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For this afternoon, I am happy to move slowly
and to quietly prepare
Tonight will come soon enough
the engines will roar
Time will shift and the adventure will begin
- travel notes, 27 Aug 2000, 4pm

28 August 2000

12:30am - LAX airport

The international terminal is much too busy, it seems to me, for this late hour. The waiting areas are clogged with sleepy travelers propped in corners or on the shoulders of neighbors. I am looking for water to carry with me onto the plane. Stay hydrated, they say. Fourteen hours of conditioned air will dry you right out. No sense in starting the trip with head cold.

The only bottled water is the McDonalds brand -- 1 pint for $1.50. This is an inauspicious start to things. I am not traveling halfway around the world to spend money or time at McDonalds. I tell myself that these are extenuating circumstances. It won't happen again. At the counter I ask if there are any larger sizes than the pint size. No, she says, but down at the next food counter they have some.

The next counter is teriyaki and rice joint and, in fact, they don't have any larger sizes. I buy one anyway. At least it doesn't have a giant, golden M on the label.

We've been called for boarding and it strikes us suddenly that our carry-on bags filled to overflowing with video cameras and other fragile equipment are much larger than the ridiculously small regulation-size box at the gate. We redistribute the load between us and stand to the side to size up the ticket-takers. They seem to be taking a hardline approach to the whole thing, stricter than anyone should be at 1:10am on a Monday morning.

It is decided that we will make a run for it. I am shielding Kevin because he's got the biggest backpack. This is not a good strategy - he is six and a half feet tall, I am five foot ten on a good day. It's all I can do to shield his left leg. I take a deep breath and try to think giant thoughts.

We make it through without incident, thanks to some distracting customers ahead of us in line, and step onto the plane relieved. Arriving in Cambodia with broken cameras would remove most of the potential for the trip. Without our tools, we would just be tourists and grouchy ones at that.

On the plane, we get acquainted. There are five of us at this point in the trip. Kevin I know from previous trips with Church Resource Ministries (CRM). He is the Director of Communications for the organization and the King of Video. He is tall, Southern Californian to the core and gets along with everyone. He exists because Pizza Hut and McDonalds exist. There are two things in the world that Kevin loves: his wife and daughters at home in Orange County and an air-conditioned hotel room with a long shower after a hot day.

Sam is the head of CRM and is leading the group. In addition to the goal of collecting video and still images of CRM's ongoing work in Southeast Asia, this trip is also an opportunity for Sam to spend time with the staff members in their various home environments. He is a quick thinking, decisive man, someone who loves action and the impact of a carefully chosen word. His tendency to be abrupt is tempered by his compassion and his love for a good joke even at his own expense.

Chris, Brian and I have never met before tonight. Chris is a little younger than me, newly hired as a recruiter for CRM. He is going along on this trip to learn what they are doing in this part of the world. He is red-haired and quick to speak with a kind of edgy twentysomething coolness in his manner. His parents are close friends of Sam and Sam's wife Patty and throughout the trip the long history between Chris and Sam provides many stories and much good-natured teasing. Brian is a youth worker from Alabama. He is earnest, opinionated, generous and, like Sam, prefers action. He doesn't know it yet but in a week and a half he will stand in front of a video camera and eat a four-inch long fried tarantula in one bite. Without a blink.

29 Aug 2000

6:40am

The flight across the Pacific goes by quickly and I am surprised to find myself on the ground again on its far side. Although we are continuing onward aboard the same plane, we are asked to spend the 90 minute layover inside the Taipei airport. There is only one food stall open at this hour and they are not serving the Egg McMuffin that Kevin has been dreaming about. Sam and Chris and I order soup and sushi and teasingly offer Kevin samples of the dark brown tofu. He is not amused.

