Sunday, August 9, 2009

The Fourth Day With Hope On The Horizon :)

0 comments Posted by Lia Elliott at 1:17 PM

8/6/09 (Thur.) I am freaking exhausted, it is 11:40 pm, by FAR the latest I’ve stayed up, and I still need to write stuff before I crash….Today was a MUCH better day. Although I laid in bed from 6am-8am thinking of ways to rescue the kids from the orphanage, I felt a lot better emotionally. Even before anything began I was feeling a bit better, but as the day progressed I was feeling pretty normal and happy again to be in Cambodia. Today was a good day.

We started off going to an organization called Daughters, who works with women who are sex workers, right in the brothel area. They have day care for the women’s children, medical help, and their main focus is on vocational training so that the women can learn to do other things besides sex work. There were women there making jewelry, sewing, and making cakes. What they produced was amazing. I bought a necklace and earrings, I figured it was a pretty good cause to be supporting. Although I don't like the fact that the women are limited to sewing, jewelry making, and cake making, the concept of the organization is really great.

Most of the Cambodia girls seem to like me a lot because they think I am so young. When I tell them I am 25 they are shocked, thinking I was more like 16, just like those in the states. ☺

We FINALLY met the girls at the Transitions Living Center (TLC) today! ☺ We were told that the girls were SOOO excited to meet us. In all the years it has been up and running, we were the first group that has ever visited there. The girls were so cute in their dress clothes, they made us lunch and bracelets for each of us. We gave them our gifts and they were so appreciative. They were the cutest things ever. You would think that victims of the sex trade would be more closed off and reserved, but they were beaming and gave hug after hug after hug. It’s amazing what Transitions is doing in their lives. There were a few girls that just clung to me, and this little boy (a cousin of one of the graduates of TLC) was too cute. He sat on my lap a majority of time, his nickname is spider monkey, and for good reason. ☺

We then went on to an organization called SISHA, they kick butt, literally. It was started by an ex-police officer and they investigate and take down pimps and perpetrators of sex crimes. The founder was telling us all about SISHA and when asked he said he wasn’t afraid of taking anyone down, even corrupt government officials if need be. I was SO excited when I heard that, I felt like I was going to burst. I couldn’t wait until the talk was done and everyone was leaving so that Steph, Jen, & I could talk to him about the orphanage! I was praying and praying that God would somehow help me figure something out, that one of the organizations that we were going to meet could somehow do something to shut down the orphanage and help the poor kids. So we told him everything and he said that they would check it out TOMORROW and email us pictures when the pimps were handcuffed! I couldn’t believe it, I was SOOO happy. I just hope he was serious. Either way I’m gonna call and keep on his butt until it happens. ☺

After dinner Steph, Jen, & I finally went out to Liquid for a drink with the other girls, it was fun. Now it’s crazy late and I need to hit the hay.

 

The Third Day Blahs

0 comments Posted by Lia Elliott at 12:57 PM

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.

 

Monday, August 3, 2009

Bright and early on day 2 (more added please read)

3 comments Posted by Lia Elliott at 6:28 PM

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? 

 

The First Day

0 comments Posted by Lia Elliott at 6:13 PM

After 26 ½ hours I arrived in Phnom Penh anxious to get through customs, receive my visa and start my adventure. When I walked outside it was warm and sticky, but supposedly overcast and cool compared to normal. It was nice that we could ease into the heat a bit. Jennifer and Steph, two women that were to be a part of the initial group that would be going to Cambodia, were in the Taipei, Taiwan airport. It was a pleasant surprise to see them before we reached Cambodia, and to have someone else to be with me while I applied for my Visa.

Each plane ride I sat by people that were awesome. From PDX to LAX I sat next to a young woman from the Troutdale area in Oregon and we talked practically the entire time, it was a blast. It sure made the flight “fly” by. ;) When I got to the LA airport it was crazy. I had to leave the airport, walk down this really long sidewalk to an entirely different building, the international building. Once I walked in, it was chaotic and overwhelming how many people there were in long lines. I had no clue where I was suppose to go, but after asking a few people I was directing to the right place. There was only two people in front of me and I got through right away. I was afraid I’d have to stand a long line for hours and miss my flight.

Once getting my tickets I had to re-enter through security again, where there were was an even longer line! Thank God it was not the line I needed to be in. ☺ I got through security relatively quickly and by the time I made it to my gate I had more than an hour to sit and devise my plan of attack for teaching the girls cinematography/editing. There were these creepy guys in line for security though, trying to ask me all kinds of questions about my trip. The one guy asked me twice, so are you traveling all alone. Okay, so I’m not that stupid and I let them know that I was meeting a bunch of people and wasn’t specific in any of my answers. I know, I’m smart. ;)

From LAX to Taipei, the LONG 12 hr. flight, I sat next to this woman and her little 6 year old girl. They were both really sweet. The mother grew up in Taipei, moved to Brazil and met her husband. They have been living in California for 16 years now. Her and her husband speak Mandarin, Portuguese, and English, but can understand several other languages as well. It was nice talking to her and playing with her little girl, who also speaks Mandarin.

