Conveying your "voice" in writing.

Beginning when we learn to write our names, the way we write is dictated by a set of rules conjured up by "The Man."

• Do not use contractions.
• Do not write in the second person.
• If you begin a paragraph with a number, you must write out the number.
• The period goes inside the quotation marks (in America).
• The full stop goes outside the quotation marks (in the United Kingdom).
• Put a comma before a quotation mark if you're quoting someone, but not if you're using quotes to signify a theory, conjecture, or the name of a magazine, newspaper, or academic paper.
• Never curse.
• Do not use the following words: that, actually, get, got, great deal, big, small, really, very, or any sort of abbreviation.
• Everyday is an adjective. Every day is an adjective (every) describing a noun (day) See also: Maybe/May be, awhile/a while.

Ok, I'll cut myself off.  You get the point. (I just broke rule #2.)

My issue with these never-ending rules is they erode our personalities in writing.  Young children enter school as rough diamonds and exit college thoroughly polished to the point they all look the same. Then, we stick them under a microscope to look for flaws.  That's why "grammar Nazis" exist and we have an ingrained fear of misspelling anything on a cover letter, resume, or, god forbid, Facebook. Life should not be a non-stop English exam.

I recently received an email from a friend of a friend who is looking to come work in Sihanoukville.  He's a lovely chap (as Lee would say), and he sent the most professional email I've seen in six years.  I replied, "Whoa. Calm down, Dwight Schrute. This isn't that kind of place."

Over the last few years, I've noticed job descriptions want candidates to have "strong" and "unique" voices in their writing. Some ask for a sense of humor, and others simply want applicants to "tell us about yourself."  

Tangent: interviewers who say, "So, tell me about yourself," is a very bad, inexperienced interviewer. Just walk out immediately.

How do we do this without 1) sounding like a machine or 2) sounding like a maniac?

The answer is language and anecdotes.

Language

This is where reading books helps.  Granted, I found myself speaking like a Game of Thrones  character after powering through all five books in a month, so have self-awareness and reign-in the flowery language according to your audience.

I can't quote the article or time period, but at one point in my adult life I read a study saying women talk more than men because they have more expansive vocabularies. It's analogous to talented rappers. If they know more words, they're cleverer in their writing. It's easier to convey exactly what you're thinking if you know the right word to use. 

Here's a basic example:

He was really mean in that article.

That sentence isn't descriptive and you may be asked to elaborate.

His tone was caustic which alienated the readers.
 
 See? He wasn't necessarily "mean" like he pulled your hair and pushed you in the dirt.  Improving your vocabulary helps with specificity and shines a light on the opinion you want conveyed.

(Note: I had to Google the word "caustic" when my dad used it to describe my tone in an email. I didn't read it in a book.)

Additional tip: don't refer to yourself.  Just state something as fact so you don't create a passive statement with phrases like "In my opinion" or "I feel like."  Quite frankly, there's no reason why anyone should care about my or your opinion, and beginning a sentence with a personal sentiment detracts from the real point. Writing in the third person shouldn't take away your voice.  If anything, it will make it more authoritative.

I was sad to see her go.

Vs.

It's difficult to cope when a friend moves away.

Anecdotes

Storytelling is the most effective way to engage someone in both writing and conversation.  The only rules here are it must be 1) pertinent to the subject, 2) have a clear beginning, middle, and end, and 3) if you need to end it with, "and then I found $5" to make it more interesting, then just keep it to yourself.

This is a bad anecdote:

I worked in a museum for five years.

This is a good anecdote:

I was the "dinosaur lady" at the museum for five years. Children would recognize me on the street and ask for a selfie.

Not only does it tell people how long you worked at the museum, it insinuates you were good at your job because children remembered you and thought of you as a celebrity. 

I created a filing system.

Blah blah blah


I introduced Microsoft Access to the office, which my supervisor implemented company-wide.

If you must talk about something boring, at least turn it into an accomplishment.

I went to Thailand.

Bangkok is the most visited city in the world.  This is a non-story.
 

We went to Soi Cowboy in Bangkok and saw a ping pong show.  I thought it was a ping pong tournament, but it was definitely not.

 

Now this story is going somewhere. I can't write the rest of it, because it belongs to Lee and is horrendously inappropriate and shouldn't exist anywhere on the internet.

 

-----------

 

Look, I haven't made it my life's mission to fix the entire internet's writing.  I'm not Ira Glass, who delivers his words like he's been planning to say them since he spawned onto our planet. However, I'm a decent writer who has received at least one compliment from a non-relative who had no reason to flatter me.

Finally, I have the urge to tell you why this post even materialized.  I'm a big Pinterest user (or "pinner" to use the appropriate lingo).  There is a surprising number of fan fiction blurbs about celebrities like One Direction, Tom Hiddleston, Benedict Cumberbatch, and other men who can make a young lady's (or man's) heart palpatate with a low-res black and white photo.  Obviously, I googled more fan fiction. Some have chapters -- CHAPTERS! I had never read fan fiction until two weeks ago, and it opened up a new world, I soon realized, I don't like.

Here's why:

 

It's impossible to thoughtfully write about a real human being you don't actually know. If that human being is a celebrity, then you're writing about your personal perception of a person which could be different than someone else's, and open yourself to a lot of criticism.  It's one thing to declare your love at the top of your lungs from a mountain top, but the mountain doesn't yell back with the ferocity of teen Twitter.

You have a story.  You have pieced together, arguably, a work of literature that is sentimental and creative. It's easy to turn yourself into the protagonist and find the right language to convey your perspective because you're writing about the one subject in the world you know everything about. Keep that story, but replace the celebrity with your own character who you know inside and out.  The greatest part of making something up is you can eschew trite, non-descriptive language that keeps you safe from being wrong because you, simply, cannot be wrong. 

 

Instead of describing how Harry Styles was "clearly emotional when he walked his daughter down the aisle," maybe create Jonathan who...

...watched Stella affix her grandmother's veil to her hair, which she wore unstyled with her brown curls falling over her shoulders like a blanket -- a trait she inherited from Jonathan. She had spent her teenage years battling her hair with chemicals and a straightening iron, so for just a split-second, his heart jumped, pushing out all of the regrets and fears he had collected for the last twenty-eight years.  His eyes welled-up as she turned from the mirror to face him, smiled her mother's smile, and shrugged as she took her bouquet from the vase and looped her arm under his. She asked, "Ready?"

YEAH. I can turn on the cheese.  Maybe I should write fan fiction.

The Layman's Carbon Cycle Infographic

With the crazy midterm elections over, and the sudden influx of  "not a scientist" party members deciding our laws, I've created my very first infographic.  I don't own Illustrator, but I DO own Photoshop and have an extensive background in Microsoft Paint from 20 years ago.

I learned this version of the Carbon Cycle from a CU class called "Extraterrestrial Life."  We studied how life here can exist to understand the conditions other planets would need to host alien life.  It was an introductory science class, which usually means we spend a few days covering stuff we learned in grade school.  There are people with Ph.Ds on this subject, so let me apologize to you guys for the simplicity, as well as to graphic designers for my aesthetics.

A Fashion Blog, Delicious Burritos, and People who are Offended by Offended People.

First, let me apologize for the title of this post.  It's not eloquent, but I can't think of any other title.

