Another Step Backwards on the Human Rights Front

Cambodia arrests rights activist

By Guy De Launey BBC, Pnomh Penh

One of Cambodia's most prominent human rights activists has been arrested and charged with criminal defamation.

Kem Sokha, as leader of the Cambodian Center for Human Rights, has been a prominent critic of the government.

A number of opposition figures have been charged with defamation - which can be a criminal offence under Cambodian law - in recent weeks.

Foreign diplomats have expressed concern that charges are being used to silence and intimidate the opposition.

The government has defended its right to prosecute people who it says have broken the law.

Police surrounded the headquarters of the Cambodian Center for Human Rights in the middle of the morning.

They held warrants to search the building and to arrest the organisation's leader.

Foreign diplomats and the United Nations' Human Rights representative tried to intervene but police barred them from entering.

Eventually, Kem Sokha emerged and police took him to court.

The defamation charge stems from a banner displayed at a rally to mark International Human Rights Day earlier this month.

One of the organisers of the rally also faces charges.

It means that four critics of the government are now in jail awaiting trial.

Five more have left the country rather than face imprisonment.

Last week, the opposition leader, Sam Rainsy, was sentenced in absentia to 18 months in prison for defaming the leaders of the governing coalition.

Grandparents come for a Christmas visit

Nathan's parents, Dick and Beth, have been in Cambodia for nearly a week. We had a few days together, then they went up to Angkor Wat, and returned yesterday. They'll stay until Jan. 4.
Apparently Ben decided he wanted to impress them. He took his first steps (not on his own yet, but holding on to Grandpa's fingers) yesterday and Daddy discovered his first tooth barely poking through the gums today!

Here are some photos of the fun we've been having together:

Grandma and Ellie reading a story

Grandpa helps to feed Ben

Ben likes to grab on to the Christmas ornaments

All dressed up for Christmas Eve church

Ellie has Christmas cookies and carrots all ready for Santa and his reindeer. There's no chimney in our tropical house, so we just left the plate under the tree. Word on the street is that Santa liked the cookies, and left some nice presents in exchange.

Justice Past Due in Cambodia

The Washington Post editorial below describes one of the aspects of US foreign policy towards Cambodia that I find most surprising: the amazing influence that one hill staffer--not even an elected member of Congress--has on US policy. I guess when it's a small country that not many people are looking at, it's easy for a less prominent person with great connections and firmly held ideas to have lots of influence.

Justice Past Due in Cambodia

By Nathaniel Myers
Saturday, December 24, 2005; A17

PHNOM PENH -- Speaking to a Senate subcommittee two years ago, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said that, given the level of "lawlessness and impunity" in the country under discussion, it made "no sense" to even consider convening a human rights tribunal to conduct trials on the heinous crimes of the ousted regime. The country he was referring to was not Iraq -- though it certainly could have been -- but Cambodia, where the United Nations had just finished negotiations with the government to establish a joint tribunal to prosecute surviving leaders of the Khmer Rouge.

That tribunal is expected to open its doors soon, staffed by a mix of international and Cambodian jurists and funded by a group of states led by Japan. The United States, however, is not expected to be among the donors. The contrast is startling: The United States will spend some $75 million over two years to support the tribunal in Iraq, despite widespread concerns about its competence, security and independence, and yet it has budgeted not a dollar for the Cambodian counterpart, which will confront the worst genocide since World War II.

America's refusal to support the Cambodian tribunal has a personal history. It begins in 1997, when grenades were thrown into an opposition rally in Phnom Penh organized by the Sam Rainsy Party. Sixteen people were killed and many more injured, one of them a staffer from the International Republican Institute (IRI). Paul Grove, who had headed the IRI office in Cambodia a few years earlier, was among many who blamed the attack on Prime Minister Hun Sen, Cambodia's long-serving strongman. Today, Grove is the influential chief of staff for the Senate foreign operations appropriations subcommittee, and his distrust of Hun Sen is shared by his boss, Sen. McConnell, the subcommittee's chairman.

As a result of their efforts, the Foreign Operations Appropriations Acts of the past two years have prohibited American funding for -- as the 2004 version bluntly put it -- "any tribunal established by the Government of Cambodia." The senator and his staffer worried that because the tribunal would include Cambodian judges, Hun Sen would hijack the process.

