The Stores!!

For your viewing pleasure:

KeoK'jay

Wat Phnom

Last Saturday Cat, Owen, and I took an afternoon stroll in Wat Phnom.

Here are some photos:

There is no racism in Cambodia.

monkeys!

monkey sex!!

which of course we did

owen & elephant love

Days

So. Many people ask me: what is a typical day like? Well. There really is no such thing as a "typical" day, every day has its different challenges, tasks, priorities, and surprises! But, what I can tell you is some of the things I have been doing for the past six weeks. On monday's wednesdays and fridays I work in the shop as the seller. Occasionally that means sitting for hours and listening to music and reading a book. But more often than not. I'll be doing things like:

Hand sewing: buttons, button holes, trimmings, and flowers onto headbands, bracelets, necklaces, scarfs and samples.

Crocheting: longs strips for bracelets, headbands, necklaces.

Knitting: large widths for samples on new shirt/dress designs

Sorting: buttons, tags, flowers, circles (circles of fabric used in many of KK designs)

Organizing: inventory, files, tags, and just about anything.

...and of course selling! Which we all wish we did more of!

On days that i'm not working in the store: tuesday, thursday, saturday, sunday. My days have comprised primarily of. Running errands around Phnom Penh, going to different markets in search of things like: elastic, screen printing ink, buttons, crochet hooks, pens, envelopes, cleaning products, shelves, thread, fabric, second hand clothes, silk screens, vintage finds for the store etc. etc. and Cleaning/Organizing/Overhauling: the kitchen, the workshop (work room, kitchen, and bedrooms), and the storage room (including scraping the ceiling, going through endless bags of scraps, and re-organizing the stock.) Lets just say, when your company is about recycling everything. NOTHING gets thrown away!!!

These are just a few examples of everyday things. In my free moments you will usually find me at Java Cafe. Interneting and enjoying the AC and sweets! I have a bad habit of revolving my day around when I can have cake. And coffee. drinking lots. and lots of coffee.

Flashback.

Some pics I took in Siem Reap: Wat Autvia, a fairly short bike ride away, almost exactly 5 weeks ago. Can't believe it's been that long. It was great because it's so small and everyone is busy doing Ankor that we were able to sit alone. Rachel sketched, and I read and took pictures with this little boy who was happy to model for me.

A Wild Wild Party!

Rachel turned 24 on the 24th. She was born in the year of the tiger, and it is once again the year of the tiger.

What must this mean?

ANIMAL PRINT PARTY.

Dinner pre-party at infamous: Cambodian BBQ Party!!!

tuk tuk ride to the party with Erin, whose birthday it also was!

Birthday Girl!

Someone gave her facepaint, an absolutely perfect Rachel Faller gift, and away she went!

me and some of the girls post facepaint

Me doing Rach

Rachel and Mai Lynn looking sexy

Just to clarify

All of the pictures were taken by me :) Let me know what you think!

Noticings.

Rachel and I had a short discussion the other day about the eastern and western views on poverty after I had been noticing the line between the poor and the rich is so strange.

In America there is a clear line between the upper/middle classes and the poor. We push our poor communities together and out of sight. Why? Because in America, when we see poverty, we feel like we have some moral obligation to help. And when we don’t, we feel guilty. So the image of poverty is hidden within its own communities so that it can be more easily ignored. If we don’t see it, we don’t have to worry about it. But in Cambodia, there is such a paradoxical division of the immensely poor masses and the excessively rich classes. Parked next to a motodope driver who literally sleeps on his bike at night, is a Lexus. A train, that runs through the poorest slums (where the children’s pics were taken) ran last week hosting a party for Cambodian's elite, sipping champagne as the ride not 6 yards away from hundreds of homes lining the train tracks. All of which are being evicted so that the government can build new property, sending families of seven or eight if not more to unimaginably even smaller homes.

Its strange for instance how in one day you go from this:

Rachel and I visiting some outskirts of Phnom Penh

Rows and rows of these single room "apartments" where we visited a worker for a great business Baskets of Cambodia who is pregnant and recovering from an accident where a gas container exploded in her room, killing the person next to her.

To this:

Elements, a night club in the middle of nowhere

We went for a party and fashion show. One of Rachel's dresses was in the show.

Wait. New York? LA? Cambodia...? Cambodia.