July 21, 2008 - Mountain View, CA 3:30pm

I have hesitated to write since my return to the States, mostly because I have no idea what to say. The adjustment to life back in the U.S. has been extremely difficult for me. I know that, unless I share my experiences with people here, my trip would have been for nothing. But I don't even know where to start. Especially hard for me to address are the well-meaning conversational starters of "so, tell me about your trip". I know that those who ask are sincere in wanting to know about it, but I don't think they have any idea of what they would get if I started really talking. And there is no way to give a 2-minute overview while passing someone in the hallway. I feel like you either need to know the whole story or none of it. I mean, if I'm still putting it all together, how can anyone else possibly understand how complex and deep the human trafficking situation is in Cambodia. But, I'm determined to share it. I have to share it. People need to know.

So, until I find my words, bear with me. I will talk to you.

It's hard to be here, which is ironic because the whole time I was in Cambodia I was thinking how how hard it was to be there. It's hard to look around and see so much wealth and gluttony and materialism. I'm not pointing fingers here; I think the same thing when looking at my own life. It's hard to tolerate the petty concerns and dramas we create for ourselves out of boredom. It's hard to have nobody to talk to here who knows what I'm thinking. I have incredible people in my life - people who deeply care about humanity and justice - but they simply weren't there with me. And regardless of how much they may want to understand, they just can't. So I feel lonely here in this country of excess. With our wide open roads that we consider to be full of traffic. And our exasperation at having to wait in line for groceries. And my cat that has to lose 5 pounds because he has too much to eat.

I feel so far away from reality. How can I go about my normal higher-education life here knowing what struggling is really like? I feel an impatience to do something. I'm going crazy thinking that it will be 4 more years until I can actually get to work. I have faith that getting my PhD will help me do more than I can without it, but in the meantime all I can think about is all those people who are suffering today. And I'm stuck here studying for exams and trying to pretend like I feel like I belong.

July 11, 2008 - Phnom Penh, Cambodia 10:00pm

My last full day here in Cambodia was spent at Transitions Cambodia, Inc. (TCI). I am SO excited and encouraged by the work that James and his staff do at TCI, and am thrilled that I got to end my trip with that experience.

James was a Special Ops Marine, who was working in a civilian company making $250,000/year in Oregon. One day, he and his family watched a documentary about human trafficking called Children For Sale and they decided, as a family, to do something. He quit is job and he, his wife, daughter (16 years old), and two sons (14 and 9), packed up and moved to Cambodia to start an organization to help victims not only recover, but discover who they were meant to be. TCI is a home-like environment that is structured to “help girls rebuild their lives in a meaningful and sustainable way”. I could go in-depth about how exactly they do that, but instead I will highlight some of the aspects of the program that are particularly unique and exciting. TCI provides housing, medical care, counseling, social work, safety, yoga, art therapy, education, and vocational training. James firmly believes that all girls deserve to rediscover their smile, so each girl gets extensive dental work until her smile is perfect. In the first phase of the treatment process, the girls are required to set career goals. The only limitations put on them is that they cannot choose menial labor. Unlike other programs that offer participants training in sewing, cooking, etc, TCI asserts that “if you give girls a job sewing in a factory, it doesn't do much to restore her dignity”. It also doesn't do much to address the larger societal problem that valued them so little to begin with. James encourages the girls to set a goal that they don't think they can reach, and then make sure that they do. For example, one of the girls that recently completed the program now works as a translator for the government and makes 3x the average Cambodian wage. She was able to move away from Phnom Penh as an independent, confident, and self-supporting woman.

TCI also trains the girls in basic life skills (such as going to market and cleaning their own houses – since many of them have been prostitutes since childhood and never learned basic self-care), physical fitness (to learn how their emotions and bodies are interconnected, mainly through yoga and therapy combined), big-sister program with another girl further along in the program, and requires that they participate in community service to learn to give back and improve their society. The girls themselves decide when they are ready to leave the house.

After our fantastic education from James, we spent the rest of the day just hanging out with the girls who were so excited to have us there. Normally, James doesn't allow visitors to TCI (he doesn't want the girls to feel like they are zoo animals), but he believed in our mission and thought it could be good for them to socialize with us. They cooked for us, and then we spent a while playing games and crafts together.

