NOTE: This is a belated post–quite belated, in fact–but I though I’d share it because it’s a nice intersection of international travel and the domestic road trip.

With Romy riding shotgun, we headed south to Portland with camping, climbing, and other gear strewn about the wooden sleeping platform in the back of my Subaru. Late as usual, and getting later, we nudged through an early rush hour watching the clock. We had a fundraiser to get to. (at right: romy in the subaru)

This extended weekend was the first short road trip in a long time for my lemon of a car. It was warm enough we drove with the windows down–all but Romy’s since the electric motor is out. The part costs $180. It is one of a long list of ailments: cruise control: not functional; horn: dead; power outlet: fried; drive axle boot: leaking; brake caliper mounts: rattling again; clutch throwout bearing: sounding less like a mouse and more like an overgrown hamster; that engine oil leak: still untreated. I wanted to show Romy a slice of the “real” America, the grand open spaces, mountains, and the beauty of the open road. Assuming my car made it. When we got home, Romy would comment, “I guess it runs ok.”

Our first destination was a cute wine bar in Portland where the Transitions Cambodia (TCI) founders, James and Athena Pond, were hosting an event. I’d never met Athena, but I knew James from one rather intense month in Cambodia. He set me up with a lot of my contacts, gave me organizational access no other NGO was willing to offer, spoke in my support when I was slandered, and would often meet me at a watering hole we grew to love. I think I saw him almost every day he was in Phnom Penh and, when he left, the cityscape felt a little empty. James is the kind of guy who wears his heart on his sleeve, is no-bullshit, and works to get the job done. I like that ethic. (at left: athena and james pond)

The event started slow, giving me a chance to meet some of the board members and Holly writer and producer Guy Moshe, but it quickly built. With live music in the warmth of the open cellar, it was a pretty cool event. Romy and I were fortunate enough to meet two supporters of TCI, Sherry and Mellani. Good friends, Sherry is a very successful sales person and Mellani is the Queen of Benefits for the recovering addict. The next day she would give us a tour of Central City Concern in downtown Portland.

I like Portland, I enjoy exploring it and doing so with Romy was fun. We had met in Cambodia and this time, instead of cruising around on her moto, we had my beat up car to tour with. In true travel form, we wandered from person to person, place to place. Mary, a new FEAR Project volunteer I met in Seattle, came down from Centralia and we had a chance to check out the bar scene and, the next day, the coffee shop scene. (at right: Transitions Cambodia board member Erin McNamara and Holly screenwriter Guy Moshe)

I had a chance to meet with Wendy Freed, a prominent researcher in the field of human trafficking, as well as Keith Bickford, the sole officer comprising Oregon’s anti human trafficking task force. I find Keith’s willingness to be challenging and forthright in a very delicate field admirable; things don’t get done by standing on the sidelines, but with the political and ethical issues coming to light in domestic human trafficking, striking a balance is no small feat. Wendy, after she learned I had worked with Lucy Berliner at HCSATS took her card back, put down her personal email and phone, and began a more candid conversation. (at right: Q&A after the screening of Holly. James, Jaya, Wendy, and Keith with my pictures on screen behind)

I’m still learning just how far Lucy’s influence spans; she is a friend and mentor to many, a strong leader, and I’ve only realized recently just how valuable that first interview years ago was for me–had she not taken the time I sincerely doubt FEAR Project would exist or that I’d be as involved in anti-trafficking as I’ve become. (at left: Jaya Sry at the theater for the screening of Holly, a film about sex trafficking shot on location in Phnom Penh)

Romy and I stayed with the Ponds where we saw Jaya (pronounced Zaya) the director for Transitions’ Phnom Penh aftercare facility. Ever smiling, she denied being jet lagged however the next morning she didn’t emerge until nearly noon. This was her second trip out of Cambodia; the first was in February when she went to Bangkok. James lost her in a large department store, a scale she had never seen before, and didn’t find her until he remembered she liked smells. Like Ferdinand amongst the flowers, they found her in the perfumery.

We headed south to Smith Rock, a climbing crag I used to make regular weekend pilgrimages to. There we woke to the scent of juniper and sage, shared campfires in the Grasslands (now called Skull Hollow), and spent hours climbing on the sharp-edged volcanic tuft. The usual suspects, locals and seasonal locals, were there as well; comforting in their seeming permanence. (at left: a wind turbine near the Columbia river)

Taking Highway 97 north, we drove through open range land, dined on authentic taco truck cuisine (Romy loves Mexican food–something I miss when I travel), and found the wind farm I’d longed to photograph several years ago when it was being constructed. There’s something about seeming the swooping blades of a massive turbine carving across the horizon which, when you crest the gentle rise, you see is but one set of hundreds spread across an open landscape of green grass and dull rock.

We took some time to drive amongst the forest of towers, crisscrossing fields on gravel access roads. The light never quite got right for the pictures I was hoping to make; we could have stayed the night and waited, but home called us on so we headed north into the gathering dusk. (at right: looking like a space ship, an under construction head of a turbine lies flat on the ground)

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Touchdown. It’s slate gray outside, 18.41 local time, and it looks cold. There is no orange light, no heat radiating from the pavement. 30 minutes ago we began our descent; the flight attendants on the Taiwanese airline, stern in their efficiency, sent us to our seats. Again, my gut sent me to the toilet thinking of a climber friend returning from Pakistan; he either took off or landed in the bathroom. It’s not that bad for me, it’s just not right, so on my way to the airport I grabbed a de-worming regimen from the pharmacy. The local expats do this every few months and said I’d been around long enough to pick something up. I hope it’s that simple.