Since my post on the word "exotic," there have been two stories that popped up on my newsfeed.  One is actual news from my home state, Colorado, and the other is an apology from one of my favorite fashion bloggers, Keiko Lynn.

Let's start with the latter.

Earlier this week, Keiko posted a Day of the Dead makeup tutorial, then promptly deleted it and posted this public apology:

I just wanted to sincerely apologize for my latest post, with the Día de los Muertos makeup. I hope you all know that I had no intention of offending, and deeply respect the tradition. It was meant to be an artistic expression of something I have long admired, and no harm was intended, but I removed all the images because I sincerely do not want to offend anyone and am deeply sorry that I did.

I went looking for a photo from her tutorial deep in Pinterest's cache of information, then Google images, then the comment section of her apology in hopes someone had saved them, but to no avail. It's gone, but plenty of other examples show up.

via Pinterest.com

I'm not the purveyor of absolute truth about whether or not something should or shouldn't be offensive to a group of people. My usual way of handling a potentially politically incorrect subject is to not partake in the offense, just like Keiko did with deleting the pictures. Sometimes, people confuse being "politically correct" with just being nice. It takes very little effort to be nice, and our world won't explode if we give-in to the simple request of taking down a blog post to avoid further confrontation.

Besides, when your livelihood relies on people following your quirky fashion sense, it's only logical to not use it as a platform to lecture cultural appropriation and why or why not it's okay for a white girl to wear Dia de los Muertos make-up. She's not going to lose any followers because she chose to NOT offend someone.  What would that even look like? "YOU TUK DWN UR POST SOME1 COMPLANNED ABOUT SO I WONT LOOK @ ANY OF UR POSTS NOW >:-O"  Good riddance.  Read a book.

Conversely, Illegal Pete's is causing some controversy in Fort Collins, Colorado and the implications are much, much bigger. For those of you not  familiar with Illegal Pete's, it's a burrito chain I frequented while I went to school in Boulder because they wrap a hangover cure into a tortilla.

They have several locations throughout Colorado, and it seems like the owner is a pretty cool guy named Pete. I don't know him at all, but we're connected in two degrees within our Denver social circles. (the equivalent of saying a girl I knew in college is dating the drummer for The Epilogues.)

The controversy is people are threatening to protest their store opening in Fort Collins, which has a large Latino population. They're offended by the word "illegal" because it can be used as racial slur, similar to (forgive me, I feel disgusting even writing this) "wetback" [shudder]. 

The local response to this has been massive.  This Coloradoan article (it should be Coloradan, but I'm not one to split hairs (except in that previous sentence and this follow-up sentence)) covers a community meeting where about thirty Fort Collins residents ambushed Pete in the name of discourse with their life experiences and why he should change the name of his restaurant. Here's an excerpt:

Others likened the name to a racial slur directed at African-Americans, hanging a Confederate flag in the restaurant's window or calling a restaurant "Smoking Lynching BBQ."

I posted this story on Facebook and got this great response from a friend who is a dependable source of reason on hot-button issues:

They seem to be going a long way to find a little offense. Frankly, the most offensive part of this for me is their repeated attempts to conflate their struggle with what African Americans experienced in the south. There's a big difference there, and besides, "illegal" has many different meanings and connotations while most other racial slurs do not, saying that this particular instance of it is offensive seems very open to interpretation.

To which I responded:

I don't want to say these people have no grounds for being offended, but I DO want to say it's very clear that for someone to have a life experience which has made the word "illegal" hurtful toward them only solidifies Boulder rules and Fort Collins drools.

Rival college towns aside (Fort Collins is home to Colorado State University), CU Boulder is the second whitest university after BYU in Utah, so of course no one will be offended by it.  The Boulder Illegal Pete's customer base is mostly white college students who have never been on the receiving end of hate speech. This may or may not be the logic behind the following statement from the Coloradoan article:

...the audience discussion ranged from emotional past experiences with racial slurs to accusatory remarks toward Turner: "In a room full of people of color, this is probably a little uncomfortable for you," one woman said.

Whoa, whoa, whoa.  That's a bit blunt, lady. But you're probably not completely wrong or out of line.

The response from Illegal Pete's supporters has been outrage.  People from all backgrounds are calling those offended "overly-sensitive" and telling them they have no reason to be offended.  However, calling someone "overly-sensitive," emotional," or "dramatic" negates completely rational feelings because that person doesn't agree with you.  Every single female on Earth has probably been told they're being "too emotional" countless times in their life.  Those words question an individual's mental state, making his or her argument invalid.

Some are saying, "I'm Mexican, and this isn't offensive at all."  To you, dude, I say I hope you never have a reason to be offended by that term. White people, in droves, are then saying, "I'm not offended by Cracker Barrel."  Of course you're not. Not only are you not from the South, Colorado person, you are part of the country's ruling majority and have never been beaten up because of your skin color while the assailants shouted "CRACKER" at you over and over again.  Most of the time, the name "cracker" is used comically.

Do I think Illegal Pete's should change its name just like I agreed with Keiko Lynn she should take down her blog post? Nah. Will I demonize protestors if they succeed and Illegal Pete's is called "Pete's Burritos" or something as equally inoffensive? No way.

The analogy many pro-name change advocates are using is the movement to change Washington's insanely offensive football team name.  It's a flat-out, non-debatable racial slur. It should absolutely be changed. The reason why I don't think Illegal Pete's should change their name is because it will give a new connotation to the word "illegal," which is pretty common in the English vernacular (though, less common in Colorado since legalizing weed).   Eliminating it from a popular burrito chain will only give the word more power for racists who use the word to describe people of Latin decent and make it a taboo word. Those are the people who need a re-education -- the citizens of Ft. Collins who are tormenting immigrants -- not Pete with his delicious burritos.

I'm Not "Exotic"

exotic
(ig-zot-ik)
 adjective

1. of foreign origin or character; not native; introduced from abroad, but not fully naturalized or acclimatized.
2. strikingly unusual or strange in effect or appearance:
   (an exotic hairstyle."   

Ever since puberty, the most frequent "compliment" I hear is, "You're so exotic."  Everyone who says that to me is well-meaning, so I never fly into a long-winded lecture in places like the train or bar, but I'm really annoyed by that word.

I  was born in Denver, raised in Littleton, and only spoke English.  I'm no more exotic than Keri Russell, and I've never had my own TV show.

People, of course, aren't referring to my acculturation (I have none. I grew up in Littleton for Christ's sake), they're just finding another way to tell me I'm brown.  I'll never understand the need to get a person's entire back-story because you can't pinpoint their ethnicity.  "Ethnicity" is one of those racially charged words that only applies to non-white people.  Who sees a Blake Lively and wonders what's her ethnicity? If a piece of jewelry or clothing is "ethnic," then it has traditional beading or patterns from a country that does not have a white majority.

The word "exotic" is an adjective white people use to describe others who don't fall into their standard definition of beauty.  Men who say their "type" is "exotic women" are just saying they they think Halle Berry, Zoe Saldana, and Lucy Liu are beautiful.  That just means they think beautiful women are beautiful.  All three of those women are American, but all three appear on lists of "exotic actresses" the geniuses of the internet keep compiling. Conversely, men will say they like "All-American" girls when they're referring to white women, because only racists say their "type" is white women.