Their concern is well founded, given the politicized and corrupt nature of the Cambodian judiciary, but it misses the point: It is precisely this threat of political interference that should spur the United States to participate in the process. Consider the example of Cambodian civil society organizations. They share America's concerns about Hun Sen's intentions, but rather than boycotting the tribunal, they have resolved to do all they can to increase its effectiveness. U.S. engagement is desperately needed, in coordination with the other donors, to monitor the court, to pressure the government, to assist investigations, to support nongovernmental organizations and to otherwise regulate and support the process to ensure that those fears are not realized. The United States is right to be skeptical of Hun Sen's intentions, but America's absence at the tribunal does nothing to weaken Hun Sen's grip on power and much to lessen the likelihood that the tribunal will realize its potential to help Cambodians -- all the while undercutting America's already battered global credibility on international justice.

Without strong international engagement, including an active American role, the tribunal is unlikely to succeed. And the stakes are high: Cambodia is still traumatized by the Khmer Rouge rule, which resulted in the deaths of 2 million people -- nearly a quarter of the entire population -- between 1975 and 1979. For a people still only beginning to recover, an effective tribunal process would represent a significant step toward achieving closure, marking a break with the past and the beginning of a new Cambodia that respects law and order. It would finally hold accountable many suspects who continue to live freely and openly in Cambodia.

Fortunately, it is not too late. The 2006 Foreign Operations Appropriations Act, signed by President Bush last month, omits any mention of the tribunal, thereby finally opening the door to American support. This tribunal, imperfect though it may be, is the last real chance to hold accountable the elderly Khmer Rouge leadership. It is time for the United States to get involved in ensuring the Khmer Rouge tribunal is everything Cambodians deserve. It is a gamble -- but a gamble worth taking.

The writer is former adviser to a coalition of Cambodian nongovernmental organizations on issues concerning the Khmer Rouge tribunal.

Merry Christmas from Phnom Penh

Sending warm holiday wishes to all our friends and family.

Love, Ben, Jennifer, Ellie and Nathan (the willing photographer)

Playdate du jour

One of our favorite new ways of socializing is to host playdates. (How completely pathetic does that sound to you childless folks out there?) We get to talk to other adults while also spending time with our kids, Ben and Ellie love having new kids to play with, and their friends enjoy playing with some new toys and new kids for a while. The hosting demands are pretty low, too: coffee and juice, pumpkin bread and fruit, and you're set.

Here are a few pics from the playdate du jour:

Ellie and Erik take turns on the slide.



Ben and the other kids really loved being in the playhouse this morning. Note the protective Mommy arm steadying Ben, who isn't yet standing on his own. (I promise I'm making silly faces at Lucca, not preparing to bite his fingers off.)

Buddhist Blessing of the New US Embassy

Last weekend we moved in to the new embassy, a lovely, modern building that is quite chilly due to AC problems but otherwise a great place to work. Our previous embassy was the fifth temporary location during the 55-year diplomatic relationship. It was just a collection of old houses jerry-rigged together. (Getting to my office required walking up the exterior staircase on one building, crossing a makeshift bridge from one balcony to another, and walking up another metal exterior staircase.) One of my Cambodian staff members told me that when she enters the embassy, she feels like she's left Cambodia and entered the US. (She assured me this was a good thing.) Another said that he finally feels like a professional. It's been a good change for all of us.

In fact, the new embassy is so lovely, it's become a popular spot for Cambodians to pose for wedding pictures.



This Friday, we had a Buddhist blessing for the new embassy. In Cambodia, Buddhist monks are often asked to bless new organizations, corporate ventures, and buildings. We think that we are the first embassy to have a Buddhist blessing, and we see it as an important sign of respect to Cambodia and to our Cambodian colleagues.

The VIPs on the move: Sharon Mussomeli, Protocol Assistant Naroat Hoy, Ambassador Joseph Mussomeli, the Governor of Phnom Penh, DCM Mark Storella



Making sure everything is ready for the monks.