Downstairs in the transfer lounge they are serving coffee and orange juice and we settle in to await our departure. The time-zone daze turns the talk in strange directions -- it appears that we are a politically-divided group. "If Al Gore becomes president, I'm gonna move far away," Chris announces. Not all of us agree. We board the plane distracted, engaged in a debate over whether or not the Creation account in Genesis 1 should be interpreted literally. We are pleasantly surprised to find that the plane is only half full for the five-hour flight to Singapore. I claim a window seat on the right side of the plane, hoping for good views of Taiwan and Vietnam.

10:25am

I am reading a book by John Swain, a British journalist who worked as a war correspondent in Cambodia and Vietnam during the conflict of the 1970s. "River Of Time" is in large part a love letter written to Southeast Asia, but towards the end of the book his narrative runs through the period of the Vietnamese boat people, refugees from the Communist government. I find myself engrossed in the stories of suffering until with a sudden lurch in my stomach I realize that it all took place right there beneath me on the glittering surface of the sea below. I drop the book and press to the window as if ghosts of those desperate voyages might still be seen. The boat people were drowned by leaky boats, robbed, raped and murdered by opportunistic fisherman, decimated by the intense tropical sun and starvation. Those who survived the trip were often sent back to Vietnam by governments at a loss to know what to do with them.

11:40am

The Singapore airport is a wonder. I walk open-mouthed along its spotless corridors, passing through the spacious and immaculate passport control with no waiting, nothing but a pleasant smile from the official -- Welcome to Singapore. We are met by Jim Creaseman, one of the members of the CRM Singapore team, who debriefs us quickly and whisks us to a waiting shuttle.

6:30pm

This first night we eat dinner with Jim and Kim Creaseman on the riverfront. Excellent Chinese food under a beautiful equatorial evening sky. The gleaming skyscrapers of downtown hang over us to the south. Restaurant managers wave menus in our faces, following us down the street, "You want to eat?" Nothing gets attention faster in this part of town than a small flock of Americans looking in store windows.

Jim and Kim talk about the difficulty of getting people to work together in community in a city where most have everything they need. Monotony and apathy are huge obstacles. The city nearly straddles the equator -- the sun rises and sets at almost exactly the same time every day year round. There are no seasons.

From dinner, we walk home to our hotel across the city. From every shop door a stream of cool, conditioned air flows out into the humid night. Kevin walks in great, bounding arcs along the sidewalk, slowing as he approaches each open door.

30 August 2000

6:30am

I am up early and on the roof. The last edge of night is still in the sky and lightning flashes to the west. Proof that we are in the tropics, the sun leaps into the sky with no warning at all. Just as suddenly a morning thunderstorm steamrolls the hotel. The wind gusts and the warm rain pours down in torrents and overflows the rooftop swimming pool. Despite Singapore's best efforts there are still a few surprises here.

9:09am

4:35pm

"It's damn hot," says my taxi driver waving his arms in the air. As it is a relatively breezy afternoon outside, I surmise that this is not meant to be a mere epithet but rather an invitation to talk. "Yes," I agree, "Very hot." He glances at me in feigned surprise, as if I had just appeared like a genie in the back seat of his aged Toyota, "You think so too?"

"Yes," I say again, "It is very hot today, hotter than where I come from." This is like the beginning punt of a football game -- the conversation is off and running. He wants to know what I do for a job in the California. This is a difficult question. I go for the simple answer - "I work for a company that makes rockets". Unaccountably, this answer seems to satisfy him.

Next he wants to talk about race. He is darker-skinned than most Singaporeans and I am not sure how to place him. He calls himself Eurasian. Further explanation doesn't help to make things clear, but I am left with the impression that the Portuguese and the Malaysians had something to do with it. He asks me if there is racial discrimination in California. I tell him there is but that we like to pretend there isn't.

He says that race shouldn't be important but that it makes a difference when you want a job in Singapore. The best jobs always go to the Chinese. He is generous with his laughter and gets me to the hotel with efficiency, like everything else in this city.

