Back in Phnom Penh just today, after three days up in the northwest – Battambang Province. It was the last hold out of the Kymer Rouge back in the 90’s, and today it bears the scars of that conflict not only through the millions of landmines that dot that border area, but also through the legacy of HIV – often at its highest rates in areas where soldiers live or travel frequently. Spent a few days meeting up with HIV positive beneficiaries there. The health care system here is in tatters, especially in the poor rural areas. It really suffered under Pol Pot, and then under the Vietnamese in the 1980’s, so real devlopment work didn’t start here until the early 1990’s. So there is a long way to go.
Back in Phnom Penh after a four hour drive down today, and will be seeing more HIV projects here in the capital tomorrow and Friday. Saturday I’m doing some work with NIH – a hospital in the city as well – and then off on Sunday night. Not sure if I’ll have any time – these trips are so busy – but if I do I’d like to duck out on Sunday to see some of Pol Pot’s legacy, the notorious Killing Fields outside of town a few kilometers. Everyone who is old enough to remember that time in the mid to late 70’s has a story about being separated from their parents, or forced to work in the rice fields all day, every day, with no food. Must have been madness. Hard to believe country, any country, can ever really recover from an experience like that.
July 9th, 2008 | by David in Uncategorized
A new country for me. Arrived in Cambodia last week after the always-punishing Asia flights, and headed down south the morning after I got here. Working with CRS to photograph and write about some of their projects, mostly HIV livelihoods and small grants for impoverished local farmers to start up agricultural businesses.
The second half of the week we spent down in southwest Cambodia at a place called the Chambok Ecotourism Site. You may or may not find it on your local guide book. It’s near the Kirirom National Park, and while the park is interesting – a nice waterfall, and a stream that looked delicious in 85 degree heat – the people of Chambok are the most fascinating part of it. The whole community is working together to turn the site into an ecotourist destination – a place where local and international tourists can visit to see a bit of Cambodia. If you want a Yellowstone experience, Chambok isn’t for you. There are no sweeping herds of game or jagged mountain peaks. But if you want to really learn about the local people, and get a sense of what it’s like to live in rural Cambodia, then you should check it out.
Our guide was a 21-year-old kid named Phon Thy, who like many here used to make his living by destroying, not protecting the forest. He made charcoal to sell, until a few years ago when NGO’s starting trying to help the locals preserve the forest. As is the case in the developing world, where resources are quickly exploited for the short-term benefit they might provide, the only way to save the forest was to make it worth more money alive than dead. Once a few tourists groups came through, the locals saw that tourist dollars in the form of entry fees, accommodation, food, and guide fees could be a long term solution, they were on board.
Like I said, it’s not Yellowstone. But it is a wonderful place for what they are trying to do, and how they are trying to do it. Go there if you ever can, and have Phon Thy take you to the 120 foot waterfall, and the bat cave, and to the new trail by the stream. But most importantly, talk to him and the others of Chambok. They are doing the right thing, and we should all help if and how we can. For more information go to www.geocities.com/chambokcbet.
July 5th, 2008 | by David in Uncategorized
A busy week. From my last post I’ve been on the road pretty much non-stop, out to the far east, way down south, and now back to Colomboa before an early morning flight out. This trip was a bit of two things: recovery from the tsunami, in the form of homes and livelihoods, and recovery from recent displacement around fighting in the east. Sri Lanka’s war has simmered quietly for more than 25 years, and the world notes it only infrequently. The tsunami, on the other hand, generated an outpouring of support probably unsurpassed. Yet 70,000 people have been killed here by fighting since the war broke out. As many as 800,000 others displaced in that time.
That said, it was a rare opportunity for me on this trip to get to go back to see someplace with new eyes, years later. I was last here just after the tsunami, with all of the scenery that time and place involved. Today, in Galle, where I spent much of my time in early 2005, things are easing back into the pattern of pre-tsunami life, by most accounts. It’s nice, at least, to see homes where only rubble had been. That’s as good a notion as any to end on with this trip, before I head off in the morning.
June 15th, 2008 | by David in Uncategorized
Back on the road after a long break from international travel. Got into Sri Lanka this week, amid a new wave of violence between the Tamil Tigers and government forces here – a seemingly endless but forgotten conflict on the world stage. Heading out to Batticaloa and Trincomalee this week – in the east – formerly areas held by the Tigers, but now mostly in government hands. There was bomb blast here yesterday on a bus – another the day before on a commuter train. The atmosphere is tense.