Monks are highly honored in Cambodian society. Everyone has to remove their shoes and kneel when they approach (note to Mr. Blue Shirt: next time choose less ventilated socks), and you even have to use a special vocabulary when speaking to them. The embassy leadership offered them gifts before the blessing.

The senior monk.

Although some Buddhists do commit their lives to the monastery, being a Buddhist monk or nun is not typically a lifelong calling. Many Cambodian men spend several months or years as a monk as young people--a coming of age time similar to college or compulsory military service in other countries. Monks take a vow of poverty and give up their possessions and shave their heads as signs of humility. Every morning, they go begging for food to feed themselves. (In Phnom Penh there's recently been a scandal involving fake monks who beg for food to feed their families.) Monks also take a vow of chastity, and women are not permitted to touch them.



Ambassador Mussomeli makes a few remarks.

The actual blessing at the embassy Seal.

Friends in my Christmas Stocking

The other day, I figured that it was time I sit Ellie down and tell her about Santa Claus.

Think for a minute about how bizarre that is. Every other American 2 year old has surely been pointing to signs of the jolly red and white guy and asking who that is, and clearly understands that Santa is the one who brings the presents. And for sure, if Ellie were in the US, that is exactly what she would be doing. She is obsessed with knowing everyone's name--people standing in the checkout lane at the grocery store, people in ads in magazines, all of the minor fish characters in Finding Nemo. But here in Cambodia, there is no Santa, there are no Christmas decorations, and there are definitely no holiday sales. Christmas exists to the extent that we and our friends create it.

So, anyway, it was time to explain to Ellie, from scratch, who Santa was. I don't think she got much of it. "Presents" is a concept that she understood, but "chimney" and "reindeer" were way beyond her. She understands that specific actions are good or bad, but classifying her behavior as a whole as either positive or negative is way to abstract for her. I kept going with this explanation, knowing that Ellie really wasn't getting most of this, when I got to the consequences of being bad. What preschooler has any idea what coal is? Heck, I think I can honestly say that I've never seen a lump of coal in my life and I'm--as Ellie says--"firty".

So I explain about coal, expecting a look of total bewilderment, when Ellie pipes up "And Sam and Nina, too!" because to Ellie, "coal" = her 8 year old friend Cole Buford. And as long as Santa is putting Cole in her stocking, wouldn't he put Cole's siblings in there, too?

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We have a camera!

OK, I know most of you don't visit this site for our insightful commentary or our witty stories. Thanks for sticking by us during the photo drought of 2005.

Our replacement camera just arrived and, in celebration, here are some photos from tonight:

Ed and Ellie toast their G&T's to celebrate the conclusion of another hard day of play

"Good construction technique, little bro"

"I love climbing on things so much I don't care if I bonk my head when I try to stand up!"

Elderly on the loose!

Do you recognize these folks?


Me neither. This was one of the photos on our new, used camera which Dick--the man with the bargain connections--got us used for a good price. For just $100 plus a new $70 memory card, we bought back the model we used to have!

Anyhow, our thanks to these good folks (who Ed tells me are from Ascension Lutheran Church in Albert Lea, MN) for passing on their camera to the camera-less. Don't they just look delighted at having done such a great deed?

Got milk?

[This post refers to events that took place about one week ago. Sorry for the delay posting.]

We don't have any milk. Not the Spande family. Phnom Penh. Out of milk. The whole city. All they have is soy milk and those little tiny single serving boxes of milk. Those work fine for Ellie, but trying to make something and cutting open three or four of those things gets kind of annoying. Eventually more milk will come, I am sure, but that could take a while. It has already been several days, and since the Water Festival shuts down almost everything, we can safely assume that we won't have any for several more days.

This is one of those events that makes me really remember where we are living. Some days it feels almost normal here. We can get most foods that we are used to, we listen to NPR and in the evenings watch Desperate Housewives or The Daily Show. And then the city runs out of milk. Ah, Cambodia.

[Note - we have milk again. The Great Milk Shortage of 2005 lasted for 5 days. We now have extra milk always on hand in the pantry.]