One of the girls, Srey Neth, has agreed to share her story in order to save other girls from the suffering she has survived. Neth is currently 19 years old, and has been at TCI since she was rescued from the Building by International Justice Mission a couple of years ago. Had I met her in any other setting, I would have thought she was a typical, if not extra goofy and silly, Cambodian teenager. She was definitely the entertainer and leader of the group and kept us all laughing with her funny dancing and sharp wit. But Neth is making up for a childhood that was lost. At age 14, her mother sold Neth into a brothel at the Building for $300. The madam who ran the brothel sold Neth's virginity for $300. For the next year, Neth was forced to service an average of 20 men per day, 7 days per week, even when she was sick or hurt. When she cried, she was electrocuted or beaten by her madam. She was given injections into her belly to stop her from getting her period so that she could work continuously. She eventually contracted HIV.

And today this exceptionally strong and resilient child made me laugh and be silly with her. She outsmarted me in a game we were playing and teased me for it. She showed me some of her artwork, including a drawing depicting her being beaten by her madam in the brothel. She is training to be a teacher, and helps counsel the other girls at TCI. She calls James “chicken hair” because of his hair style and he throws her over her shoulder while she shreaks and giggles. James, one of my new heroes, is so fatherly with these girls that in the face of the ugliest side of what men can do, he restores my faith that men can be good and noble and empathetic. And he seems to have restored his girls' faith in men, too. I would have thought that would be impossible.

Transitions Cambodia is funded completely by donations. It is a 501c3, so all donations are tax-deductible and qualify for employer matching. Please consider donating as a monthly donor ($35 per month can provide medical and dental care for one girl!) or one-time donation. Contact me for more info or go to http://www.transitionscambodia.org

July 10, 2008 - Phnom Penh, Cambodia 11:00pm

Tonight I went out with Tammy, Alessandro, and James Pond (that's Pond, not 007...though he could be), who founded and runs Transitions Cambodia, Inc. (TCI). James took us on a tuk-tuk (passenger trailer pulled by a motorbike – Cambodia's version of a cab) ride through the brothel areas of Phnom Penh. James told us that there had been a recent crack-down on the well-known brothels, in a response to the U.N. And U.S.'s ultimatums (make more of an effort against trafficking and child prostitution or we'll stop giving you money). Unfortunately, rather than stopping sex slavery, it only forced it further underground or relocated it. I'm sure this is a case of “treating the symptom not the disease” in terms of the larger systematic problems at play, but in any case, James told us that we wouldn't see as much as we would have a few months ago. Could have fooled me. We rode down streets and streets just filled with girls sitting outside of bars and clubs where they either worked for pimps as street prostitutes, in sex bars, brothels, or as “hostesses”. They all looked so young. James told us that what we were seeing was just the outer layer of the sex trade in Phnom Penh. Like a rotting, stinking, poisoned onion, there is layer upon layer of exploitation, degradation, and criminality. Some of the bars, we were told, had a “fishbowl” set up, where a man would enter to see a glass room filled with girls sitting on bleachers, all with numbers pinned to their chests. He simply orders which one he wants by number. Others are a little less obvious, employing hostesses who try to get men to buy as many drinks as possible before paying to take her upstairs. And then there is the Building. The Building is enormous and looks like it has been bombed out (probably has). I wouldn't set foot anywhere in the vicinity, just for the fear of it collapsing as I walked by. Well, this charming little locale is the hub of Phnom Penh's sex trafficking industry. Inside, we were told, every single room (formerly apartments) is filled with brothels (aka, sex slaves). Many of them children. It is unclear why the police haven't targeted the Building, but I suspect the reasons are also multi-layered. James told us that a friend of his, who worked undercover to rescue girls from the Building, vomited the first time he entered one of the rooms. The stench of human excretions (mostly male, if you catch my drift) was so overpowering that he had to leave and come back later to avoid throwing up again in front of the madam.

To get an even closer view of sexual exploitation at play, James took us to a bar called the Walk About, which caters mainly to Westerners. He and Alessandro waited outside, and told Tammy and I to go in and look around. He wanted to get a woman's perspective on it. At first, it looked like any American bar. Lots of older white guys having drinks and laughing. On closer inspection, all of the white guys were chatting with young (and I mean young) Cambodian girls. We headed upstairs and, on the way up, encountered a girl who needed help putting her dress back on. Before we could offer, a fat old white guy rushed to her side to lace up her dress, while also happening to grope all over her. Ew. Upstairs was a large group of older men – imagine 7 or 8 American businessmen that you would see on a golf course – each with 2 or 3 young girls hanging on him. As I watched these men, probably doctors and CEO's, I couldn't help but think of how easy it would be, if I were them, to fool myself into thinking that the girls were enjoying themselves. I guess I always have the image of the prostitute as sad and deadened, based on what I've read about the psychological effects of the industry, but failed to remember that they also have to sell themselves successfully. Therefore, they play the part of happy and fun, flirty and desiring of the men. If that's all I wanted to believe, I could see how tempting it would be to ignore the reality of what these girls endured and accept them at face-value.

