Navigating Waterworld

Lieng Sopha maintains a wary eye for branches just itching to whack passers-by.

I don't know how many of you readers out there have seen that vintage classic film, African Queen, but images of the 1951 movie came to mind as our vessel fought its way through a watery thicket under the hot Cambodian sun. I had memories of Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn up to their chests in swamp water, dragging their boat through the marshes of an encroaching jungle. Only a tropical deluge raised the river enough for the African Queen to escape the clutches of the strangling vegetation. We got off easier.

Jay Hastings stands in the tippy "took" with its crew.

Our group was riding in the fanciest "took" I've ever used to travel the Tonle Sap river/lake system. The last time I was on this river -- four years ago -- I had the unforgettable experience of falling off a more austere took at a place I remember as Half Moon beach. The name is based on the fact that I had to moon potential onlookers to remove from my trousers all the rich river mud I managed to scoop up with my hindquarters  when my bottom hit the river's bottom. Yes, I proudly admit it -- I soiled my pants in that splash. But it was good soil, and helps to explain why Cambodia produces so much rice (1.25 million metric tons exported in 2017-18, according to www.statista.com). It exports 1/10 India's volume and is just behind China and the U.S. in output.

But I digress.

The took's canopy lets Jay ride in the shade.

The row of foliage on the left defines a lane indicating the river's channel through the lake.

For half the year, the Tonle Sap River drains the Tonle Sap Lake, the largest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia, into the Mekong River. But when the monsoons come, the Mekong swells and pours its water and all the nutrients with it back into the lake, making it an enormously rich protein resource for Cambodia. The Tonle Sap Lake rises from one meter deep to 9 meters deep and swells in volume to 50 times its smallest size. The photos you see in this post reveal a lake-river system draining from its maximum size.

A bamboo structure peaks up from the gradually receding Tonle Sap.

The stilts supporting this building hint at the decline in the river level.

Finding your way on this constantly changing system can be a challenge. We were heading for the village of Anlong Oak, and the boat driver tried a channel which gradually closed in on us. The motor was shut off to avoid tangling with roots and discarded fishing nets, and we gained a gondolier. However, this isn't Venice, so he didn't sing.

I had doubts we would make it past the encroaching banks and brush, but finally we were in open water again, and heading toward the location of our first meeting for the day -- a floating, ramshackle building with a Cambodian flag fluttering in a gentle breeze.

Our destination -- a floating fishery enforcement office

As the floorboards below indicate, this meeting room was definitely not the Ritz-Carleton, but it served its purpose -- a meeting location to discus Jay's loan program for one of the 10 Cambodian fishing villages it serves.

Jay Hastings is a childhood friend who spent his career working for the Japan Fisheries Association. He is now semi-retired and a principal in Sustainable Communities International, a non-governmental organization. Twice a year he travels to Cambodia to work with Cambodia's department of fisheries to manage an interest-free loan program benefiting the 10 villages. They re-loan the funds to their members for interest at conditions more favorable than offered by banks, and use the interest to develop community-owned capital.  Jay's program is creating capital resources for these villages in the hope that these villages will eventually be able to manage their fisheries without outside help.

Space is limited, but Jay finds a perch to take notes.

Sopha discusses the program with Anlong Oak Village representatives,

A toddler stops nursing long enough to size up the photographer.

On this day, most of the village representatives at the meeting are women.

After the Anlong Oak meeting, we headed for a very special village -- special to me, anyway. It is Kangleng Phe. I have a small amount of skin in this game. Some people entertain themselves by purchasing season tickets to the opera or the Seattle Mariners. I entertain myself by making donations to Jay's organization to fund community loans. Kangleng Phe is my community. I'm told that, at least sometimes, when the community meets to discuss their loan business, my photo is on display.

Somehow the boat captain recognized this as the current landing for Kangleng Phe.

This 2014 photo shows Kangleng Phe's chief (left) and me (tall guy on the right).

The head of Kangleng Phe Village is Chhim Chhoeun (or) Chhoem Chhoeun  (or) Chhim Chhoeurn. It's hard to know just how to spell his name, because Cambodia sounds don't match up well with the Roman alphabet. The certificate below, which was hanging in the main room of his home, was one of several, and together they had three different spellings for his name.