Most of the flight I’ve been staring at the back of the seat in front of me. Since leaving Phnom Penh 15 hours ago I’ve been wondering about the stories. There are so many; some are bigger and complex, others just moments. If asked “how was it?” I’m afraid I’ll just stare, wondering what to say. (Above: Srey Neth, 19, and Transitions Cambodia Executive Director James Pond visit Neth’s old home and place of capitivity, the impoverished Group78 slum in Phnom Penh.)

I met a woman who I connected with; we spent nearly two days straight just hanging out. She had stories; some were cohesive and some scattered as thoughts bubbled forth. As we drank later and later into that first night, she shared a beautiful mix of moments from her backpacking days, both scary as hell and funny beyond belief. There was the tourist bus that left her and two companions somewhere in remote Pakistan; the next one was in 10 days. Instead of hiking out by the road, they went cross-country for 12 days. (At left: 19 year-old Srey Neth in the slum where, at 14, she was sold into sexual slavery. Neth is now on staff with the victim aftercare NGO Transitions Cambodia.)

Or when she heard the Iraq border was open–no visa fees–she grabbed a taxi and was halfway there before hearing about a guy who nearly made it. He turned around, several thousand dollars poorer, but alive. There was a guest house where, fortunately, she barricaded the door. And the time she cut her dreads with a pocket knife, ate half her journal, and sat awake with the embassy number written on her arm. Her travels took her from Japan to Jordan, and many countries in between. Some of the stories are on her blog and some are more private; at least two countries have files on her and, today, seeing men with guns gives her flashbacks.

At one point I shook my head. “You’ve got balls,” I said.

“Yeah I do,” she replied proudly, cupping an imaginary basketball. “This big!”

In Phnom Penh, when things got safe, everything caught up to her. Underweight and self medicating, she sought out counseling and now can name what she has: post traumatic stress. She knows some of her triggers, but some things are blocked; when she gave me her blog she read a few entries. At one point she exclaimed, “There was a man with a gun outside my door! I didn’t remember the gun, but it’s right here.”

What has festered deep within her psyche, what has governed her subconscious, is emerging. I think parts of the adventures were hard, but I think the real work is happening now. I’ve met others like her; some, just so they can function, run from the painful mess of their experience–either knowingly or unknowingly. PTSD is difficult, for everyone involved, and her efforts to heal have my respect, for the process means reliving every trauma. She has to stand firm and face it. (At right: Tieng, 18, a resident and good friend of Neth’s outside the after care center on Valentine’s Day.)

As I pulled my gear out of the overhead compartment and crowded out of the aircraft, I realized this woman is now part of my story. But I have only been on the baby-soft edge of the place she went. I’m afraid of the pain, struggle, and risk that comes from reaching deeper. I am more cautious than others who’ve thrown themselves in for I know it’s not just the physical self that can be lost. Yet in some of the work I’ve done, I have felt a certain power in the idealism, the hope, the reward of having an effect–however small–and it is not something I can turn away from. At least not yet. Maybe not until I know how far is too far, even if that leaves me standing, shaking, in that same chaotic place she was.

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The warnings are written clearly in a book a traveler gave me; it is about three idealistic twenty-somethings who meet in Phnom Penh. They end up working for the UN, through Somalia, Haiti, Rwanda, Bosnia, Liberia. It is a story about their descent into the hell of bureaucratic apathy, political inaction, professional incompetence, and genocide. It’s as much a story about the places they’ve seen as it is their experience, justification, struggle, and reward wrought from the trauma they endure. All three were nearly lost to themselves. The book is titled “Emergency Sex,” for that moment when you’ve narrowly escaped death, when the emotion is so intense you have to fuck to prove your existence. To release. (At left: Orphans who once lived at the city dump pose as human traffickers prior to the educational CCH “Roadshow” performance to rural community members. 14 year-old Sayorn is second from right.)

My friend gave me the book after we visited the landfill together; we had been talking at length about sexual exploitation, trafficking, and the NGO world in Phnom Penh. She understood the urgency in the work, the intensity of a moment; her ‘day job’ is fighting organized crime.

A lot of tourists visit Steung Meanchey; it’s a smoking mass of rot where the impoverished collect a living from recyclables they sell. I was working with CCH, an NGO that recruits orphans out of the dump, gives them a home, education, and a chance at a future. All the youth have a dream, which in a country full of victims is no small feat. As far as my trafficking piece goes, this is a preventative measure; it decreases the number of vulnerable children, if only by a few hundred.

Although hot, smokey, and nauseating it wasn’t one of my more intense experiences. But it left me drenched and exhausted with an itch in my lungs; I can see why so many of the dump residents develop respiratory problems. Standing in the midst of the slick mess my friend surveyed the scene.

“It’s awful,” she said over the roar of the garbage trucks. I turned to our guide, 14 year-old Sayorn, who shrugged shyly. “No problem.” He was in flip-flops. He lived here until CCH offered him a new life. (At right: In the wake of the bulldozer, a young boy picks recyclables out of the Stueng Meanchey landfill.)

When I returned to the guest house my pants smelled so bad I left them soaking in the sink. Two days later, in the cool confines of the French embassy talking about pedophiles, I pushed my feet across the hardwood floor as far as I could. My shoes stank of rot, just as they would on the plane.

But these are just moments.

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What is our capacity to understand? What is just another day in Cambodia, Nigeria, Burma, Somalia; what is just another day when you live it? My stories are nothing compared to cataloging corpses for a genocide trial; nothing compared to the everyday life of kicking in doors, shooting people and getting shot at; nothing compared to the experiences of some of the people I’ve met. (Acid burn survivors pose for a portrait near the offices of the Cambodia Acid Survivor’s Charity, Phnom Penh.)

Yet by my second night in Seattle I’d already had moments where I’d stare into the past and start speaking about something I saw. I often falter when I do this, snapping back to the present to find concerned looks of people whose evening I might have spoiled. In Cambodia, it’s just another day.

