There was a group of about 10 first-time female flyers on the flight, sitting about mid-cabin. I’m guessing they were students traveling on a school-related trip, and from the style of their clothes it would seem that they come from a rural and conservative  Cham (Muslim minority group) community in Cambodia.

We ran into some respectable turbulence about 30 minutes into the flight. One young lady came rushing to the back of the plane, with a look of panic on her face. The Air Asia flight attendant politely asked her to return to her seat until the captain removed the seatbelt sign. The Cham women did not speak English, but her predicament became clear when she pointed to her mouth and started to gag. The flight attendant helped her into the bathroom, and the next thing I heard was “toilet, toilet! not sink. toilet!. Ayeyayae.

The scene repeated itself about 5 more times in the following 15 minutes. Luckily nobody was sitting in the middle seat so I could lean hard right whenever someone new came down the aisle with a “dear in the headlights” expression on her face. I’m just grateful that they staggered their nausea so that there was always a vacant toilet awaiting. Otherwise things could have gotten messy.

Can you imagine never having been on an airplane before? It is easy to forget (unless you are sitting in seat 31D) that the vast majority of people in the world have never set foot on a plane before

2) The joy that accompanies flushing away toilet paper  rather than stashing it in a garbage *Note – availability of aforementioned TP and garbage can is never guaranteed in Cambodia, which means one must choose between several equally awkward options)

Check it out: http://fellowsblog.kiva.org/2009/11/17/using-microfinance-to-combat-human-trafficking-spotlight-on-katie-davis-kf7/

Pic I took at distribution for the Kiva profile

The distribution meeting lasted about 1 hour. The credit officer and branch manager reviewed the loan terms and each woman received a passbook in which to track their repayments. The women signed the loan agreement with a thumb print in exchange for $145. The smiles on their faces got bigger and bigger as the meeting went on.

Sealed with a thumb print

The story behind the formation of the Circle Cambodia sewing cooperative is pretty incredible. This loan will become a Kiva loan, and I am including the write-up I did for the business profile in my next blog post. I can imagine this loan will be snapped up pretty quick when it goes live tomorrow but if you have any credit in your Kiva account sitting unused tomorrow would be a great day to use it!

Sewing into a brighter future

We distributed the loan around 11 am and the girls were bursting with excitement about their afternoon trip to the market to purchase their sewing machines. One of the girls explained to me that they were looking for used machines rather than new ones because the older Japanese models are of better quality than the newer Chinese releases. The girls though they could get a discount if the purchased in bulk and they hope to use the extra savings to buy an “edging device” for communal use.

I have a bunch of meetings and travel coming up that will require dressing up and I need some spiffy new work duds. I had planned on a trip to the market on Saturday to drop off a blouse and pair of dress pants to be copied, but it dawned on me that for the same price I could take the clothes to Circle Cambodia. I went back to the loan distribution site on Monday and wow what a difference 2 days had made! The empty work space was now full with 5 desk, 5 sewing machines, and fabric, thread, and measuring tapes everywhere! So cool  to see. I’m proud to be one of Circle Cambodia’s biggest fans – and one of their first customers!

The ladies of Circle Cambodia

This is the story that the world can read about on Kiva.org and Ahkun.org. Introducing Circle Cambodia….

Five single women in their early 20′s recently formed a new sewing cooperative called Circle Cambodia, creating a new chapter in life and a fresh start. These women work together and live together in Phnom Penh, and their bond of friendship runs deep,  as they have overcome incredible adversity together.

All of these women come from difficult family backgrounds, namely large single parent families. One of the women was orphaned at an early age and another suffered from abuse. With the assistance of a counter-human trafficking NGO, the women left their families in the rural provinces and moved to Phnom Penh to attend vocational training school. This NGO provides alternative livelihood options for children deemed to be at high risk of trafficking due to vulnerable family situations. Once sewing school was complete, the five women of Circle Cambodia found employment with a woman who ran a small tailor shop out of her home. This woman did provide housing, but unfortunately she made some poor financial decisions and became heavily indebted, and within a short time she started withholding salaries from her employees, using the money to pay down her own debt instead. Without having another place to live, the women of Circle Cambodia were trapped in an exploitative working and living situation. One year later a tailor shop customer found out about the injustice of the working conditions, and she facilitated a way out for the women, providing them with a new place to live and a promise of future business once the women were able to buy their own sewing machines.

