The Lighthouse Orphanage May 23, 2005   SLIDESHOW 18 pictures

    DURING THE PAST FIVE MONTHS, there have been far too many situations where I have commented,"This is not a good idea." So when I began preparations to visit the Lighthouse Orphanage in Phnom Penh, I was happy that I’d gotten myself into something that was most certainly a good idea. I had shrewdly invested my time and money at various beaches and watering holes all along the SE Asian Lonely Planet circuit and decided to diversify my portfolio, so to speak. There is something heartbreaking about orphans in a third-world country, and I was going to turn that around, if only for a few hours.

    Preparations continued at Happy Guesthouse #11, on the lake in Phnom Penh. During breakfast, I discussed the trip with Thom, a cook/maid/waiter/driver/gun for hire at the guesthouse. I inquired why this guesthouse was #11, and where the other 10 were, but I only confused more than I already had with the trip I was planning. He had been my driver last week when he took me on his motorbike out to the Killing Fields, Tuol Sleng Prison Museum and a Cambodian shooting range. He was disappointed when I did not shoot any rocket launchers or throw any grenades, but there must be something disconcerting to see a tourist shoot a weapon for a few seconds for the price of 60 days of work. I did not know why Thom was so interested in this trip, as I’d arranged with Lee to take me out to the orphanage in his tuk-tuk. Lee spoke better English and would be an enthusiastic shopper at the markets. Thom was younger, eighteen or so, and I had a very difficult time deciphering his accent. After breakfast I packed my bag and asked Thom where Lee was.

"Lee no here. Go zitter," he said.
"That’s interesting, because I’m supposed to be leaving for the orphanage right now", I replied, not really surprised that Lee had pre-empted a trip to the orphanage he sold me on to see his sister.
"I go orphanage, we motorbike".

I explained to him the obscene amount of food, toys, and other essential items I intended to buy that would most definitely not fit on a motorbike.
"I need a tuk-tuk," I said.
"No motorbike?", he asked?
"No motorbike," I confirmed. His wages for the day had just disappeared.

This was a very Cambodian, and very Asian thing to happen. Despite the firm plans that are made well in advance, things that are critical to you are not often very important to the people who you are relying on – buses leave three hours late for no apparent reason, boats don’t leave at all the day you need to leave - "maybe tomorrow my friend!" - and your tuk-tuk drivers sometimes visit their sister when they’re supposed to be negotiating the price of dried fish for you.

Thom headed out to the street and returned quickly. "No tuk-tuk today, holiday." It was rumored that today was a public holiday in Cambodia, but I knew that would not affect the tuk-tuk business. We walked out to the street and immediately found an available tuk-tuk. He asked me how much I was willing to pay, and I offered a dollar an hour. Maybe $5 for 4 hours. He waved me off. I've discovered on many occasions that there are a great many people in Asia who would rather sit around in a hammock smoking cigarettes with their friends that earn a decent wage for a short job. We went to another tuk-tuk driver. He accepted my $5 offer immediately. I informed him of my need for someone to help me bargain at the markets, and the stops that would need to be made before actually going to the orphanage. His English was decent, but I still found myself speaking in broken English, at which I've become quite adept.

"Me go market, buy rice bag, big money, $80. Cambodia man, $30, small money," I said. He nodded in agreement.
"I buy good price my friend, ok ok," he replied, smiling deeply. This was as good as it was going to get, so I introduced myself as Jon.
"My name Jo(h)n," he replied suspiciously. I left it at that.
My first stop was a bank, as I needed to withdraw the funds that had been donated to the orphanage.
"No No No. No bank open. Cambodia vacation day," he said. He had mixed up the British English and American English usage for holiday/vacation. "You go Lucky Lucky, " he said. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it. If I was in a third world country that didn't have a single ATM and needed to get a cash advance on my credit card, where would I go? A respectable business named Lucky Lucky of course.