31 August 2000

7:10am

It is no problem, this jet lag, in the mornings. We all are waking early, wide awake. This morning we are up before the sunrise to catch our plane. I argue with the cab driver about the half-closed trunk lid and climb in the back seat with visions of my precious camera gear bouncing along the Singapore freeway. He tells me that he has driven taxi for a long time and has never seen any backpacks on the freeway. I wonder if this is supposed to reassure me.

The Singapore newspaper headline reads: "Baby Guide: What every married couple needs to know to go forth and make babies." I'm not kidding. Inside there are make-out locations around the island, instructions for preventing "peeping toms" (cover your car windows with newspaper, naturally) and pros and cons of "necking" in the car (rugburns!)

I am glad to leave Singapore. There is a strange, airless feeling I get on the streets. I am not normally a rebellious person. For the most part, I abide by the law. But here, inexplicably, I catch myself daydreaming of spray paint and chewing gum.

9:16am

10:06am

I step outside Pochentong airport beneath the humid, overcast sky and throw my pack into the back of a white four-wheel-drive pickup. Climbing atop the pile of suitcases, camera gear, and backpacks, I begin to absorb my surroundings. I have traveled much and been a foreigner in many places. There is no question that this is different from anywhere I have ever been.

We have arrived under the trailing edge of a typhoon and the clouds are thick. The light outside the airport is bright and even.

Within minutes we are plunging into the swarm of moto-taxis, cars, trucks, people and animals that clog the mostly unpaved streets of Phnom Penh. In my wide-eyed wonder, I am clicking away at the camera. The motor drive buzzes happily along as I shoot shot after blurry shot from the bouncing back of the truck. The air is full of a fine dust that irritates the eyes and gets in everything. I decide that it is a losing battle to keep my camera lenses clean.

11:30am

This is an adventurous group of people that I am traveling with. No one wants to go back to the guesthouse and sleep. We immediately make plans for the afternoon. I climb into the back of the truck again for a rattling ride to the Killing Fields outside the city. There is a tall monument filled with human bones and a number of thatched shelters with signs in Khmer and English recounting the history of the place. Most of the people who saw the place in the late 1970s didn't live to tell the story. Huge mass graves have been excavated. The monument is a rough set of shelves reaching maybe thirty feet high filled mostly with skulls. Some of the skulls have holes in them from some kind of trauma. There is a pile of clothing on the bottom shelf and the entire room smells of death. It is not a beautiful place. The luxurious green of the surrounding rice fields is a strange contrast to the morbid display and the leaden silence doesn't encourage one to linger. We take our pictures, talk a bit to the local children and head back into the city.

I spend some time this afternoon following Dave Everitt through a market. He and his wife Lisa have worked among the Cambodians for years now and he is fluent in the Khmer language. He is not a small man and it is impossible for him to hide as he weaves his way between the stalls. He loves it here; it's easy to see in his grin as he chats comfortably with a woman sitting beside a huge basket of headless frogs. A curious crowd has gathered to gawk at the tall foreigner who speaks Khmer. All traffic along the narrow walkway stops. Dave has picked up one of the frogs and is in the middle of some narrative that has everyone around laughing. After awhile the faces grow serious, a little uncomfortable. Later Dave tells me that he likened the headless frog to a man who goes to a prostitute not seeing any danger. Then suddenly he is sick with AIDS. Soon he is dead. This is a common thing in Cambodia, but denial of it is monumental, imbedded in the society. No one talks about it.

5:10pm

Mark and Susan Smith are also CRM team members in Phnom Penh. In the late afternoon we assemble at their house for dinner and talking. I am tired from the heat and the action of the day. There is a small, covered patio at one end of the tiny building and I sit down to rest in the pool of light that pours in from the clouded late-afternoon sky. It may well be impossible to adequately describe the small, second-story house or give a sense of its surroundings to anyone who hasn't experienced southeast Asia. Sitting quietly I gradually become aware of the activity going on all around me.

