------------------UNDERNEATH THE SURFACE------------------ (Sex Trade Documentary)

8/5/09 (Wed.) Today was pretty much a blur because of what happened yesterday. I still can’t get over it, I didn’t sleep well and I just feel helpless and overwhelmed with sorrow for those precious children. I just can’t believe that nothing can be done. There’s got to be something. I find myself thinking irrational thoughts of kidnapping the girl I am in love with and somehow taking her back to America in order to give her a better life. It just makes me sick to think about it. She is so beautiful inside and out and I know that many men will want her and that she will lose that beautiful innocence. She is only 9 years old, and that’s the age when little girls move from helping out with chores to being taken advantage of by men. It just makes me ill to think about it, but I don’t know how to stop.

We (only Jen, Steph, James, & I) got up early to go to a yoga class, but it’s not like I was sleeping anyway. It was neat seeing two of the girls that have graduated from the Transitions Global program now teaching the class. They were really good at what they did and kept all the little kids in order. One of the instructor's cousins, a cute little 5 year old was messing around with James before everyone arrived, he was too dang cute. They were hitting each other with pillow like objects and when he knew he would be defeated he whipped out a little play pistol from his tiny shorts. Not that I condone weapons, but we all busted up laughing, we didn’t even know where it came from. We got a lot of good pics and video.

I thought it was a perfect day for yoga so that I could calm down a bit from yesterday and just relieve some stress, but it just wasn’t possible with trying to film. I did get to do a few stretches though. Even though everyone was cute and it was great, I was just so out of it I couldn’t fully enjoy it.

After yoga we quickly changed and headed to Chab Dai with the rest of the group. We met with Helen who moved to Cambodia from England and founded Chab Dai. I was encouraged to see that their organization brought together many different organizations who helped rescue girls from sex trafficking. Their main goal was to have organizations actually work together, what a concept. It is something that they have been doing successfully in Cambodia for quite some time. Why don’t we have this in the US? Even well intentioned organizations fighting for the same thing are almost too proud to work together. It is very frustrating, but encouraging what Chab Dai is successfully doing. Again,  wish I wasn’t so out of it, but I’m excited to learn more about Chab Dai and get together with Helen at sometime before I leave.

Lunch/Russian Market: I was informed at lunch that all adoption of Cambodian children has been completely prohibited! So little children have no chance for a better life! This happened because freaking westerners would adopt children to take them back as sex slaves! The problem that they were trying to avoid hasn’t stopped, it just continues in Cambodia! How in the world can I save that little girl if she can’t even be adopted?

I am feeling a little bit hopeless and desperate right now, but I still pray for something, anything!

We then met at the Cambodia field office for IJM, which was great, but I was just so tired and out of it. After the discussion I briefly spoke with the head guy to see if I could also meet with him for my documentary before I left, and he seemed happy to.

Today was just kind of a blur. I was just not there, I want to say that I felt numb, but I was too sad to be numb, I was just blah.