Phnom Penh is rich with stories, as are many other parts of the developing world. Roslyn is going to another UN post in Kandahar. Gillian to Sri Lanka. Romy is thinking about Africa. Others are re-upping their contracts, staying another year; things in Phnom Penh are mellowing out, creature comforts more prolific, but there is no shortage of work for the well intentioned. It’s just a little less likely you’ll be shot off your motorbike, fight a second assailant, then drive off with bullet holes in your forearm and ass. It sounds odd, but it happens. I can introduce you to the guy. (At left: Son and daughter watch over their dying mother, a victim of an acid attack, at the Children’s Surgical Center, Phnom Penh.)

Sometimes I wonder what people really want to hear. I might reply “intense, frustrating, emotional, beautiful, satisfying” and smile that empty smile. Because maybe in that moment I’m thinking of the story about victims of acid attack. It’s about the stench of burned flesh; the sound of rapid, shallow breath; the sight of a semi-conscious woman and the deflated, resigned look of her adult children. It’s about her grand daughter, who at three years died in the attack. Five days later the woman died too.

It makes me think about Cambodians as victims, but also Cambodians as survivors. There are some who seek to heal, to move into that realm where trauma no longer controls them. I made portraits of acid attack survivors, of women so scarred it was difficult to look. But the more time we were together, the more I saw their confidence as survivors. They laugh, they flirt, they are feminine, they will look you intently in the eye–those who still have them–as if to say “I am a person, see me as one.”

Not long ago the NGO CASC set up an acid burn hotline; more women are coming forward. Data about victims is not terribly reliable; hospitals don’t classify burns, people tend not to report the cause of death, and victims hide in shame, but it is estimated that Cambodia has a higher per-capita number of acid attacks than Bangladesh, the poster child of acid attacks. (At right: Acid attack survivor, 28 year-old Srey Own, is now the and BABS bag-making trainier at the CASC.)

This had an impact, on a personal level, for I smelled that woman’s flesh for a week. But it’s just another story, just another moment.

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I spent some time with an investigative organization focusing on street-based foreign pedophiles; a very narrow subset of the Cambodian sex industry, but one which attracts more attention than the neighborhood brothels servicing thousands of Khmer men. (at left: Handcuffed to the truck, the suspected American pedophile returns to the jail after a day in court.)

One evening we motoed around, following a suspect who repeatedly returned to Cambodia, ostensibly to groom one child in particular. The child, according the NGO, didn’t receive much kissy-kiss until after dark. They were waiting for the suspect to take the child to a guest house, at which point they would call the police. I asked to be informed when this occurred.

During my last week in Phnom Penh, the NGO moved on another American suspect. Because of a miscommunication, I wasn’t called when they made the bust.

The Cambodian police kicked in the unlocked door of a guesthouse on the Lakeside. Inside was the American, without his shirt, and two girls age 12 and 16. The American and his friends say it was a set up, that the girls offered him a massage, that they were paid by the NGO to trick him into extortion. The NGO and the police say he is a pedophile, that they’ve built a substantial case against him. (At right: Another suspected American pedophile exhibits grooming behavior with a Cambodian child, Phnom Penh.)

It may have been fortunate that I wasn’t in on the arrest for I think it allowed me a relationship with the accused and his friends. I presented myself as who I am: an American journalist wanting to document their side of the events. They were quite open and hospitable and shared a lot with me; at the same time I was receiving a lot of prosecution information through back channels. It is an odd position to straddle and, at times, required me to clarify my boundaries; I can only observe.

So I watched; at the courthouse he sat in his rumpled suit and tennis shoes, staring at the handcuffs he wore, gently testing the steel. Later, in the jail cell, I saw false bravado as he told his friends they should leave. The next moment he shuddered with sobs and embraced their hands through the heavy steel bars. On my first jail cell visit, he was weak and sick. Unable even to hold water, he gently vomited in front of us. It was a surprising hiccup of embarrassment he rushed to clean. He slept on the floor with no blanket; the guard, through pantomime, said he might tear it into strips and hang himself.

According to the American, after hours of questioning the police handed him a statement written in Khmer–which he can’t read or speak–and asked him to sign it. He refused, asking for a lawyer and interpreter they did not provide; his friends then hired an attorney and later an interpreter. Last I heard, his friends paid $200 to have him moved from the cockroach and mosquito infested police jail to a more accommodating prison just outside the city. He will wait a month until his case is brought to trial. (At right: Mike, a friend of the jailed suspect, at their nascent NGO office and residence. The NGO, if established, will mimic the suspect’s retreat in India where residents live an agrarian life under Hari Krishna principles.)

The US Embassy contacted his friends but is fairly hands off, issuing a statement that “American citizens charged with criminal offenses in Cambodia are fully subject to the Cambodian judicial process.”

Without his friends I’m not sure he’d have legal representation, an interpreter, or anything but the simplest of foods and human comforts. At the moment, I don’t feel it’s appropriate to say more about the case.

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I had a brush with Cambodian bureaucracy as I tried to make a portrait of General Bith Kim Hong, Director of the Cambodian National Police Anti Human Trafficking and Juvenile Protection Department. I wanted to make a power-portrait of him, for multiple sources credit him with ensuring the arrest of “Sasa,” a convicted Russian pedophile. He was recently sentenced; 13 years and $100,000 for victim number one. There are 18 more victims to go. (At left: Police General Bith Kim Hong, Director of the National Anti-Human Trafficking and Juvenile Protection Department)

The day before I left Cambodia we had tea in the General’s office; no interview, but portraits were ok. Permission, which took six weeks, was personally approved by the Minister of the Interior, Hok Lundy. The email proposal I sent was translated then reviewed by the same guy whose stamped signature adorns my visa. Lundy is so far up the government chain I am surprised he reviewed the proposal but, on the other hand, this is a sensitive topic for which he has received bad press. None the less, I was happy to meet the General for if Cambodia is going to pick itself up it has to have strong, incorruptible leadership; something the General seems to represent. I hope to work with him again.

