January 5, 2010

The most exciting news of the day is that we have found an "over the moon" apt for Paul. After several viewings of guest houses, apts. etc. with hot plate burner, fluorescent lighting and ac only in bedroom, we found a luxurious new condo western style fully furnished, but not real cheap, overlooking the river. Paul is in heaven and now feels like he can stay and begin his adventure. We celebrated tonight at the FCC which is a ex pat restaurant, compound, but it all felt appropriate. Besides Paul's apt, the highlight for me came in meeting Mieko Morgan (Japanese), a nurse who has journeyed with her nurse husband Jon from RI to commit their lives to Cambodia. Mieko runs her own lab and is an NGO working in water testing and bio-sand filters. She described Cambodia as "fly paper." Once you get stuck you need more energy to leave than stay. Her knowledge about the delivery of clean water was invaluable, and she feels that access is just the beginning but that more than 10% of every well in Cambodia is contaminated with ecoli, and, therefore, must be filtered. She feels that bio sand filters are the best and most reliable way to remove bacteria. She and her husband live an hour out of Siem Reap in a village. She and Jon have adopted a Cambodian child as well. We are having dinner with the two of them tomorrow. We also stopped by the Angkor Children's Hospital to say hello once again to the director, Dr. Houseworth, who is in our film. He was pleased to see that we have returned, and we talked about me having a photo exhibition in the beautiful lobby of the hospital that is run by Friends Without Borders http://cambodiawaterproject.blogspot.com/We keep saying we need a down day, but that has not happened yet. We are so inspired by everyone we meet. Lauren...PS Thank you Sarah Peck for setting up this blog.