Don't take my Kodachrome away

In Mexico, I kept talking about painting some of the walls in our apartment and never got around to doing it. This time, I vowed, would be different. So last week we hired two embassy maintenance guys to paint some walls in our house for us. My friend Sumali helped pick out the colors. Two were a huge success--a beautiful sage-y green on one wall in the living room which goes perfectly with the tanish, greenish chairs and the Mexican painting we have there, and a wonderful pumpkin color in Ellie's room (sounds weird but looks good). Another one was sort of a wash-out--this nice cafe-au-lait color which doesn't really show up as so different from the three white walls in the room. I guess the lighting isn't as good as we thought.

But there's one that I'm afraid we might have to redo. We chose what we thought was a nice, sunny yellow for one very long wall in the family room. Now that the paint is on the wall, it doesn't look like sunny yellow. It looks like fluorescent highlighter yellow. It's somewhat better now that we have furniture against the wall again, and Ed thinks it will improve still further once the pictures are up, but I'm not so sure. On the plus side, it could make us more productive. No more need for naps or early bed time--just stand facing the neon wall for a few minutes and we'll be instantly refreshed!

Defending Thanksgiving

Our last experience of Thanksgiving overseas was a rather miserable Thanksgiving buffet at Marie Callendar's in Mexico City. The food was pretty good and the company was amiable, but overall I found the experience of eating in a restaurant with a group of acquaintances united mostly by our lack of other plans to be thoroughly depressing. Those of you living near family are so lucky to know that you will have a place to go for the holidays. In any case, we were determined not to have a repeat of that experience this year. Not knowing what others' plans were for the holiday, we decided the only way to make sure we had a nice Thanksgiving was to organize it ourselves. So we did. It went well, but not without some serious hard work defending the holiday from several threats:

1. Football--An extremely nice and helpful new family heard our plan to play board games after the meal and kindly offered to bring a tape of a football game that someone had recently mailed them. This was really nice and very well-intentioned, but they seemed rather shocked when I explained that we were football-free by choice. In the end, everyone had a great time chatting and we never played board games. But thank goodness we didn't have to talk over the noise of a football game.

2. The Plague--OK, so maybe it wasn't the plague exactly, but some sort of stomach bug has been going around the embassy recently. When the family that said they would co-host the event with us got sick and said they couldn't make it, we were worried. But when they insisted on sending over the desserts and turkey they had made anyway, we got really worried. I imagined 30 people getting sick after dinner at my house and Ben and Ellie battling the dehydration and other side effects of gastrointestinal illnesses that can be serious in little ones. Much debate followed about the infectiousness of this illness. Was it a bacteria or a virus? Could a virus spread on food, or did it need a live host? Hadn't the colonists killed the Indians with small pox-infected blankets? In the end, it took a lot of persistence, tact, and a call to the local clinic, but eventually I ascertained that the desserts had been baked before anyone got sick and were probably OK, and I convinced them to let us bring the defrosted turkey to our place to cook here so that they wouldn't be handling cooked food. Three days later, no reports of illness.

3. Too many people--When we were thinking about who to invite, we started with our closest friends here in Cambodia, and then added other people who were nice and who we thought were at risk of having a depressing Thanksgiving--either because they were new or single. We ended up with a long list, but figured we could invite them anyway because surely many of them would have other plans.

Then people kept saying yes. And other people kept asking if we could invite other folks who wouldn't have a place to go for Thanksgiving. And then one person apologized for having already invited some folks who wouldn't have a place to go. And so somehow our already somewhat overwhelming invite list ballooned further to 35 adults and 11 kids. How were we going to pull this off?

Fortunately, then people started to say no. And then lots of people cancelled at the last minute. We lost 6 people to "the plague", one to work, and one to a boss' Thanksgiving party that ran late. And, in the winner of the "lame excuse" category, lost one to someone who got so tuckered out golfing that he fell asleep and missed our Thanksgiving party...all five hours of it...without calling to let us know. So then we ended up with 22 people, which was just about right. Still a little bit big, but everyone had a terrific time, and so many people told us how glad they were that we invited them and how long it had been since they had a real Thanksgiving dinner with a family. And, in the end, I'm sure we could have squeezed in a few more.

Oh Burma!

