CambodianJourney2008

Seeing in the Mirror Dimly

2008-08-25T07:02:00.000-07:00

I can't believe that it is August 25th. We have been home from Cambodia for over a month, and my two Cambodian babies began their senior year of high school today. Where does the time go??

A surprising number of people have asked me "When are you going to write the final entry from your trip blog?" Who knew that you cared? Actually, I'm glad that you do and I'm sorry it has taken so long.

Processing this trip through has been difficult for me this time. Last time we went in 2005, it was so clear to me why we went. I wanted Brennan and Kaley to visit their birthcountry. Brennan wanted to look for his birthfamily (even though that search was unsuccessful.) We participated in a housebuilding through the organization Tabitha and radically changed the lives of 8 families in a small village in the middle of a rice field. There was a sense of peace in my heart when we returned in 2005.

This time was different and truth be told I was unsettled. Don't get me wrong. It was a blast. It was so much fun traveling with "my girls" and Mr. Mike of course. Sharing this experience with Marcy, Deb, Julie and the beautiful Khmer princesses Hilary, Leanne, and Kaley (and Mr. Mike again of course!) was amazing and I would do it again in a heartbeat. But still... something was missing.

Maybe it was because the first time back was such a powerful experience, introducing Bren and Kaley to their birthcountry and building those houses.

More likely, it was because Leanne and Hilary both had such powerful experiences meeting their birthfamilies and finding out just how loved, missed, and cherished they were, while meanwhile I feel in some completely irrational way that I have failed my children because despite my diligent efforts I haven't been able to learn any more about what brought them to the orphanage and where there families might be. Lucky for me, Kaley is a bit wiser than I am and has said that in some ways she's sort of glad that she doesn't know because it would be harder to live here in the U.S. and be happy with the blessings that she has if she knew that she had family members struggling to survive back in Cambodia. I think with my heart but my daughter has been blessed with a more rational insight to life than her mama.

Still, too, I was feeing a little empty because our fundraising efforts and gifts to the Nutrition Center orphanage and other places made just a drop in the bucket in terms of the needs of the children and this country. I am so grateful to everyone who contributed so generously, but the level of need is so overwhelming. Seeing those 20 big bags of rice and knowing that as great as that was it would still only provide food for 20 days was a real eye opener. We are more committed than even before to continue to help, but the overwhelming level of need weighed against what we seem able to do to help was heavy on my heart when we came home.

And then of course there is dear Yoen and his family, and Thon and his family... whose greatest wish and desire is to live in America and have their children share just a bit of the opportunities that our children have... and knowing that our immigration policies will probably never make this possible for any of them. That, too, breaks my heart.

As icing on the cake, I looked at the credit card statements and the money that I spent on this trip and questioned all the more "why?" it seemed like this summer was the time to go back. I have two kids who will hopefully start college in a year. What was I thinking? And then of course I returned to my car with a burned out engine and in need of $$$ repairs... only to be topped by Jim totaling our truck a couple of weeks ago. Again, what was I thinking.

In case you're still reading and not totally depressed, let me summarize -- It was great, and it was fun, but I couldn't wrap my head around why I had felt compelled to go back again this summer, and what "meaning" I could assign to this trip over the long haul as I look back upon the Cambodian Journey 2008.

That was until Thursday, August 18th. Around 8 in the evening I received an urgent message from my friend Yoen back in Phnom Penh. "Please get hold of Miss Deb and Mr. Mike and Leanne Voeung and let them know that at 6 am this morning (which would have been 6 pm in the evening our time) Leanne's birthmother in Cambodia died from a brain hemmorage."

Dear God in heaven.... this woman who had less than a month ago embraced her long lost daughter with every nerve and tissue in her body shaking with the joy and wonder of this unexpected reunion. How could this be? My first words to God were something like, "What were you thinking here? Give Leanne this woman in her life who loves her and has cherished her in her heart all these years and then take her away again in a month? Why now? Couldn't they at least have had a few more visits, more time together, God? This is crap."

My phone call to Deb was brief. I caught her on her cell phone. "I have bad news from Yoen. Leanne's mother has died." And with that message the Konicek family was plunged into an unanticipated and unlikely grief. They have been in touch with Yoen and have helped to provide for the funeral for Leanne's mom. Leanne has been very sad (of course) and wrote a beautiful letter to be read at her mother's service. Deb & Mike, too, wrote a letter which I am sure will bring much comfort to Leanne's four sisters in Cambodia. My heart and prayers are with them. I hope yours will be, too.

It was probably later that evening that the veil lifted from the Cambodian Journey 2008. Why this summer? What was the purpose of this adventure? What compelled me to go back this summer instead of next summer? What compelled Marcy to pick up the phone and call Deb to ask if they'd like to join us on our adventure? Oh... now I see.

God and I have talked again. Actually, I've done the talking. I think God just smiled. Instead of being angry that Leanne only had a few hours to spend with her mom, I am so grateful that she had a few hours to spend with her mom. In the providence of God... it was this summer that we went to Cambodia and not next summer. We went in July instead of August (when the fares would have been a bit cheaper.) The Koniceks joined the journey. Leanne and her mother shared a hug 17 years in the making. As usual, God's plan was better than mine.

In I Corinthians 13 from the New Testament (the famous love passage that you hear so often at weddings) it says this:

"For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love."

In other words, in this life we just don't see things very clearly. It's like looking at a face in the mirror in the dark.... you just can't quite make it out. But someday we'll get it and everything will be perfectly clear. Until then, love will win. Even when we can't make sense of things, God is at work in the background and someday it will all become perfectly clear. Don't you love it? :-)

And so dear readers, Cambodian Journey 2008 ends on a bittersweet note. I know it won't be the last journey to Cambodia for pieces of all of our hearts live there.

As for me, I will continue to trust my hunches. And despite logic, when my hunch tells me "Hey, you need to......." I'm going to at least try to listen to those hunches. Because it just might be a divine hunch. Perhaps the very Spirit of God at work. Even when I am looking in a mirror dimly, it might be a part of God's plan.

Hope. Courage. Pray. Live. Serve. Go. Love.

Big Hugs -

Lisa

Photos: The only photo that I have of our whole traveling group and photos of Leanne and her birthmom

Home....

2008-07-20T18:15:00.001-07:00

No final thoughts tonight cause I'm too tired, but I wanted to let anyone who happens to be reading know that we are home at last. We had the direct flight from Hong Kong to Newark again.... 15 miserable hours but its nice not to have a layover until you get back in the USA.
More later -
Hugs -
Lisa

Ten Miles in Hong Kong

2008-07-19T08:00:00.000-07:00

Hey Everybody -

Wow - we have ended our trip with another FULL day. We left the hotel this morning and crossed the harbor to go to Hong Kong Island. What a different world. We came out into a beautiful huge mall full of upscale stores, restaurants, etc. It was huge in size and impressive. the girls, who didn't seem to be thrilled at a day of sightseeing, lit up like Christmas trees. We spent some time shopping in the Zara store, a European chain that only has a store in New York City in the states. They were having some good sales so the girls each got a couple of things after trying on about a billion things each. From there, we managed to find our way to an area called the mid-level esculators (after asking many people which way to go.) This series of covered walkways and escalators takes you from the water level to high on one of the hills over Hong Kong. There were lots of little shops and restaurants on the way. Much nicer than over on the Kowloon side of the harbor where we are staying we thought. When we were trying to find our way we passed a couple eating an egg tart...,. our favorite treat from our first day back in Macau - which seems eons ago to us now. They told us which escalator to get off at to buy some...., and they were terrific. We stopped in a starbucks (yeah, there's a million of them here) to have a drink and eat our egg tarts. While we were there the ladies had a special little moment for me where they presented a card signed by all of our traveling group, and a wonderful starfish necklace purchased in Phnom Penh. Those of you who have looked at the Send Rice Send Love website know the significance of that starfish. I was very touched and honored that they showed their love for me in this way. I will treasure that necklace always.

The card was a perfect Asia card. It had glitter on the front, and a verse that read "Best Wishes: I wish you step in the flower like season." Very nice sentiment, isn't it?? I love you guys!!!!

We continued out way up the escalators (and of course the series nearest the top was out of order so we had to mountain climb) and at the top set out to follow the street that should have led us to the peak incline station. As has been our experience over and over again here, the map didn't make sense and we were soon lost. After going up and down many more stairways and streets, we finally hopped in a cab and this time the guy understood and got us there quickly. We rode the tram, much like the Pittsburgh incline up a HUGE hill and beheld what must be the most beautiful cityscape anywhere in the world. It was a bit cloudy today but still a breathtaking view. We poked around in some shops that were of course at the top of the peak and then went to a Japanese restaurant so that some of us could have a drink and Leanne could have the sushi she's been hankering for.

The map that I was using of Hong Kong Island looked like the area was pretty small, so instead of taking the tram back down the mountain we hopped in a cab and asked to go to Stanley, an oceanside village on the island. This was about 4:30. At 6 pm we had dinner reservations at the Jumbo Restaurant, a floating restaurant that is world famous and sits off the coast of Aberdeen, another small village on the island. On the map these looked very close together but since time was getting short we asked the driver if we could just go to Aberdeen. He started yelling at us in Chinese and got very agitated. I had a map on my lap and was sitting in the front seat with him, and he barked at me and motioned to put the map away. Confused, I complied. Half hour and about a $15 cab fare (expensive for here) we were delivered to the Stanley market area. Talk about a weird experience. For the first time since getting to Hong Kong there were lots of people who looked like the the white Americans in our group, but they all had british accents. Seems that this little village is quite a seaside vacation place for the brits. It looked a bit like a small village on the French riviera so I can see where it would be an attraction. It was very interesting seeing this very different area of Hong Kong. Since we weren't sure how to get to Aberdeen, we decided to abandon our dinner plans and just eat in Stanley. We wandered around for a while and finally ended up in a Chinese place (unusual among the British pubs in this village.) It was our last night so we figured we should eat Chinese. Kaley and I are a bit picky about what we eat, and everything on the menu had fish or other weird ingredients in it. For example, one dish was fried noodles with seafood. I asked if she could just get plain fried noodles, without the seafood. No. OK.... why? Not on the menu. We thought about leaving and going elsewhere but since we were already drinking an expensive bottle of water we figured we'd stick it out. She managed to pick the pork our of some pork fried noodles and I had some bean curd with vegetables. Not the best food I've ever eaten, but I'm not sure anything would have tasted that good. We're ready for some good old American Chinese food, which isn't really at all like Chinese food!

After dinner it was time to try to find our way back, so we took another taxi back to the mall where we had begun our day. Marcy & Deb left us there to go look for a foot massage back by the hotel, and the girls and I did a bit more shopping. We road the MTR train to the stop near the night market where we were last night and picked up just a couple more things before coming back to the hotel. It was a long day, with lots of frustrations over not being able to communicate or read maps, but in the end it was quite an adventure (as it always seems to be.)

We're all packing up now preparing to leave the hotel at 7 am tomorrow morning. I think we're all glad to be heading home. The girls miss their friends, we all miss our families, we miss predictable foods, good toilet paper, and the English language. Once we get home, I suspect we will miss each other. Deb flies on to Korea for work, Leanne flies as far as Newark with us before returning to Chicago. We have a tight connection in Newark but if we make it we'll be home by 5. If not, well, who knows when we'll get home.

Once home, and with a few hours of sleep under my belt, I'll write some final reflections. Thanks for reading along and for the prayers that have sustained us.

Hugs -

Lisa & Crew

Midnight shopping and other crazy stuff

2008-07-18T15:29:00.000-07:00

It was nearly midnight when we threw in the towel and made our way back to the hotel from the night market. Business there was still brisk, as it was at all of the shops and even malls that we passed on the way back. This city is crazy nuts.

Deb left early this morning to go give her presentation at a hospital here in Hong Kong. The rest of us got moving around 9:30. Leanne's tummy is feeling better, Kaley's throat is improving, and my chicken pox (as I've been referring to my bug bites) don't seem to be spreading any farther. Excellent.

After a rather strange breakfast here at the hotel which included fried fish and pork dumplings, we made our way outside. We're staying at the Salisbury YMCA which is right near the harbor in the Kowloon section of Hong Kong. It is a great and reasonbly priced facility, in comparison with the rest of Hong Kong. You have to book months in advance to get a room. It's very clean. Anyway, before we went outside I asked one of the security guys where the subway was. He seemed to understand and gave me some directions. Couldn't find it. Asked someone else. Very specific directions in pretty good English. Couldn't find it. Finally after about half an hour had past (and we were still circling our hotel) we saw a sign for "subway." Hooray! Nope. Here in Hong Kong a subway is an underground tunnel that allows you to cross the street. A lot of the streets have railings making it impossible for pedestrians to cross except at certain places, like these underground tunnels. Now that it made sense why we had been misdirected (with such perfect directions) we switched tactics and asked someone where the MTR train was. Eureka!