Phany, one of the youngest women in the group, has the most sewing experience. She has been sewing since 2003 and is an accomplished seamstress. She excels at cutting patterns – a skill she is teaching the other group members who started sewing in 2007.  Phany’s cheerful personality, friendly demeanor and quite confidence seems to be a unifying force in the group. Phany grew up in Kompong Cham province of Cambodia. Her father died when she was young, which resulted in great financial hardship for the family as Phany’s mother tried to support her 10 children. Prior to coming to Phnom Penh, Phany was working in the fields, picking beans, for a wage of $0.75 a day. Phany enjoys sewing, and her outlook on the future of Circle Cambodia is bright.

Each member of the Circle Cambodia co-operative requested a loan of $145 to be used for the purchase of a sewing machine. The disbursal meeting was filled with excitement, and the women already had plans for an afternoon trip to the market to shop for machines. Circle Cambodia has secured initial orders and they look forward to expanding their business to include Cambodian customers and possibly even foreign customers through an online global marketplace. The women take English lessons for one hour each day, and the women are teaching an illiterate member of the group how to read in the Khmer language. The Circle Cambodia co-operative  dreams that one day their business will be successful enough for them to start training new employees who come from similar vulnerable backgrounds.

About SIGU:

This loan is the first made my AMK’s Special Interest Group Unit (SIGU). As part of the Product Development department, SIGU was developed as an initiative to further reflect AMK’s mission, and to serve more ‘vulnerable’ groups that are currently underserved by microfinance services. These groups include women who are victims of trafficking, domestic violence and other gender-based traumas, people living with HIV/AIDS, street people and children and people with disabilities. AMK is currently focusing on assisting women who are victims of trafficking, domestic violence and other gender-based traumas. Current SIGU projects include developing microfinance specific financial literacy training and creating a pilot credit program specific to this population.

Yaran

My colleague, Yaran, conducted SIGU’s first financial education training seminar at Daughters of Cambodia last week and she did a great job. We haven’t incorporated any outside material yet because of time but Daughters wanted to move forward with a few loans very quickly so Yaran pulled together an informal 1.5 hour program that we can use as a jumping off point for our greater education campaign. The 6 participants listened intently and asked some good questions. The only available location for the training was in the child care center, and it amazed me that the women stayed as focused as they did despite constant interruptions. Daughters doesn’t allow photos of the women for safety reasons (understandably), but this is a picture of the white board that captures the responses to Yaran’s question: “What are your hopes and goals for a brighter future.”

 Rough Translation =

1) Clearly defined occupation

2) Ability to save money

3) No sickness in the family – ability to pay for medicine

4) Ability to send kids to school

5) Independence from aid of NGO

6) Property ownership: Motorbike, sewing machine.

 Powerful stuff.

Magnificent Mekong Sunset

Thousands of miles by air, thousands of miles by bus, and 13 days later, the adventure was complete. Incredible scenery, beautiful people, and wonderful memories. Highlights – too  many to list, but to name a few:

• Mountain Biking, Kayaking, and Rock climbing in Luang Prabang (LP)
• Shopping for gifts and souvenirs at the LP night market
• Delicious crepes, fruit smoothies, coffee, and Beer Laos in LP
• Motorbiking around the Bolavan Plateau in search of incredible waterfalls outside of Pakse
• Swinging in a hammock for hours in Si Phon Don/4,000 islands
• Sunset boat ride on the Mekong in search of Irrawaddy Dolphins in Kratie, Cambodia
• Incredible stars visible from the ecolodge in remote Ratinkiri, Cambodia
• Meeting fascinating people along the way

The small number of photos I’m posting here don’t nearly do justice to the trip but I hope it is a tiny glimpse into one of the most beautiful countries in the world. Click here if you want to see the full 100+ photo narrated album.  

Spectacular Tad Yuan FallsTad Fane falls in the Bolaven Plateau

Adorable Kids everywhere we went!

Lunch/swim break at a waterfall on our Nam Khan kayak trip

Mountain Biking through rice paddies and tribal villages

Sunset from the temple on top of Phu Si hill

Uh oh Spaghetti-O's

I am back in Phnom Penh, safe and sound, after an epic adventure in Laos and Northeastern Cambodia with my friend Melissa. So many stories and pictures to share that I’m not sure where to begin, so I have decided to begin at the end, since it was perhaps the biggest (mis)adventure of all.

We made better time than expected rolling south through Laos and consequently hit the Cambodian border with a few days to spare. Rather than continuing on to Phnom Penh, we called an audible and made for the remote Northeast province of Cambodia – Ratinikiri. We were “sort of in the area” (6 hours west) and we weren’t sure if we would ever make it out that way again so why the heck not.  After a relaxing 2 days at a cool ecolodge called Treetops in the provincial capital city of Ban Lung, we  bought a ticket on the 6:30am big bus to Phnom Penh and settled in for the 11 hour journey.

