A Cambodian Casting Call!

I think today was a lesson for me on why my sister is studying drama and I am not...but will definitely be remembered as one of my highlights and most entertaining moments in Phenom Penh, Cambodia. This afternoon, eight of us gathered in the cool AC relief of the office for Equal Access, the home of "We Can Do It," a popular youth radio program. Originally a community development project funded by the US State Department, Equal Access is now in partnership with UNICEF to record fun, innovative, and educational programs for ages 15-18. The program is recorded with several parts: interviews, drama skits, call-in question and answers, and contests to reach out to Cambodian youth about lifeskills, community awareness, HIV/Aids and drug education, and other important challenges faced by the huge youth population.

However we didn't just go to Equal Access to learn about their work...We became apart of it! After meeting with the Cambodian script writers, they proceeded to split us into groups to cycle through two stations, one to interview about our impressions of Cambodia and thoughts about youth challenges in our home country of the US, and one group to try a little script reading just like they do in their programs! Except in English of course. Who would have thought we'd end up in a Cambodia recording studio! All I can say is I hope our skits don't end up on YouTube. We might have laughed our way through, as we did our best to express the scenes of motherly love and tragic despair between our characters, but we knew that the ultimate message behind the dialogue was very important.

Overall, being able to visit an organization that is actively working with the Cambodian community today was an essential part of understanding their history. I feel like I will never be able to fully grasp the hardships faced by its people during the Khmer Rouge but now appreciate how far the country has come since then.

Taylor Sandelius

Hoi An high fashion

High fashion city meets beach town in Hoi An! Not their fashion, not
the Italians fashion, but Your fashion. This small beach town has
hundreds and hundreds of tailors and tailoring shops with every
cotton, silk, linen and polyester known to man and its up to you to
point to something you like in one of their catalogs, bring in your
own picture of what you want, or just design it yourself. From
suits($60) to shoes($20) to boardshorts($15), they make everything,
and quick, usually a day maybe two with alterations. From the
beautiful and elegant dresses of the ladies, including Sam's long silk
dress and Emily's chic black skirt, to the Men-in-Black suit of Jeremy
and Colin's all-white suit, Pacific Discoverers came together to form
a pretty stylish bunch, and made quite a scene in the lobby of the
hotel preparing for the fashion show. After all was said and done the
awards are...Taylor Sandelius for Best Dressed Female, Jeremy Coleman
for Best Dressed Male, Emily Meader for the Wearable Art Award,
Mckenzie Cook for the Most Elegant Award, Jack Crestani for Hoi An's
Next Top Model Award, and Audrey Campbell for Best Overall Modelling
Award.

Enough about that though, Hoi An as an awesome beach town is much more
interesting. From luminescent waters at night to some guy I watched
herding buffalo by bike, it doesnt really get boring. The
bike-herding was a peculiar sight I saw while sitting in a cafe having
a drink, wasn't able to snap a picture but yea, it was quite a shock
for someone not used to seeing water buffalo being herded through a
city. That night was another annual event, 'guys night out'. Craig,
Jeremy, Will, Colin and I ditched the ladies (they did their own
thing) for a night of beer, pool, beef, and biking. Awesome times.
And all this combined to have us end up late-night on the beach. But
not any beach. The waters at Hoi An possess a special type of
plankton that lights up like a starry aura around you when you swim
through it. The plankton react to movement so that when you swim in
it, splash it, or move a part of your body through it, a thousand
bright tiny stars immediately illuminate. Truly the most magical
experience of my trip so far and one that I will never forget.

Jack Crestani

Hue moto adventure

After Hanoi and northern Vietnam, our Pacific Discovery group headed
south to warmer waters in Hue and Hoi An. After a long bumpy
overnight train ride from Hanoi, we finally ended up in beautiful Hue.
A welcome change from the grit of Hanoi's streets, Hue's clear open
sky, beautiful riverside parks (complete with ancient and modern
sculptures), and less congested streets helped lighten everybody's
mood and help us relax. After a nice jog along the river and a little
sight-seeing, I returned to the hotel for the afternoon 'mystery
activity'. It was a motorcycle tour of the city! 14 Americans riding
around on motorscooters woohoo. And we were off.

We toured around two Buddhist temples, a monastery, an incense making
area, French gun-turrets and a royal palace now tomb. Truly too many
places to show pictures of here, though I chose to post up the picture
of the sticks incense are made from to the left, and a picture of a
Buddhist pagoda is shown at the top of this entry. Pagoda's are built
at some but not all Buddhist temples and are always seven stories
high. The French turrets were quite interesting because they were a
very new attraction, it had only been two years ago that they finished
clearing the landmines from the site. The turrets were used on ships
of the Vietnamese traveling up the river back in the 50's and 60's.
One theme was common among the separate sites; the endless rice
paddies that stretched in between every one of them. Vietnam is one
of the largest rice-producing nations and it shows. After Hue, we
would travel another 3 hours across endless stretches of rice fields
to the beach and resort town of Hoi An.

Jack Crestani