Yet this moment is coupled with many others; tales from sources illustrating how difficult it will be in the current political and economic climate to make a positive difference for the people of Cambodia. None of the sources would go on record but one person told me a little anecdote: the tiger is strong and powerful. If you get on the back of the tiger you are strong and powerful too, but you have to go where the tiger goes. If you get off, he will turn and eat you. Working with the government, he said, is like that.

Politics play out in the NGO community as well. There is an issue that too many brothel raids will net too many girls, taxing the aftercare system, but recently there was a struggle over which NGO would get some rescued girls. It was expressed to me by several people that numbers matter to donors and donor dollars–but shouldn’t it be about the victims?

There’s also a chasm in the anti-trafficking community, seemingly bridged only by professional necessity, as judgments are cast out by the more conservative faith community while the non-faith community returns with its own opinions of the religious. This split crosses the Pacific; some donors prefer proselytization while others are adamantly opposed to anything smelling of religion. But it’s not just faith dividing the ranks; I can’t forget the distrust between some Cambodian and foreign NGO’s.

I walked into this with several endorsements and introductions; I became the photojournalist poking around the anti-trafficking community. This led to questions about me and not all the answers were positive; I have an ex in Phnom Penh. I hadn’t been in-country but two and-a-half weeks and I had a reputation.

It was limited to the faith community, but phone calls and emails propagated, reaching as far as Washington D.C. I think the themes were about me being unethical and exploitive, which were probably compounded and twisted by others, but I can’t say for sure. In one low point, I made a phone call to an NGO which the week prior had been positive and receptive. What I heard this time, in a cold, shaking voice was “I’ve been told not to speak with you.”

It’s kind of awkward to start a professional relationship with “So, those things you might have heard about me–I don’t know what they are, because the source won’t say–but I’m really not a bad person. If you have any concerns I’m happy to discuss them.” But a few went that way. One director, after meeting me, essentially shrugged; he hadn’t paid much attention because he’s been a victim of slander in the past. It must come with the turf.

It felt like high school, except it’s not the senior prom at stake: it’s millions of dollars and the lives of vulnerable people. I’m sure the people judging my intentions and work were saying the same. I just wished they could–and would–have an open dialog about their concerns. For the few who responded when I reached out to clarify my ethics and intentions, I appreciated their professionalism and respect. But again, in spite of the impact I perceive this had on my work, it’s really just a moment.

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I know some people don’t like the intensity and immediacy of this kind of experience; I think it’s offensive that I might expect others to want it. Not everyone wants to face the frustration, bureaucracy, religion, corruption, or the feeling of impotence in the face of great need. And who am I to judge? I’m still on the edge, peering in. Indeed, it would be easier for me to check out, to work a ‘regular’ job, to challenge myself with seemingly important social dilemmas, financial gains or athletic pursuits. Here, in America, it’s hard to see your impact and much easier not to care. (at left: friends of the alleged American pedophile currently in jail awaiting trial.)

But I met a rescued girl whose brother was sold for labor by her mother to pay the girl’s “debt” now that she’s not turning tricks at the brothel. At a shelter a teenage sex trafficking victim held me in goodbye; just as I was beginning to feel uncomfortable she looked up and said “do not forget about us.” And yet another girl, who always put me at arm’s length, ran to her room at the last moment. She came back with the tackiest pink rose in a sea of fiber optics. It now sits on display in my living room, flashing its multi-hued colors.

I watched a village chief, proud of his TV, proud to feed me the fish he caught, brush his teeth in water full of fecal contaminant. There was the couple, forcibly relocated by the government, who showed me their wedding portrait. It hung in a palm-frond hovel squeezed into rows of similar shacks. (At right: Moat Clas village chief.)

And then there are the people committed to the betterment of others–simply because. The younger, the more idealistic, but even the jaded and cynical seem to keep at it. When “Cambodia Wins Again” they get back up, brush off the red dust, and go for another round.

This is the theme of “Emergency Sex,” they throw themselves at the world, they do some good, but ultimately get spit back, scarred from the fight. It could be hopeless, except in those moments one makes a difference. And that is the immediacy; there are people willingly fighting for survival, for justice, for opportunity. The difficulties are complex, but there is hope, there is success, and there is more we can do. Now, in this moment.

I am spinning down, readjusting to what “normal” is here in the States, and sifting through all that is swirling in my head. As I struggle to produce a coherent story I realize I float between two places: on one side are the people who cannot engage in the reality of Cambodia–it’s too much–and on the other are people who live a greater horror every day, casually, and for them these stories are inconsequential. (At left: Srey Neth with center director Jaya, left, and executive director James, right, in the building she was held captive.)

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My phone beeped the arrival of a text message, waking me. I lay twisted in my flannel-covered duvet, the early morning light soft through the window, a crisp Seattle breeze feathering across my nose and cheeks.

01149…the number started. Germany. It’s Romy, the only woman I kissed while in Phnom Penh, something I’m sure the guest house staff doesn’t believe. Dating, as we know it in the west, isn’t a much practiced social convention for conservative Cambodia. You pretty much have to propose to a girl to ride a motorbike together and not cause scandal–for her. When Kath kissed me on the cheek after our pre-dawn motorbike ride to Oudong the staff wouldn’t let it go for a week.

My last few days in Phnom Penh were as busy as any, both professionally and socially. I made it to my second Elsewhere party, where I met Romy. On the dance floor, of all places. There was a going away party, my own going away bar session, the trip to the dump, the portrait, a Khmer wedding, meetings and introductions, time with the suspected pedophile; it was exhausting. But there was something about stopping and being with her which was calm. Safe.