We motored 20 yards down the dirt track to Lucky-Lucky, a money exchange and travel agency shop. I informed the man that I needed to get $663.60 in Cambodian riel from my credit card. His eyes bulged from his face, then he recovered. I could see him crack a satisfied smile as he calculated the 5% surcharge.

"Yes yes, hmm, yes yes," he mumbled. He looked into his drawer, got up from his chair and tossed a "one moment one moment!" at me as he ran out of the shop. He came back a minute later, smiling, consoling me with "No problem, no problem!".
I asked him about the 5% surcharge. That came to over $30.
"How about 3%?" I inquired.
"No no, 5%! Bank charge me 5% too!" he said. I was aware that the credit card companies charged him between two and three percent.
"I am going to an orphanage and donating this money," I said. He was confused.
"You buy orphanage?" he asked earnestly.
"Not exactly. Three percent, please?" I pleaded. He looked at my driver. Jo(h)n spoke a few sentences to him, apparently confirming that he was taking me to the orphanage.
I went in for the kill - "You will be taking rice out of the bowls of the orphan children." I don't know if he understood, but rubbed his chin, reconsidering the situation. Cambodians have some strange ideas about money. If you make a friend and he invites you to a cafe, etiquette will require him to offer the best of what the cafe has to offer, even if that one drink translates to 10 days of work for him. There are times to make money, and times not to make money. This was to be a time not to make money.

"OK, OK," he said, wagging a finger at me and smiling. "Never three percent!" he added. He ran the card and inspected my passport as if he was a Heathrow Airport Immigration officer. He xeroxed my passport and visa, then compared the signature on the passport with the one on the receipt.

"Hmm, is problem, name is not same same," he said. I never tire of people starting sentences with "Is problem". My signature has changed slightly since 1998, specifically the G in my last name.
"I sign again," I added quickly. He seemed content with that. A man walked in and handed the merchant an envelope.
The merchant began to stack the money. He started counting out a few hundreds, twenties, and finally tens.
"I think is best I give dollars and riel, easy for you." he said. As if I had a choice. Much of Cambodia operates on the might U.S. Dollar for all transactions over a dollar or two.

He began counting out 5000 and 10,000 riel notes, $1.25 and $2.50 each. The stack quickly became large and unwieldy. I like it when my stacks of money become unwieldy. He began meticulously counting it out, a process which lasted nearly ten minutes. I put it into two envelopes, thanked the man and hopped into the tuk-tuk.

We motored off to the Sugarcane Market. This is not a tourist market; this is where the locals shop. I only seen one store that resembled a supermarket in all of Cambodia. It was not busy. There were three rice salesmen who were all very interested in our business [SLIDE]. We settled on the middle one, as the bags of rice had the least amount of flies. I told Jo(h)n that I wanted to buy a lot of rice, one or two four foot tall bags. He discussed this with the salesman. The exchange became quite colorful. The vendor looked at me, probably wondering if I was really taking the rice to an orphanage. They settled on $25 for a 50kg bag of the primo rice, $20 for a bag of lesser quality. I took one of each.

At a pharmacy/drugstore, if you could call it that, I began stacking the counter with soap, toothbrushes, toothpaste, laundry detergent, shampoo and other impulse purchases. The staff was very suspicious, until my driver again explained where it was going. They became very friendly and cooperative. "Toothbrush big, baby want small toothbrush" the woman said. I was surprised that she spoke some English now and encouraged her to swap the toothbrushes. I pointed to the top of shelves to the diapers.
"I think no want," the saleswoman coyly said.

I thought about it for a second and felt stupid. I’d seen a lot of naked babies in Cambodia and SE Asia – diapers are a very unnecessary and expensive luxury for most families. That’s why the diapers were stored on top of the 12 foot shelves. I laughed and asked what else the children would need. "Candy!" she exclaimed. Their store did not sell any candy. I was surprised that they were not trying to sell me everything in the store, but there are rare times in Asia when the locals do not try to capitalize on the affluence of foreigners. I paid $26 for the items and dropped it off in the tuk-tuk. We continued down the street to a stationary stand. It was overflowing with books, pens, paper and dangling watercolor sets. I spent $109.50 on a ridiculous amount of notebooks, pens, colored pencils, markers, English books, coloring books, plain white paper, and pencil cases. The two girls began to giggle as the stack of items leaving the shop got bigger. At a shop that sells a pen and small notebook at a time for $0.11, I was possibly their biggest customer ever. We loaded the bags into the tuk-tuk as I cried "Toys, toys!" to my driver. I never saw any sugarcane at the market.