With our blood boiling, Tammy and I decided that it was time to go. We couldn't stand to see human beings traded around as products any longer. On our way out, two younger American guys sitting at the bar grabbed my arm. They asked if we wanted to go out drinking and dancing with them. We said we couldn't, and then one of the guys told me that we really need to leave the bar. When I asked why, he flatly told me “because this is a hooker bar”. “Oh, really?”, Tammy said. He quickly explained that he and his friend (both professors) had booked a room in the hotel (conveniently upstairs from the “hooker bar”) without knowing what type of a place it was. I told him I was surprised that they stayed, then, and asked how he felt about staying in a place like that if he wasn't partaking in it. He said it didn't bother him – that it's just a cultural thing for the women and it's the only way they can make money. I wanted to smack his fat face and give him a serious education about why he should be bothered. But before I gave in to the temptation, Tammy dragged me out and back to the tuk-tuk, where our chivalrous men, men who fight for the rights of these women and understand what the sex trade does to them, waited to comfort us.

July 10, 2008 - Kompong Chhnang Province, Cambodia 5:00pm

We left Phnom Penh and drove to the Kompong Chhnang province (about an hour away) to meet with Randa, the director of Kampuchea for Christ. Randa is a Cambodian woman who started a center in the province that cares for victims of sexual abuse, rape, and sex slavery. The center itself is impressive and lovely, but even more striking to me was Randa's own life story. To put her story in context, I will give an extremely brief explanation of the past 40 years or so of Cambodia.

Following the Vietnam War Cambodia went through several years of civil war. Then, on April 17, 1975, the war-ravaged capital of Phnom Penh was “saved” when an army of Cambodian soldiers, mostly young, and dressed in all black marched silently into the city. The people thought that they were there to end the war and they rejoiced. They cheered, hugged, and cried with relief. They gathered in the streets to meet the soldiers and thank them. The soldiers, representing the Khmer Rouge Regime and directed by the newly assigned leader, Pol Pot, told the people that the Americans were going to bomb the city in the next few days and that they had to evacuate. This wasn't a stretch to believe, as the Nixon administration had recently relentlessly bombed other areas of Cambodia for days on end in an attempt to quash communism. Within three hours of their arrival, the Khmer Rouge soldiers had emptied the entire city of Phnom Penh and drove all of its residents to the countryside, where they killed them all with pick-ax blows to the backs of their heads and necks. The fields where the mass killings took place came to be known as The Killing Fields. But they didn't stop there. Under Pol Pot's orders, they continued their terrorizing throughout the whole country. They targeted the educated class of Cambodia, focusing on torturing and killing the upper-level of society. Those that they didn't kill right away were held in torture camps and interrogated. Supposedly, every single one of them was suspected of espionage for the CIA and KGB, but it is much more likely that they were the only ones that posed a threat of speaking out against the Regime.

When it was all said and done, from 1975 to 1979, the Khmer Rouge Regime murdered 2 MILLION Cambodians, including all of its doctors, teachers, professors, lawyers, judges, government workers, and other professionals. The entire educated class of Cambodia was wiped out. Their children were also all killed in an effort to avoid future acts of revenge.

When I arrived in Cambodia, I had heard vaguely of the Khmer Rouge regime, but had no idea of how central that period in time was to creating the country that I found on my trip. It is hard enough for a country to recover from a period of war, especially on it's own soil, but Cambodia's problem is even greater. Not only had they lost all of their educated class who were essentially running the country before, but they had nobody to train and teach a new generation how to fill those roles. They are a poor nation of farmers and laborers who were left to start from scratch. They went from having 40,000 doctors to having 40, and nobody left to teach medical students. The country is in such widespread poverty that I can't imagine a child growing up in one of these poor villages thinking of anything but survival, much less higher education. But, even if they did, who would teach them? Nobody knows how the courts and government used to run. I consider myself part of the educated class in the U.S., but even I would seriously screw up if I was left to start a legal system from scratch. So, as these people struggle to recover from devastating war, genocide, and grief, they must not only fight for basic survival, but also to build an entirely new country. And all the while, they are trying to find strength to move past the horrors that they themselves have witnessed. I don't think I met one person in Cambodia that hadn't lost someone in the Regime. It's a wonder that they have any faith left in humanity. And learning all of this has helped me to understand how the corruption, poverty, and inhumanities are occurring. How could they not?