I sat behind her on the moto as she drove, very Khmer-like into oncoming traffic, and wrapped my arms around her waist. I held her hips, pressed my hand flat against her belly, my muck encrusted shoes on the foot pegs, our helmets bumping gently with every stop and start. We shouted over the wind and the traffic; we hardly knew each other and there was a lot to share. We were both leaving the country.

There wasn’t a moment during the entire trip that I felt relaxed; there was always somewhere to be going or something to be doing. Research, nightly downloads and backups, meetings. Or actually out shooting, building relationships, often hiding my agitation while waiting patiently. Even the social scene, being the new guy in town, meant always being “on.”

Except when I stood in the shower next to her, or lay beside her underneath the mosquito netting, or rode behind her on the moto. It was then that I could relax. Maybe because it was the end of the trip and I was letting go. But I think it was her and it makes me wonder if it’s possible to have that balance; that place of love, respect, tenderness and safety that counters the chaos outside.

There is a balance between the stories and the safety, I know. I just haven’t found it yet.

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In my time in Phnom Penh I managed to get hooked into the NGO crowd, but also the party crowd. Or maybe they’re one and the same; work hard, play hard. Some of them work for NGO’s and some…well, let’s just say I met a guy three weeks earlier who was trying to figure out what he was doing in Phnom Penh. He’s still trying to figure it out. (at left: on allie’s roof)

Elsewhere is *that* party. The one no one wants to go to but everyone ends up at. I pre-funked at Allie’s swank rooftop kitchen. All of us took tuk-tuks to Elsewhere; Bruno convinced the tuk-tuk driver that he should drive and I, halfway there, jumped from one tuk to the other. Like in the movies. I’ve always wanted to do that.

Further drinking and dancing ensued. It was an oddly wet night, with rain pouring down occasionally, which might have inspired people to jump into the pool a bit early. I was snapping away at the half naked partiers when one woman rubbed up against me, asking my name and hometown. Courteously, I asked her the same and in a breathy reply she said she was from “Santa Barbara, amateur porn star capital of the world.”

Huh. That’s about as good as the line Allison got last time of “Do you fuck?”

By the time I made it home–alone–it was 5am and the sky was beginning to turn. When I first arrived in Phnom Penh, I was up and running at the stadium at this hour

Well, welcome to Elsewhere.

One of the reasons they don’t allow glass near swimming pools.

My dancing friend from Santa Barabara.

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With 5 year-old Riki, the world’s cutest adopted kid. When Jon worked at AHC they would have about one orphan per month left at the hospital; staff would take them home, friends of staff, or even patients.

“I looked down at her, a tube in her nose, a tube in her mouth,” Jon said of the tiny, premature baby he saw. “I said ‘I’ve been waiting 50 years for you.’ The nurse across the incubator from me said ‘Yeah Jon, this one’s for you.’”

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“Dr. Hal” waiting for his hair cut and shave.

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Holding still for the straight razor.

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Jon’s commute to work is through the grounds of Angkor Thom. Amazing.

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On “The Farm,” Jon and Mieko’s 14 year creation. A Swiss Family Robinson series of connected ‘buildings’ with a kitchen and pantry on the ground floor, it is solar powered with a satellite internet connection.

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Getting dinner going on the grill.

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The outdoor towel rack in the orchard.

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One of two outdoor showers with hand-drawn water from the well. Quite nice in the warm evening light.

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Final dinner prep.

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Dinner by candlelight. It gets dark at about 6.30. Since they don’t use much electricity that means early to bed…and early to rise. It’s a farm…so we’re talking with the pre-dawn light.

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VIEW IMAGE GALLERY OF FLOATING VILLAGE

The sense of time is different. “Hurry up” is a process of continual slow motion versus “normal” which is regularly punctuated with pauses for conversation, cold drinks, or simply moments of rest. In almost 14 years, Jon Morgan has adapted.

“Have you heard of CWA?” he asked.

“No matter how much you plan, how well you set it up, or how hard you push there is always CWA. Cambodia Wins Again.” He shrugged. It’s what you do afterward, he said, that matters; how you pick yourself up from the dust and go back to it. For Cambodia has changed him. (at right: Morgan on the slow boat to Moat Clas)

“I used to be a person who maintained all my relations because I never knew when I was going to be working with them again,” he went on. “But they have a saying over here; if you see a snake you kill it. Or you run away. Because if you don’t, it will kill you.”

Cambodia may win more often than not, but Morgan has shown that with tenacity, patience, and strategic alliances one can persevere. (at left: the town of Kampong Chleang. Rainy season flooding necessitates putting houses on stilts; even the road is under water making boats the only means of transport.)

Morgan and his wife Mieko returned in 1995 to Cambodia with the intention of staying for two years. One thing led to another and they’re still here. A nurse by training he has managed to reinvent himself several times. With each rebirth he has shaped himself anew, most recently in a transition from Director of the Angkor Hospital for Children (AHC) to Director of the start-up NGO The Lake Clinic Cambodia (TLCC). The Lake Clinic will use a shallow draft boat to provide medical care and education to remote communities on the Tonle Sap lake, a body of water which grows four times its size in the wet season. (at right: a child runs over a bridge in the town of Kampong Chleang. in the rainy season this bridge is under 15-25 feet of water.)

During his tenure at AHC, Morgan saw a need for capacity building in outlying community health centers. If illnesses were caught early, they wouldn’t be as acute as the cases he was seeing in AHC. Once, when he was speaking on behalf of the hospital at a meeting of NGO and community leaders, the Moat Clas village leader looked at Morgan and said “This is what my village needs. I want you to help me.” Morgan replied he would and, years later, he is nearly there.

