.

After this visit I again went back and polished up Vathana's application. The band was not there yet to practice. but I got a wonderful greeting from the band members that were there.

I got a haircut for $2. It really is the closest thing to shaving my head but with clippers. Next step is to shave it but need to get the blades to maintain it. The crazy thing was the barber with a blade razor shaving the hairs of my ears.

Came home and watched the finals of Federer beating Murray and doing emails. Then I was invited by the Owners of my apartment building for an " apertif" at 6 pm. It turns out that the owners are Josh Levine ( born in Cambridge Ma. and his Dad is an avid fly fishermen and lives in Livingston Mt...need to follow up on this) now lives in Kyoto but has a big architectural office in HCM city Vietnam ( Saigon). He is married to a Vietnamese woman that he met in Malaysia. We had drinks at the apartment of an Israeli man married to a Cambodian, who owns some cafes in Siem Reap. His Mother was there and just leaving to return home to Jerusalem. His partner Scott from the UK joined us for dinner and he lives in Saigon now. Also joining us was Othello a film producer and his French girl friend that live in Saigon. We ended up for dinner at an Indian restaurant on Pub street that was quite good.