Also hope to see some tsunami recovery projects while I’m here. It’s been over three years now since the massive Asian tsunami, and I was here in the weeks after that disaster. It’ll be interesting to see it again now, all these years later, to see where people are now in the rebuilding of their lives. So, off tomorrow for the field, and hope to get access at some point this week to e-mail.
June 7th, 2008 | by David in Uncategorized
Hard to believe that this trip is finally ending. After three months and 2 days on the road, through I think 8 countries, travel really does take on a life of its own. This trip certainly has. The thing is, after some exhaustion in Kenya a few weeks ago, I’m recharged. I could go on to other countries now if I had the work. Still, I have probably a couple weeks of work ahead of me when I get back in the US just to catch up from this trip. My mind, as always, is all over the place just now, as the return flight nears. The adjustment is always so hard – especially when you’ve been away for awhile. Always so hard to go home and step off the plane from 3 months in Africa and be in the suburbs of Baltimore, cutting your lawn a few hours later. I’ve mastered the disconnect fairly well I think over the years, but this trip really has me reflecting a lot – thinking about where I’m happiest in the world, what I’m happiest doing. After two years now of being back in the US – two years last month – I still feel so much a stranger, the gap between my lives – what I do and experience when I travel and what I do when I am home in Baltimore – is just so vast. There’s not a word I could say to anyone when I get home in two days about all I’ve seen or experienced over the last three months. So you deal with that by not saying a word, by insulating and isolating your two lives. I think that takes a toll, over time. So, a bit tired out from this trip, leaving Africa for Baltimore and who knows where next.
October 15th, 2007 | by David in Uncategorized
Weeks on end with no posts, and then two in one day. Oh well – have to take advantage of the internet access, which has been infrequent at best on this whole trip. Having just come through Nairobi I suppose I’ve revived some latent memories of my time there. There are some physical changes to the city itself, as well – better lights, trees being planted – all good to see. But I caught up with an old friend for lunch the other day and it’s got me thinking about where I am now – how strange and wonderful and misunderstood this life is, traveling all over, all the time. I look at my friends who are in their late 30’s, mostly, who have done this kind of work for years now. And we all are in a bit of a strange place – caught between our home countries and the lives we lead growing up, and those places in the world we’ve been drawn to, ended up in, worked and traveled in. At this age, in America at least, people generally are married, with kids, paying mortgages and living suburban lives. I understand all of that. But what those of us who do this kind of work deal with is the gap between that understanding and the lives we lead – which in general conform to none of those touchstones by which so many of our friends live. Over lunch the other day my friend and I both discussed the options – of whether it’s even possible to go back to the US, or the UK in her case – after living overseas. She thinks not – and has moved back to Kenya from Zambia where she plans to stay. I moved back to the US from Africa two years ago this month – and I’ve tried to straddle the two worlds: connecting to my friends and family in the US, while also still staying connected to the international life, those things abroad which interest me. And it’s been hard – as I knew it would be. But I suppose this trip – 2 months now in Africa, meeting old friends, connecting to the continent in so many ways – really has me thinking about direction, about whether it’s possible to balance those things I love most in my life. I’m not capturinng it here in this blog – strait from my head – but it’s the familiar pitfall for those who live and work overseas, I think. And I don’t think there is an answer for most of the questions trying to strike that balance raises.
September 23rd, 2007 | by David in Uncategorized
Just hard to believe how fast the time gets away from you on a trip like this. One country after another, difficulty accessing e-mail, late nights and early mornings. I can’t even remember the last time I posted a blog – though I’m seeing new and different things each day. Just came in from Kenya, which was a pleasure to return to after having lived there. I was supposed to go to Somalia with another agency, from Nairobi, but the trip fell through at the last second, which stranded me there and cost me an extreme week of travel for this whole trip. In the end, I booked a flight out to Masai Mara – home to the world’s largest migration of animals each year as up to 3 million wildebeest pour in from Tanzania to feed on the grasses the new rain brings. I went every year that I lived in Kenya, and it is still an amazing spectacle to see. It was also a much needed break after 7 strait weeks without a single day off.
Arrived in Ethiopia Thursday morning, and have really only done one day of work here yet. Head upcountry tomorrow to a place called Dira Dawa, down south, and I’ll be shooting photos down there until Thursday, then off to Zambia. Came often to Ethiopia when I lived in Kenya – and in fact it was one of the first trips I ever took when I started with CRS in 1996. It’s a fascinating country – very different from much of sub-Saharan Africa in many ways, chiefly that it’s never really been colonized, save for a brief spell of Italian occupation before and during World War II. Still, remarkably impoverished, and totally deforested in many areas, which causes all of the usual problems.