As the intrepid tour guide for the day, I had put together an itinerary that I thought would provide us with some fun photos stops and opportunities to see different areas of the city. Our first stop took us into one of the older sections of Hong Kong where we walked about 8 blocks to a flower market and a bird market. The flowers were absolutely gorgeous and cheap. Too bad we can't bring any home. The bird market was a trip. Mostly men, some of whom were shop keepers and others who had just brought their birds in cages to sit around in the market. Back in Pittsburgh it would be similar to a car cruise where people bring their old cars to a public place to sit around in lawn chairs and have people stop by to check out their vehicles. Here, it was birds. There were LOTS of beautiful birds in all sizes in cages and bird supplies I've never even imagined. You could also buy moving plastic bags of grass and crickets. Yummy. In Cambodia that would have been people food, but here it was bird food I guess.

Unfortunately, dragging Kaley and Leanne through these markets was not much fun. Leanne was just tired, and Kaley of course didn't like the crickets. Or the heat. Or the walking. If you will forgive an "old fart" rambling for a few moments, I have noticed that the younger generation seems to be so overstimulated by technology that just looking at beautiful things for the sake of looking at them seems to be boring. I think they're so used to walking around phones in hand, constantly supplementing what they are doing by texting their friends, that they've gone through painful withdrawl during this trip. Back home they may have better tolerated going to the bird market with mom because they could multi-task and text with friends at the same time. But without that added activity, things like the bird market are just plain boring. Oh well... I've tried.

As we walked along we all agreed that the smells in Hong Kong are to our surprise way stinkier than anything we have experienced thus far. I don't know for sure what these people are cooking in their little restaurants, but it smells really bad. In the older section of town where the bird market was, we didn't see any signs of familiar food, or any places I would have felt comfortable eating. We walked quite a ways back to an area where there was a street market and began to see McDonalds every few blocks again. What a relief. :-) Yep, we had McDonalds for lunch. The french fries tasted just like back home. Now the black sesame seed sundae, however, we didn't try. In the harbor section of the city, there is a starbucks about every 10 feet, too. Besides that, we haven't seen any western fast food. We also had one heck of a time finding any ice cream when that became the evening craving. While this is one of the more english speaking, technologically advanced cities we have visited, at least in the downtown area we haven't seen the western influence on commercializiation like we saw in Bangkok. I will say that the McDonalds and Starbucks were all packed, and not by westerners. Tonight we ate in an italian restaurant for a change of pace and it was also packed. Can't help but wonder if as our fast food and dining styles filter into places like Hong Kong if more Asian people will also wrestle with weight problems and the health issues that we face in the U.S.

After the uninteresting bird and flower markets, we hit a couple of street markets that were of interest to the girls. There were lots of baby clothes, linens (including towels that said "monogram towel" all over them), t-shirts of various makes with messed up english phrases on them, etc. The girls went in a number of shops that are "factory outlets" where clothes don't have labels but the stuff will probably end up in shops like Forever 21 where they like to shop in the U.S. They both picked up a couple of shirts or dresses for around $4 a piece.

After some down time back at the hotel and reconnecting with Deb who had a good but long day at the hospital, we ate Italian at a restaurant not far from the hotel. I had looked at the map to plot our route and led us right through a building/plaza area called the Chun King Mansions. I knew that it was home to a lot of hostels and was supposed to be a seedy area but that was an understatement. It was creepy. After leaving the restaurant we took the long way around. We walked down to the harbor front where we watched the 8 pm light show. The city is divided by a harbor. We are on the Kowloon side and HK Island is on the other side. Every night there is a music/light show that is most viewable from our side of the harbor so that was nice. It is well choreographed with about 20 large buildings on the other side using lasers and lights for the show. There was a bit of cloudy fog that made viewing a little less than perfect tonight, but still it was fun.

From here we walked up Nathan Street quite a few blocks, doing some window shopping at pretty expensive stores. Again, we're struck by the number of people seeming to be dropping huge amounts of money on high ticket fashion items. This while on the local news we've been hearing about how bad economic conditions are throughout Asia, just like back home. Hard to make sense out of the money being spent on luxury items if this is the case. We hopped a cab to the night market where the girls were successful in purchasing the quality of handbags that they had been hoping for. To our surprise, the handbag market here in Hong Kong is not nearly as big as in Bangkok, Saigon, etc. Even the fake rolex guys don't sell right on the street. They hold up pages of photos to get your attention as you walk along and then they take you to a quiet location behind the market stalls to show you their goods and make the sale. It's all a little creepy and we were glad to end the evening and take a cab back to the hotel.

Tomorrow, our last day in Asia, will be a sightseeing day. Hopefully it will be a fun day, but I suspect that the girls will find it a little dull. Since we had to fly through Hong Kong I really wanted to have an opportunity to check out this amazing city, but in hindsight maybe we should have headed on home. It's hard to re-enter a place that is a lot like NYC after spending time in a place like Cambodia. The lights, the people, the money being spent, and the whole sh-bang just seems overwelming. But then again, three years from now when we're watching a movie somewhere and there is a scene shot on the streets of Hong Kong, we will have memories and be able to think, "Hey - I've been there." And there's always something fun about that, even when while you're there you're not sure if you want to be.

Hong Kong!!

2008-07-17T09:15:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone -
Another quick note since we're tired. It's been a long day. We fley from Siem Reap to Singapore and then had about a 4 hour layover before flying on to Hong Kong. We arrived at 7:30 pm, spent some time figuring out how to get into the city, and finally took the train into town. This city is BEAUTIFUL. Lots of lights, gorgeous harbor, and I don't think it ever sleeps. At 10:45 the stores were still open and there were lots of people out and about. We passed a swimming pool complex while on the train and there were tons of young kids there at like 9 pm. Guess since they don't go out in the sun evening is a big time for pools.

This stay in Hong Kong is a bit of re-entry for us. It's very western here and we're getting used to good air conditioning, trash cans, etc. etc. before returning home. :-)

Girls are doing OK. Kaley is a bit under the weather with a sore throat. I've started her on amoxicillen which is available over the counter here. Got to love that. Leanne is better but got carsick on the way to the hotel on the train. Poor kid.

Deb is teaching a class tomorrow at a hospital here in Hong Kong. She is a nurse working with a company that is at the forefront of medical records technology. The rest of us will probably do some shopping since many people believe that Hong Kong is the retail center of the world.

I promise that tomorrow I'll get some photos posted and start to do some wrap up reflections. We've got two days for sightseeing and then that long plane ride home. Yuck.

Hope all is well -
Hugs -
Lisa & Crew

Welcome to Disneybodia

2008-07-16T07:57:00.000-07:00

Sorry folks - no photos tonight and boy do I have some good ones! Internet connections are slow here, so maybe tomorrow. Today was our full day spent in Siem Reap, the home of the ruins of Angkor, an ancient civilization built between about 900 and 1200 AD if I remember what our guide said. I had prebooked a day with Tek Leng via the internet and he picked us up promptly at 8 am. As with most Khmers I have met, he was a sweet young man, smart and eager to please. Everyone (including Mike and Leanne) were feeling better today and ready to go. I still have my spots, but there don't seem to be any more today. I'm thinking of taking a pen and connecting them all to see what kind of art I come up with!

We began our day with a visit to the Bayon Temple. He did a great job of providing us some historical information and insights into the peculiar mixture of Budhist and Hindu faiths that are combined in these temples. Big news.... we rode ELEPHANTS around the temple perimeter. Stepping out onto the platform on the elephant's back was a little scary, but the ride from there was pretty much fun. I'll have some great video and photos to post when I have a faster connection.

My family and I visited the ruins back in 2005. I have been hearing how much things have chnaged here since then, but I was shocked to feel like we were in Disneybodia today. Even in the midst of rainy season which is low tourism, there were THOUSANDS of tourists tramping around today. They have a new slick system of selling the day passes where you actually have your photo taken and imprinted on your pass. When we went into the differnet sections of the ruins we had to show our passes. All very different from even a few years ago. The girls got in for free because they are Khmer. Hilary had no trouble getting in because she really looks Khmer. Kaley & Leanne get more skeptical looks since Kaley has a sort of Thai look about her and Leanne looks more Vietnamese.

Despite an afternoon deluge that chased us back to the hotel for a while we had a great day, despite the crowds. I learned a lot more about the temples by having a guide like Tek along with us for the day. In addition to the crowds, there are now clean western style bathrooms on the outskirts of the ruins. We got in for free (to use the bathrooms) but the girls had to pay 500 riel which is the equivalent of half of a quarter. Funny.

As usual, these three beautiful young woman caused quite a stir. Lots of people, Cambodian and others, had questions about them. At one point there were clowning around in the midst of a hoard of Japanese tourists and the three moms got in on the fun, too, taking crazy pictures impersonating the statues that surrounded us. You might just surf the web in a few days and find us on the Japanese version of u-tube since there were lots of video cameras rolling and fingers pointing at our antics.

I can't say that I would discourage people from coming to see the temples, because they are an absolutely phenomenal site.... but I'm glad that I first got to see them in '05 when there weren't so many people here. It's hard to grasp such incredible change in just three years. We sort of expected to round a bend and here a disney tune playing. We were extremely lucky with the weather actually. The deluge dropped the temperature significantly, and it was actually rather pleasant walking around the temples in a bit of an eerie mist. It's usually HOTTT here so this was a welcome welcome anomaly.

As always in Cambodia, the day had its poignant moments. Over lunch Tek discussed politics with us. Like most young Khmer, he would like to see fairly sweeping changes in the government. Elections are coming up on July 27 and there is much hub-bub as the campaigning parties appeal to voters, but most believe that Hun Sen will be elected again. He has been in power for a long time. There were actually a couple of reporters and members of a minority party murdered a few days ago while we were in Phnom Penh. The corruption is so rampant. Every tourist from another country paid at least 20 bucks to get into the ruins today, and yet the starvation level here remains high. Before we leave Cambodia, we will each have to pay a 25 dollar exit tax. Where does this money go? At one point today the cops pulled our van over and the driver had to pay a "fine"just because. It wasn't much, but still.... where does all of this go? The Cambodian people would like to know, too.

As always, there were lots of children selling trinkets, amputees playing music and asking for money, and small pathetic looking children begging. One of the lowest moments of the day was watching a couple of tourists pose some of the beggar children (one of whom was carrying an infant) for photos in the midst of the temples. It's pretty sickening.

Tonight, for our last night in Cambodia we went to see some native dancing known as Apsara dancing. It is very beautiful but a little slow. I found myself dozing a bit but the girls liked it. We hit the night market one last time and in a moment we'll head back to the hotel. There is much packing to do. Yuck.

Tomorrw - Mike heads back to Chicago, while Julie and Hilary head back to Pittsburgh. Deb, Marcy, Kaley, Leanne and I fly from Siem Reap to Singapore and then on to Hong Kong. 'We'll have two days for fun in Hong Kong before flying home. Deb will be staying a couple more days to do some work for her company.

There is still much processing to be done as we get ready to leave Cambodia. It takes a while to fit the pieces of what you have seen here together with life as we know it. But today was a fun day with good memories made by three Khmer princesses who have had a great time together over the past two weeks. What a privelege it has been to be with them.

Hugs -
Lisa & Crew

On to Siem Reap

2008-07-15T08:21:00.000-07:00

Just a quick note tonight because the internet at this hotel is lousy and I'm afraid that what I try to post won't work. Today we moved from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap, an old city in northwest Cambodia. We said goodbye to Yoen about 10 am. It was sad to say goodbye to him again. I really wish that there is more that I could do to help his family. He was a godsend to us during this trip, making sure that we were safe, interpreting with birthfamilies. He is amazing and the hardest worker I think I have ever met. He'd be a great American, but despite his dreams that's probably never going to happen. I think we all left Phnom Penh with some sadness and some relief that the heavy emotional experiences that the girls had there over the past few days were coming to a conclusion. There will still be a lot for everyone to process as we return home.

We decided to travel by van instead of bus so that we could leave on our own time at 10 am. Good decision since by this morning Leanne and Mike were both sick in the tummy. Lower tummy that is. Deb is convinced it is food poisoning with both of them but we loaded up and were on our way. Hilary got carsick on the drive, Leanne was sick.... it was a lovely ride. We were in a decent sized van but we were a little crowded because we took on 2 extra passengers. The van driver (who spoke not a word of english) asked Yoen if his two brothers could ride along with us, both sharing the front passenger seat for the 5 hour ride. They have never been to Angkor Wat and he wanted them to see it. So we agreed to have them ride along and off we went. We passed other vans the same size as ours carrying at least 20 Khmer in the seats, on the floors, and on the roofs so I guess we can't really freel badly for ourselves.

The ride took us through lots of open fields and rice fields. Pretty, but not too exciting. We stopped for lunch at a lively restaurant. The menu was interesting.... one item was "Pork with Gas Hew Nuts." Go ahead, sound it out.... yep, pork with cashew nuts. Being the brave soul that I am I had french fries.

Siem Reap is a beautiful town, a stark contrast to Phnom Penh. The streets are relatively clean, the plethara of hotels are clean and beautiful. It's a great place to visit. Since 2005, however, the number of tourists has EXPLODED. It will be interesting to go see the temples and ruins tomorrow since I suspect it will be much more crowded than on my last visit.

This evening Deb, Marcy, Kaley, Julie, Hilary Sopheap and I went to the market for a while and then ate dinner at a place called Dead Fish Tower. It was built in layers sort of like a huge treehouse jungle gym. I had the spring rolls, which were good. I've been on the spring roll tour of Southeast Asia. I've eaten them almost every meal since they are relatively predictable and tend not to be as weird as pork with gas hew nuts. I'm going to write a book "Lisa's Guide to Spring Rolls." Look for it at a Borders near you.