I've been called overly sensitive for feeling this way about a word most people consider a compliment, but it's very, very rare that I have any sort of interaction that doesn't somehow end up on the topic of where my parents come from. Polite people will flat out say, "If you don't mind me asking, what's your ethnicity?" If I play along, the conversation always -- ALWAYS -- manages to progress to where my name comes from, how my parents met, if they're still together, if I have siblings, what languages I speak, why my mom didn't teach us Khmer, and any other question about my upbringing that isn't, at-all, appropriate for the first five minutes of a conversation. My [least] favorite is "I could sense a mix in you," like that person has a sixth sense to sniff out multi-racial individuals.

Is it my duty to educate people on American diversity? Am I supposed to sate someone else's curiosity because they can't work out why I speak like a character out of Clueless, but look Filipino, Hawaiian, Latina, or South American (which is very broad, but still grouped together by the word "exotic") What are my obligations in the name of politeness beyond saying please, thank you, and excuse me? And why do I always have to be Princess Jasmine and Scary Spice in group Halloween costumes?!

Those are not rhetorical questions, I'd really like to know the answers.

The "Disney World Mindset"

If you've ever worked in a monotonous job, then you know what it feels like to become jaded at work.  This feeling ranges from data entry to listening to the same playlist every night to working with short-term volunteers.

While I'm hard-pressed to use the proceeding explanation for office jobs, I've found some merit in a way of thinking I call the "Disney World Mindset." The origins of this idea came from Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet, a really short book that, until plans for its theatrical release were announced, only saw the spotlight when its On Love chapter would be read at weddings.

Gibran spent twenty years writing the book to make sure it was perfect.  It manages to use flowery language, without being long-winded.  That's one reason it's ideal for reading out loud.

One of my favorite chapters (if I were forced to choose) is On Work.  My favorite quote from that chapter goes something like:

Bread baked without love leaves a man half full.

I interpret that to mean no matter what you're doing, put everything you have into it.  This was part of my pep talk to volunteers at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.  We worked four straight months giving the exact same presentation several times a day, but never to the same group of people.  For all the students knew, it was the first time we had ever done it.  With that kind of expectation, how could we show how bored we were with the material?  There's no reason one person, in this case, likely a child, should have a bad experience because I'm having a bad day.

When his bag check line is not too long, he asks kids in costume for their autographs..
“Their face brightens up,” Wieczorek said of that moment when pint-size princesses and pirates realize they’re being mistaken for the real thing. “This is something so unbelievable for them. It gets them by surprise and they feel special." (via today.com)

This is how Disney World works. Every morning, it looks brand new, like it's its opening day. Mickey Mouse and the gang put on the same act for every child who passes through.  Perhaps more relatable --  is working in a bar and listening to the same playlist every single night.  Especially in a place like Sihanoukville, it's essential to remember that most tourists have never been here before.  Whether or not you're not in the mood to listen to the same Oasis song for the gazillionth time doesn't matter. A consistent atmosphere is necessary to not only keep your brand, but also your type of customer. 

Applying this to nonprofit, most volunteer coordinators who work in short-term programs have to facilitate the exact same training -- sometimes every week -- to a new batch of volunteers.  It can make anyone feel disenchanted, but each group of volunteers deserves the same level of enthusiasm as the one that came before them.

I'll offer a quick anecdote: two years ago, my co-worker and I were sitting at a restaurant, mulling over our computers.  A fresh-from-the-bus backpacker hopped off a moto and gave a friend of hers a big hug.  It was apparent this was her first stop in South East Asia.  My co-worker said she remembered that same feeling of excitement from five years ago -- getting on a moto for the first time, no helmet, no plans, sun shining, and a massive backpack sitting precariously in front of the driver.

It would be a tragedy if we only felt that excited once.  The Disney World mindset encourages you to see your boring old job from a new set of eyes every single day.

How to be a "rockstar" volunteer.

This will be one of my rare posts in which I offer some semblance of support for the voluntourism industry. For the last nine years, I've either been a volunteer or worked with volunteers in some capacity.  There are many times where volunteers are indispensable (hospitals, museums, hospices, animal shelters), and there are other times when they're completely pointless (gap year students, alternative spring breaks, any sort of short-term placement). 

(Photo from outdoorsnepal.com, #animalface from Easy Tiger Apps)

I'm realistic that I, alone, will never put an end to voluntourism with a blog that very few people read, so I'm going to talk a little about how you can be a "rockstar" volunteer when you travel abroad.

• Think of how your presence will impact an organization.
• Like any job, you should be able to look at your time there and see a distinction from when you started and after you've left.
• This does not mean the impact the organization had on you as a person.  Only a robot could work in places that are subject to abject poverty and not leave humbled.  You're not the focus and your "expanded worldview" does little to help the people who use the charity's services.
• If your answer to "what was my impact?" is something like, "I supported the day-to-day operations," then you're speaking professional jargon for "I paid a lot of money so I could get in the way of the full-time staff."  
• Instead, wrack your brain and think about any skill you have that can be implemented during your placement.  Examples:
• A financial analyst who sorted all of the financial data for an annual report.
• A graphic designer who wrote a Photoshop curriculum and trained a teacher to implement it.
• An urban farmer who built a community vegetable garden.
• A plumber who built a drainage system to rid a village of standing water.
• It should be easy to fill-in this sentence: "Before I was there, they didn't have _____.  After I left, they did.

• Make a timeline and set milestones
• Call it an agenda, or an outline. When you apply to be a volunteer (assuming it's competitive), present this to the Director.
• More often than not, an organization is understaffed and under-resourced, so a volunteer with a set plan comes as a huge relief.
• Remember you'll eventually have to follow through with this plan and it could depend on taking initiative.  
• If you're really bold and have a solid vision, set up a fundraiser before you leave to help the organization buy the resources you need to complete the project.

• Thoroughly research the organization
• There are so many causes that, for wont of a more eloquent phrase, need "stuff." However, they don't all need the same things.
• You might find that an organization is set in their ways and doesn't need an independent project, but they could have use for qualified medical staff.
• Perhaps you find a place that needs money for overheads and their volunteer program is a vehicle for funding.  Simply donate the money and don't waste their precious time on training a new volunteer. (Remember, this is about them, not you and your need for "adventure".)
• I know it's difficult, but just because you identify with a certain mission doesn't mean you, personally, belong there.  Keep searching until you find a place that can use your unique skills.

• Don't jump into a volunteer post thinking you'll get direction from the management.
• It's taken me nine years to figure this out, but I feel confident in this statement.
• The only time I've ever seen volunteers with proper guidance was at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. They relied on volunteers to function, so it would've reflected poorly on the museum if there were dozens of volunteers wandering around aimlessly.
• In most cases, you will have no idea what you're doing. If you don't like to work with little to no supervision, then perhaps volunteering isn't for you.

In no way am I saying this shouldn't be a life-changing experience for a volunteer, or that you shouldn't highlight it on your LinkedIn profile.  Believe me, you'll go back home and look at everything -- from shopping malls to traffic lights -- with a new perspective.  Things that once seemed important become quite petty on a grand scale.  I just ask that you don't make that new, personal perspective your ultimate goal.  In your next interview, of course talk about your experience, but step back and look at it from the charity's perspective. Did you make a lasting impact? Will the people you oh-so-briefly knew remember you among the sea of alternative spring breakers?