We drove into a downtown slum with four toy shops on the corners. I chose what looked the like biggest store [SLIDE] and morphed into a kid in a candy shop with his week’s allowance. I started piling their counter high with all sorts of toys. Four stuffed animals, several packs of rubber farm animals, three motorized walking dinosaurs, a little kitchen set, three badminton racquets and 10 birdies. I pointed at the hanging soccer balls and chose two, then a Thai takra ball. The family was literally running around the store frantically trying to arrange my order. They tried to hide their grins and excitement as I shot my finger around the store for items to add to the stack. I suspect dinner conversation that night may have included some comments on the tall crazy foreigner who bought half the store in 13 minutes.

I remembered a conversation I had with several people the previous night. I was out late with some English/Irish guys I met who lived in Phnom Penh. They all agreed that I’d be best giving the orphanage director as little money as possible.
"The director probably drives a Range Rover while the kids run around naked," Steve said, not joking.
"Corruption is so widespread in this country that people accept it as being normal," he added. I imagined a fat Cambodian man sitting in his office, smoking Marlboros and drinking Johnny Walker Black when I arrived. "Please, don’t take the plastic off of anything," he’d say.

With these thoughts I continued to my pile of toys. I found a two-seater big wheel. Not big enough for a ten year old but perfect for a three or four year old. I found "My First Pigeon", which looked like a motorized bird that will fly for a few seconds, if that. The photographic proof of this item was a casualty of the disposable camera. We all remember our first pigeon, don't we? I didn’t buy it. I also avoided all of the violent toys. I loved these toys as a kid, and I know Cambodian kids love toy guns and soldiers, but they really don’t need any more encouragement to kill each other. Guns are very prevalent in this part of the world; I didn’t feel it necessary to encourage the kids to pack a gat at eight years old.

One of the daughters was trying to itemize all of toys on a sales slip. After ten minutes or so she finished. She began adding it up. She checked the list again while my driver became increasingly annoyed. I don’t think he’s a shopper. It probably bothered him beyond my comprehension that I managed to spend $119 on Power Rangers and rubber alphabet puzzles; 40 days of driving his tuk-tuk for the mountain of toys I was buying. "I think the kids will be very happy," he managed through a forced smile. I’d like to imagine that he was excusing this profligate spending.

There exists a palpable gap between the foreigners here and the locals in SE Asia. They see foreigners spend obscene amounts of money, whittling away our time in insouciant leisure while they slave away, seven days a week, trying to help keep their family above the poverty line (which is not $19,350 for a family of four a year in Cambodia). I appeased Jo(h)n with a cold Coke and asked him ass nicely as possible if there was a place nearby that I could by candy. He walked me down a few stores to a small market. Their candy section was limited, but they had a lot of good food that an orphanage could use: biscuits (cookies), chocolate covered corn crisps, two 50 pack boxes of Mee Nara instant noodles, a case of assorted American sodas, jello candy, hard candies, and four large jars of Milo (like Ovaltine). I cleaned them out of the different corn and potato chips and their dried fruit. I stacked what looked like candy on the table, not sure if it was chocolate and might melt. In all, I spent $86 on half a dozen heaping bags of food, most of which the kids rarely get to eat. There was not enough room for me to climb in over bags of rice, toys and food, so we had to hang some bags off the side of the tuk-tuk [SLIDE]. I got situated, then Jon buried me. I was content.