Let's just call him "Chhim" (the double-h makes the "ch" sound more emphatic). In 2014, at age 63, he struck me as a quiet, thoughtful man who was very grateful for the pittance I contributed for  the loan to his community.  It is less than 0.4% of my annual income, but for them it is more than a  windfall, and the gratitude is palpable. I was disappointed to learn that I would not be shaking his hand this day.

One of several training certificates displayed in Chimm's home.

Climbing the steps to Chhim's home takes you past a small golden shrine.

Homes are on stilts not only for flooding, but also for storage and to provide a cool place to sit.

Chhim's family provided a meal for Jay and fisheries officials prior to the community meeting.

I really wanted to see Chhim. There's something about having a friend halfway around the world that made this trip special. Unfortunately, that wasn't going to happen. At this writing, he is in a recovery center. Within the past two weeks he was surprised by a water snake and bitten.  The snake escaped, so it's not clear which species made the strike, but Chhim's leg became quite swollen. The swelling is down now, but he still cannot walk. We took up a small offering to help. There is no health insurance, and what we would consider a small expense in the United States can be exorbitant in Cambodia.

Following the Kangleng Phe loan meeting, there was an evaluation meeting involving two other communities before day's end and the boat ride back to Kampong Chhnang City, the capital of Kampong Chhnang Province. We would have one more day "in the field," before returning to Phnom Penh.

The sun was lower in the sky, so the ride back was much cooler.

I'm coming home next week, but before then there are some more things to share about this trip -- distribution of One World Futbols, a visit to a Muslim Village, and -- of course -- Angkor Wat, one of the great religious sites of the World. And I haven't even finished telling you about my previous trip to Malawi! There's more to share. Hope you've enjoyed this so far.

Love,
Robert

Early evening on the swollenTonle Sap

Duncan Zimba -- my man Friday in Lilongwe

Duncan Zimba -- my driver and "my man Friday"

LILONGWE, MALAWI, AFRICA--So you've just blown into Lilongwe, a city of 670,000 according to the 2008 census. Lilongwe is the capital of Malawi, the world's 6th poorest country,and you want to find your way around. Who you gonna call?

How about my man Friday, Duncan Zimba?

Everybody knows who "Friday" was.

In my childhood, every American school child knew "Friday" as the right hand man of David Defoe's character, Robinson Crusoe, who found himself shipwrecked and castaway on an uninhabited island. "Friday" was the name he gave to a native he had saved from Cannibals, because they met on a Friday.

Duncan saved me!

Well in the case of Duncan, I didn't save him -- he saved me. A professional driver, he turned out to become my transportation in Malawi, but more importantly, my mentor. The time we spent together and the things we talked about led into an enterprise of sorts, which I hope will
thrive despite daunting odds. If you end up in Lilongwe, Duncan is the man to call.

K80,000 = $108

And here's how you do it. You go to the Web address, lilongwekwacha.com;  select "Personal Transportation" in the business index on the left side of the page; in the panel that opens, click on "Central Bridge Taxi." That leads you to Duncan's profile.

Last summer, Dunca's day rate using his vehicle was something like 20,000 Kwacha. That sounds like a lot, until you understand that all that kwacha only amounts to about $27.54 in today's U.S. currency. As the photo at the right illustrates, it takes a lot of kwacha bills to come up with real money. It's my understanding that the government tried to increase the smallest bill from 2,000 to 5,000 kwacha, but that idea failed because the public thought that was a move to devalue the currency.

Don't lose that address!

Now if you are heading to Lilongwe, you need to hang on to the Internet address I just gave you for Duncan's business profile, because last summer when I needed a driver, there was only one semi-credible listing that I found, using Google. Fortunately I already knew about Duncan through an acquaintance, so I called on him. Since then  you can now find three drivers via Google, but to communicate with them before you leave, you have to  contact them using WhatsApp. One of them takes e-mail queries.

Things may be changing -- Almost a year ago, The Nation, an online news medium, reported that the average time to register new businesses in Malawi had dropped from 37 days to five, so maybe more small businesses will start to appear.

Good Morning, Lilongwe!

The reason I'm sharing this with you is to put into perspective what Duncan, I and a couple other individuals have created -- an online business directory for Lilongwe. I don't think anyone else has done this -- yet! -- and it's my hope that this Web site, called "Good Morning Lilongwe!" will become a boon for Lilongwe's small businesses. (The internet address, "LilongweKwacha.com," is a play on words, because, "kwacha," the name for the currency, means "dawn" in Chichewa. There are at least 15 languages spoken in Malawi; English it the commercial language and Chichewa is the major native tongue. The name of the Web address is similar to saying "Seattle Dollar," or "Seattle Dawn." That  won't be hard for the locals to remember. The Web address compliments the Web site's actual name, "Good Morning Lilongwe!"

