Cow Bank and Sheryl Crow!

12/11/07

I arose today with the sound of children playing, not a bad way to wake up at all! From my fantastic room which Ronnie has so graciously provided, I can look off the balcony and watch the boys and girls play football (soccer) and perform their morning calisthenics. Yarann lives below with his wonderful family. One of the morning’s great pleasures is when Yarann’s daughter Thavy who must be 7 or 8 comes up before school to clean my room. I always try to give her a hand and she always skips over to my laptop and wants to look at pictures and listen to music. This morning we looked at pictures of my job as a wild land firefighter. Thavy loved the video clips of the helicopters flying and picking up water, she really enjoyed looking at the huge mountains and big trees, a bit different than the landscape here in Cambodia!
So I wade through my music library trying to find something that grabs her..Classical..no, world music… a little better…Sheryl Crow..oh my goodness that girl is a dancing machine, big smiles..”I like I like”!! So we listened to Sheryl and looked at fire pictures. We were having so much fun we lost track of time, Thavy pointed to my watch, she wanted me to show her what time it was…oh my Buddha, she was supposed to be at school at 0700…um it is 0745, here eyes got big and she frantically started to clean my room, not knowing were to start, I motioned for here to go to school, we high fived and she ran out the door with a huge smile. Yes she was late for class, but she got to hear some Sheryl Crow and see some geography of the ole US of A.

After breakfast and emails at the Blue Pumpkin, Sao unhitched the Tuk tuk and we took the bike and headed west on Hwy 6 for maybe 15 km. We rode into Pouk district and made a phone call. We got to meet Sal, who is the Manager of the Cow Bank Project here in Cambodia. Sal does not speak any English, hence why I have hired Sao to drive and translate for me! My first impression of Sal was a no BS kind of guy, I was right. He showed us Ronnie’s beautiful farm (Called Nak farm by the locals) and we feed the fish as we settled into one another. He asked how cows I wanted to see, I told him I would like to visit all the cows and families, there was a long pause..He started to walk across a field and motioned for me to follow… I guess we were starting!

We meet with all the farmers that we easily found around Nak’s farm. Sao took my camera as he has now nominated himself as official photographer! It is hard to argue as it frees me up to talk with the farmers. I asked many questions to Sal and the farmers. Where they happy with their cows? Did they encounter any problems with the cows? What could be done better? things of that nature. All the answers were positive and smiles abound. Ronnie and Sal have set up a very successful program here, their hard work is paying massive dividends! Tell a friend and let’s help Ronnie and Sal support their local farmers with the gift of a lifetime!