I bought a disposable camera (the digital quality of the pictures attest to this) near Central Market, as my digital was mercilessly stolen from the top (or maybe bottom) of a bus in Laos. The gods of the villains will deliver justice. We progressed slowly down Norodom St. through the afternoon traffic, passing what I took to be the Phnom Penh prison. It had an imposing four or five story watchtower with armed guards. The tall cement wall surrounding the complex was crowned with coils of barbed wire. The building looked like a modern prison - a fortress with bars covering the windows of the entire building. It was the Embassy of Japan. There were several more embassies along Norodom, not quite as secure as Japan, but still all fortresses as well. I realized the Cambodia is the kind of country where consulates are attacked and therefore need to be more secure than say, the U.S. Consulate in Shanghai, which is located in an upscale shopping mall on Nanjing Lu. On April 12, 1975, five days before Phnom Penh surrendered, the U.S. initiated Operation Eagle Pull and began a massive airlift evacuation. Hundreds of marines secured the compound while Consulate Staff, Americans and Cambodians could board the helicopters. US Ambassador John Gunther Dean ceremoniously lowered the United States flag and reluctantly boarded a Marine CH-53A on a nearby soccer field. [Note to editors: Please tie this in to the orphanage story.]

At a traffic signal, several traffic policemen were stopping motorbike drivers for roadside inspections. I'd witnessed this in various forms in other SE Asian countries. The police would inform the driver that their motorbike was not to code, or they'd stopped too close to the motorbike in front of them or they were not wearing a helmet, which is of course not required. The driver can decide to settle the infraction on the spot, or pay a much bigger fine later. This is how many policemen earn their salary, and that is why a position in the police force is such an extremely coveted position in many Asian countries. The first motorbike motored to the side of the road, but the second driver, a man in his early twenties, stared the traffic cop down with disdain. The light had not changed and there was nowhere for him to go, but he gassed his bike around the policeman, clipping him and sending him reeling backwards. The cop recovered and lunged forward, grabbed the backside of the driver's shirt, reached around him and grabbed the keys from the motorbike's ignition. The young man sat at the front of a busy intersection, staring humorlessly at the traffic cop. We drove around the motorbike. I tried to find out what had happened.
"Drivers do not like policeman, they take much money," Jo(h)n explained regretfully.
"What did the driver do wrong?" I asked.
"Nothing to do wrong, driver must always pay. Is good I drive with other man - no Cambodian - they do not stop me anytime," he continued. I didn't push the issue - baksheesh is prevalent in most parts of the world. We pay it in the United States, we just don't like to see it that way.

We drove through Southern Phnom Penh and crossed the Tonle Sap river. I looked up and down the banks [SLIDE] and sighed as kids swam in the heavily polluted waters. Tin roof shanties lined both banks. They looked like they'd dissipate during the next storm. We turned right after crossing the bridge and drove parallel to the river along an asperous dirt road. It looked like it might have been paved at some time, 10 or 20 years ago. We passed gas stations which consisted of nothing else than three shelves of bottled gasoline. Liters of Johnny Walker and 1.5 Liters of Coke have a long shelf-life after their original contents are mixed. A half dozen men worked in a storefront shucking a massive pile of coconuts. A naked boy chased his older brother. He tripped over some rope and crashed spectacularly. Women sold fresh baguettes, a reminder of the French influence in Cambodia. We passed several motorbikes with an oversized basket containing at least 20 ducks and chickens. After a kilometer or so we turned off the main road on to a smaller dirt road. A woman was bent over, digging in to the dirt road with a machete.

We finally turned in to the Lighthouse Orphanage. For a split second the children watched our tuk-tuk enter the dirt yard. They watched intently, then simultaneously bolted towards us. Immediately the tuk-tuk was surrounded with the dozen children we'd seen and ambuscaded with another twenty kids who suddenly materialized. They blockaded the path to the only building, but my driver was skilled at piloting his machine through human traffic and advanced fastidiously. The supply train was quickly disburdened. It had taken several hours to load the tuk-tuk but seconds for its cargo to disappear. One of the kids found the mechanical Tyrannosaurus Rex. They turned him on and he began a laggish plod across one of the school desks [SLIDE]. Thirty children were entranced. They peered into the bags of food, but the Orphanage manager collected the bags and restrained them from devouring the bags of chocolate covered corn crisps.

