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.

Thursday, February 25, 2010

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.
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