Despite my cynical facade, I honestly believe the world would be a better place if everyone could feel the same compassion as (almost) every volunteer I've ever met.  I only want to make sure that compassion isn't misplaced, and is channeled into something that lives on, long after the volunteer boards the plane to return home.

Spoonflower's Mythical "Eco" Canvas and the Polyester Problem

A few months ago, I finished Safia Minney's book, Naked Fashion: The New Sustainable Fashion Revolution. Safia is the founder and CEO of People Tree, a fair trade clothing line based in London and Tokyo.

The book was filled with profound insights on ethical fashion.  The whole thing was very short and concise, so each point, itself, could have easily been turned into an entire book.

Their point about polyester stuck with me.

To be truly fair trade, an item must have a low environmental impact through the entire supply chain. Fibers must be organic and harvested by hand, which eliminates carbon emissions from heavy machinery and employs more people.

Polyester is not organic.  It's touted as being "eco-friendly" because it's made from recycled plastic, but the process of breaking down plastic into fiber, then weaving it into fabric is done in a factory. It's the choice material for fast fashion because machines are quicker than people, but cheap clothing doesn't have a long shelf life. If a consumer rips a hole in a $10 blouse, they're not likely to spend another $10 on a tailor, so they throw it out, where it's artificial fibers spend the next thousand years in a landfill.

Organic cotton, on the other hand, is expensive because its production requires the human touch from seeding cotton plants to looming cotton fiber into bolts of material. It also breaks down quicker when it's thrown into a landfill.

So I must ask why -- WHY-- did one of my favorite websites, Spoonflower, unveil a new, 100% polyester product called "Eco-Canvas"? Because, it's made from 45% recycled material.  It's a common marketing ploy that flouts the "Green Movement" of our post-Inconvenient Truth society. I don't think the bosses at Spoonflower are conniving.  I think they're part of the ignorant majority who automatically associate the word "recycle" with "environmentally sound."

The words "eco" and "organic" don't have much clout in the United States. The same goes for Fair Trade. Fair Trade USA sells their seal of approval to corporate marketers because there's no governing body to oversee the supply chain.

If you own a Fair Trade business (or want to own one), you should look for certification from Fair Trade International (FLO), a nonprofit organization based in Bonn, Germany. They set fair trade labeling standards and to earn the FAIRTRADE Mark, you allow an in-person inspection, then monitored by FLO for as long as you keep the Mark.

Likewise, if you're a consumer and can't afford organic cotton, look to charity shops for cheap vintage clothing.  Donating, purchasing, and upcycling polyester keeps it from landfills for another generation, and there's no shortage of disco-era polyester.

Another option is to stop buying so much clothing.  On average, if you spend $50 every two weeks on a new item, you're spending $1200 per year on 24 items.  That's a considerable amount if we take into account most people regularly wear 20% of their wardrobe 80% of the time. That means 16% of your clothing gets regular usage (this is called fashion's 80/20 rule), or four pieces for every 25 you own. "Fast fashion" relies on this rule.  It relies on our need to be trendy and fill our closets with styles that won't be en vogue in six months.

Instead, we can invest in timeless wardrobe staples that will still be in fashion next year. If we budget $1200/year on clothing, instead of buying 2 items a month, spend $300 every three months on one item. 

Spend more, buy less. 

As for Spoonflower, I have a better product name: "Synthetic Upholstery Canvas." 

The Problem with Having a Problem with Administration

For one reason or another, this article appeared on my newfeed today. It's called "ICE BUCKET FRAUD: ALS FOUNDATION ADMITS THAT 73% OF DONATIONS ARE NOT USED FOR ALS RESEARCH".  All caps, so the author means business.

The article fumes that over 73% of the Ice Bucket Challenge donations (we're all familiar with that) go to fundraising, overhead, executive salaries, and external donations.  They cite an organization called the ECFA.  It's a Christian nonprofit watchdog group that bases their standards of charity on the bible.  They write that only 27% of the funds will go to research.  That's true.  They even provide this handy pie chart.

Notice that, yes, 27% goes to Research, but 51% goes to Public and Professional Education and Patient Community Services.  That's 78% that goes directly to the services the ALSA says they provide in their mission statement on the homepage of their website:

Leading the fight to treat and cure ALS through global research and nationwide advocacy while also empowering people with Lou Gehrig's Disease and their families to live fuller lives by providing them with compassionate care and support.

Those monsters.

My real gripe with that article was how much the author despised administrative fees.  Admin is one of the most difficult areas to fund for any nonprofit.  Normally, the rule is to keep them below 20% of the total budget.  I think that's a rule created by the infinite network of trustees who have limited experience in nonprofit. Across the board, no one thinks their money should be used to pay people fair salaries. This is why nonprofits have difficulty finding qualified employees.  While the industry, as a whole, doesn't compete with for-profit businesses that provide a tangible product, they compete with every industry for employees.  An MBA graduate is less likely to work for the ALSA because they can make exponentially more money on Wall Street.

A real nonprofit watchdog, Charity Navigator, says Jane H. Gilbert, executive director of the ALSA, received $297,288 in the 2013 fiscal year.  According to the ALSA website, she has a masters degree and has been in her position for five years. Before that, she was the Senior Vice President for the American Red Cross in DC for 3 years, and the development director at the Boys and Girls Club in Omaha.

To put that in perspective, the average entry level salary for an MBA graduate in Washington DC is $109,000.  The average.  This doesn't include bonuses (the ALS gave $12,000 in bonuses in 2013).

What this shows is that someone who has extensive experience in nonprofit and has made it to one of the highest positions in their field, will only ever make three times as much as someone with a shiny new MBA, just starting their career.

Why do the public feel people who choose noble career paths in nonprofits deserve to be paid less than those who give their skills to capitalism?  Imagine what we could do for social services if the innovators who work at Google and the financial analysts who work at Bloomberg were tasked with running a nonprofit.

By not nitpicking where their money is spent, we could help nonprofits compete with for-profit businesses for qualified employees by offering higher salaries without the inevitable guilt trip that comes with a large paycheck.

Note: Admin spending isn't only executive salaries.  It's also things like new computers, copy toner, and office rent. None of those things sound as sexy to donors as petry dishes.

The Unremarkable Bella Swan

I'm not anti-Twilight.  There's a bizarre, one-sided, rivalry between Harry Potter and Twilight fans, where the latter's fanbase has something to prove as to why it's considered a piece of popular, modern literature.  I'm, obviously, on team Potter, but I haven't read Twilight not because of a fervent hatred, but because I've always had another book I've wanted to read more.

However, I've read enough plot summaries and analyses to understand Twilight's gist.  It can be summed up easily: the new girl in school falls in love with a vampire, they break up, then she falls in love with a werewolf, then they break-up, then she marries the vampire, gets pregnant on their honeymoon, dies in childbirth, and is resurrected as a vampire.

There's more drama, but that's the purest's takeaway.

There's countless opinions by feminists that reveal allusions to domestic violence and pedophilia (the werewolf falls in love with a baby!) but to me, the most interesting thing about the books is why teenage girls are enamored with them.