I was pleasantly surprised that I slept quite well on the plane. I read some of the documentary book, played games on my individual TV set that was placed in the back of the chair in front of me, watched some National Geographic, and the first Narnia movie. We had several meals and snacks throughout the flight which were great. It was so cute how all the flight attendents wore these cute little outfits with matching aprons when serving the food. It was a huge airplane! The entire plane was mainly Asian people, with a sprinkling of Caucasians. It’s interesting to be the minority, it doesn’t seem to bother me yet though.

At the Taipei airport I ran into Steph and Jennifer who were getting tokens for the free chair massages. I followed suit and we sat for about 15mins getting massaged in this “relaxing room” with actual plants, flowers and wall pictures of exotic landscapes. It was great, and well needed after the long plane ride.

On the last leg of our trip I sat by this precious little old lady who was originally from Cambodia. She now resides in the state of Washington. Although it was quite hard to understand her at times, we talked a bunch, she was a kick. I helped her with theVisa application when we made it to Cambodia, even though I didn’t know what the heck I was even doing. ☺ Seemed to work out though. As we were descending I could see Cambodia, mainly large areas of brown water.

Once in Cambodia, we were all ushered to the Visa area. There were people everywhere with masks on and it was a little disconcerting, but I brushed it off. If I had to deal with all kinds of people coming into the country, I’d probably wear a mask too. We got through the Visa area, got our bags right away, and went through customs with no problems, whew I had all that behind me and could just begin enjoying my trip.

Athena, James, Jaya, Huston & Becky were all waiting for us when we came out of the airport. It was wet and hot, but not too bad. We got in the van and took off towards our hotel. There were a lot of people on the road, mainly on motorbikes, zipping in and out of the correct lane, and even weaving between cars. It was madness, I can’t believe how brave, or crazy, these people are. There was young and old people driving the motorbikes with nothing but flip flops, shorts and t-shirts on for the most part. I saw people carrying large loads of fruit while on the motorbikes, and at one point I saw a man and wife holding their infant as they cruised down the road! There aren’t much in the way of traffic laws in Cambodia. Many people (cars & motorbikes) were just cruisin’ down the wrong side of the road like it was no big deal.

As we drove through town there was just so much to take in. Motorbikes for sale, fruit for sale, you name it. I was excited to arrive at the hotel and get to my room and get everything settled in. Jennifer and Steph are on the first floor (ground 0), and I’m on the third floor (really the 4th floor), what’s up with that?! All I have to say is that I’m going to be in amazing shape after this trip is over. ☺

The rooms are equipped with fans and AC, yeah! I have a big room with a desk, a nice size refrigerator, an armoire and large bathroom with a shower. The best part though is that I have this beautiful balcony outside my room where I can see people, buildings, and I think some Buddhist Pagoda . I was so tired from my long flight, but we needed to stay up until at least 8pm to get acclimated to Cambodian time, which is 14 hours ahead!

After checking into the hotel we all went to dinner and then Jennifer, Steph & I had an amazing 1 hour foot/leg massage for $7! ☺ The girls were so cute and sweet, the place was very pretty and relaxing. They soaked our feet in warm water with rose petals and other nice smelling things. Then they massaged our feet with oil, ending in a little neck, upper back, & shoulder massage which was a pleasant surprise. We were then served warm tea and some sort of cookie. Needless to say I crashed as soon as I got back to the hotel.

 

Pre-Trip

0 comments Posted by Lia Elliott at 6:08 PM

I want to first preface this blog with the fact that I wont have much time to keep up on this, let alone proof read what I write. So please bare with me. What I am doing is writing in a word document and then when I have time to be where there is internet I will post what I have writen...

It was quite frustrating that I was hours away from leaving the country and none of my video camera batteries were charged! Although I had charged one all night, it didn’t charge. I was pretty much freaking out. If it wasn’t for the Amazing Josh having me pick up another camera to charge the batteries with, I would pretty much be screwed. All is well now though. All most all of my batteries are charged using the extra camera. I have still yet to test out if it would work to just use the battery charger from the extra camera on the one that I will be filming with. Hopefully I will have time to figure that out today. Unfortunately I found out at the airport that my bag was 8 lbs too heavy. What would have been free was going to cost my a total of $150 if I didn’t get rid of 8 lbs! Guess what had to go? Yes, my tripod! ☹ I hope I don’t regret this. I have the mono-pod, and desks to sit the camera on, I just pray that will suffice.

 

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