weavers

Thus far I have gotten to meet with several great textile and craft groups here and observe their process. Recently I also got to go to the province for the first time and talk to weavers who work out of their homes. the majority of weavers work this way, from home, the way it has been done for a thousand years. They will work on one piece of cloth for a couple of months, and then hopefully sell it, because that is their entire income for those two months.


This is a natural dye farm. It is run by a community organization which is trying to teach people to make a textile product which is completely sustainable to Cambodia, where cotton is grown, spun, woven, dyed with all materials from Cambodia, and made into clothes, all here. so far, everything is done here, except growing cotton. Before the Khmer Rouge, a lot of cotton was grown here. But they destroyed that industry, along with everything else.

Indigo plants, with a k’mong hiding in them, apparently they are really “ch’ngang” (delicious)
(the bug, not the plant)

This is the ikat process where the weaver meticulously tie bundles of thead, dyes them using natural dyes, then weaves them into a pattern in cloth. one piece of fabric which is enough to make a traditional garment usually takes a weaver about a month to make. Below is the finished cloth.

The Skies

One of the things I have found to be most inspiring is the sky, it's always very dramatic. Maybe it's because of all the pollution, and probably the weather. It never fails to amaze me.
The city is in a time of rapid growth. Currently, there are only a couple tall buildings, and they are in the process of being built. So, you can generally see a lot of the sky when you look around you. But everyone is wondering what is going to happen to this place as the foreign investors are coming in and, like the age old stories, pushing out the poor who live there already.
sunrises

The puddles

The road to our house is a little treacherous, mostly because it’s the rainy season. but no one seems to mind it. I got over my fear of walking through standing water when I tried it one day, and feel up to my waist into a sewer which I couldn’t see. after that 10 inches deep didn’t seem that bad.

Just about every day there is a thunderstorm, and it rains hard for an hour or so. and in the night it rains often. but right after it rains the sun shines on everything and creates the most beautiful reflections in the water.

The flooded field behind my house turns into a volleyball court every once in a while, when it dries out enough. but by the morning, it's a pond again.

meats

I have decided to dedicate one section of this blog to one of my favorite subjects: carcass.
I think these pictures pretty much speak for themselves. Dead chickens.
Alive chickens.
Free range chickens.
Making illegal deer meat from the jungle. a generous gift to our family from friends in the province.
carcass. mmmm

So it begins

I have been in Cambodia a month now to the day, and I decided to start this blog in response to people who wanted to see pictures and know about what I am doing. It’s pretty difficult to describe in words or pictures, but hopefully this can give a little bit of an idea.
It’s been quite the whirlwind adventure so far. In terms of work I have been making lots of progress. I have been pretty much just been setting things up in the last month to get a more permanent routine going. But the more time I spend here, the more I realize there is just no such thing as that. nothing happens at the time or in the way that you think it is going to. even when you begin to think you have an idea of the system, it eludes you. That’s the chaos and beauty of this place.
Phnom Penh is a really incredible city, and it keeps me on my toes. The traffic, weather, climate, language, food, and smells are going to take some time to adjust to, yet around every corner there's something to remind you about how magical it is.

One morning a week I teach art at an elementary school. It’s wonderful but the language barrier makes it difficult...they are learning english, I am learning Khmer, but there’s still a gap. they are wonderful kids though and so eager to create.
This little girl is the daughter of the principal of the school, who was adopted 3 days after I was in Cambodia last year. Her name is Rachel; I found out when I cam here that she was named after me. It was something that really touched me because I don’t think anyone ever named someone because of me.













Lucky, the puppy. he was named that because apparently all pets that live in this house die...anyway, no one wants him to die, but no one really wants to take care of him either. I’m the only person that will even pick him up, and everyone thinks I am crazy because he probably has all kinds of sicknesses. Obviously, standards of taking care of animals are very different than in the US.