Huh.... now I know!!

I'm going to make this section about the little things I learn.

September

2) There is famous Kampot Pepper here. It is very tasty- it comes in the same form like regular black pepper. However, the flakes are much larger. Small black specks... that look strangely the same as the bugs you often find in meals. SO i think they put the pepper in everything so you don't know if you're eating bugs or pepper. You're always able to convince yourself its pepper, so you feel happy while eating whatever it may be!


June

1) In Cambodia is polite to leave some food on your plate. Maybe it is because it is almost impossible to clean a plate when using chopsticks.

Never thought I'd be doing this!

SOOOO I’ve been holding off on posts because life has been a little tough lately. Couldn’t think of what positive things to write about. I’ve been watching tons of episodes of the Wire- and that didn’t make for interesting stories or pictures. My best friends from PP left, got my heart broken and went to my first brothel –all within in 2 days. So lots of time has been spent in bed. (not the beds in the pics)

But now I’m back up and running!! have conducted my first raid- and it was exciting! SISHA conducted 2 raids in the same day. We had been waiting on the warrants for TWO WEEKS and then they both came through at once! One was on the Thai Cambodia border, and the other in Phnom Penh. They both went as planned and we rescued 41 girls in one day! There were supposed to be over 90 but since the warrants took so long, some of the girls have already been moved to Malaysia.

I experienced the frustration of the Cambodian police system. IT IS SLOW. SISHA did all the work getting the statements, warrants, ssignatures ect. And STILL had to wait soooo long for it to go through. I’ve learned to stop thinking about how it should work, and accept how it does work, then begin to work within their system.

So there has been a huge increase in bonded labor since the rules in china are becoming more strict. They are moving their factories to Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia and Thailand. SISHA has been appointed the organization to head up all the investigations, so we’ve started getting calls.

The raid on the border was a brutal brothel. The girls were drugged and living in awful conditions. After we did the raid and grabbed the girls we brought them to a police station to do the statements. While there the power dynamic was really interesting. One girl spoke some English and was translating for the other girls questions they had. That was the hardest part for me, being asked questions and not wanting to tell them the answers. We were supposed to be paid next week, will we still be paid? (NO if you haven’t been paid for 4 months – and he tells you every week next week- you were NOT going to be paid!) But having to tell a 15 year old girl that was impossible. I’m not sure on the ages of the border raid, they looked young, but its hard to know the real ages of girls. The chiefs of the towns will often lie on the birth certificates when the traffickers take them so it looks like they are over 18. Age is also not important in Cambodia and its not uncommon for the people from the provinces to not know when they were born.

So it was a good day for SISHA! Some of the girls from both raids have been brought to long term aftercare farcicalities while others chose to go back to their families.

Next post will be of my apt and something uplifting….. I promise….. alltho it may be of partying….. there are only 2 things to do in phnom penh- work and party!