The notion for this concept came up one afternoon when Duncan was helping me with errands around Lilongwe and we pulled up in a parking lot for a lunch break. Not too far from us, men were cleaning cars which city or business employees had parked there. They were using buckets of water filled from a spigot. Part of their fee covered the cost of the water. A person might wash 10 cars a day to make a living, Duncan said.

Walking through the lot was a man with a platter on his head covered with oranges. He wasn't supposed to be there, and would have to  head for the hills if  city councilmen showed up, Duncan explained. (In Lilongwe, the term "city councilmen" referred to the police.)

The words, "city council" actually mean "police station." This one was at the Zambia border.

Internet time is pricey

I asked Duncan why it was hard to find Google businesses on the internet in Lilongwe. He explained that, in Lilongwe, Internet time is very expensive. This means developing an Internet presence is very costly, because it takes Internet time to create a Web site. So sponsoring a Web site is out of reach for most small businesses. Newspapers  are read primarily by the people who can afford them and are not widely read. Advertising there would be expensive for small businesses If small businesses had the resources to create a Web page to advertise their goods, Google probably wouldn't find them anyway, which defeats the purpose.

What if Google were unnecessary?

But what if there were a site that indexed and networked small businesses and was so well known that Google would be unnecessary? That's what we have tried to create -- an index site for local blusinesses that locals can access on their cell phones without the need to own an expensive computer. You can find lilongwekwacha.com on your own cell phone. Try it!

The pattern below the title  is actually a photo of a style of rock wall common in Lilongwe.

My colleague, Roger Matthews, who spends part of his time in Covington, WA, and part in Casa Grande, AZ, developed and supports the site. I manage it from Seattle. The development outlay is less than $200 annually, making it possible for Lilongwe businesses to have a communication network without paying more than they can afford. At this time, a small business is listed free if the owner performs some sort of community service.

K1,000 photo

While the site exists, it hasn't been easy to grow it; after 90 days there are probably only 10 listings. There are a lot of roadblocks that get in the way, including just the reliability of the internet and developing a team to make it work. This concept has gone from a notion, to an idea, to a reality. Now we just have to make it an accomplishment, and there are some indications that this might just happen.

This isn't the only thing that has made my time with Duncan so enjoyable. When I wanted to haggle with someone over bananas or oranges sold at the side of a road, or shoot a photo of a woman making gravel with her five-pound sledge hammer, he was there  to explain to her what I wanted,  and haggle over the price in Chechewa. The price was K1,000, or about $1.35 U.S. When I wanted to go to a nice restaurant, he knew just where to take me. Did I want to shop? he could get me there.

Duncan knew where the clean toilets were.

Lucky with art

Duncan was my driver to the Dzaleka refugee camp, which you will read about  in a future posting. He helped me buy the tickets to recharge my phone time, and find the groceries I wanted to take back to my room. He was the one who warned me to lock my room whenever I left it to make sure my property stayed put. He explained to me that "Lucky," the club-footed man who sold me drawings, was overcharging me and that the drawings really were actually just reprints. Of course, he couldn't say that to me before the purchase, because Lucky was standing there and knew who he was. (Taxi drivers are like barbers. They see and know everyone, and everyone knows them.)

How Duncan got started

Duncan didn't set out to be a driver. He fell into it just like one thing leads to another. While we were at the car wash watching food vendors balance plates of fruit on their heads, I acknowledged my appreciation for their skills. That's when he disclosed that at age 10 he was balancing 30-pound loads on his head as he helped his family carry things home when he was living in a village far from Lilongwe.

Those were the days when extended families were large. A cousin who lived with the family moved out and became a fisherman. Duncan had an accounting diploma, and his cousin hired him to manage the books. Duncan discovered in the process that taxi services were expensive, and that's when he decided to get into the taxi business. He has grown his reputation by being the taxi service for embassies -- there are many embassies in Malawi's capital city.

Duncan dresses for such clientele -- wearing conservative but smart clothing that conveys dignity and credibility. I was surprised to learn that his shoes cost 75,000 kwacha. That's about $100 in U.S. currency. But he also was delighted to try out a pair of The Shoe that Grows, which he found quite comfortable. I'm promoting this wonderful product, which expands as a child's feet grow, making it possible for a child to have shoes for several years -- and sometimes to attend schools which demand footwear. It only costs $15 to sponsor a pair; if you want to do this, there's a link in the upper right portion of this page.