Mr. Long approached me and introduced himself as the orphanage director. He was a middle-aged man who spoke decent English. It looked like he had mud on his face but I didn't want to say anything. He directed me away from the Christmas melee to some chairs so we could chat.
"We thank you for bringing presents and visiting our orphanage. The children need so much and there is very little I can do, I am only one man. I work on construction, making steps up to the school." He pointed to the open air school where the children were all ransacking the bags of toys and food like lions on an injured Wildebeest. [Editor's note: On December 23, 2007 I learned of a change of management at the Lighthouse Orphanage. Georgie Walsh emailed me to inform me that she was the new Lighthouse Orphanage Fundraising Coordinator. Mr. Long was no longer managing the orphanage as Mr. Khan Sophean (aka Mr Lee, but different than tuk-tuk driver described above) had stepped in.]
"We do not have much but we do what we can. The children have toys, but what we really need is money to provide for the children and make things better here," he continued. I grew a bit suspicious - five minutes at the orphanage and he was already soliciting me for money. He was uninterested in the donations, which either meant that they would be inspected and resold later or that his teenage "manager" would handle the unpacking and distribution of the toys, food and other gifts, which turned out to be the case [SLIDE]. I signed an old guestbook, of sorts, and proceeded to explain how friends and family had made donations through me, and I had procured school supplies, food and presents. He was very grateful and seemed a bit overwhelmed with the strange, tall Westerner who just drove into his camp with a tuk-tuk full of supplies. He was genuinely appreciative and thanked me as best he could.

Mr. Long developed into a hardworking and honest director. He was not the patriarchal chief of this tribe, but more of an administrative director seeing to the day to day operation of the orphanage. He worked diligently on the brick steps leading up to the open air classroom while the children ran around the orphanage complex at top speed with their new toys. I only got to spend an afternoon with him but he seemed like a humble, responsible man who would not sell the toys and food and take the donation to find a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue and some attractive escorts to the lounge at the Raffles Hotel de Royal. If I'm wrong, his god will deliver a swift and measured justice as well.

My sit-down with Mr. Long was short, as I had 30 kids that wanted to take me on playing badminton. The three badminton rackets I thought I'd bought turned into 12 rackets. This worked out well, as Cambodian orphans have a rather strong affinity for badminton. All over Asia, badminton is a surprisingly popular sport. It doesn't seem like the kind of sport you can get really good at, but both the guys I've seen in the gym and on the television in China - and the orphans - were all next level. I hit the birdie back and forth with many of the kids. It was enthralling, for a good ten minutes, and if I wasn't playing with the kids and taking it seriously I might question the merit of the sport.

We tried to play a football game, but I learned very quickly that I was going to be unable to separate the group into two teams. We set up goals with empty detergent boxes, a deflated basketball and a sock. A swarm of kids followed the ball, kicking it in the easiest direction. One of them grabbed the ball and started running through the goal. He was on my team, and since a referee never stopped action, I'd like to think I left that game victorious, 1-0.

I set up a Cretaceous Park with the Brontosaurus (apparently the Brontosaurus as we know it never existed, and we're supposed to call them Apatosauruses) and the Tyrannosaurus Rexes. I didn't try and explain this Cliff Clavenism to the kids. We charged the two in mortal kombat, and the Apatosaurus won in decisive fashion. Somehow the motorized legs of the Apatosaurus turned on and the T-Rex could not desist the charge.

I attempted to give an English lesson. I found the notebooks and pens and distributed them to six or seven of the kids. They sat down at the desks and I gave them a few survival skillz, but it wasn't meant to be. Several kids accosted me by climbing onto a table and jumping onto my back. The orphans loved to be held - two in my arms, on my back or even by their ankles. The students found this a quick excuse to raid the new school supplies. I was content to leave a few of them coloring with the new markers.

