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.

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.