When you rely on Duncan, he has your back. One day I wanted to go to Tsoka, the city's flea market. It's a place where a person could feel uncomfortable on a first visit, because you are dealing with some very disadvantaged individuals. Assaults on people are very rare in Lilongwe, Duncan assured me. But car break-ins are more likely. He stayed with the vehicle while I turned on the Go-Pro camcorder which was strapped to my chest and partly concealed by my coat, and I went walking. Several individuals realized that I was filming, and some were a little disgruntled,but nothing happened. I managed to snag several candids -- something I wouldn't have tried if I hadn't had my man Friday assure me that nothing bad was likely to happen.

Bearing her load on her head, a woman passes a line of men selling shirts at Tsoka.

The shirt seller at the right is snacking on a stalk of sugar cane.

It seems to me that grit and determination keep the locals swimming in this sea of competition.

There's no question that these people are hard working; what they lack is opportunity.

The colors of this booth suggest to me that the owner is Rastafarian.

Driver on retainer

After a few days of riding with Duncan, I offered a retainer of 6,000 kwacha a day to be able to call on him for half of each day for transportation. That amounted to about $16 per day and included the right for him to specify the time and pick up other passengers along the way. This worked for him, because it gave him predictability in a business that is on-call by its nature.

That's enough for now. There's more to tell -- about the One World Futbols I distributed and about the Dzaleka refugee camp. At least that much. And I'm behind schedule. I wanted to write about Duncan a month ago and got waylaid. And now, in 10 days, I'm heading to Cambodia, with 20 One World Futbols in tow. I'm going to visit Angkor Wat, a World Heritage Site temple built by the Khmer people hundreds of years ago. And I'll be visiting a fishing village, where people on the other side of the world know who I am, for reasons to be explained. So I may still be telling one story while I start telling the next one. It happens.

Love,
Robert

                    And Shu

A "lucky baby" who intends to pay it forward

Her name really is Hongjin Lin, but she uses Nicole, most of the time, and although she is sitting across the table from me weeping, she considers herself the "lucky" one, because, unlike the siblings that preceded her, who never lived to glimpse daylight, Hongjin Lin escaped abortion despite China's One Child policy. It is largely because of this simple fact that Nicole is driven by a sense of obligation, especially to Chinese girls who are not as fortunate as she.

Nicole posed for me to conceal the obvious: I really only wanted a photo of the Tsoka flea market.

I met her in the airline terminal in Addis Ababa, between legs of a flight connecting Toronto and Malawi's capital city, Lilongwe. You can meet a lot of interesting people at the Addis Ababa terminal. Most of the faces are black, so Westerners stand out, and it's a safe assumption that they speak English.

There's always a reason to speak up, if for only to make sure you are in the right line in unfamilair surroundings. One of the people I engaged conversation with was a doctor who was on her way to provide medical services in a remote Arican destination -- I don't remember just where. Next to her was her young shy daughter, an ingenue perhaps already far more worldly than her peers. One man I spoke with was an archeologist, heading to a dig. On the flight home, catching a nap on a chaise the Ethiopians had set out for weary travelers in Addis Abbaba's airport, I found myself next to a young Irish woman who conducted tours for students familiarizing themselves with conditions in Northern Malawi. The north is heavily forested, but the south of Malawi is nearly denuded of forests, she said; if they don't get a handle on their environment and their birth rate, this country that hosts two refugee camps for several African Nations could be in its own civil war in 10 years, she observed.

Face it, if they are between flights in Central Africa, the people you meet on the road  have a life different from the ordinary and a story to share.

Nicole was no different. The fact that she was a young Asian female traveling with a male companion, set her apart. But it wasn't until we were on the plane and she was sitting in front of me that she began to share pieces of her story. I think I had been telling her about the One World Futbol, because that's what I tend to talk about when people ask me what I'm up to. I explained that these tough balls sustains hundreds of punctures without ill effect, and that's why they are ideal for disadvantaged communities such as refugee camps.  Well, said Nicole, she was volunteering for There Is Hope, an organization serving Dzaleka, the major refugee camp in Southern Malawi. And then she mentioned Innocent Magambi, author of Refugee for Life, who had organized There Is Hope, suggesting that I should get in contact with him.