As if being a pariah wasn't enough, Than Shwe and the other members of the "State Peace and Development Council", aka the ruling military junta, have decided to show the world how crazy they truly are. With only 48 hours notice, they moved the capital from Rangoon to Pyinmana, a small town in central Burma. Civil servants were told they would have to move or be prosecuted as traitors. Oh, and they can't bring their families.

Why did they do such a radical thing? Well, most people seem to believe it was on advice of the astrologers who serve the junta. That's right, the psychic hotline folks told them to move the capital, so they did. Another theory is that the junta is very concerned that the US might invade. As if anybody in the US even could find Burma on a map. I mean, come on folks. The whole scenario is both sad and comic. I suddenly find myself looking in the papers here for news of the latest shenanigans from Rangoon... I mean Pyinmana. Of course, living in a brutal military dictatorship isn't funny, but you have to wonder if all those Burmese folks in Rangoon aren't breathing a sigh of relief. At least the ones who didn't have to leave their families behind or risk being executed. Yeah...

All this leaves me feeling slightly better about the state of affairs here in Cambodia. Sure the government seems intent on locking up anybody who looks at Hun Sen funny, but at least we're not likely to see a move to some tiny village for fear that we are next on W's hitlist.

Are we?

Off to KL and back

Well, if you've read Jen's Ben and Ellie post, you've perhaps noticed that we just got back from a few days in KL. That's Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, for those who aren't familiar with the lingo. It was our first real expedition from PP (Phnom Penh, expats here like initials for complicated city names), and went quite well. We had a bit of an inauspicious start, when I left our camera in the back seat of a taxi on our first full day. Luckily, I guess, we hadn't had a chance to shoot any pictures, so we didn't lose anything that can't be replaced.

KL is an incredibly modern city, developed and still cheap. The developed part was obvious from the beginning. A very nice airport, then driving into the city you see Petronas Towers, two of the largest skyscrapers in the world. The other striking thing is how clean the city is. PP has a problem common to much of the developing world - trash. Many people have no trash cans, and so just cart bags, or piles, of trash out to the street to wait for the garbage truck. This means that, among other things, there is almost always at least one pile of trash on every block, along with bits of trash that missed pickup, or blew away from the main pile. It isn't overwhelming, but it is always there. KL, at least in the parts we saw, was nothing like this. Amazingly clean. Lovely. In addition, many of the taxis there run on natural gas, which made the air so nice to breathe. The taxis took us all over, for basically $2.50 a trip. A darn good deal.

It has been said that Malaysians have two great loves - eating and shopping. We tried a bit of each, and we certainly had some very good food. We also enjoyed the shopping malls, although we bought almost nothing. The mall nearest us had a movie theater, which was showing Corpse Bride, the newest Tim Burton film. It was lovely being able to see a movie at all, and having it in English was even more of a treat. There was also a Border's bookstore, where we picked up a few new books for cheap (including Freakonomics, which Jen highly recommends).

Ellie liked the swimming pool at the hotel, but she loved the enormous playground with wading pool in the public park nearby. She went there three times in our four days, and would have liked to stay longer to play more. We also went to a fantastic aquarium, and an impressive bird park, which had the best set of birds I've ever seen. The bird park is enclosed by nets, meaning that there was even minimal fear of avian flu, since there is no contamination from the general avian population.

On a more adult tourist theme, Jen and I took advantage of the kids napping to see the National Mosque and the Islamic Art Museum. Malaysia is a predominantly Muslim country, but they are very moderate and tolerant of other religous groups. There are several Christian churches in KL, along with Hindu and Buddhist presences, thanks to the large Indian and Chinese communities.

Part of our goal in visiting was to scope it out as a potential place to serve later on. I think we are both extremely impressed, and if a good job popped up we would try for it. A great city, and a nice place to be able to go to get back to that northern Virginia feel of intense heat, tall buildings, and strip malls. It sounds odd, but after living in PP for a while, the sight of a strip mall is oddly comforting.

Ben and Ellie Tidbits

Ben

After several weeks of being content to just roll where he wanted to go, Ben has mastered the commando crawl. Crawling around pulling your body behind you is so inefficient, he can't move all that fast. We've read that babies often start off crawling commando style and then graduate to a more traditional crawl on their knees.