The house is squeezed like a puzzle piece into one of the poorer neighborhoods of the city. Below and on all sides of us there are people. The roof of the neighboring house to the north nudges up against the beams that form the railing of the deck where I sit. A quick step up and I could walk a good distance without having to return to ground level. That would be one way to get to know the neighbors.

Level with me and just across a narrow street I can see into the next house. The noise of food preparation and family emanates from the open windows (there is no glass in the windows here, just wooden shades to keep out the rain.) Mark says that when the children downstairs are sick or when someone next door is angry or when a neighbor is hurt or out of work, the whole neighborhood shares the knowledge. I listen to the sounds and realize that the noisy upstairs Americans are just a small part of the life of a community that is much larger and much greater.

Mark and Susan are both highly educated. They are not here because they couldn't succeed at anything else. They've chosen this place with care. "This is a poor, working class neighborhood," Mark explains over dinner, "but it is not the poorest." They would like to move to an area even lower on the economic scale but are not sure that they could sustain it in the long term. It is more important to them to maintain the commitment and to have longevity in their community. They teach in the local schools and provide training for the Ministry of Education. They work to connect needy people with the resources provided by the various aid programs. They hold Bible studies in the neighborhood and work to assist in the local churches. It is not glamorous work or easy but one can see looking in Mark's eyes as he talks that it is rewarding.

After dinner we are back in the muddy street playing a crazy game of How-Many-People-Can-You-Fit-In-A-Small-White-Pickup. From what I can see there are at least eight inside the cab. It is dark by now but the narrow street is still filled with people (most of whom seem to be joining us in the back of the truck.) For the locals this is obviously the evening's big show. As we turn onto the main street, it starts to rain in big splattering drops. Dave is driving fast, bouncing over potholes as big as bathtubs, and we are all of us drawn into the exuberant, irresistible chaos of the evening. Crouching on the tailgate, Kevin leans into the warm rain, his face and clothing drenched, and grins a huge grin at me.

9:47pm

1 September 2000

8:05am

Didn't sleep much last night. Still at loose ends from yesterday's experiences. The heat and the intense concentration of making pictures are at the same time exhausting and electrifying. Photographing in a place like this brings with it many questions. Am I representing the truth about the people I am seeing? How much are my own preconceptions coloring my perspective? How do they see me -- the affluent American with my fancy camera around my neck outfitted and equipped by REI, Nike, and the Gap? How would I feel in their place?

9:50am

We arrive by mototaxi like a gang of motorcycle hoodlums in front of a rundown complex of grimy yellow buildings. It has been raining and there are deep puddles everywhere. We splash our way past the gate and into the courtyard. This is the Preah Ket Meala Hospital. It is for military personnel only, funded by the government, ignored by the many aid organizations that crowd Phnom Penh because it treats only soldiers. A good number of the patients come here to die -- AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, sometimes all three at once, kill most of the people in the terminal ward. Most patients bring their families along with them. The courtyard and the dirty, open air hallways are full of children.

I feel our intrusion more strongly then usual here. We are a group of big, helplessly loud Americans loaded down with cameras and backpacks in a hospital full of small, quiet, dying people. I am at a loss at first to know how to approach the picture taking. A crowd of children gathers in the entryway to watch as we ready our equipment.
Dave has begun his work without us, making his way slowly from room to room. As he greets the doctors and patients by name, his face shines like a ray of light; the love of Christ pours out of him like a flood into the dingy rooms.

I follow him into a room where there is a man lying on a small wooden cot. This one is very sick, close to death. Dave says he has a wife and children who live outside of Phnom Penh. He has had AIDS, active and unmitigated for two years and will most likely not survive the next two months. Like many others here, he was infected by a prostitute. Health education in Cambodia is minimal, denial and willingness to risk are pervasive. The best the doctors can do in this poverty-stricken country is to give him vitamins and whatever medication can be found to ease his discomfort. Dave sits on the side of the bed, lays his hand on the man's chest and speaks in low, comforting tones. The man is far gone, barely able to comprehend, barely alive.