So, back to Randa. We met with Randa, and she told us her story while we sat on huge home-made swings under palm-frond huts. Randa was 12 or 13 when the Khmer Rouge entered Phnom Penh. Her family was slaughtered in the Killing Fields, and she was taken to a torture camp where she knew she would be killed. One day, she decided that she would rather die anywhere but there, so she hid in the back of a military truck and held herself up against the wall of it behind a blanket. The truck left the camp and, after a few hours of driving, her muscles gave out and she tumbled into the front of the truck. The soldiers looked down at her, and asked her what she was doing. She said that the would rather die anywhere but the torture camp, and asked if they could kill her there instead of taking her back. One of the soldiers, a female, promised that she would keep Randa with her and wouldn't let her go back. When they got to their base, Randa was told that she would be trained to shoot a gun and kill for them. The little girl of only 13 looked at them and said that she would not. Rather than killing her, they said that she could instead work as a maid for them, but that she would not be allowed to speak a word – ever. So, she worked with some other children as the silent slaves of the Khmer Rouge soldiers for months and months. One morning, she awoke to the sound of gunfire and bombs, and saw that the base had been completely abandoned. Only she and the children remained. She decided to wait one week, and if nobody came for them, they would run. A week later, she and the children escaped from the base into the jungle. There they hid for days, covering themselves with dirt and leaves to avoid detection and mosquitos. At one point, they all hid in a pond for 3 whole days, and when they finally emerged, they couldn't even see their skin because they were covered in leeches. Weak from the loss of blood, Randa stumbled upon an American military envoy, and was saved. They took her to a refugee camp and asked where she would like to be re-settled. She said America. Her story of being in the Camp, hearing about the Bible, becoming a Christian, meeting her husband, moving to the States, and then deciding to return to Cambodia is one that could best be read in her autobiography, which is available for sale. Learning about her experiences first-hand are much more powerful than my weak re-telling, so I highly recommend reading it.

Randa made us all cry with her story. Perhaps the most incredible part, to me, was that she returned to the country that caused her so much heartache and trauma, and decided to immerse herself in other people's pain in order to help them recover. She is so inspirational and encouraging. If and when Cambodia recovers from the atrocities it has seen, it will be because of people like Randa.

(Film about the Khmer Rouge genocide: The Killing Fields; Randa and Setan's stories: http://denver.rockymountainnews.com/flash/cambodia/print.shtml)

July 9, 2008 - Phnom Penh, Cambodia 10:00pm

Just when I think I've come to grasp the level of injustice and corruption that the Cambodian people have been subjected to, I learn something that knocks me right back into utter disbelief. Today was one of those times. We were greeted this morning by an American girl named Ali, who came over to Cambodia for a visit after graduating from college and, once she saw what was happening here, canceled her flight home and decided to stay to help. The specific situation that gripped Ali's heart was that of Andon. Andon is a “community” of squatters that was established by the Cambodian government about an hour outside of Phnom Penh. In the 1990's, foreign real-estate developers decided that they wanted to buy a huge stretch of land along the river in Phnom Penh. They were willing to pay a generous price to the Cambodian government for it, and the offer was too good to refuse. Unfortunately, the land was already occupied by approximately 1,600 families who owned homes and businesses on it. The government offered an insultingly low price to the families to vacate and they, quite rightly, turned it down. So, early one morning at around 4:00 am, the government invaded the community with tanks and armed soldiers. They woke everyone and told them they had 30 minutes to gather their belongings and vacate their homes. Those who resisted would be met with violence. Some did resist and were killed. The rest, terrified and confused, loaded onto the buses and were shipped to the middle of nowhere. There, they were given some meager supplies and then left to eke out an existence. So, 1,600 families were taken from an urban city-dwelling lifestyle, to being homeless in the fields and to fight for survival. Few of them knew how to build, farm, or otherwise make a life out of nothing. To make matters worse, the government had originally planned to buy 3 hectors for the families to live on, but didn't want to pay that much so they squeezed them onto one. And there they remain today. A small square of land crammed full of families who live in huts and shacks constructed of found materials. They have no space. They live shoulder to shoulder. They must compete for the limited resources available to them and, therefore, do not trust or look out for one another. They have no source of income, no place or way to get work. They live on nearly nothing. Their drinking water is drawn from trenches that you and I wouldn't even put our feet in. As I walked through Andon, I kept reminding myself that these weren't some breed of gypsies or voluntary settlers. These were respected business people and citizens of Cambodia. And they were reduced to this. The complete lack of control and power they have over their own lives was shocking to me. And, of course, they were extremely vulnerable to traffickers and exploitation.