Hopefully by morning everyone will be feeling better and ready for our busy day of ruins exploration. It's very very hot here. Even after sundown you sweat buckets outside. My bites have spread to my right arm now so I stopped in a pharmary to ask for a different kind of cream and fearfully asked the woman working there if she thought they were scabies. "No - not scabies. Squito bites,"she said calmly. Boy, I hope so. They'd better be gone by the time I come home or you'll all disown me.

Well, time for some sleep. Just wanted to let you know we were all OK.

Hugs -
Lisa & Crew

Photos: Last dinner in Phnom Penh, Yoen's little boys, On the road to Siem Reap (notice the brothers sharing the front seat!)

How do you say.... hope?

2008-07-14T08:18:00.000-07:00

Here in Phnom Penh every day seems like it has been a month long when we think back on it. Today was no exception. We were looking at some photos this evening and commenting on how it seems like ages ago that we were in Macau.

This morning began with our normal degree of confusion since Yoen was to come by in a van to pick us up at around 8 am. He had gone to the rice broker's first to load the 20 bags of rice in the van and then picked up me, Kaley, Marcy, Julie and Hilary to go back to the Nutrition Center to deliver our gifts. It took us about a half hour to make the trip to the outskirts of town but when we pulled in clearly they had been waiting for us. Several men who work there doing something (who knows what) helped to unload the van, but Kaley and Hilary gave it a good hand, too.

They carefully piled all of the supplies in the middle of a big empty recreation room and the children climbed on the bags like it was a jungle gym. In a few moments a truck pulled up with the refrigerator and you would have though that the Queen of Sheba was arriving. Everyone went outside to watch. It was carefully brought into the room and the cardboard was quickly removed. Adults and kids alike were touching it and opening the doors to take a peek. You could tell that this was quite exciting for them. We did some posed shots of the group around the rice and then Kaley and Hilary (or Sopheap which is her Khmer name) passed out bananas and cookies to the kids. The Nutrition Center has become a facility almost entirely housing kids with fairly severe handicaps and HIV. Our welcoming committee was made up of almost all boys since the girls were at school. The boys go in the afternoon. They were very sweet (for the most part) and warmed up to us quickly. Some were clearly mentally bright despite their physical limitations. Two additional nannies were present today who weren't there during our first visit. They greeted us warmly (remembered this big white woman from my previous visits!) and the first thing out of their mouths was "Where's Dara?" (Baby boy - those ladies loved you and were sad that you weren't with us today. Yoen explained that you were home because you are going to football camp and they said that you have to come back next time. It was very sweet to hear them ask of you. )

After some playtime with the kids we were given another tour of parts of the facilities. We saw mostly young handicapped children this time, but we also saw a nice preschool type classroom and a playroom with quite a few toys. Very different from the Nutrition Center in 1991 and good to see. The younger children, most of whom probably have HIV, were way chubbier and healthier looking than the babies were in 1991. This, too, was good to see. Food is still in short supply, the training for the caregivers is limited, but they are doing the best that they can and we will know that our supplies will give them at least a good month where they can feed the chilren some extra food and special treats. (I can't remember if I mentioned yesterday that due to a communications glitch we bought 4 LARGE cases of sweetened condensed milk instead of formula. But I understand that the older kids enjoy this as a treat so it will be appreciated.)

I suspect that because of our generosity (which was YOUR generosity friends back home who sent money with us) the director of the orphanage and her assistant were willing to look in the log record book one more time to try to find any information on my kids. Brennan Dara's story seems to consistently add up. He was born on or about July 3, 1990 and he was abandoned in the town train station and then brought to the orphanage. Pretty cut and dry but a story that is consistent throughout his documentation. Kaley (Kalop's) story is not so clear. Despite the searching it appears that she was never entered into the book, leading us to believe that she didn't spend much time at the Nutrition Center. In some ways, I think that witnessing the more difficult parts of birthfamily reunions that she has seen with Leanne and Hilary during this trip have led her to think that maybe it's better that she doesn't know. On the other hand, she has said that she feels like she just fell out of the sky compared to the other girls. Several people have told us that advertising is fairly common here in Phnom Penh, since many families are still look for relatives lost during the Pol Pot/Khmer Rouge regime. There are ads and photos in the Khmer papers for people looking for family members and these ads are dirt cheap to place. Several adoptive families have placed these ads and a few have met with success. If the kids want to do that, we'll do it. We'll see how they feel about it after we get back home. For now, Yoen and his family are overjoyed to be their Cambodian family which is very sweet.

After the Nutrition Center we came back to Phnom Penh and made a visit to Tabitha, the non-profit group that my family did the housebuilding with back in 2005. This is an amazing organizataion that does lots of good across Cambodia, drilling wells and building homes using volunteers from around the world. They have a shop where they sell handicraft products made by their team of workers (who are paid better than the garment factory workers by the way) and we bought a few things. We also used some of the donated money to buy 2 wells and a pair of piglets to donate to a farm family. So to our donors, hopefully you'll enjoy knowing that you bought pigs today!

Next up was a quick visit to the SOS western health care center for me. I had stopped by earlier in the day and was given a 2 pm appointment. AFter my shower this morning when I went to dry my legs I realized that I looked like I had chicken pox from my toes to my knees. Nowhere else. I showed them to Miss Deb K who is our resident nurse, and she reluctantly told me that she thought I might have scabies and should go get checked out. ARE YOU KIDDING ME??? This is way beyond my comfort zone and I was not happy. Neither were my travel mates who now were looking at me like the lady with the cooties. So at the clinic they didn't have any appointments left with the western docs but I could see a Khmer doc. Seeing a western doc is $60 in the downstairs clinic complete with comfort chairs and a TV in the waiting room. Seeing a Khmer doc is upstairs with benches lining the walls and only a $30 fee. I got bumped to the front of the line (imagine that?) and a nice doc told me that I had mosquito bites. Big relief. Hopefully he's right. He also told me that night mosquito bites are OK but day mosquito bites carry more disease. Hmmm. He also told me that I should lose weight. OK buddy, I'm on it, all right?

We also made a quick stop back to the Central Market to pick up a couple of things and as usual the beggars descended. Before I ever come back here, I'm definitely losing weight (because the Khmer doc told me to) and dying my hair black. Big blond woman in the market is just too much of a beacon for beggars. :-)

Yoen also took us to a dress/tailor shop where Kaley was able to look through catalogs of formalwear and "design" two dresses to be made for a low price. A woman we met is coming back to the states in late August and offered to carry anything back for us that we couldn't pick up while we were here so we're going to take her up on that offer. Mailing a small box through normal methods is about $300 so shipping is out of the question. Should be interesting to see how the dresses turned out. They measured her from 186 different directions so they should fit! They wanted to make dresses for me and Marcy, too, but we politely declined. The guy was working on a wedding gown for an American that was a replica of a magazine pic. If you're in the market for a designer wedding gown, you could definitely cover the cost of your plane ticket witht he money you would save by coming over here and have them make a replica. They told us that if you want to stay in Phnom Penh and have them do fittings throughout the dress creation process that you would need to be here for about 2 weeks. Very interesting.

We also stopped by the photo store to pick up our Khmer Hoochie Mama Glamour Shots that the girls had taken the other day. Kaley's were lousy. (IMHO) For some reason they seem to equate white with beautiful so in addition to the light make up they put on the girls they also lightened their skin before printing out the photos. Kaley looked like Kristy Yamaguchi (I know that is spelled wrong) and was in weird contorted positions. The photos of the three girls together will be fun souveniers, but I wasn't overly impressed by the whole Khmer glamour shots thing. Brown is beautiful, especially on these girls.

Back at the hotel, Leanne had returned from her overnight visit with her birthfamily. Read Deb's blog below for more details. God love this young woman. She is so brave to have done this. She came back with a touch of "Kampuchean belly" so she has been in bed throughout the evening. I think Kaley and Hilary are missing their spunky and fun friend Leanne, as we all are. Hopefully tomorrow she'll be back up to snuff.

This evening, Yoen wanted us all to come to his house for dinner but we couldn't take the thought of another awkward dinner in someone's home. I know that sounds rude, but you just get to the point where you don't want to push the rice around on your plate anymore. Mr. Mike (being the man of the group) broke the news to Yoen and we agreed we would stop by his home to see his place and then all go to dinner at a fun traditional Cambodian place down on the river. It is called Pon Lok and it is where Phnom Penh families might go for a celebratory meal. Since it is our last night in PP, this seems appropriate.

During our visit in Yoen's home we ate some very strange fruit that called for spitting large seeds in a bowl. I am a very bad spitter. I explained that American women don't spit much, but I wasn't sure that he got it. He also gave us some very strange little brown things that looked like cat poop and tasted very sour. He said they were to help increase saliva. We all sort of licked at it a bit and then hid it in our pockets. Very clever, wouldn't you say? Dinner was great fun with his three little boys singing American music (can you imagine these three little Khmer boys singing "shorty got low-low-low-low-low-low -low" with perfect gangsta accent?) They are just adorable and so sweet. I'm glad that they have agreed to be our Cambodian family!

Saying goodbye to the nannies again today was sad. Tomorrow will be sad for us as we say goodbye to Yoen and move on to Siem Reap to see the ruins. For me, it will be sad to say goodbye to Phnom Penh. I'm not sure that all of my traveling group share my sentiments, but I have come to love this place. Dirty, smelly, crazy, corrupt, overwhelming, sad... you get the picture. But more than most any other place I have experienced in my life, hope grows here. This is a place that is hopeful about the future, despite the current situation. There is so much joy in so many of the people that we meet. They are warm, curious, loving, and gracious. They have so little. They aren't afraid to ask for what they need from us, because they believe that we have so much. But the asking is done in a way that comes (I believe) from a sense that life can be better for them. That their world will be a better place in the future. In the U.S., current economic conditions have led many of us to feel like our quality of life has maxed out. It's not going to get better. We're not so hopeful about the future. But here in this place, as unbelievable as it is, there is still a hopeful spirit.

Riding with Yoen again today, we spent much time playing the english game yet again. Today's favorite was perhaps "what is the polite way to say fart?" Today's lesson included pass gas, feces, and urine. Strange as it seems, mastering those new words are part of Yoen's indominable spirit of hope.

In our language, how do we say "hope?" Do we remember? Perhaps we can learn from the people of Phnom Penh.

Night all -

Big hugs -

Lisa & Crew

Photos: 1. Kaley & Hilary deliver rice. 2. Delivered items and the Nutrition Center folks. 3. Remaining nannies who took care of the kids when they were babies. 4. Kaley and a cutie patutey. 5. Looking through the record book, one more time.

The Konicek's Day - July 14, 2008

2008-07-14T07:00:00.000-07:00

July 14 Konicek Events

Leanne was still out this morning in Kampong Speu with her family. Mike and I took a ride along the river and had breakfast at the Cambodiana, a hotel where we ate many meals with the kids in 1991. It has changed with the times and gotten quite “hoity toity” with a glamorous lobby and grounds and a 20$ breakfast buffet. We used to pay several dollars in the afternoons and take the kids swimming for something to do to beat the heat. Heat is still there, pool has been upgraded with a fountain and slide!

I had been conversing over the internet before we came with Pam, a nurse from the UK who has been here since 1997, first as a volunteer, and now as the head of a clinic for patients with disabilities. Her primary responsibility is for those with leprosy. She came by the hotel for lunch and Mike and I chatted with her about Cambodia, healthcare, etc for several hours. I rode with her out to the facility that is sponsored by the Veteran’s Administration of America (they took off the word Vietnam as it did not sit too well with the locals) The clinic had about 45 residents living there receiving treatment both medical and physical therapy. Conditions were clean but simple. I left some of your donations there to buy rolling commodes so that patients with limb deformities could get up out of bed rather than using bedpans – and you thought the funds were only going for rice? I learned a lot about how things work here in terms of the government and charitable organizations from overseas. Pam is doing a terrific job with what she has and is even using standardized terminology (ICF) to report her patient outcomes!
I returned at 5pm to find that Leanne and her family had returned at about 2:30. Leanne had a fever and some GI symptoms so did not enjoy the visit as much as she could have. Her sister gave her some clothes from her shop in the market. Mike said that the final goodbye was quite tearful and prolonged. Leanne has now had some Tylenol and a good nap and seems to be better. We organized our Cambodian treasures and are ready to leave in the morning for Angkor Wat. Lots to think about in terms of continuing contact with her family. Overall, she had a good visit and was glad to be able to spend time with them on her own.

Photos: Leanne & her family. Sister and brother-in-law. Saying goodbye to Khmer Mom and family.

Today's photos

2008-07-13T09:23:00.000-07:00

Lisa's Photos
http://family.webshots.com/album/564097605NWgbEG

Konicek photos:
http://family.webshots.com/album/564097608PBlNhy

One starfish

2008-07-13T07:32:00.000-07:00

Today was another busy divide and conquer kind of day that got off to quite a crazy start. Hilary's birthfamily traveled in from the Svey Rieng province for one final visit. Yoen was here to translate for them at 8 am and after a short visit and receiving gifts the family headed off to the bus station to return home. While it had to have been great to meet her birthfamily and realize how much her sisters really love her and miss her, I think there was some relief for her in knowing that this stressful part of the trip was ending and she can focus on enjoying Cambodia.

