Water, Stampy, and Cambodia's Ray Charles

For our last day in Phnom Penh, we first visited a company that makes water filters. A worker told us how contaminated the water is in Cambodia with arsenic, pollution, sewage, etc. On the entire trip I drank bottled water and used bottled water to brush my teeth. Water is such a scarce resource and one that I think many of us take for granted as we turn on a faucet. Their company also tests the soil for the best places to put wells. To pump the water, they have these bicycle-like contraptions to make it easy for anyone to pull water from the well. They also had pigs there, which were cute.
That afternoon, we visited the nearby temple. This is where the elephant I saw walking the first day spends his days. We call him Stampy. My friend Kate fed him a bunch of bananas. There were also monkeys running around. Each temple seems to have the seven-headed Naga leading up the stairs to the temple. Even the temples in Thailand had it.
Then we went to visit a blind Khmer musician and his son, and listened to them play music and sing. As they played, some people from the community gathered around, so I snapped some pictures of them too. I was struck by many things here. First of all, the artist is very well known in Phnom Penh, yet the area he lived in is probably the poorest place I have ever been in. I do not mean to make fun of him or be disrespectful of the people, but I was really surprised at the level of poverty. The streets were surrounded on each side by heaps of garbage and the houses were simple tin roofs held up by a few pieces of plywood. As in the rest of Cambodia, the baby boys go bottomless, and the baby girls go topless. As we watched the men’s performance, a woman who was holding her young son, turned him so that he faced away from her just as a small stream spouted out of him. I saw the ease of no pants. The music was very beautiful. The man’s voice soulful. As I thought countless times on this trip, I felt so lucky to be there, doing things like listening to this private concert. I never imagined myself traveling like this and that it could be so rewarding.