One of Dave and Lisa's roles in the PKM hospital is to deliver medication directly to the patients. The doctors here are paid very little for their unending work and it is not uncommon for them to redirect prescriptions to their own outside clinics where they can be sold again with a good markup. These are the economics of survival in a third world country. Dave tells me it could be full time job just filling prescriptions and delivering them directly to the patients.

At the end of the hall there is another man who is also is riding the cruel arc of AIDS toward his death. He, his wife and four children live in a room ten feet square where they have moved since his diagnosis. He was infected by needles reused in the army's typhoid fever immunization program. Either no one cared enough or there wasn't money enough to sterilize or buy new needles so they went down the line using the same needle. He has a year or, if things go well, maybe a year and a half to live. He is making good use of his time though. Through his friendship with Dave, he has recently chosen to believe in Christ and this decision has changed his life and the life of his family. It has also made a difference for many other families in the PKM hospital -- he teaches math, reading and writing to the children on his floor, knowing that if they don't get some kind of education they will most likely be doomed to lifelong poverty.

4:50pm

Two hours of dust and potholes in the back of a pickup has brought us to a tiny farming community to the north of Phnom Penh. We arrive as the sun is setting across the rice fields and my head spins again to realize how very far I am from anything I might call familiar. There isn't anything even remotely resembling a Starbucks for hundreds and maybe thousands of miles in any direction.

It is apparently peak traffic hour here -- the dirt road is full of cattle being herded home for the night. Our progress slows to a crawl as we weave our way through the assembly. They are very unlike Los Angeles commuters, these Cambodian cows. They are not in a hurry to get anywhere. Chris at least doesn't seem to mind the delay. His seat near the tailgate proved to be the roughest ride in the truck. His face has reflected near-misery for the past hour.

We arrive at last at our destination, a truckload full of Americans, making quite a scene and smelling up the place with our designer-brand mosquito repellent. By the amount of spraying and smearing that's going on and the wall of citron-odor that follows us around you'd think we were encountering mosquitoes the size of ponies in this part of the country. Our gracious hosts either have absolutely no sense of smell or are politely pretending not to notice.

Tonight we are guests of Dave who is an honored guest of Mao, a prominent figure in the village. Dave employs Mao's nephew as a personal assistant in Phnom Penh and treats him like a son. In return, he and his friends are welcomed with expansive hospitality when they visit. Many in this village have become Christians through this friendship and it shows in their bearing, in their speech, in their eyes.

The darkness falls quickly and we are soon seated around a table under the Cambodian night sky drinking fresh coconut milk and watching with awe as a steady stream of exotic food appears in front of us. Our hosts have spent a great deal of money on this meal and are taking great pleasure in serving it. They will not sit at the table with us, but rather wait until we are finished before eating what is left over. There are fried fish, freshwater shrimp complete with tiny antennae and crunchy shells, rice with raisins, and much more. The specialty of the night is presented, frog legs, a big bowl and handed directly to Kevin. Everyone watches as he takes a bite and nods valiantly in appreciation, his eyebrows raised high as if fleeing from the chewy mouthful below. I have never been so proud of my friend. All he has really needed to be happy on this trip has been a little air conditioning and a burger. Both have been conspicuously scarce here in Cambodia. This little bite of frog is a sacrifice of near cosmic proportions for him.

After dinner Dave tells us it is time for washing up around the cistern. We are each given two sarongs -- one for wearing during the wash and one for after. It is a delicate task to remove one's clothing and wrap the sarong without a compromise in modesty. Not everyone is successful. It's the wrapping that is tricky. Sometimes it slips. I decide that the whole exercise is one big practical joke played on the foreigners. I am certain that just around the corner of the building the Cambodians are holding their sides and rolling about on the ground in uproarious laughter at the sight. But in the end, as we stand clean and dry in the living Cambodian night, I decide that I don't mind.