Ben loves to stand up. He can't quite grip the coffee table well enough for that to be really effective, but if we stand him up in front of a baby gate (which has long vertical slats) he loves it. He's surprisingly strong--he can hold himself pretty steady, and even managed to hang from a monkey bar for a few seconds in KL a few days ago. (With mom's hands just waiting to catch him when he fell, of course.)

Ben had his first haircut on Monday. Nothing fancy--just a little trim around the ears and cutting off the few super-long strands that made him look like a baby with a combover. His hair has lightened a bit since he was born, and it's more dirty blond now.

Still no teeth, but he likes soft fingerfoods like pumpkin bread and dragon fruit. He's lactose intolerant (as was Ellie) so he's on soy formula.

New nicknames: Tutto Benne, Baby Benana. He also hears "No Ben!" from Ellie so much that he probably thinks that is his name.

Ellie

Ellie is amazingly verbal--in fact, her brain can't quite keep pace with her tongue, and she ends up saying really silly things. After hearing me shout for my husband umpteen times, she now things that "Hey, Ed!" means "Attention, everyone!" and often shouts "Hey, Ed!" when she wants my attention. When we were on vacation, we taught her that we had left Cambodia and were now in Malaysia. But a few hours later, when we asked her what country we were in, she said "Hotel!" She also loves using the computer, or as she calls it, "piccuter". And she's started unconsciously throwing our language back at us: "We'll see" and "Maybe next time" are things she's heard so often she uses them on us!

Along with her verbosity, Ellie loves to sing. But songs that end by repeating the first line--like Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star--really confuse her. She can never figure out where to stop, so she just keeps going and going! She often sings herself to sleep.

Ellie has a good memory for names and faces, but not surprisingly she can't really separate out the important people in our lives from the strangers. So after striking up a conversation with a stranger in the grocery store, she'll still be asking about them 3 days later. Standing in line to board our flight back to Phnom Penh, she recited her own full name, and then our full names, and then asked everyone around her for their names.

Ellie got a brand new "kid potty" on Monday. We were worried that she would be afraid of it, but in fact it was quite the opposite--we couldn't get her to leave the bathroom. One accident seems to have dampened her enthusiasm and she requested diapers rather than training pants this morning. Could be a long process.

Ellie is just getting in to imaginative play. Just now she put her doll down for a nap before she went to bed, and lately she's been telling us that her stuffed animals and Gumby need to have their diapers changed. The three stuffed animals she sleeps with (we call them her "sleepytime friends") have now become a dad (a ghost) and two kids (a bear and a dog).

Routine is all important to Ellie, down to the last detail. Bed time can often be a battle, and she will dictate that we do things exactly the same way each time, down to where we stand next to her crib and who hands her her water glass.

Halloween in Cambodia

Happy Halloween from Cambodia's Cutest Dinosaurs!

Phnom Penh really knows how to do Halloween right.

I'm sure that comes as a surprise, but the Halloween we experienced on the 28th was one of the coolest I remember. A local American expat--who comes from a part of DC known for its over the top Halloween celebrations--organized trick or treating and a pizza party afterwards. She solicited volunteers in our largely expat neighborhood to hand out candy, and then produced a map showing all the houses that were participating. She also lined up a fleet of tuk tuks (small motorcycles pulling a passenger compartment--sort of similar to a golf cart) to ferry trick or treaters around from one house to the next.

Riding in the tuk tuk with Jeevan, another neighborhood kid

It was terrific! I went out with Ellie while Nathan and Ben stayed home to hand out candy. Ellie was afraid of the tuk tuk at first (it was her first time) but warmed up to it quickly and really enjoyed it as long as she was sitting on my lap. We went around with an acquaintance and her son. Ellie loved seeing all the kids in costumes. And back at home, Nathan and Ben received lots of trick or treaters who they all thought Ben was adorable in his dinosaur suit.

Ellie tended to hang back and not even make it up to the candy bowl many times (which was fine by me). Jeevan really took her under his wing, and by the end, he was slipping her his candy!

The pizza party afterwards was a bit loud and chaotic for our little ones, but the fireworks (which were really in honor of the first anniversary of the king's reign) really stole the show.

