Stung Treng Town- Where Three Rivers Meet

I am staying in a guest house and typing in the lobby and a Khmer (Cambodian) girl is watching me type.  I really don’t know how to tell someone to leave me alone even if it is a little girl.  OMG now she wants me to add her to facebook.  Anyways, today I met my Manager and the Executive Director of the Culture and Environment Preservation Association.  They both were smiling and very friendly even my Khmer standards so I felt right at home. 

Next I went with my translator for a little trip in the afternoon.  He told me that he would show me his grandmother’s farm.  I didn’t know what he meant was that he wanted me to do manual labor in the fields and plant sugar cane!  Of course my ego told him (Porm) pronounced Pom, that I ran through a desert so the heat is no problem, (insert moron here).   I soon needed to sit under a tamarind tree with his family and eat some pomello with my dirty hands which made it even better!  Just in case you didn’t know, the pomello is similar to a large dry grapefruit.  Yes it was a novelty, but I told Porm I will help him again to learn more how to use the land.  I am understanding the stories of hard life and resilience, and thank goodness I DO have my strength for my future field visits with my work, which will take me into villages to see community development projects.

While I was in the field, I got a call from Edwin who is in Paris for a fashion show.  The polar opposite of what I was doing and it put a big smile on my face to know we were both doing our YOLO. 

I also saw the Mekong River from over the Sekong River bridge where it is more remote and lovely, I hung out in a village where we tried to get our own coconuts because we were thirsty, I met Porm’s mom who chews bitter leaf (I may be wrong in the name) but it makes your whole mouth red and doesn’t look so good, and tomorrow I will see a silk farm and find my accommodation.  It is all very different and it can be lonely, but it will give me the drive to learn the language, how difficult and obscure Khmer it may be.

Back to Phnom Penh on Friday for more training….