2 September 2000

Dawn

I am on the second floor. Birds, frogs, roosters, children making sleepy morning sounds below me. Early morning light floods over my shoulder through the window opening. Coconut palms and rice paddies in sandy soil. Thatched huts on stilts. Warm, moist air. Wood smoke. The rattle of a wooden cart on the road in front of the house. The village is coming awake now.

I am slow to get out of bed, listening to the sounds all around, watching as the daylight slowly spreads and forms pools of light across my borrowed bed. It is a strange and wonderful thing to receive the hospitality of strangers.
The morning assembles itself slowly. A few of us set off on a walk into the rice fields accompanied by two of Mao's nephews. As we approach a field full of people harvesting young rice plants, it becomes clear that we are once again the biggest show in town, a veritable traveling circus of entertainment. Operational productivity comes almost completely to a halt as we splash and stumble our way across the paddy like little sandal-wearing Charlie Chaplins. After a brief murmured introduction by our young guides, we bring the house down with our attempts to join the work force. Here is a note for future reference: it is much harder than it looks to harvest rice.

12:30pm

Throughout the week in Cambodia we come across young Buddhist monks in their orange robes -- sometimes walking in a column alongside the road as they receive food gifts from the faithful, sometimes peering from the shadows of a roadside temple, sometimes on the back of motor scooters on their way to wherever it is that monks spend their days. If their omnipresence is any sign, it would seem that Buddhism is alive and well in this country. According to Dave, the truth is somewhat different.

Cambodia, he tells us, over the past forty years has been wrung dry of almost all of its sincere religious beliefs. Communism hammered away at any systematized religion other than atheism, killing those who would not submit, burning down churches and temples. To survive those evil days a person did whatever needed to be done in order to stay alive. One former government-employed teacher told us he had no idea why he survived. Most people in his position were killed. He found ways to make himself useful to the peasants; for awhile he was known as a "Leech Man" because he would wade into the rice paddies first to attract the leeches to his own feet before the rest of the workers would enter the field. Maybe it was this that saved his life. Maybe it was something else. In those fearful times, who could tell?

What remains now at the end of all the terror is a pragmatic people who send their sons to the monastery because it boosts their standing in society and who concern themselves more with getting ahead economically than with metaphysics and morality. Deeper down, what remains is a society looking for things that are real, relationships that are trustworthy.

11:40pm

We are on a bumpy back road in the outskirts of the city. Even for this late hour the streets are eerily empty. Dave explains that traveling after dark has for so long been so dangerous that even in the last two years as the political situation has improved people still are hesitant to be out at night. My thoughts flip back over the stories I've read of pervasive banditry, highway shootings and the strongly worded U.S. State Department warnings against being out at night in Cambodia. I find it hard to reconcile Cambodia’s terrifying history of violence and institutionalized insanity with the gentleness and beauty I’ve experienced in the last week. In the daylight, on the busy streets, or in the market, Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge seem to be someone else’s bad dream, something that never really happened. The empty road ahead lit only a little by our headlights bespeaks of something darker in this country of contrasts.

There is, however, no shortage of activity in the brothel district where we are headed. Looking for video footage of the rampant prostitution industry, we make a run down a street known for its brothels. There are literally hundreds of women in the space of a few short blocks. Our pickup with its white NGO license plates (reserved for international aid organizations) does nothing to make friends for us. In the short term, anyone concerned about the injustice of the prostitution industry and attempting to bring about change is considered a threat. We are greeted with shouts and thrown bottles as doors up and down the street slam shut. Brian rides ahead of us on the back of a motor scooter with a video camera hidden in his jacket. In the confusion, we lose sight of him for a few minutes. He reappears at the end of the street white-faced and rattled. He throws his camera into the cab through the open window. "Let's get out of here," he shouts tersely. We find out later that he's been chased and nearly yanked from the back of his scooter by someone with a vested interest in the place. In the time it takes us to pull onto the street again the red taillights of his scooter have nearly disappeared in the distance.