Bella Swan is never described in detail.  I googled "Bella Swan Physical Description" and this popped up:

Bella is described in the novels as being very pale with brown hair which is often described as mahogany, chocolate brown eyes, and a heart-shaped face. Beyond this, a detailed description of her appearance is never given in the series.

She's a blank slate. She likes to read books and never really fit in at her old school.  She's the faceless mannequin in a store window that are used by visual merchandisers to help women visualize themselves wearing their clothes.

Now, imagine every situation that makes a teenage girl feel insecure (moving to a new town, being ignored by the school's resident hottie (the book's "David Cohen" of my high school years)), and have everything come up roses.

She immediately becomes accepted by the popular crowd and David Cohen was ignoring her because he's a vampire who thirsted for blood and was in love with her (if only, David.  If only). Oh! And the whole thing about being a child of the undead is that you get to live forever.  When he turns you into a vampire, you live happily, literally, ever after.

Honorable mention goes to adding a second hot guy (the werewolf), who fights the vampire for Bella's affection.

How does a casting director fill the Bella Swan role for the movie adaptation when the character has no defining characteristics except for her pale skin and dark hair? They find an actress who, similarly, has no discernable personality with pale skin and dark hair.  Enter: Kristen Stewart.

Something fascinating happened with Kristen that hadn't happened to past female protagonists in past cinematic love triangles (Rachel McAdams in the Notebook, Emma Watson in Harry Potter, Jennifer Lawrence in the Hunger Games).  That's right, DEATH THREATS.  Pure, unadulterated jealousy from millions of scorned young women who spent years imagining themselves riding on a vampire's back through a forest (I saw that in the trailers).

This is why boy band members are contractually obligated to not take their girlfriends out in public.  Crazed fans can't know the love of their lives' bland, factory pop ballads could be about someone who is not them.  Two members of One Direction went public with their relationships, and guess what their girlfriends received? DEATH THREATS for stealing away the unripened, cherub-faced heartthrobs from every adolescent girl on the planet.

When Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson (the actor who plays the vampire, Edward) became a real life couple, she did a big no-no and cheated on her sparkling shadow of the night with the forty-year-old, married with children director of Snow White and the Huntsman.  Even I view that as a slight to the Warrior of Darkness.  If that illicit affair was as exciting as Snow White and the Huntsman, then it would've peaked when a flight attendant refilled my coffee on my twelve our flight from Seoul to Dallas, but without the saving grace of Chris Hemsworth.

Twilight fans went nuts. Most of them had lucid daydreams where the Bringer of Handsome confessed his realization that she never would've broken his heart.

Juxtapose this with Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling in The Notebook, where fans were rooting for their real-life relationship to work out (it didn't).  Or rooting for Jennifer Lawrence to end up with her Hunger Games co-star Josh Hutcherson.  These are insanely popular books and movies where the male characters have huge fanbases, but those fans lack the sheer ferocity of the Twilight Saga.

Stephanie Meyer, Twilight's author, is a genius if she created this character intentionally.  No one can deny the books are well-loved and have reached every corner of the globe, and I am definitely not the person to judge if it qualifies as brilliant literature.  But, I feel sincere empathy for teenage fans because I know how anxious a celebrity crush can make you feel, and how a book can create a world of escapism to make up for the short comings or real life.

I can, however, confidently say that Bella Swan is not a role model.  That's because being a role model requires the possession of human characteristics that aren't associated with a love interest. Bella Swan is...wait for the Harry Potter reference...The Mirror of Erised.  Girls "see" her and she reflects back the ideal of what they want.  But, I want those girls to really see that having popularity and a boyfriend aren't personality traits.  The person they were reading about -- the object of their jealously -- was, ultimately, themselves.

Somaly Mam: Means Justifying an End

 If you keep up with current events, you've probably seen one or two articles on Somaly Mam, the founder and former CEO of the eponymous charitable foundation.  This organization addresses women's rights in Cambodia, specifically in terms of sex trafficking and exploitation.

I've been putting off this post because, in truth, I have no idea what to make of the new revelations about the Somaly Mam Foundation.  Here's the controversy's gist:

• Mam claimed to be a survivor of child sexual exploitation, which is untrue.  She grew up with both parents and graduated high school.
• The women in Somaly Mam's videos were not trafficked and were coached to say they were forced into sex slavery for the sake of donations.
• Some of the women were "willing prostitutes" who were rounded up during a police raid of a brothel and sent to a vocational training school where they were instructed to tell foreigners they were trafficked.

The knee-jerk reaction to this is, simply, outrage.  This has provided fodder for the anti-NGO crowd to continue their crusade in convincing the world that NGOs are inherently evil and profit-driven. Those who are less-invested in tearing down all privately-funded social services simply think lying is very bad.  Mam lied.  Therefore, she is very bad.

I have a slightly different view.  

The media isn't doing any favors for survivors by pointing out a phony.  Rather, they're portraying the image of a "happy hooker";  someone who, by their own free will, decided to sell their body for sex.  Even that idea is shrouded in an apologetic misogyny that might comfort men when they're paying for sex.  But, I'm willing to admit there may be at least one prostitute on Earth who, if given every opportunity on the planet, would choose prostitution. 

I'm absolutely, 100% positive there are no "happy hookers" in Cambodia. Without realizing, news outlets are using the idea as reason for scorning Mam. Al Jazeera wrote about a prostitute, Srey Mao:

Srey Mao said she became a prostitute because she believed it was the best option to support her aging parents and young daughter. . . Seven months into her stay at the shelter, Srey Mao ran away and returned to life as a prostitute.

When I interviewed with Senhoa, who works with victims of sexual assault and exploitation, the country director told me it's really difficult to retain clients because they can't make as much money working in hospitality as they can "lying on their backs for a few hours."

This isn't just a problem about choice.  This is a problem of empowerment.  In a country where everything boils down to monetary worth, how can we expect women to leave a job that can pay a week's salary in a single night?  One could argue that I'm viewing this through a privileged gaze (which I am), and maybe women don't view their bodies as sacred in Cambodia like they do in the United States (which is false), but no one can argue with the health ramifications of prostitution.  Cambodian brothels and red light districts are not the Mustang Ranch.  Health studies rarely account for the higher prevalence of HIV and other venereal diseases among men and women who are immersed in this lifestyle.  How long will Srey Mao be around for her little girl?

Knowing what it's like to beg donors for money, I can't blame Mam for using trendy buzzwords like "sex trafficking" to solicit donations to give women better lives with vocational training.  Here's another excerpt from that Al Jazeera article:

One of these girls was Pros, who, according to Newsweek, actually lost her eye to a tumor and was sent to Afesip for vocational training. The same was reportedly true of Meas Ratha, a teenager allegedly coached by Mam to say she had been trafficked when in fact she was sent to Afesip by an impoverished farming family, desperate to give their daughter a better start in life.

In my experience, donors -- especially Americans -- don't like preventative methods as much as reactionary. Helping someone who has hit rock bottom is more impressive then making sure they never hit rock bottom in the first place.

Newsweek, who broke the story, talked to a girl who was coached by Mam to speak in front of cameras:

Late last year, Ratha finally confessed that her story was fabricated and carefully rehearsed for the cameras under Mam's instruction, and only after she was chosen from a group of girls who had been put through an audition. Now in her early 30s and living a modest life on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, Ratha says she reluctantly allowed herself to be depicted as a child prostitute: "Somaly said that…if I want to help another woman I have to do [the interview] very well."