This was rather overwhelming, I had barely started the final flight to Lilongwe, and we were already making plans to connect when we landed, and what were the chances of that, and what was this organization, anyway, and who was this fellow, Innocent Magambi?

Sometimes, it's a small world. My hostess in Malawi knew a driver, Duncan Zimba, who could drive me around for the first few days when I was in Lilongwe getting adjusted to the time change. And when I mentioned There is Hope to Duncan, and Innocent Magambi, he needed no explanation. Duncan knew Innocent. They were virtually friends. Naturally. He's a taxi driver. They know everyone.

What that means was that there was not going to be any difficulty finding a home for 40 One World futols and 85 hats and assorted clothing I raised at the African Hat Dance -- my pre-birthday party at First Class Ballroom in Everett, WA, a few days before I flew out. But don't let me get sidetracked. This story is about Nicole -- whom I ran into immediately after arriving at There Is Hope's office in Lilongwe, and I'll be telling you all about that in a few days. Later, during my stay in Lilongwe, Nicole and I connected a couple times, including going on a shopping spree, and it was on those later connections that I heard the rest of her personal story.

Nicole speaks English fluently, but her home is in China. Sort of. In her early 20s, she really is a citizen of the world. She is a graduate of Occidental College, which was attended by a recent American president. ("After graduating from high school in 1979, Barack Obama moved to Los Angeles to attend Occidental College. In February 1981, Obama made his first public speech, calling for Occidental to participate in the disinvestment from South Africa in response to that nation's policy of apartheid." --Wikipedia)

She also attended college in Britain, and she was an intern at the United Nations, where she witnessed President Trump's famous "Rocket Man" comments about North Korean Leader Kim Jong-un. (Diplomats tend to be reserved when a head of state is speaking, but  Trump's remarks noticeably influenced facial expressions, she said.)

Graduation Day at Occidental was not totally a joyful experience for Nicole. She felt the weight of responsibility of being so privileged when literally millions of young Chinese women have limited opportunities to experience the same achievements. And to have come so far when only chance prevented her from being aborted gives her a sense that she has a debt to pay for the honors and privileges she has experienced.

Nicole's eyes moistened as she shared her story over lunch: Her parents were well educated, and her father was an accountant in a Chinese firm. He and her mother lived in a village at a time of China's one-child policy, when neighbors would report when a woman's pregnancy became obvious. If her family didn't have an abortion after the first child, her father could lose his job, Nicole said. And so two siblings ahead of her were aborted.

And then chance took center stage: The factory closed. The family had an excuse for being displaced, and her mother, who was not yet showing with Nicole, went to a city where she had a degree of anonymity. After Nicole's birth, sometimes her mother would hide with her in public toilets, where the odor discouraged individuals from investigating them.

Nicole, who was "undocumented" into her teen years, learned the story by bits and pieces as she grew up, only learning later in life that two siblings had to be sacrificed. And so, along with the gift of life she carries with her a sense that she has an obligation to make a difference.

Nicole shows off Kibebe products: pen holders, cards, bibs, shopping bags, colorful storage boxes.

In Lilongwe, her plan is to make a difference using a $10,000 Davis Projects grant with There is Hope  to help refugees at Dzaleka produce goods for sale via an Online Shop for Refugee Empowerment. You can also see images of their products on Facebook at Kibebe Malawi.

Showing fabrics

 Because the camp is supported by the United Nations, the refugees are prohibited from holding jobs. But they can still manufacture goods for sale. Nicole is marketing the goods via Shopify.com. I purchased a couple of the items for sale -- a purse that unzips and unfolds into a shopping bag and a picnic blanket.

Nicole's story resonated with me. It reminded me of the time 50 years ago, when President Lyndon Johnson, following the assassination of President Kennedy, persuaded Congress to create a domestic Peace Corps called Volunteers in Service to America (V.I.S.T.A.).

In 1965, one such VISTA volunteer went to Appalachia, realized that girls were living in poverty because they didn't graduate from school due to poor clothing, and wrote a grant for sewing machines so she could teach their mothers how to make clothes cheaper than they could purchase them.

A few years ago, I discovered and read that grant proposal which that young woman wrote to obtain the machines to teach those skills. I had located that remarkably well-written proposal among her effects when it came time for her memorial service following our 30-year marriage. Nicole is close to the age that Betty was when she was serving in Appalachia. So, as you might imagine, I dearly hope that Nicole -- Hongjin Lin -- stays in touch and keeps me informed about the progress of her career.