3 September 2000

1:40pm

Sunday morning finds us in two taxis headed northeast from Phnom Penh on one of the best roads in Cambodia. The narrow two-lane highway is a primary artery for transit between the capital city and Kompong Cham, the third largest city in the country. Sue tells us with a twinkle in her eye that not too far ahead there is a place that specializes in fried tarantulas. "They're safe to eat," she says, "I think."

But I am planning to be brave, maybe even a tiny bit of a showoff. "No problem", I say to myself. A few minutes later we stop at a gas station and are besieged by children bearing platters piled high with the fuzzy, black, fried spiders. Big ones. My stomach is suddenly huddling somewhere close to my ankles. It's not "the thought" that's the problem, it's not even the furry qualities or the live tarantula that is climbing up one kid's arm that I can't deal with. It's the big, round bulbous abdomen that is making my stomach do its little dance around my feet.

Once again I am suspicious that there is a great big practical joke on the foreigners going on somewhere close at hand. I peer around behind the gas pumps and the dumpster, looking for the crowd of guffawing locals. Everyone else seems to be taking it straight up. I watch as Sam takes a big bite, chewing meditatively. "Not that bad," he says. Sue is stocking up, filling a plastic bag, like we're at some fast food joint or something -- "Can I get an order of spiders and a medium Coke -- to go, please!" Sam takes another. Brian puts one in his mouth whole and chews enthusiastically for the video camera. I'm up a creek. I'll never be able to look myself in the world-traveling adventurer eye if I fail this test. I tear a leg off of Sam's second spider and without examining it pop it in my mouth. Doesn't taste like chicken. Tastes like spider. But it's not bad, just a little platy. Dental floss would be good about now. Kevin is turning white.

4:35pm

Kompong Cham is smaller, less chaotic. We are even more out of place here than in Phnom Penh. Everyone notices us. By the looks on the shopkeepers' faces as I roam the market I am an object of curiosity here, like I have antlers growing out of my head or three eyes. Sue says that very few foreigners come to KC -- backpackers and aid workers are usually the only Westerners that venture out to this city.

Sue Lloyd directs a program called House of Hope that is based here in Kompong Cham. Established two and a half years ago, its primary purpose is to help girls that are caught in prostitution to find a way out. This is accomplished through caring relationships and education as well as practical training in alternative ways of making a living. The afternoons at the House of Hope are filled with classes in cosmetics and sewing.
Sue and her team members Tammy Fong and Diane Moss have built the program from the ground up in an astonishingly short time. Besides the three of them, the House of Hope maintains a staff of 15-20 locals who do much of the day-to-day work. The efficiency and productiveness of the program speaks of the clarity of vision, the cultural sensitivity and pure determination of the CRM team members.

We arrive late in the afternoon which we discover is volleyball hour at the House of Hope. None of the girls know English, but they have learned the lingo of the volleyball court. Before every serve they shout "Ball!". Heaven help you if you aren't ready.

We play for an hour, maybe more, as the late afternoon sky grows darker and darker with clouds. The humidity makes the air feel heavy, like a great cushion on all sides, and everyone is drenched with sweat until finally the storm breaks in a rush of wind and rain. We all stop to look up and stand smiling and shouting in the noise of the storm. There is no reason to stop the game. We are soaked already and the rain is warm and pleasant. We play for another twenty minutes until the rain is falling too heavily and it is too dark to continue.

4 September 2000

7:10am

I am awake and up near dawn this morning and while everyone finishes a breakfast of rice and a soup of unknown ingredients I wander down to the river to check the on the rising water levels. I stand at the waterline where a six-inch curb is all that remains to stop the mighty Mekong from pouring out into the street. Before lunch it will all be underwater. The sun is rising over the wide expanse of water and the morning light is as beautiful as ever on the people and the buildings and the vegetable sellers' stalls and the trees.