My first thought was how damaging it would be for a survivor to be interviewed on camera about something that's traumatizing beyond imagination.  If we give Mam the benefit of the doubt and there was "another woman," then I would've acted exactly the same.  NGOs pander to donors, and donors like stories and pictures.  Rarely do they think about how difficult it is to recall horrific events.

But, don't put me on team Somaly Mam.  Little tit bits in different articles makes me think they're too big to have a proper impact.  Let's go back to Srey Mao:

Months in the Afesip shelter did not change her mind. She claims that after she arrived at the shelter, she was not given access to anti-retroviral drugs for five days or allowed to see her family. Instead, she was enrolled in a yearlong sewing course, entailing eight hours a day of study or garment work. 

"I was not happy to be there ... Very often, during our short break for lunch, Afesip staff and sometimes Mam Somaly came to us and told us to tell donors and foreigners who would come to visit shelters that we were victims of human trafficking.

For lack of a better term, there's a certain je ne sais quoi that comes with case management, especially with survivors of sexual abuse. I went to AFESIP Shelter's website and downloaded their 2012 annual report.  They received $600,000 (about half of their annual budget) from the Somaly Mam Foundation, so it's no wonder they've come under fire along with their main funder.

Among the plethora of facts that come with these reports, one is that their 100 person staff is 50% male.  Men in this country -- I'll go ahead and say it: Cambodian men -- aren't exactly the most empathetic population.  There is a strong cultural precedence of superiority that makes women second-class citizens. There are, of course, exceptions to this, but I have never seen a women's shelter have such a high number of men, because their presence could be triggers for women who have survived domestic violence, gang rape, incest, and all other violent sex crimes.

That statistic does, however, explain why AFESIP could come off as a bit "cold" to the media. Eloquence is not a strong suit of people who work in a second language.  Also, speaking from personal experience, I gave birth in a room of six male Cambodian doctors.  You will never, EVER, convince me that Cambodian men are top candidates for working with vulnerable women.  They do not have the je ne sais quoi.

Other than that, I can't find anything about this shelter that is "outrageous."  Here's one of the personal anecdotes in the report:

Champey - has worked for 6 years in the sex trade. She cannot afford to leave because her family are poor and she will always to seen as a prostitute in her community now. It would bring shame on her family if she returned home. She knows the dangers of the streets. She has been beaten, gang raped and threatened with guns many times. When you are poor your own safety comes second to the welfare of your family. Champey uses AFESIP's outreach services to stay as safe as she can.

That could easily be a continuation of Srey Mao's story. The story might be embellished (maybe she only visits them once per year), but they are openly admitting they couldn't "save" someone from prostitution.  In fact, they work with survivors of sexual abuse, which is the umbrella sex trafficking falls under.  If anyone bothered to look into the organizations the Somaly Mam Foundation fund, maybe they would've seen what a small number of women were actually trafficked.

So what about Mam? There's no doubt in my mind her foundation is, in part, a vanity project.  Who, in their right mind, would romanticize a life of sex slavery to write a book is beyond my comprehension.  She reminds me of a certain CEO of a prominent London-based charity who Let Us Create used to work with, who put aside what the children actually needed for what would appease donors and make her look like a hero.

But, alas, I don't think the problem is that she lied.  The problem is that we (the Western world) need to stop focusing on trendy charitable causes, or in this case, the lack thereof.  This Somaly Mam song and dance could cost AFESIP a fair chunk of their budget and why? Because the rhetoric around their clients' backgrounds was embellished? Because the reason they need help isn't as tragic as we thought? Outrage, I say! My money was going to the wrong type of poor person!

Donors are the bane of every NGO's existence because their money makes them believe they know what's best for people on the other side of the world.  Now, we're crucifying this woman because she chose to use the rhetoric that donors want to hear to help women they are incapable of empathizing with. They need to realize that what charity clients need may not be romantic or even ideal, but that doesn't make them less deserving.

Handcrafted by No One in Particular

What is this "Handmade Movement" that Etsy goes on about?

Don't get me wrong, I love Etsy.  There's a link on the right of this site to take you to my Etsy site.  In fact, I've started this mid-year resolution to stop buying clothing from mass retailers and start perusing Etsy more because I'm trying to stop hypocrisy in at least one area of my life.

But there's something incorrect about the phrase "Buy Handmade."  When you think of something that's been made by hand, you think of a pair of baby booties your grandmother knitted, or maybe a luxe pair of shoes stitched from Italian leather. Even the lace on Kate Middleton's wedding dress was hand-knitted by the Royal School of Needlework (that's a thing!)  The "Handmade Movement" now associates handmade items with emotion, time, love, and detail.  Lest we forget, someone out there sews for Forever 21.


Garment factories are spilling out of Phnom Penh and popping up around Takeo, near my mom's mango plantation. For most of us, nothing good comes to mind when we hear "garment factories."  But I recently found out about, for lack of a better word, factory homework. Women take projects home with them and paid per piece.

Pictured is my mom holding up a piece she made for a gigantic American retailer.  We don't know for sure, but let's say Banana Republic (owned by Gap Companies) for the sake of perspective.

Mom is the most talented craftswoman I've ever known and probably ever will know.  She taught me how to sew, and can recreate anything from scratch whether it be a prom dress from a magazine picture, a bracelet drawn on a napkin, or an aluminum baby crib conjured up from her own head (It's not practical, but clever nonetheless).

Guess how much she was paid to painstakingly hand bead that collar for Banana Republic? Go on....I'll give you a minute.
...
...
...

1000 Riel, or $.25.

An expert needle-worker could make about five of those in a day, totaling a whopping $1.25 per day to do something that takes incredible skill and patience.  I went to our good pal, Etsy, to see how much first-world artisans are charging for something similar. Depending on the material, the bare minimum is around $40.00 and the max is $1,200.

That.  That right there.  That's how places like Forever 21 can charge $5 for a dress. Some argue that the living costs are lower here, but tell that to a woman who is the sole provider for her children, living in a rural area that's dominated by the back-breaking labor of rice farming and the ubiquitous factory industry.

If you're not paying very much for clothing, please know that somebody is. There's a human putting every stitch, every bead, and every button in place, whose only shortcoming is that she was born under the wrong circumstance.

The Shoe Rule

I have just one question for travelers wanting to work in Cambodia:

Do you wear shoes?

Shoes are the best indicator of competence in Sihanoukville.  The town is somewhere between civilization and a deserted island where scorching hot pavement is littered with shards of glass.

Despite this, a lot of tourists insist on walking around barefoot. I'm a pragmatist, and there's no logic to this trend except for a foreigner's insistence on "going native."  But, if anyone has adapted to the heat and treacherous, man-made terrain, it's the people who have lived here since the dawn of time. And they wear shoes.  If a local isn't, then it's not a noble "be-one-with-nature" reason.  It's because he or she is poor.

Maybe my patience runs thin with the no-shoes-by-choice crowd because I worked for an NGO that had a monthly budget for children's shoes.  A good portion of our days were spent cleaning wounds and subjecting young children to painful antiseptics because they stepped on a rock or broken beer bottle.  These were not "kids being kids" cuts.  They were "Try not to retch while I wash off this hemorrhaging flesh wound" injuries.