Like Yogi Berra was supposed to have said: "It's déjà vu all over again."

Love,
Robert

And Shu

In Cambodia: futbols and kazoos a big hit

In the 1984 film, Amadeus, I believe there is a scene in which the young Mozart plays the piano upside down and backwards. Well, I can see how one can do that with a piano, but a kazoo?  I always believed the kazoo was designed to be played in one direction, until I saw this image of  a young Cambodian student playing the kazoo backward!  With her hands off the control surfaces!  The kazoo is a rather straightforward instrument. But playing it in reverse? The kazoo? Sacre bleu!

Blowing on the wrong end of a kazoo, and lovin' it.

Afterward she lost it.  In the photo below, the young lady is cracking up while her classmate struggles to keep a straight face.

The smiles make a caption for this photo totally unecessary.

In the photos above, taken as grab shots from a video David Biviano forwarded, the kids are clapping their hands and blowing notes to that old Sunday School standard, "if you're happy and you know it, clap your hands" (clap, clap). It's not a song I would have expected to hear in Bosthom Village, which I can't find on Google Maps and have no idea where it is.

This, of course, is just my way of saying that my good friend David Biviano has already returned to Cambodia, and has started distributing One World Futbols. And kazoos. Especially kazoos.

I'm sure you remember David from the last blog post -- he's the philosophy professor who ran an

Vanny and mother

orphanage in Siem Reap,  called the Cambodian Children's House of Peace, until the government bowed to a suggestion from Unicef and closed down orphanages, sending the children back to villages.

However, David had the last laugh, sort of. When he returned to Cambodia this summer, he visited Bosthom Village, where a Mr. Vanny, a graduate of David's orphanage, now teaches, after completing a two-year teachers college in Siem Reap. Vanny is now attending Cambodia's Build Bright University in pursuit of a bachelor's degree, and his mother is the principal of the school where he teaches. That's a photo of the two of them at the right.



Naturally, with David's connections to Bosthom Village, there was a ceremony for distributing the balls.  In the photo below, Vanny is translating for David, gesturing to clarify that the One World Futbol will never go flat.

"This ball never goes flat," said  Mr. Vanny, translating for David.

Then they all said "thank you for the ball," like they were supposed to . . .

And then they got down to it -- the first game was "keep away."

David also visited the primary school in Bos Village to present a One World Futbol to Ms. Sohkeng, a teacher assistant and another graduate of the Cambodian Children's House of Peace. In the photo below she is sitting with her cousins at the end of the school day.

Teacher assistant Ms. Sohkeng receives One World Futbol for Bos Village primary school.

What follows tells the tale. The children turned into a blur of activity. And lest you think this is just a boy's game, follow the sequence below. He is about to give the ball a swift kick in the first photo. In the second grab shot, she's already blocked it and has gotten the ball away from him.

Looks like he's got it all under control . . .

. . . but she blocks it with her knee and hooks it with her foot before he knows what happened.

By the way, before I close this post, I should admit a little aggravation about these kazoos.  I am the man who introduced the kazoo to Hanoi, and then to Lilongwe, the capital city of Malawi. And I wanted to include Cambodia in my résumé of firsts, but now David has claimed that honor. But I have my revenge, because, as it turns out, he is the reason those kids play the kazoo backward.

"I am embarrassed to say I have been playing the kazoo from the wrong end, which nevertheless still works, just not as efficiently," he confessed. Well, I guess it's time to repeat the tutorial I posted back in 2016 which I introduced the kazoo to Hanoi. Here it is:

Deceptive in its simplicity, the kazoo has only one moving part--your vocal cord. (Tongues optional)

The kazoo is a musical instrument sophisticated in its simplicity. There is the blowificator, where you place your lips, the musicator, where the tune emerges, and the buzzifier on top, which yields the kazoo's unique tonal qualities. There are also the control surfaces between the buzzifier and the musicator, where you spontificate the sounds for melodious effect by pressing down or fluttering with your fingers.

Well, that should settle that. Now then, I know in the last blog I indicated I was going to profile a new individual. That was before I knew that David would report back so quickly. So he gets two shots at the spotlight. But now I really am going to return to the subject of  Malawi and some other notable characters. There's more to tell.

Love,

Robert,

And Shu

Seven futbols to Cambodia!

The Wilson campaign has finally reached a long-sought objective: One World Futbols to Cambodia.