The Konicek family spent the day with Leanne's birthfamily out in Kompong Speu town. Deb's notes for today follow this posting so you can check out the scoop from their adventures if you just keep reading.

Yoen drove the Koniceks out to Kompong Speu so that meant that I was on my own to go to the market to buy supplies for the orphanage. Early this morning Yoen and his wife Nary took me and Kaley to the rice market to order our rice for the orphanage and then we were to go buy the refrigerator, but after that it would just be the girls.... me, Kaley, and Nary who doesn't speak a word of English.

Those of you who have donatede to our sendricesendlove project will be interested in hearing about our time at the rice market. The good rice is now selling for $38 for 50 kilos. When we were here in 2005 I think that the same bags were selling for about $15. The inflation and decrease in available rice has been very difficult for everyone in this region, especially the poor. I had originally planned to spend about $500 on food and then buy the refrigerator. At the rice market I told Yoen that I thought I should buy about 10 bags of rice. I asked him how long this amount would last at the orphanage. After doing some figuring, he told me that they need one bag of rice per day to feed the children three meals a day. I have to admit that I was shocked. The ten bags of rice that I was planning to purchase suddenly looked like a drop in a bucket. It looked like a huge pile and I was feeling pretty noble about what we were able to do, but then the realization that we were only going to feed these kids for 10 days hit me like a brick. I told him that we needed to double the number of bags to 20. "But you will not have enough for 20" was his response. I assured him that there would be enough for 20, and the rice broker woman who was about to sell $760 worth of rice looked very happy. It was interesting to watch the women in this busy market sifting through the rice to remove any small bugs or imperfections. We will pick up the rice tomorrow morning and then deliver it to the orphanage.

We then quickly ran to the store where we were to buy a refrigerator. For $400 we bought a good sized frost free refrigerator that will look like a modern wonder next to what they have there now. I'm sure they are going to be thrilled. Incidentally, the appliance store also sells motorcycles. I guess that's so you can haul your new refrigerator home on the bike. You wouldn't believe the kinds of things that you see people hauling on motorcyles.... pigs, trees, barrels of oil, families of 6....

Yoen then left the girls at the market and went to take the Koniceks. We went to a market that is primarily frequented by the Chinese and Yoen's wife Nary is of Chinese descent. From the looks we got I know that they don't get many westerners there. I don't think a soul in that market spoke a lick of english, either. First stop was at a meat stall where we bought 25 pounds of dried pork sausage which was strung in links on rope. Very yummy looking. Not. Then we walked straight through the middle of the market to get to a vendor where we could buy most of our other items.

After Kaley's "lost in the market episode" of a couple of days ago, we have agreed that we will avoid the food sections of the markets since that really seems to upset her. But since Nary doesn't speak english, and we were in a pretty crazy market, we had to trot right through the middle to keep up with Ms. Nary. Although I get frustrated with her low tolerance for smells and yucky sites, I was proud of Kaley's willingness to just get through and do what she had to do today. She's not a touchy kid, but she took my hand and let me guide her through the stalls, occasionally actually closing her eyes in order to keep going. We passed one table that contained at least 20 fresh pig heads, other bins of flopping fish and eels, areas where men were plucking feathers of chickens and chopping off the heads, I could go on and on with the descriptions, but I'll stop.

At the stall where we were to do most of our "business" Kaley and I were given little stools to sit on. We did OK buying the cooking oil, coffee, fish sauce, and cookies. We ran into deep trouble when we were buying the requested baby formula and sweetened condensed milk which they use in coffee and tea here. (So this item was really a treat for the nannies.) Yoen and I had agreed on 4 cans of baby formulat (the big cans) and 1 case of sweetened condensed milk which would hold about 24 cans. Nary negotatied the purchase of 4 cases of something that looked like small cans of sweetened condensed milk from the woman. The cans had pictures of a blond haired boy on the front and simply said, "Happy Boy." Using my expert sign language and zippo Khmer skills, I picked up a jar of coffee and simulated pouring the can of happy boy in a cup and then pointed to a baby bottle on the wall and said "Which one?" Trying to graphically show that I was asking if this was baby formula or sweetened condensed milk. The only answer I got from Nary and the shop woman? Cha, Cha. Which means yes, yes. I had some misgivings but we bought four cases of the Happy Boy. After buying two huge bunches of bananas, still hanging from the stalks from the trees, a couple of boys from the market loaded everything we had bought into a tuk tuk (an opened aired cart pulled by a motorcycle. We had to put our feet on top of everything to drive it to Yoen's house where it would stay for the night.

This evening we were in a restaurant and I saw a poster for "Happy Boy," the perfect accompaniment to coffee. Yep, I bought a small boatload of sweetened condensed milk. That should fatten up the nannies at least! Tonight we stopped by the Pencil Market (a strange name for a grocery/multipurpose store) and I bought some large cans of baby formula. Hopefully that will fatten up the babies, too.

By noon we were back to the hotel for a quick dip and then I had an opportunity to have lunch with Kerry and her family. Kerry is a woman I have met on a cambodian adoption internet group list. She has been living in Phnom Penh for 2.5 years trying to get US visa approval to bring home two children she has legally adopted here through the court system. Makes you proud to be an American to realize that our government can invest hundreds of man hours and lots of resources in making sure that these two little children aren't allowed to immigrate with parents who have grown to love them. Kerry and her husband (who is here for a short visit from their home in the US) are leaving tonight for Bangkok for a hearing on a humanitarian visa that would allow them and the kids to return to the U.S. They're not hopeful about the process, but please keep them in your prayers. There are actually a number of Americans living and working here who started the process to adopt kids and then got caught up in the beaurocracy of the moratorium. Rather than abandoning these kids back to orphanages, they have chosen to begin a life here in Phnom Penh for as long as it takes. And we thought six weeks here was bad back in 1991!

This afternoon Hilary, Julie, Kaley and I did some souvenier shopping in the Russian Market. There are lots of knock-off items there (lots of Hollister, Abercrombie, Coach, etc.) and lots of Khmer crafts. Beautiful things very cheap. We took a tuk tuk back to the hotel where we grabbed Marcy for dinner at Friends. This is another restaurant that is doing a great job of teaching street kids to work in the hospitality industry. We had a great dinner including a pineapple chili marguerita for me and chocolate banana spring rolls for Kaley for dessert.

Next it was down to the riverfront area where it seemed that the whole town had turned out for the typical Sunday evening walk around downtown festivities. It was packed. We checked out a nice evening carnival/market where all of the young "middle class" Khmer seemed to be spending an evening. We didn't see any other tourists so of course they were checking us out. Phom Penh is more beautiful than it was when I was here in 2005 and way nicer than in 1991. They have added fountains to the Independence Square area, more statues, and have restored more buildings. They riverfront area is being redone and restored. This truly could be the Paris of Asia, except for the fact that there is GARBAGE EVERYWHERE. It is common practice to just dump your garbage in the gutters and pee anywhere nature calls. It really is disconcerting to see and smell this all day long, but boy the parks are beautiful. Just plug your nose when you go around the corner.

Tomorrow we will make our final visit to the new Nutrition Center. As before, this leaves me feeling a little melancholy. We don't know when we'll ever be back. We don't know what will become of the nannies who took care of our children there. We can't write letters, send emails, or even call to check in on each other because we just can't communicate. So goodbye is goodbye. I was also feeling melancholy about the tiny little dent that we can make in the level of need that is present at the Nutrition Center through what we have raised through the send rice send love project. 20 days of rice. Is there really any value in that? But then Miss Deb reminded me that every little bit does make a difference, and like that story of the one starfish being thrown back into the sea that we have used in the thank you notes for our rice project, the rice and supplies that we are delivering will make a difference. Perhaps in the life of one child. Perhaps only for one day or for twenty days. But it will make a difference and for that we can be grateful.

Hugs to all -

Lisa

Photos: Yoen's wife Nary at the rice brokers with us. Ladies sifting rice at the rice broker. Kaley modeling "our refrigerator" that will be delivered to the Nutrition Center. Julie, Hilary, and Kaley in the rain at the Russian Market.

Konicek's Day - July 13, 2008

2008-07-13T07:25:00.000-07:00

big surprise at the Oeun family party…

Thanks to all of you who have been sending such warm words of encouragement throughout the trip! I have been forwarding all accolades about Lisa’s awesome ability to describe vividly each day what we are experiencing. Brief update to our first visit to Leanne’s family…I forgot to mention that we took supplies of rice, noodles and cookies to the orphanage using funds graciously donated by many of you! I also neglected to give humble thanks to Marcy Dickson, a friend from our 1991 trip, who was able to go with us and be our freelance photographer. The great shots depicting the emotion of the day are strictly due to her skill at being able to take pictures while crying….

Today we returned to Leanne’s village of Kampong Speu town the capital of Kampong Speu province. Her sister’s home is only about 3 miles from the orphanage where they used to live. We have found out that Leanne’s family lived peacefully with their father, Oeun, on a small farm until he passed away at age 38 of malarial fever. Mom and 3 daughters moved into the orphanage where her mom worked as a nanny for the residents and raised Leanne and her 2 sisters. Leanne was described today by her older sister, and Mom agreed, as stubborn with a mind of her own and very mischievous. I think we got the right girl, hmmm?

Her oldest sister cooked a Cambodian feast for us of chicken curry (with coconut milk – but do not tell Mike Konicek) noodles, veggies and of course, Angkor beer. The food was spicy but delicious…only problem was that they kept filling our plates…and we kept eating to be polite! Everyone was very relaxed and we enjoyed ourselves especially since Yoen came along to interpret and help us eat the mountains of food. We learned later that Leanne’s 2 nieces (9 & 7) speak fairly decent English, but were too shy to talk.

We then piled into cars and drove out to her Mom’s home, where we had a chance to meet her husband (father of Leanne’s 2 youngest sisters) and see the newborn baby piglets 12 days old. Leanne was walked about the neighborhood and shown off by her Mom to all of her friends, it was sweet to see the two of them walking along holding hands. Her stepfather is recovering from tuberculosis, but is apparently on the mend and doing well.

When we returned to the Savregn’s (her oldest sister who has changed her name from Metchevan, the name Leanne remembered) I got to take a motorbike tour of the town with So Chan (formerly named Meotut) It seems that if the monks at the temple tell you your name isn’t correct or working for you, you must change it? That made things a bit confusing for us at first until we understood the name change process. I also forgot to mention last time, that Savregn has been going to fortune tellers for years asking for news of Leanne. She has always been told that she is doing well and that she would see her one day! I know that you are thinking, that’s what they all say, hmmm?

Here is the surprise of the day. Savregn asked Leanne if she would stay overnight and then go to the market with her tomorrow to help in her “new, not used” clothing shop.
Leanne said sure. I told her Mom she had not extra clothes, but the sisters all said not a problem. Thus, we left Leanne with her family out in the county and they will bring her into the city tomorrow afternoon. Weird feeling leaving her there,to be sure for Mike and me, but a truly happy one, as she seems to have come “home” and is definitely enjoying herself. To get a sense of what her day will be like tomorrow take a look at the webshots link and focus on the market shots! If only the Abercrombie and Fitch store at the Hawthorne mall could see her now! This is even funnier since every clothing stall in the local markets carry A& F, Hollister, American Eagle, LaCoste, Polo, etc knock offs with authentic looking labels!

Lots of text here, but one message, we remain overwhelmed by our positive experiences here in this beautiful country. I am spending tomorrow with a nurse from the UK who runs a clinic for the disabled, so more to follow on Leanne’s night in the country and my day at the city clinic. Just fyi for all who are worried, the infected bug bite (nasty cellulites) has responded nicely to the meds and creams prescribed at the SOS clinic, even tho they offered me allergy meds and creams first for a different patient! No electronic records here of any shape or form….Goodnight.

Photos: 1. Leanne and her birthmom. 2. Visiting the baby piggies at Leanne's birthmother's house. 3. The menfolk have a toast at the party. 4. Leanne spends the night with her Khmer family.

Welcome to Cambodia. Please Leave Your Expectations at the Door

2008-07-12T08:13:00.000-07:00

It's said that one of the most important thing that happens in travel is moving beyond one's comfort zone. Strike today up as a big success for me, I suppose. Today was a divide and conquer day. Leanne had to go to a clinic this morning to get the huge nasty looking bug bite on here foot looked at. They gave her antibiotics, anti-inflamatories, and some other good stuff. Just like home, they tried to give her the wrong perscription when they picked up her meds. Besides that, the clinic was great and her buggy bite should clear up nicely. Marcy, Kaley, Leanne, and Deb spent the day shopping and doing fun things. The girls got some jewely so that was a hit. Mike went to visit Toel Sleng (the high school that was turned into a torture prison during the Khmer Rouge regime.) Julie and Hilary returned to Svey Rieng to visit with Hilary's birthfamily again. From what I've heard, the shoppers had a great day, but Julie and Hilary had a tough one. The trip back and forth to Svey Rieng is exhausting including the torturous beggars faced at the ferry station. While it is clear that Hilary's three sisters care deeply for her, the visits have been complicated by messy family systems (don't we have that in every country?) and the cultural expectations and levels of poverty within which the family lives. Tomorrow, both girls will have one additional visit with their birthfamilies. Hilary's sisters are coming to Phnom Penh for a final visit. Leanne and her family are heading out to her birthfamily's home in Kompong Speu for a party. Please keep both of the girls and their families in your prayers as they face all of this.

