Day 7 of Technical Exchange (Kampong Cham - Lauren's Site)

Hey there, so today was my last full day in Kampong Cham, and it has been a fantastic one so far. I only had to wake up at 6:30a today and had a great pork and rice breakfast at 7:00a which included condensed milk and ice with a splash of coffee, so I was sugared up and ready to go! Today, we traveled to Lauren's site in Bos Khnor (pronounced: Boh K'now). We met Lauren at her health center, which she's been repainting and fixing up for awhile, now. You can really tell the fantastic work that she's done there as you pull up and see the faded sign and some of ceiling and unpainted parts. I was very impressed. After we walked in, we immediately went to one of the nurses in the back and explained again (Lauren had explained the day previous to her health center director) what we were there for. Shooting, today, was surprisingly easy. Within 15 minutes, we had a pregnant woman who was willing to have her photo taken and some random construction worker who was mixing cement outside. We got several shots of a couple walking in and greeting the midwife, sitting down for a consultation and two of two separate women staging a birth (it was actually quite classy). Additionally, we got some portrait photos that we may be able to replace with some we had shot already.

We left the health center (by the way, we originally drove past the health center for about 10km...whoops) around 10:45a and went to Lauren's house where we hung out. I got to see her home, which was really quite nice. Her host mother made us food and we bought some Cokes to pass around. Lunch was fish and soup with rice. After this, we hopped in the car and got this one shot labeled: "Woman Enjoying Her Lifestyle": this basically means a few women sitting around a table laughing and having a good time. We had bee trying to get this to happen the past 3 days! We found our "talents" within 5 minutes and got the shots within 40. The women who helped us were in such a bright mood, which allowed for some great photographs! Once we finished up there, we dropped Lauren off and headed back to K Cham town, where I am typing up this blog post, now. It's really nice to finish the day around 2:15p. I look forward to getting some other work done and simply relaxing. Maybe I'll even take a nap! I haven't been to take one this whole week, and it's just been a travesty!

The plan for tomorrow is to go out and do a couple of more shots at a nearby health center, grab some lunch, then head back to Phnom Penh (hopefully, we'll arrive around 4p or so). I pack up my stuff tomorrow morning, sleep in Phnom Penh tomorrow night, then head back up north where I'll make my way up to Bangkok and leave for Hanoi on Saturday where I'll be there and the rest of Vietnam for 2 1/2 weeks!!! I'm so excited.

Talk to you soon,

Garrett