I have a personal interest in Cambodia. A childhood friend, Jay Hastings, has created a novel program,  not just of low-interest micro loans--but of interest free micro loans--to 10 fishing villages associated with  Tonle Sap, the largest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia. Jay flies to Cambodia twice a year to help these villages manage these loans to built their own capital by re-loaning the money to their villagers. His effort, supported by the national government's fisheries department, has drawn the attention and participation of a major Japanese university. It got my attention, too. I sponsored the loan for one of the villages, Kanleng Phe, and had wanted to return to distribute One World Futbols. That trip wasn't in the cards this year, but things changed, when I met the newest member of Team Wilson during a visit to Chacala, Mexico, in February.

Biviano

David Biviano, Team Wilson's newest member, is a philosophy professor who once operated an orphanage in Siem Reap, where he now teaches Western philosophy at Paññasastra University of Cambodia (PUC). Siem Reap is the city where the World Heritage Site, Angkor Wat, is situated. PUC is the first higher learning institution in Cambodia that provides English based education in all subjects, and is officially accredited by the Royal Government of Cambodia's Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport.

World heritage site, Angkor Wat

I met David while visiting a friend in Chacala, Mexico, a tiny fishing village 90 kilometers by car north of Puerto Vallarta. Years earlier, David had  decided he was tired of Seattle weather and opted for warmer climates. He spends time each winter in Chacala. He began spending part of his year in Cambodia as a result of a Buddhism pilgrimage to Southeast Asia. The low cost of living there on Social Security, and the sale of his condominium, made it possible for him to start the Cambodian Child House of Peace, with 30 orphaned children, in 2008.  Schools like it were later closed at the recommendation of Unicef, which felt that the children were better back in their villages. David disagrees; he sees the villages as impoverished and isolating.

The "joy of his life"

The policy of closing orphanages still grates with him. For a three-year period he had overseen operation of the home and conducted fund raising. "It was the joy of my life," he said. He takes pride that, on his limited income, he was able to put two of the kids through college; one is a real estate salesman and the other, who is blind, specializes in business management. The blind student is also an English conversation teacher who speaks with an American accent, and who started the Cambodian Blind Students Association.

The cover of True Moon, David's morality tale for children at his Cambodian orphanage.

A child's morality tale

In Chacala, David shared his story about his book True Moon. It's a children's tale about the moon coming to terms with the reality that it is not the only light in the sky. The cover illustration, shown here, is based on a night photo of The Cambodian Children's House of Peace with a bicycle in the foreground and  a tiny crescent moon, with two tiny planets for eyes, seeming to smile down from the heavens. Proceeds from sales of the book, which is available through Amazon, supported the Children's House.

David with futbols & kazoos

A story like that begs for another, so I shared with David my adventures that began four years ago when I was training to climb Mount Adams and learned about this marvelous creation -- a soccer ball that never goes flat. It didn't take him long to realize he wanted to take some to Cambodia. In late July, after returning home from Malawi, I caught up with David in Centralia, Washington, while he was enroute from Mexico back to Cambodia. At that time I handed over 7 balls to take back with him, along with a whole bunch of kazoos.

I am the man who introduced Kazoos to Vietnam (or at least, Hanoi) and Malawi (or at least, its capital city, Lilongwe!), and now maybe I'm responsible for them reaching Cambodia. It's been fun watching people blow into them fruitlessly, until I showed them how to get sound out of a kazoo!

Our meeting in July was an opportunity for me to learn a little bit more about this impressive retiree. David attended Fordham, a private research university in New York City, and the oldest Catholic university in the Northeast. His career took him along a circuitous path that included being a juvenile justice consultant and an instructor in sexual harassment and diversity  for the U.S. Energy Department and Hanford Environmental Health employees at Hanford Nuclear Reservation. He also taught diversity and sexual harassment avoidance for Washington State University employees. At age 62, he served in the Peace Corps on the Caribbean island of St. Kitts.

David will remain in Cambodia until the holidays. He has promised to send photos and anecdotes as he distributes the balls. I look forward to sharing the news from the newest member of team Wilson.

Futbol supply nearly exhausted

Oh, by the way, this transfer virtually exhausts my supply of One World Futbols. As many of you know, I never ask for donations. But if you have a hankerin' to donate, the process is explained  in the upper right corner of this page, and I just had my 73rd birthday.

Next blog: Another profile of someone I've met along the way.

Love,
Robert

and Shu