As for me, I spent the day adventuring on my own. My friend and driver, Yoen, spends most of his time working as the in country liason for a non-profit funded by an adoptive family who has built a school out in Kompong Speu province in honor of their son. Yoen is very proud of his work at the school and when we were here in 2005 he wanted to take us out there but we just ran out of time. I promised him that if we ever came back I would go visit, and he remembered. So this morning at 6 am Yoen picked me up for our road trip.

Yoen has a seeminlgy unquenchable thirst for mastering the english language and much of our 4 hour drive was spent playing the "how do you say ....." game. One of his questions was, "What is the opposite of predator?" Anyone want to take a stab at that one? We traveled through THICK traffic getting out of Phnom Penh since we were leaving the city as thousands of garment factory workers were heading to work in the massive factories where they make our GAP and Old Navy clothes for pennies here in Cambodia. Once out of the city we drove for quite a long way on bumpy dirt and gravel roads. I wasn't sure exactly where we were going, but Yoen told me that the school is at the foot of the Cardoman Mountain Range and as we drove I began to see the mountains in the distance.

We finally arrived at the school, which is on summer break for the students. Several of the men who work there were present and they were very interested in this "statuesque" American woman that Yoen had brought with him. I am a spectacle most places that I go out in the countryside here, but this was a very remote area so it was all the more so. This remote area was a heavily wooded area but over the past maybe 5 - 10 years the trees have been cut down at dangerously fast rates. The people living there can't seem to think through to the future to understand what it will mean to their future when the forest is totally gone. We passed yard after yard with wood stacked in the front, and trucks and vans loaded to the top with bags of charcoal made from the illegally cut down timber.

As a means of providing income for local villagers, and addressing the devastation in the forests in that area, this school has started a program that makes cooking briquettes out of scrap paper. It is quite a process where the paper is liquified, the pulp is put into moldes, and then the briquettes dry in the sun. The briquettes are sold to families and restaurants which would normally use charcoal or wood to cook their food. It is quite a little operation and Yoen was very proud to show it to me. As he was giving me a tour of the property he told me that most of the land in this area is land that was given to former Khmer Rouge soldiers by the government. After the war these people had nowhere to go, so they were given this farmland. The price for the land now is rising dramatically since the Chinese (or Korean, I cant't remember) is building a big hydroelectric plant in the area which will supply plentiful electricy throughout the region.

Yoen also told me that in the mountains ahead of us the people can't keep cattle, because the tigers attack them. Hmmm. One of the men who worked with the briquette program also shared with Yoen that his son presently has malaria, but don't worry because he is feeling better. Hmmm again. Glad I'm taking my malarone.

After we had been there just a few moments I was seated at a table and offered tea. Yoen assured me that I could drink it because it was made out of rain water from a pot, not river water. Hmmm. I drank.

Next up was a visit a little farther out of town to see a piece of land. Hilary's one sister was thinking of moving to a place where she could own land and Yoen had told us that land was cheaper out near this school. He had arranged for me to look at the piece of property while we were out there. The only problem was that the car we had travelled in couldn't go any further on the road. Yoen looked at me and said, "We will ride motorbikes." ARE YOU KIDDING ME? My hubby Jim bought a motorcycle a couple of months ago. I've never been on it and I probably never will. When he rides, he is careful and always wears a helmet, boots, heavy pants, and a jacket. So here I was in Cambodia, about to climb on a motorcycle behind a former Khmer Rouge soldier, and I was wearing no helmet, no jacket, capri length pants, and rubber flip flops on my feet. Saying "no" crossed my mind for a moment, but then I thought, "Oh what the heck." After the first few bumps and getting over the sense I was going to go flying off, I actually kind of enjoyed the ride. But I don't think I'm going to make a habit of it.

The land turned out to be a bust, since it was located next to the home of illegal loggers and was pretty barren. I wouldn't want to see anyone live there. So politely as I could I told the people no thanks, and then Yoen suggested that we ride into the village and take the workers from the school with us to lunch at the restaurant. Sounds good to me.

Um - hello? This is Cambodia. Leave your expectations at the door. This was not what I would call a restaurant. We pulled off the road in front of this little open air place with some pots on a cart out front. Yoen lifted a lid on a pot with whole fish in some kind of broth and told me I could eat that because it was very hot so it was safe. To me, this was worse than the motorcycle ride. I pulled him aside and said, "Yoen, I can't do this. I cannot get sick and ruin this trip. I am sorry." "But you will offend," he said. So we finally agreed that I would have white rice and a fried egg. I chopped the egg up into my rice, and then very carefully took a few bites of rice in areas where the egg wasn't. So far it's been about 10 hours and I'm still good. I'm hoping for the best but I'm going to take a dose of antibiotic tonight! The men seemed to thoroughly enjoy their fish head soup and pork with bamboo. Yummy.

Back at the school Yoen and the men had payroll to attend to before we could leave. They carefully negotiated the months pay for the briquette workers and counted out the payments in cash - Cambodian cash. 4000 riel = 1 dollar. Yep, it took a while. On average, the workers there make $33 a month. This is considered to be a good job for the local village women.

Our adventure finally ended and Yoen and I headed back to the city (in a car!) We played the english word game some more . While we were driving alont he asked me if I wanted to stop to see "New Angkor Wat." What's that? He explained that a Cambodian man living in California had raised money to build scale replicas of Angkor Wat and Bayon temples about an hour outside of Phnom Penh. Thinking we were going to see mini villages, I said sure. I was blown away by the size of this face historic temples that we drove up to. It was insane. I asked Yoen what he thought of this much money being spent to build such a thing. We agreed that in a nation like Cambodia there were probably far better uses for the huge sums of money that must be being spent to build these temples. While we were there (and there were very few people there looking around) I also saw a budhist monk in full orange robes wearing a blue tooth phone in his ear. Hmmmm again.

Tonight, we went to a really yummy restaurant named the Boddhi Tree which sits directly across the street from Toel Sleng museum of torture. Sad location, good cheap food. After dinner we all went to Sovanna Phum which is a theater where local kids are taught to do the native dances. Unbeknownst to us, tonight was a special night and the regular dances were not done and instead a group of Khmer drummers and male "monkey dancer" put on the show. It was more than a little weird, but entertaining in a bizarre kind of way. It's Cambodia.... we should have left our expecations at the door.

Last stop for the evening was ice cream, where only about half of us got what we ordered, but it's OK because we're learning to let go of those expectations, right? The girls (who have become so close that they squabble like sisters) are on the internet, Deb is floating in the pool, and I will soon join her.

Tomorrow will be another big day, with the final birthfamily visits. As for me, Yoen's wife is coming first thing in the morning to take me shopping for the refrigerator that we are donating to the Nutrition Center. She doesn't speak a word of english. I asked Yoen today if we would be able to communicate with each other enough to get the job done. He smiled and said, "In Cambodia we have an expression that says that you will be like an ox and a cow walking together." Huh? Which one am I? Should be fun.

In all seriousness, we are learning in these final days here that we have to let go of the expecations if being here is to be a positive experience. Don't expect to get the food you ordered. Don't expect to go where you thought you would go. Don't expect to be able to change the cycles of poverty and corruption and pain, even if your heart is in the right place. It's not an easy place to be. But a piece of my heart still belongs to this broken land.

Good night all.

Big hugs -

Lisa

Photos: 1. Me and my Khmer Rouge friend on a motorcycle. 2. Lunch at the "restaurant." 3. Yoen outside of the New Angkor Wat.

More new photos

2008-07-11T09:31:00.001-07:00

See photos of Leanne's meeting with her birthfamily here:http://family.webshots.com/album/564076378yrbdct

See more photos from Friday July 11 including the Nutrition Center:
http://family.webshots.com/album/564040831EAYugH?start=72

Seeing ghosts

2008-07-11T07:31:00.000-07:00

Well, it has been yet another strange day in Phnom Penh. The day began early when the Konicek's were to meet with an intermediary who had information about Leanne's birthfamily. It has been an amazing and emotional day for the Konicek family and I'm going to ask Deb to write a post of her own which will be posted just below this post. So read on my friends.

Our day was a lot less interesting but nonetheless an adventure. We started the day with a dip in the pool since we're out of clean clothes and the laundry hadn't finished anything yet. The morning was spent laying low in the tropical beauty of the Pavilion Hotel. It is a bit rustic here with the geckos and the buggies, but it is a beautiful environment and makes you feel like you have stepped back in time to a french colonial paradise.

By late morning the Koniceks and their photographer Marcy were ready to head out to the Kompong Speu province where Leanne might visit with her family. Julie, Hilary, Kaley and I headed to town in tuk-tuks, carriage type contraptions pulled by motorcycles. Our man Yoen was traveling with the Koniceks so we were on our own. (Which meant that my personal sign language would get quite a workout today!) First stop was the Canada bank where I had been told I could cash travelers checks. I brought our rice project money in the form of travelers checks so I had a lot to cash. When we went in there were rows of chairs and you were given a number and told to sit in the chairs till your number was called. We waited for about ten minutes until someone came out and told me to go ahead and go to a teller window. Clearly, we stuck out in the crowd and being the big white woman in the room had its priveleges. One hour and 88 signatures later (they made me sign every check several times in several places) we were out of there. After completing the traveler's check cashing I asked to have $80 US dollars converted to Khmer riel but I was told this would take another 15 minutes. I admitted defeat and we moved along.

Back in the tuk-tuk where our driver had agreed to haul us around for $12 for the day, we headed to the Java Cafe, a delightful little place full of NGO workers and Embassy staff. We had a yummy lunch and enjoyed some time sitting in a cooler place. I still think that I'd like to work for an embassy and spend my day sipping cold drinks under a palm fan. :-)

After lunch we hit the Central Market, a huge, very very hot flea market atmosphere market. The market sells clothes, electonics, jewelry, books, etc. It also sells a lot of food, including weird fish, live and dead chickens, many kinds of fruits and veggies, rabbits, etc., etc.c It can smell rather ripe. There are also many landmine amputees selling books and postcards, and children who belong to the beggar syndicate begging. The shopping can be fun if you can tolerate the heat, smells, and constant harassment.

Kaley struggles with the food and the smells and asked that if we went to the market that we avoid the food section. One minute we were looking at shoes, and the next minute we were in the food aisle. Plugging her nose, Kaley protested and scurried out of a side exit. We continued down the row taking photos of the culinary weirdness, assuming that she would meet us around the corner. But it didn't work out that way. An hour later we still hadn't found her, and I was trying to explain to a tuk-tuk driver who doesn't speak english that we had lost Kaley and we needed help finding her. We decided to divide and conquer and finally Julie and Hilary heard her voice behind them saying, "Have you seen my Mommy?" I didn't know whether to hug her or wring her neck when I saw her.... but I went for the hugging.

Before heading back to the hotel, I asked the tuk-tuk driver to make one more stop for us at the Hotel Phnom Penh. This is the lovely hotel where my family stayed during our 2005 visit, and it was located right next to the original site of the Nutrition Center, the orphanage where Brennan, Kaley, and Hilary spent their early days. This location has been purchased by the hotel and is slated to be torn down any day. We had been told that we wouldn't be able to see it but I figured it was worth a shot to stop by to see. When we walked onto the hotel property it was clear that the solid cement wall that separated the orphanage and the hotel had been knocked down but that the orphanage buildings were still standing. Using my best sign language to explain that the girls had lived there when they were babies but now they lived in the USA and it would make us very happy to take some final photos of the place (and slipping $5 into the guys hands) I gained us access for one last visit. It had a very surreal quality and was something like seeing ghosts firsthand.

Scattered about the grounds were broken toys and leaning against a post near the front entrance was a poster board with photos of children. It was very sad to see all of these things just left behind. Even thought the property had only been vacated a couple of months ago there was lots of broken glass, weeds growing up all over the place, and even a dead rat as a bonus. We still made our way into the center and were able to visit the rooms where the kids lived as babies. We were also horrified to find floors littered with paperwork and medical records for lots of children. There were photos of adoptive children and their families also scattered about. We spent a few minutes digging through the papers on the floor, but finally decided that the paperwork was all related to healthcare and not adoption and that the best thing to do was probably just to walk away, for our own health and safety.

For Hilary, having her first visit back to the Nutrition Center in this condition was disconcerting. For Kaley it seemed to be a positive experience. She was sad when we learned that the Nutrition Center was closed and that we would never be able to return to this touchstone of a place in hers' and Brennan's lives. So having this final opportunity to walk through those rooms and take a few photos was a good opportunity for closure and leaving the ghosts of lost documents and broken toys behind.

This evening the mood was lightened by a trip to a pizza parlor with Yoen and his wife Navy, their three delightful young boys and the rest of our traveling companions. The boys are growing up watching the Disney channel so they know some english (especially Hannah Montana although they said that's for girls) and the little one was singing an Akon song in the car. Very funny.

Yoen told Kaley and I tonight that he would be honored to be our Cambodian family, sensing that it has been difficult for her to see her new friends both have powerful experiences meeting their Cambodian families. He is a special and wonderful man. I would be honored to be part of his American family, too.