And yet, as I walk down Serendipity Beach Road under the equatorial sun, there is never a shortage of white people playing a perverse game of hopscotch to get from point A to point B.  Point B is never one of the countless shops that sell $2 flip flops.

At least there's one saving grace for their habit.  If they walk through the river of shit that runs down the hill from Sokom Guesthouse to the pier, they'll develop incurable rashes and infectious boils that double as signs that say, "Don't interact with me." 

Also, the shoe-less provide hours of entertainment for the kitchen staff at Monkey.  There's nothing like a big Barang lad navigating scalding hot gravel and hopping past the window to give someone a moment of zen during a busy shift.

It's safe to assume that if someone comes up the road looking for a job, they have been here for at least a month.  They've realized that working on the beach as part of a revolving door of idiots will lead to an early grave, but they don't feel like going home yet.

So why -- WHY -- do some insist on not wearing shoes?  I get it.  You're in Sihanoukville.  you would wear Daisy Dukes and/or an ill-fitted tank top if the POTUS came to dinner.  But, if you hike up the road from whatever cesspool on the beach and fail to stop in a shoe shop, then I question your sensibilities.  Why should you be trusted with a cash register and an unsupervised, limitless supply of booze?

Of course, I'm not saying shoes = responsible. I am, however, absolutely saying no shoes = irresponsible.

Perpetuating White Beauty on Pinterest

Social media is tricky for international social businesses.  The coordinator precariously straddles a line between depicting their clients with beauty and dignity, and appealing to their customer.  When you are working in the West, you're trying to appeal to the people who will most likely spend money on your product.  Without mincing my words, they're appealing to White people.

Pinterest is the fastest growing social media site.  If you're unfamiliar with it, it's an online image congregate where you sift through products and save them onto different "boards." I've been an avid user since their invite-only launch in 2010.  I'm shamelessly into consumerism and find scrolling through their DIY and Women's Fashion categories cathartic.

The website has become vital in maintaining a business' online presence.  It drives the most ecommerce traffic to websites -- more than Facebook and Twitter combined -- because it's a way for customers to go window shopping at every store in the world simultaneously, and save everything they liked for later.  In fact, when it was just starting 4 years ago, I was being contracted to run a wedding stationer's Etsy account.  Within the first six months of it's debut, Pinterest was the shops second highest referral source after Etsy, itself.

For a business to run its Pinterest account successfully, it must do more than just post its products.  The business has to create online vision boards that are cohesive with their mission.  For example, a wedding stationer could create a board called "Vintage Country Rustic Wedding" and post dresses, venues, decorations, and anything else from other companies, along with their invitations, to cater to a popular theme.  It's a way to visualize a concept and sell a product in a specific context.

Social businesses in Fair Trade fashion use Pinterest to not only post their products, but to help perpetuate their humanitarian missions.  However, I stumbled upon a few organizations that inadvertently "othered" the people they aim to help.   What I mean by "othered" is "Us vs. Them."

"Us" as being the first world consumer and "Them" as the third world maker.  The example I have is from Live Worldly.  They wholesale items that are made by marginalized people in South America, Africa, and Asia.  But, here are screenshots of their Pinterest profile:

For priding themselves on being a business with an expansive worldview, their boards have the American ideal of what females should look like. These models look nothing like the women who actually make their products.  Where are the dark skinned women, the flat noses, and the voluptuous figures?  Why are some of the fashion pieces from companies that use sweatshops?  It's convoluted and, frankly, offensive.

In every Asian country I've been to, White is equated with beauty.  There are women who use painful bleaching creams because they think they're too dark.  Lighter skin is associated with wealthier classes because they are not doing physical labor in the sun all day.  Even my mother, who has always been a goddess to me, told me her dark skin was ugly and how lucky I am that my father "lightened me up."  Growing up in White Suburbia, I was well into my twenties before I recovered from the "light is better" mental conditioning.

Of course, like any social business, their is a fair labor board where we see the people who make their products.  Us vs. Them.

Conversely, Raven + Lily know their product, clients, and customers. Here are screenshots from their Pinterest Profile:

This is called "brand cohesion." There are women who represent multiple ethnicities.  The model in their 2014 lookbook proudly shows off her natural hair texture. They showcase clothing and jewelry that are culturally appropriate for their products and the products' makers. Granted, the models are still "model skinny" but I only fight one fashion battle per day.  Models are used as "placeholders" by designers.  They are meant to be unremarkable so women can imagine themselves wearing the clothing.  This is why the term "supermodel" exists -- being super in that industry is few and far between.

Part of a social business' responsibility is to use their public image to speak for those who can't speak for themselves.  They are meant to elevate their clients' standard of living by giving them access to the global marketplace.  This cannot be done if the only customers in that marketplace they are speaking to conform with what society tells us in beautiful.

A Love Story Between a Girl and Her Water Filter

The Super Tunsai is, hands down, the best purchase we've made for our home. It uses a clay pot to filter water until it's 99.9% pure.  It cost $28 from a local store called Electronic City.  We love it so much, I made Torie buy one when she got to Sihanoukville, and we gifted one to my mom so she could stop paying for water deliveries.

The most impressive aspect of the Super Tunsai is that it's made, start to finish, in Cambodia.  You can see a video (a poorly produced one, but a video nonetheless) of the Super Tunsai warehouse by clicking HERE.

I lived in Cambodia for a full year when Lee discovered the water filter.  About 9 months before, when I was working for Let Us Create, our little town was visited by the USNS Mercy, a massive, fully equipped naval hospital ship that runs humanitarian missions.

Part of their mission was bringing water filters to poor neighborhoods that may not have had access to clean water. I know three separate NGOs who were given these filters, and they were complete failures at every site for three reasons:

• They used several different types of gravel that couldn't be sourced in Cambodia.
• They required constant monitoring to make sure they didn't break.
• When a problem arose, we had to email the water engineers (who, by that time, were back home on the other side of the world), who could only troubleshoot using educated guesses.

With the amount of time we spent trying to figure them out, we could've just bought clean water for $1.25 and spent our working hours doing other things.

When Lee brought home our Super Tunsai, I had a "where have you been all my life" reaction.  All it needs is a good scrub once a month, and even our son drinks water from it.  It's paid for itself several times over.  In fact, Lee put two of them in one of his businesses.  Since the only overhead is it's initial cost (plus pennies for tap water), customers can refill their water bottles using the honor system and put 1000 riel ($.25) into a collection box for the Sihanoukville Tourism Association.  That money is then used to pay workers to clean the beach.  

The filters are an illustration of a problem with most international NGOs. It's the idea that "stuff" from the first world is better and more capable than "stuff" here. But, when money is invested in local resources, it's invested in the entire town.

Those Who Need

Charity work is a paradox in Cambodia.  Last year, I visited conCERT, an organization in Siem Reap that helps potential volunteers weed through the over 300 NGOs based in the city.  With a population of 896,309 people,  36% live in poverty, according to conCERT's website.  That's about 322,571 people, or 1,075 per NGO.  Of course, some NGOs, like Friends International will work with more, and others will work with just a handful.

Compare that to Sihanoukville with a population of  278,259 and no up-to-date data on how many people live in poverty.  The last I could find on it was from 1997 when there were half as many people and an illegible map of income per capita.