I spoke with the 18 year old manager, communicating as best we could. He had left his family and his village, not too far from Phnom Penh. He taught English at the orphanage, but his unofficial job was to act as the surrogate father, to some limited degree, of the children. He picked them up and swung them around and let them chase him around the dirt yard. He told me how much the children loved visitors, because they rarely had the opportunity to leave the orphanage and had little interaction with adults. He was more of a big brother than a father, and was charged with the discipline of the children as well as making sure they were not getting in to trouble. He moved from the volleyball court to the basketball court (an orange rim slung about two meters off the ground to a tree) to the young girls preparing dinner. I walked over to the large water tank. Three or four girls were slicing and cleaning small fish and washing the vegetables [SLIDE]. When I was a child, I also had to prepare dinner for an orphanage of 35, except my orphanage was a house of six, and the preparations often consisted only of setting the table, which I did poorly enough until that task was consigned to a sister.

I visited the kitchen, a wood shack with two big burners. Two huge pots, at least two feet high, stood on the stove cooking rice. They'd already opened the bag of good rice. The orphanage lived on rice - two meals consisting largely of it - supplemented with scant vegetables and meat. I wished that I knew how to say "I love you more than rice" to the children, as Mike has found considerable success with it here in Shanghai. I praised the young girls preparing dinner and washing the dishes with a thumbs up and some high fives. I think they appreciated the encouragement. They were using a sponge to scrub a pot that would have been relegated to "bathroom sponge" status in California - four levels below our "dish sponge". Strange phenomenon.

My man Chan-Dara presented a picture he'd just made for me with the new markers. He also gave me a bracelet he had. I don't know where he might have procured this, and knew that it probably represented a good portion of his earthly possessions, so I graciously accepted it upon his insistence. He grabbed two rackets and wanted a rematch with the top-seed American. He was a maverick with the badminton racquet - he'd hit several kids already going after my errant serves - and I was already intimidated by his "Rumble in the Jungle" t-shirt.

I had relieved my driver of his duties when he dropped me and all the goods off at the orphanage, but he elected to stay and play badminton and football with the kids. We'd stayed three to four hours and storm clouds hovered overhead. I've done some lengthy motorbike rides in pounding rain. It's no fun for the passenger, who can do little but close his eyes and let the tropical rain saturate his clothing, but its murder for the driver to try and navigate traffic and dodge dogs, mud puddles and pedestrians. I was fishing for a dinner invite from Mr. Long, but he was still working on the steps. My work was done, so I began saying my goodbyes to the kids. It was a slow process, as once I pried one kid off my back another would immediately replace him. Mr. Long stepped in and facilitated my group picture efforts. We assembled everyone and got a nice shot [SLIDE].

Mr. Long asked me if I could return the following day to play with the children again. I explained that I had a 6am bus to the Thai border, then a bus to Bangkok to catch a flight. I apologized I could not return on this trip but promised I would be back my next time in Cambodia. The weight of the envelope I pressed onto his palm seemed to placate him. It contained 20 USD and over 700,000 riel.
"This should help out with the construction on the school, and maybe some ice cream for the kids," I said. He didn't quite know how to express his gratitude, but I accepted his words of thanks and wished him luck. I hopped into the back of the tuk-tuk and we motored out of the yard followed by a pack of screaming orphans.

It was a very satisfying ride back to the guesthouse- one of those times when you're traveling and very content to take in the minutiae and all the perfect foreign elements. Although I didn't get to roast a pig or find an ice cream motorbike to unload tubs of ice cream to the orphanage, the day had gone as well as it could have. The toys would last a long time. There was enough paper and colored pens and pencils to last a year. Every meal, I hoped, would include some jello or choco-covered corn crisps or some Ovaltine. It's easy to forget, but sometimes a little something can go a long way.

I stopped my driver at Phsar Thmei, the Central Market, and decided to slowly walk back to Boeung Kok Lake.

finis