The indignation I feel at how people can treat their fellow man makes me want to vomit. And I feel so frustrated that all I can do is look on and be angry. There are several organizations that have been trying to help the people of Andon, including the one that Ali works for, but for some reason Andon seems to be only further declining. There is a great deal of sickness in the community (mostly from the lack of clean drinking water), and rising levels of domestic violence, assault, and rape. And there are so many children. Everywhere I walked, all I saw were children. Naked babies being cared for by nearly naked toddlers, watched by barely dressed children. A whole generation growing up thinking that Andon is what their lot in life is. I wonder if they will ever know anything different.

While I was standing and taking photos, I felt a little hand on my leg. A tiny girl, no more than three years old, had wrapped her arm around my knee and was resting her head on my thigh. She didn't look up at me or ask for anything. She just wanted contact. Comfort. Shelter. She wasn't even clinging or grasping me. Just leaning ever so lightly. And as I moved along through the alleys, she stuck with me until, suddenly, I looked down and she was gone. My heart hurts for her and for the fact that I didn't swoop her up in my arms and take her away from there.

July 7, 2008 - Phnom Penh, Cambodia 9:00pm

Yesterday we spent most of the day driving from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh, which is the capital of Cambodia. We drove through 6 hours of rice fields and countryside, and then entered the bustling and decrepid city. The entire city is in utter shambles and chaos. I have only seen a handful of buildings that would pass building inspections in the U.S. and the rest are hollowed out, dirty, segmented versions of city construction. The reasons for this can only be understood with some learning about what the Khmer Rouge regime and war did to this once-prosperous nation, and I will try to go into that in a later posting, but for now you will just have to take my word for it. I can't even imagine an American trillionaire willing to redevelop this city if it was handed to him. I would think it would sooner be completely leveled and start from scratch. Additionally, many of the inhabitants of Phnom Penh live in homemade shacks, tents, and market stalls that line all the streets, so it is an added level of poverty and density.

So, today we got our first real immersion into this city with a meeting at the Vulnerable Children Assistance Organization (VCAO) and then the city dump community. The VCAO is one of the local NGOs that works with trafficking and abuse survivors to not only provide them with the care they need, but to provide them with real options for the future. They provide assistance, education, and advocacy, which includes housing and care, education, and job training. The program requires that after six months of vocational training (for example in sewing), the participants must start a business of their own. They may take out a no-interest loan from VCAO to get them started. It's exciting to see such sustainable after-care programs for victims, as it seems that so many NGOs in the U.S. just want to throw money at victims to help them in the present, without investing the time and energy required to truly change their future. The participants at the VCAO are aged 10-18, with the average age of 13. Just children. The center runs completely on private donations, with a mere $2,000 per month providing for 30-40 children. Unfortunately, the center is currently operating at 400% capacity, as they have lately seen a surge in the mail-order-bride problem. It is becoming increasingly popular for foreign men to hire “marriage brokers” to buy them a wife from a poor nation such as Cambodia. The girls are often sold as children to be married, and then are either abused by their husbands, sold by them to other men, or find out that there is no husband and they are trafficked into brothels. The center also recently had a few children come to them who had been held as slave laborers on fishing boats for the last two years. They escaped when they saw and island in the distance and swam to safety. I asked VCAO's Executive Director, Chea Pyden, what the biggest need for them currently is and his answer surprised me. He said they need more training for their counselors and social workers. I'm excited that I may actually be able to help one day.