Tomorrow will be another busy day. I am leaving with Yoen at 6 am to drive to the middle of nowhere to see the school where he works and the briquette production program that he runs. I will make sure to pack some cheese crackers because I sure won't be eating anything! Kaley will hang out here with Marcy and the girls and do some shopping and have some fun. Hopefully I'll be back from dinner and then we'll all go to see the native dancers and the shadow puppets. Should be fun.

Stay tuned for Deb's blog below.

Hugs to all -

Lisa

Photos: 1. Tuk tuk riding. 2. Dead chickens in the market. 3. Kaley and Hilary in the abandoned Nutrition Center. 4. Yoen's beautiful family.

Meeting Leanne Voeung's family

2008-07-11T03:00:00.000-07:00

This is going to be a bit of a challenge following in such illustrious blogger footsteps as Lisa and Julie, but I will try. I am quite overwhelmed by the events of the day, but did not want to go to bed without letting everyone know that Leanne met her mother and 4 - can you believe it - 4 sisters! Add 2 nieces and a darling little nephew and it was quite the day.

We met early this morning with a Cambodian man that Andy had contacted when he was here in 2004. Since then, this fellow had apparently followed up on our documents and pictures. He came by early this morning with the Directress of the Kampong Speu orphanage. We were able to verify that, yes, the orphanage is the same one where she lived....but most exciting news of all was that he had located her family!

We made arrangements to meet the Directress at the orphanage at 1pm. She had offered to go ahead and let Leanne's sisters know that she was coming. Apparently they live in the town of Kampong Speu, only miles from the orphanage. Yoen graciously agreed to drive us out and translate when needed. The road to the orphanage was very familiar, yet turning in we noticed that only one of the original buildings remained. We were able to see the room where Leanne slept and several of the areas where she ate and played. The orphanage is now sponsored by several US charitable organizations and has many new buildings and is quite nice. Three of the original nannies were waiting to see us and oohed and aahhed over pictures that we had brought to show from our time there in 1991. They pointed out the 2 girls that Leanne had told us were her sisters and quickly pointed to Leanne's caretaker and said that she is her mother....

About this time a motobike appeared and I recognized at once the woman that had cared for Leanne and who she talked about when she came home. She was thrilled to see her and the first weeping embrace was worth the entire trip for all of us. The motobike driver was her younger sister, who was a baby when we left. We hugged and hugged and cried and cried and finally drove into town to her older sister's house. They knew that we were coming and I guess that her mother got tired of waiting!

The family is delightful. Her older sister has 3 children. Her younger sister lives with her and tends to the kids while the sister works selling clothes in the market. Her husband sells charcoal throughout the province. We were taking lots of sister pictures when we all realized that the 2 teenagers in the room were Leanne's mom's daughters by a new marriage....Total Khmer sisters now at 4! All sisters total at 5 (let's remember the fairhaired sister at home) Sister #3 looks the most like Leanne and even has a funny little toe that sticks up on the same foot! We told stories about when she was little with lots of smiles and giggles. We had several poignant moments when the family shared that they thought that they would never see her again.

We are invited back to the sister's home on Sunday for a family celebration complete with Cambodian food. You should have seen Mike's face when Yoen told them explicitly not to prepare any intestines, skins or bones. We are so proud of Leanne and how poised and loving she was today when holding her mom, telling her sisters stories, or playing with her nephew...

How blessed are we to have had the privilege of having her in our family and now being able to return to Cambodia and share her with her birth family who obviously adores her.

Wonderful day :-)

PHOTOS: 1. First hug with Leanne's birthmom. 2. Leanne meets her Khmer family. 3. Getting to know the family. 4. Happy smiles with her birthmom. 5. Five sisters together after 17 years.

More photos...,

2008-07-10T10:22:00.001-07:00

Check them out at:
http://family.webshots.com/album/564062280IKhPya

Burger King this isn't....

2008-07-10T10:09:00.000-07:00

Why is it that a day in Cambodia seems to be at least a week long? It has been another long but good day. I got up early this morning and was ready to meet my friend Yoen at 8 am. He drove me to the child welfare offices of the national government here in Phnom Penh to make yet another request for any information about my children, Brennan and Kaley. For those of you who don't really know me, Brennan's name was Rath Dara and he was born on or about 7/30/90 and Kaley was Rath Kolap and she was born on or about 1/5/91. They both were in an orphanage here in Phom Penh known as the Nutrition Center at the time of their adoptions in 1991. I first attempted to find information about their birthfamilies in 2005 during my previous visit and was unsuccessful. I was told that Brennan was found at a train station and Kaley in a park and no additional information was available. In a place like Cambodia, it is hard to know what is true.

As I mentioned yesterday, Yoen thought I should make one more trip to the ministry to ask for any available information. Whereas in 2005 the woman at the ministry seemed agitated that we had come, this time the woman was more kind and interested (or so it seemed.) It may also have something to do with the fact that I think that Yoen told her that if she could find any documents for me there might be a gift for her. She carefully wrote down information, looked at my paperwork, and promised to call Yoen with any information. I can't say I'm hopeless, because I'm not the kind of person who ever really gives up, but I'd be willing to be an awful lot that we're not going to find anything this time, either.

Back to the Pavilion Hotel where we're staying and it was time to round up the troops for our scheduled 10 am departure time. Unfortunately, getting this group moving in the same direction is a bit like herding cats. Really nice cats that I like, but very independent cats all the same. By about 10:30 we were off with Thon at the wheel, Yoen in the front passenger seat to direct the way, and our dirty laundry loaded in the back. We stopped at a "laundromat" where our clothes will no doubt be washed by hand and hung on a line out back to dry. I still have clothes that I refer to as my Cambodia clothes from my last trip because they don't quite have the color that they originally had and no doubt we'll all have new Cambodia clothes after we pick up our laundry tomorrow!

For the next half hour or so we traveled through thick traffic and REALLY bumpy roads to the site of the new Nutrition Center. This is the orphanage where my kids, Brennan and Kaley, as well as Hilary were before their adoptions. It used to be right in Phnom Penh but now it is out near the airport. It was sitting on a valuable piece of property near a luxury hotel so the government finally sold the facility and built a new one in a new location. I couldn't believe the new facility. It is much bigger than the old orphanage and at first glance seems really nice. There is lots of space both indoors and out and the building seems very clean. But.... while the government of Cambodia built this nice big building, they neglected to buy any new beds, a refrigerator, toys, cabinets, etc., etc. Moreover, they gave the staff a car to drive back and forth to the market for supplies, but they have no money to put gas in the car. Brilliant, isn't it?
We had a great visit with the directress and one of the kids' nannies who took care of them. It was wonderful to see her again. She has lived at the Nutrition Center since some time in 1990 and our kids are some of the first that she cared for. She never got married or had a family or her own. She now works as a cook at the center.

I believe that they said that the Nutrition Center houses 126 children, most of who are either HIV positive or have fairly profound physical and mental handicaps. It is not a happy place to visit, and yet the caregivers do whats they can with very little. Deb, who is a nurse, and I were discussed the strange pattern to the symptoms that many of the kids seem to have with limbs that do not work and similar facial abnormalities. They are somewhat similar in appearance to some of the photos of agent orange children that we saw in Saigon in the war museum, so perhaps there is a chemical explanation for their syndromes. One of these children, born in 1989, was a child that we were originally slated to adopt since as an infant he appeared normal. By the time he was a little over 1 year old, the handicaps were becoming clear and his referral was pulled and Brennan Dara was given to us. The director at the time felt that this child would never benefit from living in America and that Dara would. It was hard to see this child during my visit in 2005 and hard to see him again today. It is tough to realize that he has lived out his life there in the Nutrition Center and will probably remain there until he dies since his stature is still that of a young child even at age 20. Still, I think that the orphanage director was right all those years ago that Brennan Dara could benefit more fully by growing up with a family in the USA and that gives me comfort. The nannies asked about Dara today. He was a beloved baby and remembered which is very cool. They seemed to delight in knowing that he is back in the USA going to soccer camp... or football camp as they call it here. Here, too, the directress offered to give looking for Brennan and Kaley's records one more try. She commented how surprised she was that "I came back," noting that most families return once to look for information and if they don't find it they give up. I wasn't really expecting her to respect me for that, but I suppose that I'll take any help that I can get in making that one last effort to help Brennan and Kaley put the pieces together. We'll see.

When we asked the Directress what the Nutrition Center most needed, she told us that they are desparate for rice, cooking oil, formula, and dry milk. When I asked her if there was anything that we could do that would make a difference in the lives of the handicapped children, she said that they could really use a refrigerator in which to store medicine, especially the drugs for the HIV positive children. So, thanks to all of you who have given so generously to http://www.sendricesendlove.com/ we're going to be able to buy a truckload of food supplies and that much needed refrigerator to leave behind at the Nutrition Center. Thank you for making this generosity possible!

After the Nutrition Center we continued on to a french organization called "Smile of a Child." This huge facility provides educational training for children and adolescents, particularly geared toward trades like the tourism industry or technical vocations. Nearly 3000 children of various ages participate in their programs. The children and their families live in one of the most unbelievably sad places on the face of the earth, a huge garbage dump on the outskirts of Phnom Penh. Here children gather every night and morning to rummage through trash as it is dumped from trucks, hoping to salvage bottles or paper that can be sold for tiny bits of money in order to help their families survive. The children come to Smile of a Child each morning to shower after their garbage digging, eat breakfast, go to school, have lunch, and then return to their families. The success rates of the programs are very high and it was a privelege to visit with them today and have a tour. One of the girls former nannies from the Nutrition Center now works at Smile of a Child, Madame Pok. She is the tiniest woman ever, I think. It was wonderful to see her again. She has taken care of so many babies over the years. Lunch at the school was interesting in that clearly our waitstaff was very new and inexperienced, but there were lots of smiles and we all finally ended up just eating whatever they put down in front of us. We're starting to realize that in Cambodia, it's just a lot easier to "Have it their way." Burger King this isn't.

Our next stop was the Killing Fields, also on the outskirts of Phnom Penh. This is the memorial to the millions who were killed during the Khmer Rouge holocaust. There are thousands of bodies burried in mass graves in this area. Over the years, unfortunately, this has become a not-so-well cared for tourist attraction and garbage litters the area where these bodies found their not-so-fitting rest. Marcy and Deb remember visiting this area in 1991 when it was a quiet farm field with a simple monument. We visited in 2005 and it was becoming a tourist attraction but still had a sense of quiet dignity. Today we didn't experience that. Construction of a museum center is underway and hopefully this will help provide those who are entombed there with the kind of dignity that is appropriate.

In the late afternoon we set off on a much happier and very unique adventure. My friend Melita in Bangkok had told us about having her daughter photographed at a sort of Khmer Glamour shots facility in Phnom Penh so we went to check it out. For the whopping price of $9 U.S., they dressed the girls up in traditional Khmer costumes, applied lavish makeup like the apsara dancers wear here in Cambodia, and did their hair, including really weird looking hairpieces. The girls loved it, but we were there for THREE HOURS by the time we were done. And again, this wasn't Burger King. If the girls didn't like their hair or jewelry, too bad for them. It was what it was. Poor Kaley. Her stylest took a straight razor blade to her eyebrows and gave her Khmer style brows. She was aghast but they didn't really look that bad, and besides that, they grow back. :-) We finally tried to send Thon and Yoen home since they had been sitting on the stoop waiting for us for way too long. Thon will not be with us after today since he has a two week driving job lined up with another family. He is a dear young man and it has been a pleasure to be with him. He's a great driver, too, in some very tough driving conditions!

We were about starving by the time we headed to dinner at the Foreign Correspondents Club near the river. The prices have gone up there since '05 and it cost us about as much as dinner out at home, but it was predictable western style food and every now and then we yankees need that.

Now, I'm sitting outside at the hotel by the pool, using the very slow wireless interenet. Strange birds or reptiles are making really weird sounds. The whole setting is surreal.

Tomorrow our group is going to divide and conquer a bit. Through a series of contacts and some mis-steps along the way, Leanne and her family may be on the trail of her birthsisters. They will meet with a representative of the Kompong Speu orphanage where Leanne lived and see what they can learn. Having witnessed Hilary's meeting with her family, Leanne admits to having a few butterflies in her tummy tonight. Who can blame her? I can't even imagine what it must be like for these kids to connect with pieces of their hearts and lives that have been missing for so many years and try to make sense of it all.

As for the rest of us, I think tomorrow will include some trips to the markets. Tomorrow night we're going to see some traditional dancers who perform here in Phnom Penh using the ancient art of shadow puppets. Should be a real treat. The Khmer Rouge tried to erase any memories of art and beauty during their deadly regime, so it is good to see so much art emerging once again in Cambodia.

Unfortunately, as the country redevelops, other things are emerging, too. Even since 2005 the traffic, smog, and garbage strewn all over the place has multiplied more than I could have imagined. I hope that the government and some of the non-profits at work here can help to get some of these things under control, but right now it all seems to be completely out of control.
Oh well... enough for tonight. Hopefully you've read Julie's blog, too, at http://www.sendricesendlove.com/ to hear more about Hilary's meeting with her birthfamily. We're all well and grateful for the emails, love, and prayers that sustain us.