I am tired of being the intrusive foreigner and have kept my camera in my bag on this walk. Some children have caught sight of me and are following me down to the water. They are milling around trying to appear casual as if nothing out-of-the-ordinary is going on. Ho-hum. Just a normal, everyday morning down by the riverside. Ho-hum. Just six small pairs of eyes watching every move I make.

Finally one girl, maybe eight years old, works up the courage. She stands in front of me and puts her curled fingers to her eyes in the shape of binoculars. I am slow-witted because of the early hour and I stand helplessly looking at her, hands at my sides. She is joined by a friend and together they make binocular eyes at me and smile. It starts to sink in and I am glad I have brought my camera with me. As I pull it out they break into huge grins that shine as bright as the morning. I take pictures to capture the faces and the moment and, turning again to the sunrise, find that another beautiful day has begun beneath the brilliant sky.

4:30pm

It is late afternoon and the floodwater has continued to rise. Despite the potential for disaster, there is a festive feeling in the air. Some unaccountably wealthy member of the town has brought a Jet Ski down to the waterfront and is roaring up and down the submerged street. People, women in dresses, tiny children, are gathered all along the way, standing in foot-deep muddy water to watch the spectacle. Down the river, boys are leaping from a high tree into the rolling muddy current of the Mekong.

6:05pm

5 September 2000

11:50am

2:00pm

The taxis carry us past the spiders to Phnom Penh by early afternoon for our last day in Cambodia. It is back to the PKM Hospital for art class with the children and patient visitation. I tell Dave that I love to watch him work because "all his lights come on" when he walks in the door. He grins and looks down. "I didn't expect to like it as much as I do," he says quietly.

There is an 18 year old boy here who last night swallowed acid in an attempt to kill himself. As we walk into the room, he is sitting very still on the cot, spitting into a bowl, his mother beside him. His throat, esophagus, stomach, and intestinal tract have been badly burned. He spent all night outside another hospital with the acid inside him eating away at his guts because he had no money to pay for help. Dave tells him that he's lucky, that most would have died from this. Asks him why he thinks his life was spared. Then he puts his arm around the boy's thin shoulders and sits next to him for a long time. Down the hall the kids are noisily leaving their art class with Lisa. Above us a bare light bulb lights the room. Just another day at the PKM Hospital.

11:20pm

It's late and we are leaving the Everitt's. Amazingly, there is spaghetti and meatballs for dinner. Kevin ate more tonight than I've ever seen him eat before. Sue and I are the last ones to leave. It's been raining and we can only find one mototaxi driver in this quiet section of town. The two of us climb on the back of his little scooter, balancing boxes of supplies for the House of Hope under our arms. As we start to roll, it becomes quickly evident that our driver is not in complete control of his faculties. He is, in fact, quite drunk. I hang onto the box and the back of the bike counterbalancing his swaying path, watching for bottomless puddles in the road ahead, expecting at any moment to find myself diving toward the street at 30 miles an hour. He discovers that Sue speaks Khmer and happily begins to tell her what seems to me to be his entire life story. He shouts excitedly over his shoulder and waves his hand. He is apologizing for being so drunk, Sue tells me. He didn't expect to get any more customers tonight. I'm on the back eyeing the oncoming traffic. It's nice to have my last mototaxi ride be a memorable one. I just don't want it to be too memorable.

6 September 2000

10:05am

Finally I am through the door and out under the bright overcast sky for a few short moments more. Thirty years ago machine gunners hid in the grass at the end of the runway here and took pot shots at planes taking off for safer places. It is a different country today, but not that different. I realize that it is the chaos and the intense vitality of this place that draws me, the risk and the riot of the streets that remains in my head as I leave. But there is hope in the air too and that excites me even more. Cambodia has been a place of darkness; now a light is dawning. It has been a country in need of grace, desperately in need of people who bring mercy instead of madness, healing instead of hatred. The great good news is that these things are now finding root and beginning to grow here.

Stepping onto the plane I turn for one more look and promise myself that I'll be back. Maybe it's not so far after all.