In contrast to that well-organized event, the embassy trick or treating, which happened on Halloween itself, was a bust. It wasn't scheduled to start until 6, with a pizza party starting at 7--too late for us and many other parents. Then the bus that was supposed to ferry us from one embassy home to another was 25 minutes late. As it was, we walked from the starting point to one other embassy home to go trick or treating there, and then went home. Nathan was disappointed he didn't get to take the kids trick or treating more, but Ellie didn't know the difference and we both agreed it was most important that the kids stick to as normal a schedule as possible. And as it was, Ellie still was 45 minutes late for bed.

Water Babies

Our new Sunday morning routine is to head to the swimming pool. The embassy worked out a deal to get us free access to the pool at a local hotel. We often have the pool to ourselves--there's a nicer and more popular one nearby, but we'd have to pay something like $15/morning just to get access.

Yesterday Ben got to his use his baby boat for the second time. We bought it for Ellie, but she hated the water when she was little and would never go in it. Ben loves it. Sometimes Ed and I take turns using Ben and his boat as a kickboard and do a few laps up and down the length of the pool. Gotta get a little bit of activity in somehow.




Ellie tested out her water wings for the first time yesterday. She was so excited to have them she had been wearing them at home. But actually using them to float in the pool was both thrilling and frightening. She clutched my finger and as I pulled her around slowly, she kept saying "Little bit scared...little bit scared..."

Baring it all

Couldn't help sharing this classic pose. Nice bum, little guy!

Job update

Well, Monday was the interview with the director of Yejj, and overall it went very well. I think there's a good chance that I will wind up doing a bit of teaching for them, and probably a bit of consulting with some of their clients as well. The money we talked about was even quite good, at least by Cambodian standards. He clearly is impressed by my credentials, and I don't think I looked like an idiot in the interview either.

Now is the hard part. He's got a million things going on, and I have just the kids. I check my e-mail constantly. I have no idea when exactly I'll hear more, so I just want to know NOW. Ugh. Oh well, I'll keep you posted.

Early Morning Self Portrait

Ben Photo Gallery

There were a plethora of Ellie photos recently and I've gotten several requests for more Ben pics. I'm happy to provide them, but let me add a comment here from my guilty conscience. It may seem like Ellie gets more coverage in the blog, but trust us, that's not because we love her more. She's just at this age where she does so many cute things. Now, don't get me wrong, Ben is also adorable. But Ellie is the one who puts on silly hats, had her second birthday and first day of school in the same weekend, and told us tonight at dinner, "You're driving me nuts, Mom!" (She also grabbed Ben's hand and pumped it up and down saying "Nice meet you, Ben.") For now, Ben plays on the floor, puts toys in his mouth, and blabbers. It's adorable, but just doesn't make for a great vignette or photo the way some of Ellie's antics do. But I'm sure he'll be stiff competition for Ellie in a few months...

So, with no further ado, some Ben shots...

"Don't Make the Voices Go Away"

This is what Ed said to me the other afternoon. He may be suffering from child-induced schizophrenia, but in this instance he was actually referring to the voices of NPR. Yes, NPR, all the way out here in sleepy Cambodia. Thanks to a WorldSpace Radio (thanks, Beth and Dick!), a subscription, and some wireless speakers, we now have NPR. Ed is beyond excited. When we finally got the password needed to use the radio, he bounded out of the computer room and lunged for the radio. I think the last time he was so happy was Ben's birth--and NPR requires no night time feedings.

We get the NPR feed mostly live, which means Morning Edition in the evening (it's wierd winding down to their pep-you-up music), All Things Considered in the morning, and then ATC again in the afternoon. Which is a lot of ATC. Which is why Ed said not to make the voices go away. He thinks they're soothing, even if he has heard the show four times already.

Childrearing Time Share Available

Difficulty conceiving? Thinking of having your own children but worried about the commitment and loss of your independence? Concerned about overpopulation? We have the answer.