Big hugs -Lisa & Crew

Photos -- 1. Kaley & Hilary at the Nutrition Center with one of their nannies. 2. At Smile of a Child with Mrs. Pok. 3. At the Killing Fields. 4. Glamour Shots, Cambodian style.

PS - Excuse my spelling. I know how to spell but I choose not to practice.

A Day beyond imagining....

2008-07-09T09:05:00.000-07:00

Well, it has been a very long day and my head is spinning. Besides that, I undertand that we have blog readers from literally around the world so the pressure is on for me to make this interesting. It is late at night and we have had an exhausting day so this will perhaps be short, but then again I do have a tendency to ramble. Tomorrow I hope to get each of the girls to write a note, too, but for now they are tucked into their beds and sound asleep. Julie is sleeping too, so hopefully tomorrow she will have an opportunity to do some blogging as well.

Julie & Hilary arrived safely to the hotel in Saigon at about midnight last night. We were all up early and packed ready to leave at 8:30 am. After one final traumatic experience crossing the street in Saigon, we were on our way. We traveled by van, with our faithful (and non-English speaking) driver Kiet behind the wheel. It took a while to get out of the busy city of Saigon but by about 10:45 we had arrived at the border. Those of you reading this blog who don't know me personally should know that I love to travel but I am not a rough and ready traveler. As the sort of organizer of this trip, I feel a certain need to make sure that everything goes smoothly. It didn't go so smoothly. Kiet could only drive us to the border, and then from there we were to cross on foot until we met our Cambodian driver on the other side.

We arrived at the border and were swarmed by lots of people, who we couldn't communicate with despite my best hand waving efforts. We could have flown from Saigon to Phnom Penh, but my travel research made it sound like it would be easy to go by land. It may have been if we had taken one of the organized tour busses that shuttle hundreds of tourists across the border. Before we could get in to Cambodia we had to get out of Vietnam. We entered the exit building along with LOTS of other tourists from around the world, many of whom were backpackers. It became clear that the tour guide from each bus collected all of the passports for their group and handed them to one of the uniformed guards. I did likewise, and in the great Vietnam way gathered my peeps and "maneuvered" my way to the front of a line and to one of the guard's windows. I handed over the sack of passports and we then proceeded to be completely ignored for quite a long while in very very hot humid conditions. Since we were in Vietnam, and since there were guns in the room, we chose to behave. After a while one of the tour guide people must have felt sorry for me so he came up and whispered to me, "You have to give the man a tip." Sure enough, in each of the piles of passports submitted through the window there were some bills (dong) in the midst of the piles. Technically, one can go to jail for bribing an official in Vietnam, so now I had a dilemna. Knowing that we were all about to melt and disappear anyway, I reached into my purse only to hear Deb Konicek say, "NO, NO, No. Don't you dare. You can't go to Vietnam jail." So we continued to stand until finally after he had processed about 150 backpackers on busses, the guard finally slowly processed our exit visas. It was a very stressful hour that seemed much longer than an hour, but all is well that ends well I suppose.

While we were melting my old friend and driver from my 2005 trip, Yoen Soek, stuck his head in the door. He was a sight for sore eyes! I knew that he would make sure that we would make it safely from there. In hindsight, it appeared that we were the only tourists in line today who were independtly crossing the border without the help of a tour company. A tiny band of middle aged parents and our 3 beautiful daughters.... yeah, we're tough tavelers.

(Incidentally, we also had our first experience with squat toilets this trip while crossing the border, too. Once again, Deb saved the day with her little packet of travel T.P. Don't leave home without it.)

Relieved (in more ways than one) we loaded into our new van with friend Yoen as our guide and a delightful young man named Thon as our driver. We sustained ourselves with cheese crackers carried the whole way from home, and continued into Cambodia. Going to Bangkok, Macau, Hong Kong, and now even Vietnam is exciting and exotic and a good adventure. Going to Cambodia is like going to a different planet. Within miles of crossing the border, you know you're not in Kansas anymore. The level of poverty, the rusticness of living, and the heartwrenching views multiply immediately. But then again, so do the warm smiles, happy greetings, and joyful interactions that we didn't so much experience in the other countries we have visited. Again on this return journey, I am convinced that Cambodia is a unique universe unto itself.

Some of you know that the reason we travelled by land today (in addition to saving $$) was because Hilary's birthfamily live about one hour inside Cambodia from the Vietnam border. She has known about her three sistrs and other relatives for about ten years and this was to be there first meeting. What a privelege it was to witness this reunion and to share this day with them. We drove in monsoon rains across the rice fields (and yes I was afraid we would get stuck there) to the little village where most of her family lives. One of the remnants of the Khmer Rouge regime is that Cambodians are very reluctant to show emotion since attachment and emotion and family bonds could get you killed. Having witnessed other reunions in Cambodia, I had warned Julie and Hilary to keep their emotions in check since that is the Khmer way. But even as we drove down the muddy rut filled road, you could see the emotion welling up on the faces of these sisters. This is Hilary's story to share so I will leave it at that, but I will say again what a privelege it was to be there with her.

For those of you who contributed to our rice project, you should know that Hilary's youngest sister lives in significant poverty and has great needs. Julie will be working with local contacts to try to find a way to make a permanent impact on the sisters' life using some of the money that has been raised.

During our visit the rains continued and so very tired and very damp we loaded back into the van for about another 2.5 hour journey towards Phnom Penh. We checked into the Pavilion Hotel which will be home for the next week. It is located in an old french colonial restored mansion and has tropical gardens and a beautiful swimming pool. It also has lots of geckos (lizards) so those of you who know my Kaley know that she is beside herself with paranoia. :-)

Yoen and Thon joined us for dinner a the Herb Restaurant just down the street. I think we were all too tired to enjoy the food too much, but Yoen and I had a chance to talk for a while. He has encouraged me to make one more trip to Mosalvy, the child welfare office here in Phnom Penh, to ask for information on the birth families of my children, Brennan and Kaley. My hope for ever getting information is almost completely gone, but after seeing Hilary meet her sisters today and believing that Leanne will also meet hers during this trip, I can't stand the thought of leaving a stone unturned if Yoen thinks I should go one more time. He thinks that some of the records have been put togther in a more organized fashion over the past couple of years. So I will go with him early in the morning while the rest of the crew sleeps in a bit. We'll see what happens. Kaley isn't a young woman who talks much about her feelings, but I wonder if it will be hard to see her two travel mates have these connecting experiences with their birth families while knowing that all she will ever know is that someone found her in a garden and someone found my son at the train station. These are not easy things to deal with, but much of life in Cambodia is pretty hard to understand.

We plan to visit the new Nutrition Center tomorrow which is the orphanage that just recently replaced the one where Kaley, Brennan, and Hilary lived. We'll visit a couple of other old friends and aid organizations, too. It will be a busy day, full of the sights and sounds and smells and emotions that seem only to be found in Cambodia.

The internet connection here is very slow, and it is late at night so I will try to post some photos tomorrow. For now, know that halfway around the world we are sleeping peacefully and the geckos aer keeping are rooms somewhat free of bugs. Hooray!

PS - I'm starting to wonder if the linke from http://www.sendricesendlove.com/ to my email is broken since everyone else is getting emails and I'm getting nothin. Poor me. So in case it isn't work, my email is lisad@pts.edu.

Hugs to all -
Lisa & Crew

Photos: 1. Welcome to Cambodia. 2. Hilary with her sister, mom Julie, and translator Yoen. 3. Hilary, Kaley & Leanne in the van. 4. Thon and Yoen - our heroes.

Our Day With Uncle Ho

2008-07-08T07:04:00.000-07:00

It has been a long day and a whirlwind tour of Ho Chi Minh City, previously (and still) known as Saigon. The day began with breakfast in the rooftop cafe here at the Elios Hotel. In addition to french bread (which is always my favorite) there were lots of varieties of weird foods including fish spring rolls, curried chicken, several kinds of tossed salads, dragon fruit, oh the list could go on and on. After breakfast we met up with our driver for the day, Kiet. Kiet was hired by Superstar Jason to drive us around town. We also carried a cell phone provided by Jason so that we could keep in touch and ask questions as needed.

Our first stop was in the center of town at the post office and Notre Dame Cathedral. The post office is an old building very typical of the french colonial architecture of this area. Notre Dame is a cathedral built in the 1800's and it is the center of Catholicism here in the city. Although it has been significantly restored, we think that we may have been in the post office in 1991 when we came through Viet Nam to get our visas to get into Cambodia. The hall that we went to had a huge photo of Uncle Ho (Ho Chi Minh) hanging prominently in the middle and the post office has just such a photo. Even though it has been 17 years since we have been here, I think that we expected to feel some kind of familiarity with aspects of the city but that really hasn't happened. There has been revolutionary change over these past almost two decades.

We made a photo stop at the Reunification Hall. This large building was formerly the center of the South Vietnam government, but when Saigon fell in 1975 tanks rolled through the gate as a show of power and victory. The tanks still sit in the front yard but the building has now been restored as a sign of unity in Vietnam.

Next up was the War Remembrance Museum. Jason had warned us that some Americans find this museum to be troubling but we all wanted to go. Kaley & Leanne had lots of questions about what various aspects of the museum meant and we realized that they had been taught very little in school about the Vietnam War. Truth be told, Marcy and I as young children of the 60's don't remember much either. The most troubling of displays included photos and preserved specimins of children who had been born severely defective due to agent orange that their parents had been exposed to.

Almost as disturbing to all of us was a temporary exhibit of artwork from the children of Vietnam. They had been asked to submit art about the damage done by war and their hopes for peace. While some of the art was hopeful and bright and showed children of all races together in peace, other artwork clearly testified to the United States as the source of war and suffering. Several of the pictures showed airplanes dropping bombs from the sky and in each case the planes were labeled "USA." We wondered whether this is the image that this generation of children have of the U.S., perhaps because of what they have seen on TV in relation to the war in Iraq, or is it that they have continued to be taught in school that the United States is not to be trusted. Uncle Ho is still an active presence here it seems, even in the midst of blossoming consumerism and a growing economy.

In a room with photography dedicated to photographers and journalists who had died in the war, there were also photos and stories of Americans who had died in the line of protesting the war. One photo was of a man named Norman Morrison, a graduate of Pittsburgh Seminary where I work. Back in the 60's he set himself on fire at a protest in DC. I had first heard of him some years ago when a reporter doing a story on war protests had called for information on him. It was surprising to see his photo and his role as almost a hero here in the war museum in Saigon.

I think we were glad that we went to the museum because it did give us much to consider and talk about, but it was both sad and concerning to see a fairly biased perspective delivered in such a graphic way.

Since there's nothing like lunch to cheer up the tourist blahs, we headed for a restaurant that Jason had reccomended called Quan An Ngon (I think...) It was a lovely open air setting surrounded on the sides by people making a variety of traditional foods. It was almost as if the street food vendors had been brought inside to a clean environment to prepare the traditional foods. We ate some really strange things. Of all of us, Leanne is the most adventurous with her eating, and in fact puts me and Kaley to shame! She had some kind of weird soup. The people at the next table took great delight in helping her to mix in the herbs and vegetables.

After lunch we visited China town including an old pagoda and the market. As always the market was a bit overwhelming. Next on the agenda was another ice cream stop (we all love ice cream!) and after that a visit to another market. The Saigon Square Market is full of knock-off handbags, and familiar labels of clothes like Hollister and Abercrombie. The prices were cheap, but the quality didn't look so good. The handbags, however, were more than they are in NYC so that didn't seem to make much sense.

An afternoon monsoon came up while we are in the market so we decided to call it a day and head back to the hotel for a rest. We were ready for a break from asian cuisine this evening so we sought out a french restaurant for dinner. Leanne once again seemed to enjoy her food the most, enjoying a plate of almost raw tuna steak with some other weird stuff. After dinner we decided to divide and conquer with Mike and Leanne coming back to the hotel, Marcy & Deb looking for a foot massage, and me and Kaley hitting the market for a little more shopping. (Surprise, surprise.) We didn't find much but she did pick up a pair of shoes.

Ho Chi Minh City is a busy busy busy place with lots of restaurants, lots of shopping, lots of activity, etc., etc. The people are friendly, but in comparison to my last trip to Cambodia, they are far more reserved. In the shops or restaurants you really need to seek out help or you are ignored. I'm not sure if it is because we are western in appearance, or if it is because we are western in appearanace and traveling with Khmer girls, but for whatever reason, I'm missing the approachability of the Cambodian people that I experienced in the past. I'm hoping that it is still there when we make our trip tomorrow!

Speaking of our trip, Hilary and Julie should arrive later tonight to complete our band of travelers. We will leave the hotel at 8:30 am in a van bound for Cambodia. I had originally booked with another company but Superstar Jason our tour guide offered to find us a van at a slighly lower price. His motto for his business and life is "EIP - Everything is Possible." It's a good way to look at things, isn't it?

I know that tomorrow will be a very interesting day. We will drive for about 3 hours before we reach the border. Then we will have to carry all of our bags, go through exit procedures for Vietnam and entrance procedures for Cambodia while on foot. Then on the other side of the border, we will be met by my friend Yoen and a new friend named Thon. They will both be helping us for the next few days. I'm really looking forward to seeing Yoen. He earned a spot in our hearts when he took such good care of us during our 2005 trip.