A floating village, in the dry season Moat Clas is three hours by boat to the nearest health center. It’s another hour by vehicle to a hospital in Siem Reap. It can cost $30 dollars (US) for a local just to get ot the city. With the daily wage in these fishing communities averaging less than $1 dollar, that is a fortune. Simple health conditions are allowed to languish until they become acute. But compounding the poverty is a lack of simple health education.

For instance, some locals know clean water is better for them but they wash their dishes in the same lake into which they urinate, defecate, do their laundry, dispose of their garbage, the list goes on. It is hardly hygienic. (at left: a coffee glass is washed in the lake with water that is filled with fecal bacteria.)

The village chief has three water filters donated by various NGO’s and yet I saw him brushing his teeth with lake water. It was where I’d peed. His wife washed the dishes in the water as did the visiting boats who served ice coffee and our breakfast the next morning. They know it’s good to brush and wash, and that the lake water may not be healthy, but they don’t know to boil or filter all water they ingest. To compound this, not everyone has filters and most stoves are open flame, wood-fired.

Visiting dentist and board member Hal Kussick ate the cooked fish and rice–because they were cooked–but shunned the tomatoes washed in river water. The next morning he turned down breakfast as well, for the sprouts that went in the soup were likely washed in the lake as were the dishes. He was trying to save himself numerous trips to “the thunder bucket.” I’m not sure what he ate, for I was slightly more adventurous but didn’t eat much. Travel on the lake is almost like desert camping; you must bring everything you will eat or use with you for food and water are suspect and the locals have barely enough for themselves (save for fish, which seems plentiful). We slept on a reed mat beneath a mosquito net, a position which could have benefited from a thermarest. And, surprisingly, it was cold enough by dawn that I was glad to have brought my jacket for I was fully clothed beneath my thin sheet.

Mieko, who does water quality analysis, took samples in our departure town Kampong Chleang and our destination Moat Clas. In Kampong Chleang the fecal contaminants were so profuse her equipment was unable to count the bacteria; she had to dilute it to 10 percent before she could confirm it was a toxic organic soup. In Moat Clas, the river water also exceeded World Health Organization specified healthy levels of fecal bacteria, but not as grossly. She is unable to test for petrochemicals, but other toxic chemicals were negligible. For an anecdote, I watched a naked kid defecate into the water while his friend practiced his flutter kick beside him. Then they both went swimming with the floaters. (at right: Mieko samples water while the village chief watches.)

“We’re going to disappoint them,” Morgan said. “There’s going to be someone who will come in here with something we can’t treat or don’t know how to treat. They know me as Angkor Hospital and are expecting that kind of care.”

But because he is just starting TLCC and lacks the funding and staff to provide extensive hospital services, his ambitions are more modest. He wants to start with basic dental care–largely pulling of teeth–for the nearly immediate relief will build local trust in the organization.

“There is not one person here who is not in need of my services,” Kussick laughed. And yet with each trip to Moat Clas and other outlying communities, patients will be screened to create baseline data and allow the Lake Clinic to bring other specialists out on the lake. (at left: at dawn the breakfast boat arrives with noodles and coffee.)

“It’s all about relationships,” Morgan said. Our visit was primarily fact-finding, photography, and supporting that relationship. In a few weeks Morgan will have his first boat which will sleep five. He is currently buying the engine. Once it is piloted up from Phnom Penh, the shallow draft vessel will be put to immediate use on the Tonle Sap. The Lake Clinic will be a very real entity for the villages on the lake; we could have provided some health care on this trip but as Kussick noted, the amount of equipment we’d have had to carry out there to serve one dental patient, never mind 20, would have been ridiculous.

Morgan is confident things will come together; the donors, the staff, the community and slowly, steadily he will reinvent himself once again. Captain Morgan will undoubtedly sail the Tonle Sap, providing the preventative health care and health education he sought to do years ago through AHC’s capacity building program. He takes his CWA in stride, something I will need to learn to do. (at right: the outskirts of the floating village of Moat Clas on the Tonle Sap Lake four hours from Siem Reap.)

VIEW IMAGE GALLERY OF FLOATING VILLAGE

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VIEW WEB GALLERY OF ANGKOR WAT

I’d like to say this was awe inspiring for me, and it might have been had I given myself enough time, but I was up at 4.30, in the tuk tuk by 5.30 with two new friends, and with the masses as the sky glowed pink.

I only had time to run through Angkor Wat to see the grounds and make some images before needing to be back in Siem Reap for a breakfast meeting. Which was about the right amount of time as the light was turning harsh, the heat was building, and I needed a coffee. I had every intention of coming back out for sunset but things led to things and I found myself watching the sun set on the tour buses and temple tops from the restaurant of a French Algerian named Matthew who at one time photographed the temples for UNESCO. Now he helps determine the wine list for the high end hotel restaurants (rooms at $800-$1500/night) and says who can and can’t be in his establishment.

Hal almost got thrown out for calling an oddly flavored Ukranian vodka “Thai Vodka” until Jon mentioned that Hal was the one who road his bicycle across Australia to raise funds for The Lake Clinic. Immediately Matthew’s demeanor changed and they were best friends.

Ah…the French. Well, we did leave with a friend discount and a case of Duvel. It was an absolutely entertaining afternoon within sight of one of the wonders of the world, one of those moments you’d never be able to imagine until you’re in it.

I’m going to have to come back, wade through the tourists, and make a real effort to see the temples. Of course, that means I’ll have to deal with the Disneyland that is downtown Siem Reap. The outskirts are different–and that’s where most of the brothels, massage parlors, karaoke, and other clubs selling sex are now. But the downtown core is a much more wholesome, tourist friendly environment–compared to the recent past. Not that selling sex is necessarily bad, it’s the exploitation, virgin sales, and captivity that many think Cambodia could do without. I rather preferred Phnom Penh; it was a shock to see so many caucasians. And while working with a health care NGO is a bit of a holiday, I could see very easily where the other part of my work lay. I just couldn’t touch it on this trip.