But here's some math: Sihanouk Province is 868 square kilometers, or 320.6 people per square kilometer.  Siem Reap, on the other hand, is 10,299 square kilometers, or 87 people per square kilometer. It's safe to assume that Sihanoukville has at least the same percentage of people in poverty, but probably more, since most workers here are migrants from the countryside working in the factories (which account for 655,000 jobs, nationally) or in unskilled labor like construction.  I've always said that Sihanoukville is like the Wild West of Cambodia.  It's a kingdom of its own, within the Kingdom of Wonder.

As far as I know, we can count the number of active, registered nonprofits in Sihanoukville on one hand.  In the last two years, I've always wondered why there's such a disparity in charitable work between the two provinces.  Here's my professional and scientific hypothesis: Siem Reap is a better place to live.

Numbers are moot.  You can just visit the two towns and see how different they are. The booming tourist economy that surrounds the Angkor Temples has turned Siem Reap, a small town, into the most cosmopolitan town in the country, after Phnom Penh.  When we were there last week, I saw the road to the airport had a bike lane.  A BIKE LANE.  There are also 5 star hotels that contribute to a hospitality industry rivaling any First World holiday town.  And don't forget the air-conditioned coffee shops.  Oh, the air-conditioned coffee shops!  Coffee shops as far as the eye can see!

Ask any random tourist what they think about Siem Reap.  When I was visiting with a friend at Under Construction in Siem Reap's Wat Bo area, I met a middle-aged woman from Washington.  She had only spent 3 days in Siem Reap, but had adamantly decided it was her favorite town in all of South East Asia.  And this is AFTER visiting Saigon and Hoi An.  She said the people are smiley and polite, there are lovely shops, and OH MY, the CULTURE!

I told her it's a good thing she didn't have time for Sihanoukville.  She would've left with a bad taste in her mouth.  In fact, a long-time Siem Reap ex-pat told me he was sad his ex-boyfriend wants to move back to Sihanoukville.  Because, and I quote, "He deserves better than that town."

Back to my original point, Siem Reap's 300 NGOs aren't necessarily placed where they're most needed. They're not "being the change" -- a phrase that if I see one more time on Facebook, I'll throw my computer against a wall.  They're following the change created by travel books, magazine articles, and TV shows that say everyone needs to see Angkor before they die.

Sihanoukville NEEDS change makers.  We don't have ancient ruins and our beaches aren't near as nice as Thailand's to attract tourists who demand the air-conditioned coffee shops.  But with the exception of a few extraordinary, patient people, charity workers who will commit a year or more of their life in the Wild Wild West are few and far between.

Sadly, with the discovery of oil near our shores, Sihnaoukville is on path to being a boomtown.  But, roughnecks on oil rigs aren't usually followed by bike lanes and 5 star hotels.  Instead, we'll get more human and drug trafficking, as well as corruption within our self-contained government. What do-gooder in their right mind would want to move here?

Texts from Cambodia: Chocolate Dreams 2 9

One of the best things about living in a country where most everyone speaks English as a second language are the ESL text messages and emails we get from the people we work with.

I want to start a new series where I share some of the best messages that my friends and I receive from our friends who have done something I have yet to accomplish: be conversational in a second language.

The first is from Torie, who got a lovely send-off before she hopped on a plane to spend Christmas in the States. (Names have been changed).

Sweet dreams, tonight, readers.

First World Qualified

A question that hangs around in the air here is, "What are you going to do after Cambodia?"  For most ex-pats, living here is a placeholder for a real ambition.  There are exceptions, of course;  The old men who retired here to find young wives who can live like kings on their Social Security checks; the couple who was born oceans apart, fell in love and built a business.  The fugitive who skipped town whilst on bail.

For the most part, however, whether you're here 10 days or 10 years, you will reach your Cambodian expiration date and go on to a new adventure.

A few weeks ago, my friend Robin and I were trying to figure out if anyone we know is first world qualified to do their Cambodian jobs.  Lee, who is the most capable person I know, even says that he can run a business here but has no desire to back in England. So what happens to people when they create a home in a small beach town over several years, then decide to move?

I said that it's all about how you break down your experience.  Any Joe Schmo with a few grand can open a bar here, but a small percentage of those people are successful.  Still, can they go back home and say they ran a successful business here without anyone knowing the wiser?

It becomes painfully obvious who knows what they're doing and who doesn't.  It's all well and good to say "I own a restaurant," but when your first world interviewer asks you very specific questions about accounting procedures (which are done entirely analog), human resource management (with unheard of turnover), and marketing (go to the bus station and hand out as many fliers as possible), your fantasy job as a Cambodian business mogul looks no more impressive than a child's lemonade stand that uses a Country Time mix instead of fresh lemon juice.

I'm looking for ballpoint needles.  Do you have them?
Do you know what they are? Where am I?

It comes down to the fact that doing business in Cambodia is grinding.  For example, if I need to restock all of my sewing hardware, I can't pop down to Jo-Ann's or even go to the online store that sells wholesale.  There are no superstores here, and shipping anything will cost more than the items you're buying.  I wait until we go to Phnom Penh and find two hours where I can sit on the back of a moto and hold on for dear life as the driver navigates the roads to find the zipper store, the twill stall, the linen lady, and hopefully some place near by the sells a seam ripper.

Imagine how my world changed when I went back home for a month and visited Mood Fabrics in New York.  Everything was there.  I took two trains, walked a few blocks, hopped in an elevator (with an elevator attendant (what?!)) and found myself in the promise land.

Mood Fabrics NYC via my sister

Running a successful business in Cambodia is like the baseball batter who puts weights on his bat before he steps up to the plate.  You do a few practice swings with two extra kilos so your arms suddenly feel lighter when that perfect pitch comes your way.  Cambodia is the weights.  The first world is being at-bat.

When we go back home and interviewers asks us how our experience in Cambodia relates to what you're trying to do in the first world, laugh in their faces and tell them the weights are off and you're ready to hit it out of the park.

Sidewalk Enterprise

Every morning at 6:00, a boy who can't be older than 14 arrives to the sidewalk across from our apartment with a large bag and a bike pump.  For the next half hour, he inflates about thirty penguins.  Then, he sits.  A few times an hour, he'll adjust the penguins that moved from their orderly columns and turn them so they face the street.  If one is dirty, he'll replace it with a clean one that he wiped down earlier.

His busiest times are before and after school.  Over the last four days, I've seen him get six sales.  Two to a moto drivers who had a small children, one to a man in a Lexus who wouldn't open his door all the way to inspect the penguin (he even yelled at the boy to back off), two to me, and one to a teenager who arrived to the penguin site immediately after me.

It's almost like a lemonade stand, but the money goes to his family (who, I think, are positioned around Sihanoukville selling the same penguins) and he sits behind the collection all day, 6 am until sunset.  I was prepared to pay a dollar for the penguin.  It was 5000 Riel ($1.25) so I shelled out the extra cash in support of small business, then noticed the penguins all say "dolphin" in stock script on their sides.

I used to think he attended school during the afternoons because I looked over one day and saw an older man there.  Alas, the boy was behind the man's moto, inflating a brand new penguin for the man's son.  When I spoke to him, I asked him if he spoke any English.  He said, "aht," which means no.  It's safe to assume he just works.