En route we will be stopping in Svay Rieng province, a rural farm province and small village, for Hilary to have her first meeting with her biological sisters. After a visit there, we will need to move along in order to make Phnom Penh by night. Hopefully all of these connections will go smoothly! Time for some sleep before our long day!

Lisa & Crew

Vietnam revisited

2008-07-07T09:25:00.000-07:00

Today was a day of many adventures... so many in fact that it seems days long. This morning while the rest of the ladies went for their Thai massage, I went on an expedition in Bangkok. I hoped to pick up some video games for Brennan (my son back home) from the Panthip Plaza IT Center. I needed to buy mosquito spray for the next leg of our journey, and I needed to have passport photos taken. I think I mentioned before that for some strange reason the Cambodian e-visa site has been shut down and I was the only one from our group who had not printed out her visa. I figured that if I printed it out too soon I would just lose it so I thought I'd print it out just before we left but the email link wasn't usable since the site had been shut down. So when we get to the Cambodian border I'll have to present passport photos and apply for a visa at that point.
So I went off on my own in a taxi and was successful with my purchases at Panthip Plaza. One of the guys there pointed me to a market down the street that would have a camera store and a pharmacy. There was a lot of hand waving involved in our communication! Anyway, the camera store was a crazy experience when the guy took me up a back staircase into an attic like room where I was relieved to see a photo studio set up. It was at that point that I thought that I maybe should have told someone where I was going! From there I went to the pharmacy where I was able to purchase the brand of repellant suggested. Leaving the pharmacy I realized that I would need to cross a busy highway in order to get back to the side of the street where I should catch the taxi. A woman walking by must have noticed my uncertainty because she literally walked up, took me by the hand and said, "I will help you." She was definitely my guardian angel for the day. I also saw a food so strange that I had to share the picture with you. Anyone for a corn sundae from KFC???? Whats up with that??!!!
I got back to our hotel just in time to find the rest of my ladies having lunch so I joined them. They were still recovering from their massages from which the reviews included "It hurt.... It was great..... I didn't like being so naked....." Leanne especially seemed to find the whole laying under a towel thing not so comfortable.
Our trip to the airport was pretty uneventful but checking in was more of an adventure. We got behind two young couples who appeared to be moving all of their posessions on the flight with them in cardboard boxes. Even Air Asia has strict new baggage weight limits and this slowed down progress considerabley. We eventually got checked in and went to the gate. Air Asia has open seating so it is a bit of a feeding frenzy when it comes time to board the plane. I think we are all kind of glad that this is our last Air Asia flight.
Upon arrival in Saigon we were shocked by the changes at the airport, and as we drove along in the city itself. We were last here in 1991 and it was a fairly sleepy little city, still recovering from the war. Today it seemed like an absolute frenzy of activity. The traffic is absolutely amazing and while there is some order to it there doesn't seem to be much. We learned it is a city of 8 million people and 3 million motorcycles and scooters. Every traffic light looked like a huge group of people lined up to start a motorcycle race. We also learned that 37 people a day die in traffic accidents in Vietnam, most of who are involved in moto accidents. The city feels like a moving swarm of ants.
After about a 30 minute ride we arrived at the street where our hotel, the Elios, is located. The cab driver parked on the far right side of the street and the hotel was on the left. Fortunately a bell hop from the hotel came out to handle our bags which left us to do nothing but just get safely across the street on our own. Right. We stood watching the traffic until finally the bell hop either yelled "go" or "no" (we weren't sure) and we took off giggling running across the street. I'm not sure about the rest of the ladies but I've never experienced such an adrenaline rush crossing a street before in my life.
Waiting for us inside the lobby (and videotaping the hysterical women as we arrived) was Mike Konicek, dad to Leanne and hubby to Deb. He had arrived safely from Chicago last night and was glad to see us arrive, too. The Elios is a clean tourist class hotel, nothing fancy but certainly adequate.
At 7:30 Jason Superstar showed up as scheduled to give us a quick introduction to the city. Jason is a tourguide who comes well reccomended via the internet. He is not available to tour with us tomorrow but wanted to visit with us tonight and then have one of his colleagues drive us around tomorrow to do our touring. He was hysterical and we enjoyed spending the evening with him. We went to a great restaurant called "The Temple Club" and enjoyed some Vietnamese spring rolls, noodles, and soups. Very yummy. We had to wait nearly an hour for a table and everyone was a bit tired by the time we sat down but the food did much to revive us. After dinner he took us to Franny's Ice Cream where we had some of the best ice cream we have ever had in our lives.
On the way to and from the restaurant we passed a fairly large city park that Jason told us was "the kissing park." Young people come there (against their parents wishes) to spend their evenings kissing. Keep in mind that they are perched on top of motorcycles for this activity. The girls found this to be quite hysterical and wanted to go back later to take photos at the kissing park. We weren't sure that would be a good idea.
So far on this trip I think that the thing that has really struck me is what appears to be booming economies in Macau, Bangkok, and Saigon. There is construction everywhere. Shops are really promoting glitz and glamour. Everyone seems to be eating and shopping all the time. The explosion of fast food outlets is almost unbelievable. We find ourselves just walking around with our mouths hanging open, marveling at the changes. Sure, our towns back home have changed, too, since 1991, but not in the absolutely astounding ways that we have witnessed in Bangkok and Saigon. I'm looking forward to seeing any changes that have come to Cambodia since our last visit in 2005. I suspect that the wheels of change are moving far more slowly there. Still, I'm sure that there will be changes, and hopefully some of the changes we have been hearing about in the orphanages will be for the better for the sake of the children.
Tomorrow we have a day of sightseeing planned, with Jason's right hand driver taking care of us. Jason left us with a cell phone and told us to call him even if we just need to go to the bathroom so that he can tell the driver and make sure that we get what we need. So I think we'll be well cared for and hopefully we won't need to cross many streets.
Late tomorrow night Julie and Hilary arrive from Pittsburgh and then on Thursday morning we make our border crossing trek into Cambodia. We can't wait!
Hugs to all -
Lisa

Two nights in Bangkok

2008-07-06T17:40:00.000-07:00

As our migrant journey continues, we have spent the last two nights in Bangkok, Thailand. We arrived on Saturday night at about 11:30 pm and were picked up at the airport and taken to our hotel, the Holiday Inn Silom. I got this hotel for us on Priceline and it is the same hotel that I got on Priceline 3 years ago. The lobby has been remodeled so much, however, that I wasn't sure that we were in the same place.

We were pretty exhausted by the time we arrived but by Sunday morning we were ready to face the day. We slept in a bit, had some breakfasts (noodles for Kaley of course!) while the rest of us stuck to more traditional western breakfast foods. After breakfast the mamma's went looknig for a mac machine since the best exchange rates for currency seem to come out of those. With being on the move so much it's hard to keep the currency straight in our heads, let alone in our pockets. I tried to pay several people in Bangkok with money leftover from Macau. They didn't want it.

Our main purpose in making a quick stop in Bangkok was to visit with some friends. There was a possibility that Cherie Clark, the woman who first arranged our adoptions in 1991, would be in Bangkok while we were traveling. That didn't work out, but we did get to spend the entire day with our friend Melita and her family. Melita is an Australian woman who worked in Cambodia for some years and is now working in Bangkok. She has two Cambodian born kids. Her son Vitha is 17 years old and her daughter Saray is 10. We first met them when we did the housebuilding in 2005 and have kept in touch a bit via email over the past three years. We also got to meet Melita's future husband, a delightful and talented Thai man by the name of Aud. (I hope I spelled that right!)

It was close to noon by the time we got moving and our first stop was the MBK Mall, a huge multistory facility. We spent some time in the food court watching Saray eat noodle soup with fish balls and sticky rice with coconut cream and durian fruit. If you have ever smelled durian fruit, you know what a "treat" it was smelling her dessert while she was eating it! Not so much! It must be an acquired taste. Vitha and his friend Philip (whose mother works for Melita) took the girls shopping in the mall a bit. Philip speaks Thai, of course, so he was very helpful. Vitha was wishing Brennan was along, however, so that they could widen their shopping experience from shoe stores to something a bit more interesting.

After a couple of hours in this big modern mall, we headed by taxi out to the huge weekend market on the outskirts of the city while Melita, Aud, and Saray went home for a little rest since Saray wasn't feeling too well. (It was a cold, not the durian fruit!) En route to the market our taxi driver, in traditional Bangkok style tried to divert us to a friend's jewelry shop. I explained with lots of hand gestures that we didn't want to buy jewelry that we wanted to go to the market to see unusual things. I had read in one of the guide books that there is a whole section that sells animals, including animals that should not be being sold like tiger cubs, crocodiles, monkeys, etc. I thought this would be an unusual site for the girls to see. Well the taxi driver said, "I don't know why you want to see monkeys. You want monkeys, I'll take you to the zoo." Maybe it would have been a good idea. But we stood firm and went off to the market.

It was by far the biggest market I have seen in SE Asia and seemed to go on for miles. We never did find the exotic animals and Melita said later that sometimes when there has been a raid they disappear for a month or so. We did find a section selling LOTS of puppies. Most were tiny little Paris Hilton style purse dogs. They looked healthy, pure bred, and many were in air conditioned stalls at the market so it wasn't so bad seeing them as I expected. There was shop after shop that sold doggy clothing and you saw lots of people walking around with newly purchased puppies. Vitha asked some prices for me and it seems that the going rate before negotiation is about $100. This is for yorkies, poodles, and all kinds of minis. We also spent some time looking at jewelry and watching Vitha and Philip eat some strange foods. The smells were phenomenal, but with our delicate western bellies we didn't chance trying the stuff.

I think the girls found it to be a little overhwelming since it was hot and very crowded. In relation to the markets in Cambodia, however, it wasn't that hot and about equally crowded. I'm not sure what the temperature was today, but I never got that "I am just going to melt into a puddle and die feeling." That will come later in Cambodia! Coming back from the market we used the subway which is cool, clean, and comfortable.

After a bit of a taxi misadventure (with more hand waving and attempts at communication) we met Melita and her family at one of her favorite traditional Thai restaurants called Ruen Urai. It is in an old restored teakwood house not too far from our hotel. Dinner was delicious. We had some fresh springrolls, fried spring rolls, Thai soups, a couple of types of pad thai, curries, and rice. Dessert included green tea ice cream and sa-ta-raw-berry ice cream. (It took us a while to figure out what the waiter was saying.... strawberry.) I decided to join Saray in trying the sticky rice with coconut cream but at this restaurant it came with mango instead of durian fruit, fortunately. It was delicious!

We had a wonderful time visiting with Melita and her family. Her years of living in Cambodia give her great insights into Cambodian people and the adoption legacy shared by our kids. She offered some good insights into meeting birthfamilies. Saray seemed to really enjoy spending some time with the Cambodian big girls and came out to dinner with her hair carefully placed in pony tails, just as Kaley's had been earlier that day. There is definitely a sense of connectedness that unites these Khmer born kids, even when they are growing up in places so far away. It was wonderful to see them together again and to spend some time catching up, even if only for a day.

Back at the hotel, Kaley, Deb & Marcy went downstairs to the spa for a massage which goes about $10 here. Me, I'm not big on people mushing me around like that. :-) This morning the ladies (Leanne, too) are going back for one more massage while I make a quick trip to Panthip Plaza. This is the big mall that sells all of the electronic stuff here in Bangkok. I also need to have some passport photos taken since my online Cambodian e-visa seems to have been swallowed up in a recent Cambodian contreversy where the online processing website was suddenly taken down. So I'll have to apply for a visa at the border which hopefully will go OK. I'll also be shopping for some good mosquito spray this morning since we'll have to start using that for the next leg of our journey.

At 1 pm we'll be leaving for the airport and a flight to Saigon, aka Ho Chi Minh City. None of us have been back there since 1991 so I'm sure it will be shocking to see the change. In Saigon we'll be joined by Mike Konicek (Deb's hubby and Leanne's dad) and Julie & Hilary who are flying directly there. Once we're all there we'll load up into a van and get driven to the border with Cambodia. We'll get out of the van and literally walk across the border. Should be interesting... but interesting is good!

More to come when we're in Vietnam....

Hugs -

Lisa

Photos!

2008-07-06T17:17:00.001-07:00

Check out some photos at:
http://good-times.webshots.com/album/564018012cEOCJw
Hopefully it will work!

Some details on our flight path

2008-07-06T03:19:00.001-07:00

I meant to post this earlier but by the time we got here I had pretty much blocked out most of the long plane ride. Several people had asked us why we would fly to Newark only to turn around and fly back across the country westward and then on to Asia. Well, we didn't fly west, we flew north. It was really pretty cool. We took off and flew up through New England, Canada, and then on over Greenland and the North Pole. It was pretty clear for part of the flight over those last areas so it was great just watching out the window. We had daylight the whole time, too, which made the view spectacular. We flew over snow, floating icebergs, and glaciers for several hours. I guess I don't spend much time thinking about how much of the earth is in this form. While on the plane, I found myself thinking about the amazing way in which God created the world with regions so amazingly different, but still essential in so many ways. So anyway, if you fly to Asia from Newark, you just might fly over the North Pole, too. Enjoy the ride.

Lisa

2008-07-05T11:54:00.000-07:00