VIEW WEB GALLERY OF ANGKOR WAT

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I’m getting a little beat down by the NGO politics, the country politics, the continual fight for access, connections, story leads; I am expanding the story and sub-stories but I have to keep circling back to make sure I’m following up with the earlier pieces.

This is a self portrait down near the Independence Monument on my way from the nearby Java Online to Freebird. Both are popular expat hangouts, both have wi-fi, but Pat and Kath were in Freebird and I’m always afraid of running into the wrong person in Java. I arrived in-country with complications and they’ve only proceeded to blossom. Yet another reason to be tired.

I was keeping a bit of a diagram on my guest house wall in dry-erase pen. One of the desk staff saw it on Allison’s last day–she was keeping stuff in my room before departure–and exclaimed “Oh my god! My boss!” but I assured him it would come off. It became a long-running joke, him threatening to visit my room and “clean” it.

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I met a 13 year-old librarian the other day. She catalogs the books by difficulty, both English and Khmer. But the fact that she was once one of the vulnerable, living at the city dump, foraging for recyclables to sell, and is now living communally with other orphans receiving an education speaks volumes for yet another NGO. Even though she doesn’t know the Dewey-Decimal system, she is 13 and it is her library.

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I’ve expanded my skill set to video. It’s only a consumer-grade HD camera, but it shoots video. It’s also makes my job that much more expensive to do, not to mention it’s something more to lug around. But sometimes you want a talking head interview. (It does other stuff too, as I’m learning).

Srey Neth (pronounced Sray Nite) is now on staff for Transitions Cambodia and will become a spokesperson for the NGO, not only doing home assessments and outreach, but putting a personal story to the world of trafficking and sex slavery. She was once a victim herself.

Our set up was nothing like the pared-down (a dozen) cases of gear used by the NBC Dateline crew. It consisted of a black cloth taped to the wall, a couple of florescent desk lamps, a piece of synthetic white lace, and the room light. I put a lapel mic on her, asked the other girls to quiet down at the center (and turn off the ever-present TV), killed the room fan and did take after take.

Like my difficulty with some Khmer sounds, Neth finds trouble with “V,” “X’” and the ubiquitous American “R.” But I think we did alright.

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I’d never been to the “backpacker” area, the well-known “lakeside” so I went with Phnom Penh local Allie and her visiting younger sister Jessie. Allie works with Build Cambodia and is the person who introduced me to the Andoung Relocation Site. She is currently introducing her sister to Phnom Penh, trying to show a troubled 20 year-old American the depths of Cambodia and in this the possibilities within her.

We admired a beautiful sunset amongst the fisherman-pant wearing, sunburnt, budget travelers. This is the budget crowd, the most temporary in Phnom Penh. However, I’m not so sure the room rates are all that great of a deal.

On an off-color note, this is where (so I’ve been told by a source who shall remain anonymous) NGO women can go trolling for temporary dates. “Unfortunately, you have to take them back to your place and give them a shower, but the great part is they’re gone in a few days.”

Later I got to check out Allie’s well-located and quite nice pad. I was envious of her outdoor kitchen; it has been awhile since I’ve had the opportunity to cook for myself.

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This one is just pictures. On a recent Sunday I went with Kath out to Oudong (sp?), a pagoda about 30km North of Phnom Penh. We left in the dark, hoping for some nice sunrise pictures, but found the sky overcast and hazy. The ride there and back was a bit on the thrilling (and ass-numbing) side for me but when I mentioned some of our close calls Kath said “Dahhling, that was nothing. I’ve had much, much closer. We were fine.” Kath, is a brash, outspoken, frank Australian woman who likes men in uniform and to ride a big motorbike. If that gives you an idea.

Oudong is on a random hill poking up out of the surrounding rice paddies. To the east are the lush fields along the Tonle Sap river, to the west are fallow fields, dusty and brown. I believe some of the hilltop structures date from the 15th century and, I was told, it has the largest northward facing Buddha in the country–looking towards China. This could stand to be fact checked.

Anyhow, here are some pics.

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This is a cursory glance at the front entrances to a variety of brothels in the Toul Kork neighborhood of Phnom Penh. Many of these are wood-shack store fronts or residences where, at night, the red lamp is turned on and the girls gather at the entrance. At some, closer to the heart of town, the pimps stand out front calling to customers while the girls lounge inside.

Doing proper night photography, what with a tripod, bracketing, waiting for the right moment, is not exactly appropriate. So I sat on the back of a moto, driven by a trusted guy, sans-helmet, with the camera ISO jacked to the max (3200), at f2.8, the shutterspeed as fast as possible (around 15/sec), and no strobe. Snap snap snap away.

It’s not my favorite way to make pictures, especially when the girls figure out what you’re doing and turn away, as it’s pretty much against the way I like to build relationships, understanding, and trust. But the avenues I’ve been trying have yet to come through. With time ticking, I went for the moto ride. It’s also a safety thing for the pimps aren’t necessarily the nicest of people.

Brothel raids, particularly for underage and captive prostitutes, have pushed traffickers’ brothels out into the fringes of town, to the provinces, or to the other main tourist hubs of Sihanoukville and Siem Reap. It has also driven them underground into smaller brothels, massage parlors, and karaoke bars. However, for the Khmer men and the sex tourists, bar girls and more traditional brothels still exist.

Welcome to Toul Kork at night.

