Monday, August 3, 2009
It is now 6:20 am and I’ve been up for a little over an hour. I slept pretty well though, and am too excited to sleep. The rest of the group arrives today and we start doing some of the things planned. I’m still not exactly sure what all those things are, but we will be getting an itinerary for the week. You all should be happy to know that Athena gave me a phone while I am here so I can get a hold of at least four different people if need be. I kind of felt special. ☺
I prayed over my entire room this morning and I feel pretty dang confident that this is going to be an amazing experience and I have nothing to fear. That sure is a wonderful feeling. God is so amazing. He is really working in my heart and I know this is going to be a life changing experience for so many different reasons. I just can’t believe that I’m here, that this is really happening. A year ago I would NEVER have imagined I would be here in life. Not just in Cambodia, but working towards ending sex slavery by seeing it first hand and making a documentary about it to help others see too. God is good.
It is really raining hard here, but it is still relatively warm, that makes it interesting for figuring out what to wear. Right now it is currently the rainy season in Cambodia.
(written Frid Aug 7th, I am finally able to write about what happened some)
Okay, so it started off by Jen, Steph, & I going down to the riverfront. We had a great lunch, got some good video footage, and saw some cute shops. I actually bought clothing for myself, how about that! It was this awesome shirt that kind of reminded me of a kimono, yet a long shirt that you can wear pants under. I had to get it, it was so cute. I actually didn’t feel bad about buying it either.
So while we were walking towards the Wat Phnom a tuk-tuk driver tried to get us to ride with him, naming off different locations. He then began asking Jen & Steph (I was filming and not really paying attention) why they/we were there, and they said something about volunteer work I guess. He then began telling them about this orphanage he volunteers at and that he could take us if we wanted. The girls asked how much, and he said a donation, helping out the orphanage meant more to him. All he asked was that we bought some rice for the orphans on the way. They girls thought that was sweet, and told me about the situation and so we got in the tuk-tuk and headed off.
We went a good ways until we came up to this place that looked like an open garage with large bags (50 killos) of rice and women sitting in front of the garage putting rice into empty bags. Our driver asked how many bags we wanted to purchase, so we of course asked how much. He told us $60! We thought that was ridiculous, but we had no frame of reference and we were already kind of committed, so we bought the freaking rice, finding out later we should have only paid $35!
At this point we pretty much knew this was a scam and weren’t too excited about it, but we knew that at least the rice was going towards a good cause, even if our driver was reaping some of the benefits.
When we pulled in to the orphanage there were children everywhere, one even jumped on the tuk-tuk as we were driving up. ☺ They were all so adorable. We ended up staying there for about three hours I think! The little girls put flowers in my hair and clinging to me. We took a BUNCH of pictures, but my video camera decided to stop working. It said something about the head needing to be cleaned or something. I later found out that NONE of the footage from the orphanage was retrievable! I was sooo upset.
There was this one little girl in particular that I seriously fell in love with. She was so sweet and sooo adorable. She really took to me too, and she ran around taking pictures with my camera. She was actually pretty good. I found out that she was 9 years old, although she looked a lot younger. I really wanted to adopt her and take her home with me. She held my hand and clutched on to me. She looked sad at one point and I asked her what was wrong, but she didn’t tell me. I assumed it was just because we were leaving soon. When we left she ran to the front entrance behind us waving and waving, I felt like I was going to cry because I was so sad to leave her there. I can’t believe how much I fell in love with her in such a short time, I’m not usually like that either.
We then realized that we were going to be late for the big dinner with all the people who were arriving in our group for the week. Becky called wondering where we were and we told her we would be back in 10 minutes. On the way the scam artist of a tuk-tuk driver stopped off at the gas tank and asked for $2. I’ve never heard of that before, but what were we gonna do, we needed to get back, and fast. When he dropped us off not far from the restaurant we were probably 15 minutes late, but after arguing with Mr. Scammer over how much we had to pay, we were well over a half an hour late! He tried telling us that we owed him $20 for the ride! That’s absurd, it’s freaking Cambodia, where it cost $2-$3 to go most anywhere, $15 to keep a driver for the entire day! We went back and forth and he continued playing the pity card until we were beyond pissed off, but we just wanted to get to the dinner and so we paid. We paid a crap load of money to this scam artist, it was beyond frustrating. I only have so much money for the three weeks I am here, and on the second day of my trip I blow a whole bunch. Grrrr!
At dinner we were talking to James about our grand adventure, that we felt extremely stupid about. He asked the name of the orphanage, we told him The Light House, and he proceeded to tell us that it was part of a big trafficking ring!!!! My heart sunk, I felt ill, I didn’t want to believe it. I guess he had done some undercover work and tried to get warrants, but the government funds the orphanage and gets a cut of the profits! I was livid, I couldn’t believe my ears. Steph, Jen, & I were all quiet and thinking about it the rest of the night. I just couldn’t wait to get out of there so I could go back to my room and cry. I felt like crying right there.
Needless to say I lost it when I got back to the hotel room, I tried to vent on camera, but it was REALLY hard. I passed out from crying so much, but I didn’t sleep well. Every time I woke up I would think about what had happened, and what I could do to help. I just wanted to abduct my little girl and take her back to the US! ☹
I’m so frustrated that all the video that I filmed at the orphanage isn’t there because of the freaking camera! At least I was able to get some on Jen’s Flip Video, but it wasn’t the same at all, nor did I get the same stuff! I have to google head cleaner for video cameras and maybe even email Josh. I have never heard of this before, but I assume it’s like a VCR and I just need a head cleaner cassette or something. How the heck am I gonna find something like that in Cambodia?
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3 comments:
Hi honey,
It was so good to see you while talking to you today. You look great! God is good! We are so happy for getting to have this experience. May God bless you and this ministry. You are in our prayers constantly. Love you so much, Mom
A place run by a trafficking ring masquerading as an orphanage? That's just so sickening and sad. What's so shocking is not that there is so much evil in this world but that it lurks in such unexpected places.
I know, it made me sick!
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