Talk of Darfur at the end of this trip now, with another agency. We’ll see if that pans out. It’s a hard place to get into these days. But set, today, to start the last big leg of the trip after more than 2 months on the road.
September 23rd, 2007 | by David in Uncategorized
Can’t seem to catch up to myself on this trip. Still on the road after, what, 7 weeks now. Have just been swamped – 15 and 16 hour days, every day. It’s the nature of the business – I’m not complaining. My only dislike is that you get so wrapped up in running from place to place, working so much that you can’t enjoy the experience as much as you’d like – seeing new places, experiencing new things. Thus far I’ve been to 6 countries, and am now in Nairobi. So good to be back in Kenya. I lived here from 1999 to late 2003 and you realize, coming back, how formative an experience that was, how closely connected you are to the place. I had such good friends here – scattered now around the world, as is also the nature of the business. I was supposed to be headed to Somalia this week, but the trip fell through, so now I have a hole in my schedule. It hurts to have to cover that time on my own, but maybe it’s a blessing in disguise. I’m going to use the time now to go out to Masai Mara game reserve, one of my favorite places on earth, as the migration of wildebeests is on right now. It’s an amazing experience, properly called the 8th wonder of the world. Impossible to describe what a few thousands wildebeest pouring across a river looks and sounds like. Just amazing. So, it’ll be a welcome break on an otherwise very hectic trip. Off now to Mombasa, down at the coast, for a few days of work. Will lwrite more as I can. Kwaheri.
September 9th, 2007 | by David in Uncategorized
My first time to Lesotho – a country many people have probably never heard of. It’s tiny – 1.8 million people – and completely surrounded by the country of South Africa, where I got to tonight after three days in Lesotho. As with many of the stops I’ll be making on this trip, it was HIV related programming. But this trip to Lesotho was probably unlike any I’ll take in teh weeks ahead. Went up to a tiny collection of villages in the mountain call Bobete. It’s far from anywhere, in the center of the country. But though it’s remote, HIV has had a major impact there. 30% of the population is HIV positive, and the orphans that are now being left behind are stretching the traditional safety nets thin. We flew up in a tiny little Cessna, over Lesotho’s peaks and mountain ranges, to get there. Reminded me a trip I took to central Congo years ago – that remote and isolated. But not remote enought o save Bobete from the scourge of the AIDS pandemic.
Won’t write more now – just taking advantage of e-mail while I have it from a hotel room in South Africa before I’m off for Tanzania tomorrow.
August 18th, 2007 | by David in Uncategorized
5 years, I think, since I was last in Zimbabwe, and here I am again. Came in from the airport sort of looking for signs of the collapse of the country, thought I’m not sure what exactly I was expecting to see. The small street vendors are still at work. The dusty lots are still filled with the beautiful stone carvings of the Ndbele people. The hotel I stayed at in 2002 is still here, staffed by white-uniformed staff serving drinks to a smattering of poolside guests.
It’s only my second day here but I suspect I’ll find many more signs and symptoms of the great ills in the week ahead. The money situation is ridiculous. The inflation rate here is now at 3,700 percent. The gap between the official exchange rate and the much more commonly used black market rate is astounding – 250 Zim dollars per one US at the official rate, 195,000 Zim dollars per US on the black market. That’s not a misprint. I just finished a dinner of chicken cordon bleu, with an appetizer of friend holoumi cheese and two Cokes – in the hotel restaurant – for the equivalent of $3.40. It is an oddly removed existence in the insular world of white travel in black Africa. Pools and bread and steak breakfasts when most Zimbabweans hesitate to change money each morning for fear the rate is 50% better in the afternoon.
I did spend the day at a project sire where the real face of one perhaps Zimbabwe’s main crisis was everywhere evident. 100 orphaned children who came together for some games and a free lunch at a local NGO site. With all the news of Zimbabwe’s financial freefall, you hear little of the country’s estimated 1.6 million AIDS orphans – this in a country of only 11 million people. It is the highest percentage of children orphaned by AIDS anywhere in the world, and to see the faces of children by the scores who will have only thin memories of at least on of their parents, if not both, makes you realize how absolutely devastating the AIDS pandemic is in Africa. It’s a runaway train that makes Zimbabwe’s economy look well run by comparison.
August 11th, 2007 | by David in Uncategorized
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