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Apsara Performance: A Short Media Clip (1.15min)

There is kind of a long story behind this short little piece; there is something uplifting in it but like much of the experience here, it’s hard to stop at the surface. Look once and your eyes will be opened.

It starts with a girl in her early teens, she lived at Apsara Arts Association with a bunch of other kids ranging from something like 7 years to 22 years. Apsara teaches traditional Khmer music, dance, and singing. Their troupe has performed internationally.

So the girl gets sick; she has AIDS. They put her in the National Pediatric Hospital where her health improves, and then place her about 30 minutes outside the city in an AIDS orphanage run by nuns.

Molly Jester, with Stop Exploitation Now, funded housing improvements at Apsara and pays the salary for one of the teachers. Molly met the girl on one of her previous visits and asked me to do her a favor–take a Lucky burger and a drink for each AIDS-infected kid (48) when I deliver the toys she sent.

I waited for Allison to arrive in Phnom Penh; she has a special interest in AIDS patients, and since it was early in her trip Dan was along. The kids were hungry for love, attention, anything. They fought over the toys, the fought over us, but there were a few who, in their eight or-so years of age, were looking out for the younger or disadvantaged. Like one girl in a worn-out pinkish dress who took my hand and made sure I gave the bedridden kids on IV drips a toy. I looked at the bladders; Ciproflaxin and saline.

Later that same girl came to play with me and another with a neurological disorder contorting her limbs; her knees were calloused from dragging herself around. She would scrunch up her face, pull her working arm back, and throw a hackey sack with all her might. It would drop to the ground 12 inches from her and she would laugh in a gasping fashion.

This went on for several minutes, the disabled girl, the pink-dress girl, and I playing as we fended off the desperate others. Allison and Dan had their hands full as well. In a somewhat scarring memory, Allison and I had watched this same girl pull her pants off on the floor then, half naked, drag herself over the sill into the tiled bathroom to pee in one of the unclean squat toilets. That this debilitated girl had sought me out, on hands and knees, to play catch was one of those moments you can’t turn away from. You just sit down and laugh with her. You give.

Molly’s girl, the one who was at Apsara, desperately wants to go back. The head nun doesn’t think it’s appropriate yet, as far as her health, nor does Apsara it seems. And so Molly’s girl goes to school, sleeps in a dormitory with other attention-starved children, looks forward to Sundays when Apsara teachers come out to work with the children, and watches as her fellow residents succumb to AIDS. They are all on ARV. Curiously, there is a TB ward two buildings away. The nuns seem to make do; they pray for God to provide, pray for donors, and when that fails, they go begging.

Apsara offers public performances on Saturday evenings. I had tried to make it two weekends in a row, but last Saturday I knew I could go. I just had to stop by a wedding first. I’m glad I made it to Apsara because they were considering canceling the performance, thinking that not enough foreigners might show, but Kalyan–who we met when we visited Molly’s girl–said I was showing up. The resident kids watched, as did some of the parents, but the hour-long performance was for me.

I swatted mosquitoes born from the fetid waters Apsara is built over, and thoroughly enjoyed the performance. For you climbers out there–these girls can bend their fingers backwards, creating a perfect “C.” Some can do it without using their other hand. That’s tendon flexibility.

Apsara Performance: A Short Media Clip (1.15min)

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It’s wedding season; just about every corner of every block has the tent set up, the loudspeaker going, the non-stop 12 hours of music. (at right: the cake, the cross, the hearts.)

Jaya (pronounced like Zhaya), the director of Transitions Cambodia, invited me to a wedding on Saturday. Jaya has worked in the sex trafficking aftercare industry for quite some time and knows a lot of Khmer staff at some of the other NGO’s. James calls her his big sister and I have found her to be one of the most caring and giving individuals. And she’s a damn good cook.

The wedding was for a driver who works at Agape Restoration Center; James and Athena founded ARC with Don and Bridget Brewster. The two California couples, guided by faith and a desire to make a difference, built a state-of-the-art facility and, after extensive research into pre-existing NGO’s, designed their own aftercare programs. (at left: bride and groom with wedding guests)

Later, James and Athena started another NGO, Transitions Cambodia (TCI), built on a model intended to help 15-19 year old sex trafficking survivors to find their own voice again and recapture their dreams. Some of the older ARC girls went into the TCI program. Jaya, who had worked with James, also joined with TCI.

In some ways, this wedding was a bit of a reunion. The Brewsters and 38 of their ARC girls were there as were some of the TCI staff and girls.

It wasn’t the wedding I was expecting; I’d heard Cambodian weddings are quite the oddity–and a booze fest. (at right: the bride greeting guests)

A friend of mine, Alicia, went to one last year and said “it was definitely one of the highlights of the trip. The mother of the bride was crying and hugging us when we left, and we met the most hilarious semi-mute, flamboyant blue silk shirt with rainbow stars wearing individual. I loved the tradition where the parents of the bride and groom exchanged champagne glasses full of Jim Bean Whiskey and drank them down in one gulp. The beer girls circulating in mini skirts to keep our glasses full, and our lazy susans laden with the latest feasting course were also a classy touch.”

This one was quite different.

I toured the neighborhood–a “city” as they call it here. Essentially a gated community, it was row up on row of uniform houses and uniform SUV’s. It felt a little like suburbs in Phoenix or Vegas, except greener, more humid, with more concrete homes, steel gates, and the odd rat or two. Sewer smells escaped from the gutters drains. Eventually some guy on a moto told me to stop taking pictures. Security. (at left: the neighborhood)

I returned to the wedding, watching as the bride and groom changed outfits (at least three times in the two hours I was there), all the while greeting the flood of guests. The ARC girls sat in the back and, having filled the tables, were quickly served. Little did I know, the strategy is to sit at an almost full table if you want to be served. I eventually got the clue, but not until it was too late. I was supposed to be at