We went with the big bus over the minibus option because we were still feeling the effects of the the crowded 18 person mosh-pit of a 6 hour minibus ride that we had endured from Kratie to Ban Lung on the outbound journey. And because the big bus was $6 cheaper. Sometimes in life it is worth paying the extra $6.

The bus stopped every 2 minutes for the first hour of the journey, picking up more and more people (and bags of rice and other random odd sized objects). There was only one other foreigner on the bus besides Melissa and me. Once all of the seats filled up the driver busted out short plastic stools and soon enough someone one sitting in every inch of the isle. The bags of rice apparently took priority over our backpacks and pretty Hill Tribe Laos souvenirs bags so before long we were wedged into our seats with our backpacks, goody bags, and purses piled on our laps. As soon as we got settled (numb), the bus would stop and the circus would unload for a bathroom break.

Stuck in a rut and he can't get out of it

By 10am the bus stopped and the clown car routine repeated itself.  But this time we found ourselves staring at a large expanse of water that had washed out the road. The 2+ feet of water left over from Typhoon Katsana wasn’t the real issue, but rather the thick muddy swamp that had formed on the other side. Vehicles could power through the overflow lake, but then they would get sucked into the mud and that was lights out. Two huge big rigs were stuck smack in the middle of the 1 lane dirt “road” and while trucks and minibuses could snake their way around, anything bigger (like a fricken bus) was SOL. 2 hours later enough trucks and minibuses had gotten themselves stuck that nobody could get through.

A tractor arrived on the scene and one by one started pulling out the smaller vehicles. And one by one some idiot in a SUV or overloaded pickup truck would drive up (blatantly bypassing the line of 50 other vehicles waiting their turn in the queue) and plop themselves in the middle of the muck, making the same mistake as the rest of the bozos. 8 hours later we still hadn’t moved. The heat was miserable and we were starving, but by far the most excruciating part of the day was the stupidity of the drivers around us. There was no patience, organization, coordination, or communication. It was a free-for-all and everyone paid the price.

When the sun started to set, the anxiety level increased. The tractor that had heroically pulled out some 50+ vehicles over the course of the day was now equally as stuck in the mud with nothing to pull it out. The prospect of spending the night on a bus in the middle of a flood plane was rather terrifying, and more upsetting to me was the fact that I had a big day at work starting in 12 hours and missing it would be no bueno.

With daylight fading fast, Melissa and I left the small make-shift tent erected by an entrepreneurial women selling banana chips to hungry waylaid passengers and  trekked back across the swamp and flood plane on a makeshift plank walkway. We hauled our stuff off the bus, waive goodbye to our driver,  and on a whim/prayer/gamble decided to cross back over and try our luck bribing our way onto a bus/minivan  that was giving up and returning to Phnom Penh . It was pitch dark at this point and my camping headlamp saved the day. What a brilliant invention the headlamp is.

We stumbled down the line of vehicles on the west side of the impasse, desperately asking if anyone was going back to Phnom Penh. Remarkably a big bus towards the end of the line was indeed abandoning Ratinkiri ambitions and returning to the mothership in Phnom Penh. We scampered onboard and slunk down in two seats in the rear. Unfortunately the driver decided to check tickets and our tickets were from a different bus company. Busted. But it is Cambodia and for better or worse one can bribe his or her way out of just about anything. Eight dollars poorer  we were rolling Southeast once again.

Bus number 2 broke down twice between Kratie and Phnom Penh, but nevertheless, 23 hours after blast off, at 4:45 am, we arrived in Phnom Penh. No tuk tuks were in sight so Melissa and I walked a mile back to our apartment. Our roommates didn’t think we would be coming home so they had pad locked the apartment from the inside. Thankfully Maurtiz, the new German flatmate, woke up after a few minutes of pounding on the door. I had just enough time to shower, curl up on my bed in the fetal position for 30 minutes, and then bike to work.

Goodnight Moon. Goodbye Bus.

Life’s a journey and Cambodia is a special circus. Ah but it was an adventure and worth it in the end. Thankfully work went great today despite the lack of sleep – big week for my SIGU! More on that to come….

My roommate, Melissa, and I set off on a much anticipated adventure this afternoon. We will be spending the Water Festival holiday traveling in LAOS!

We fly to Bangkok tonight and the plan is to revel in the comforts of modern civilization and efficiency, shopping and eating our way around town. Tomorrow afternoon we fly from Bangkok to Luang Prabang, a charming town in the Northern mountains of Laos. We have hiking, climbing, and kayaking ambitions along with a whole lot of relaxing.

We have not set plans for our return, but we anticipate spending around 5 days in Luang Prabang before we begin the long bus journey South that will eventually take us back to Cambodia overland after a few stops along the way. We plan on being home by November 9th.  So excited! Over and out…