After the VCAO we went to a school that they run in the city dump. That's right, IN THE DUMP. There is an entire community of families who live right in the trash. They survive by sifting through garbage and muck all day everyday, and selling anything reusable they find. They have set up tarps as tents and that is where they call home. So do their children. We got to the school just in time to walk the kids back to their homes. Many of the kids were barefoot, walking through garbage that I hesitated to step on with my shoes. They also had more than their fair share of open wounds and infections. And yet they happily led us from their one-room schoolhouse, through the trash piles, to their own tents in the dump. And then the stench hit me. It was like nothing have ever smelled before. It took every ounce of my will not to gag in front of them. We were given surgical masks before arriving to help us with the smell, but I didn't want to offend or alienate these people any more than I had to. I already feel torn about “touring” their lives as if they were some attraction or freak show. I keep telling myself that it is for a good purpose, but it still feels demeaning. The people that I've met don't seem to mind. They are completely gracious, if not somewhat guarded. I can't say that I blame them. Especially since our guide told us that rape and assault is a huge problem there, since local men know that they can enter the dump community and do what they wish with no threat of legal repercussions. In any case, our time in the dump community was haunting. Later that night, when we were sitting in our luxurious hotel rooms, Alessandro reminded me that right now, those kids that we had held hands with and walked home from school with were sleeping in the rotting stinking garbage that we happily fled from earlier. And they will continue to, day in and day out, unless they are able to make the most of the education that the VCAO program is providing and dare to dream of more. I just don't know if they even know what else to dream of. And if they did, what would that do to them now?

July 5, 2008 - Tonle Sap Lake, Cambodia 7:00pm

Cambodia has a huge lake called Tonle Sap, which is the center of their fishing, rice, and boating industry. The lake is also home to a fair sized population of the Cambodian people. I don't mean that they live around the lake, I mean on the lake. The lake hosts what are referred to as floating villages. Floating villages are exactly what they sound like. People construct houses out of twigs and wood, and other materials that float. There are entire villages created out of floating houses and market boats that bring items along the lake for purchase. The people who live in these villages may spend years never setting foot on land.

We spent the day on a boat touring these floating villages today. Though it may sound somewhat luxurious to live in such a village, I can assure you that it is nothing like the houseboats and Venitian villas that may come to mind. The citizens of the floating villages are among the poorest in Cambodia. Because of this, they are especially vulnerable to the dangers of human trafficking; mostly because they are easier to exploit as they need money, and partly because when kidnapped or assaulted, they have no access to the police or court system. The police and courts here function on an unofficial “fee for service” system, meaning that unless you pay them, you will get no help. The floating villagers are self-sustained in that they barter among themselves for food and goods. They also live in extremely close quarters, with a family of 5 or 6 dwelling in a 5'x6' floating shack. As wrong as it feels to say it, I can understand a little more what would lead a family in this situation to sell a child. Not only do they desperately need the money, but they also have neither the space nor resources to support them.

Strangely enough, as we boated through the villages, I felt calmer than I have since I've been here. I recognize that the people I was seeing were poor and struggling, and that I couldn't survive one day in their lives...but I don't think that realization went both ways. From what I could tell, they didn't seem all that unhappy. Weary: yes; unhappy: no. How could a person living in a shack the size of a closet, with no money to their names, living on nothing but sun-dried fish and lotus roots be happy? I know plenty of people with a gazillion times what they have who seem a lot more unhappy than what I saw. The only thing I can think is that they aren't comparing themselves to anything or anyone else. This is the only way of life that they know, and within that they are successful. They aren't sitting on their rafts thinking, “man, if only I were living in Mountain View, California, I would be sipping Starbucks while watching a video in my huge one-bedroom air-conditioned apartment I share with my cat.”

Meanwhile, we Americans compare ourselves constantly to others to see who has more, newer, bigger, better. And that's what makes us unhappy. We set standards for ourselves based on a reality that is not our own. We want want want. And what does it get us? It gets me pity for a people that are only pitiful according to my own lifestyle. It reminds me that I'm blessed and spoiled at the same time. It makes me question the American tendency to want to “save” other nations and cultures from lifestyles and realities that we deem inferior. But what would my interference get these people in the floating villages? Other than more food to fill their bellies, I have nothing to offer them. Nothing of value in their lives. I would only demote them from happily existing in their own sphere, to unhappily struggling in a different one.

I still believe that nobody deserves to be subjected to the inhumanities and degradation inherent in human trafficking, and I will still continue my fight to prevent that. But I am also learning to re-evaluate my ideas of need and pity. Perhaps it is more degrading to them for me to assume that they must be miserable and need my help, than to respect our differences and merely honor our shared humanity.