Friends

   I had agreed to meet Megan and Becca for dinner at a place they'd enjoyed earlier in their travels, and Sue decided to come along despite her jet lag.  The four of us met at "Friends," an enterprise with an incredible concept.  The idea is to get the street kids of Phnom Penh OFF the streets.  Apparently begging IS a lucrative undertaking, at least when a child is cute and little--or even better, handicapped--but that keeps the kids from getting educated or at least skilled, and then when they aren't cute anymore, their begging career screeches to an abrupt halt.
   So there are people in Phnom Penh whose goal it is to teach street children skills they CAN use into their adulthood and preferrably skills that will make the city a better place.   Hence, Friends.  It is first of all a restaurant, where kids learn all aspects of that business.  It is not only innovative, but has really interesting and inexpensive food.  A very eclectic menu, and it is a feel-good place all the way around.
    In addition, there is a craft store where kids are making saleable items, most of it from GARBAGE.  Phnom Penh is certainly not the only city in the world plagued with blow-away bags and bottles, but this program figures out things to make of trash.  Did I buy any?  Of COURSE I bought some.

   




For example, here is a purse made of pieces of scrap newspaper wrapped very tightly.

   


Here's a shopping bag that's made out of an EXTREMELY common waste material in Cambodia.  It's a RICE BAG!

And here is a necklace made of what looks to       be plastic bottle strips wound up into beads. 
Sometimes you can even find a bar code peeking through.
    





Megan and Becca had spent the afternoon scouring the internet for flights to interesting places in Asia to visit in lieu of their second week at the Project.  They were thrilled to have found EXTREMELY cheap fares for extremely interesting destinations.  They were flying to Bangkok the next day and from there to Singapore.  One of these flights cost less than $40, and they said there were flights listed that cost as little as FOUR DOLLARS (though, of course, who knows where they went?)
     So it was excited farewells from them, and Sue and I shared a tuk-tuk back to our respective hotels. I was a little envious of her just setting out for the Project and my being at the end of my trip, but any envy I had quickly evaporated when I got to both talk AND instant message with Scott when I arrived at my fabulous hotel.  Yes, those modern conveniences--they ARE convenient!