Two loving but frazzled parents seek like-minded couple to share the raising of their wonderful but demanding children. The older child, Elena, is a bright and fiesty two-year-old who loves her little brother, bathtub fingerpaints, stickers, and smelling things around the house. The younger child, Ben, is a generally happy eight-month-old who enjoys sucking on anything within arms' reach and has remarkably flexible and expressive tongue. Children are available two weekends and ten weekdays a month, holidays to be negotiated. Prospective co-parents must be well-educated, progressive, and with a commitment to hands-on parenting. NPR addiction a plus. Send statement of interest and audiotape of reading "Brown Bear, Brown Bear What do you See?" ten times (yes, ten times in a row--no cheating please) to Jennifer Spande, 100 When Do I Get My Life Back Lane, No Playground Here, Cambodia 99999. Only finalists will be contacted.

"Growing, bearing, mothering or fathering, supporting, and at last letting go of an infant is a powerful and mundane creative act that rapturously sucks up whole chunks of life." --From Louise Erdrich's The Blue Jay's Dance

Ben update

Ben has been changing a ton recently, at least that's how it feels to us. I think it comes with the age. Jen came home from her three days in Manila and said it seemed like he had aged three months, not three days. That certainly happens these days.

His newest trick is sitting up without help. He's done it for a while now, but he just loves to sit now, and he can sit and play for half an hour without help. The only time he needs to fall over is when he wants to move. So he'll sit and play, then fall over on purpose and roll over to the toy he wants. Unfortunately he can't get back up, but that doesn't bother him too much.

He's also eating lots of new foods. His newest attempts have been mango (loved it), peas (loved them), and bananas (hated at first, now loves them). Today with the bananas, I was holding him while I peeled one, intending to mush it in a bowl. He grabbed it, and stuck it in his mouth. He them proceeded to gnaw off about half of it with his gums before giving up. I was mightily impressed. He then ate two more full bananas. Oh, I should note that these are the "baby size" tropical bananas, not the big ones we get in the States. He ate something less than a normal US sized banana. He's big, but not that big.

He is also talking a ton. He and Ellie will have conversations sometimes, with Ellie imitating his sounds and having a great time. The only real meaningful "word" so far seems to be "mamamamamamama" which means something like "Hey! I'm hungry! Feed me more!".

Finally, he is starting to show some interest in crawling. After months of wanting nothing more than to roll onto his back as soon as he is on his tummy, he now spends more or less equal time on his back and his tummy. When on his tummy, he usually will push himself up on his arms, and make motions like he is trying to crawl. No movement forward or backward yet, but it is bound to happen sometime soon.

Well, that's about all for now. He is awake from his nap, and is not content to just lie on the ground with the dragon and mirror toys.

Work Gets Interesting...

Cambodian domestic politics have heated up considerably in the last week, but recent events are getting surprisingly little attention in the international media. Here's what Human Rights Watch had to say:

Cambodia: Prime Minister Moves to Crush Dissent

Activists Flee in Wake of Arrests, New Assault on Freedom of Speech

(New York, October 18, 2005)—The government of Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen should release recently arrested critics of the government, withdraw all arrest warrants against activists, and end the climate of fear that he has created in recent days, Human Rights Watch said today.

In response to criticism over a new border pact with Vietnam, Hun Sen has launched a sharp and sudden crackdown on dissent. Authorities have arrested the president of an independent teachers association and the director of Cambodia's only independent national radio station, and they have ordered the arrests of other civil society leaders.

Many of Cambodia's leading human rights advocates, trade union activists, and opposition party members have now fled the country or gone into hiding.

“This is the most severe assault on dissent in Cambodia since the aftermath of Hun Sen's coup in 1997,” said Brad Adams, Asia director of Human Rights Watch. “International donors and embassies must make it clear to Hun Sen that they will not tolerate the reversal of the important strides made in basic human rights during the last decade.”

The crackdown started with Hun Sen's visit on October 10-12 to Vietnam, where he signed a controversial border treaty. On October 10, dozens of armed police officers surrounded the Phnom Penh home of Mom Sonando, director of Beehive Radio FM 105. He was arrested the next morning on charges of defamation after having aired an interview with a Cambodian activist in France who is highly critical of the border treaty.

Upon return to Cambodia, Hun Sen announced that he would prosecute anyone who alleged that he, or the Cambodian government, had “sold land” to Vietnam. Such statements are an “act of treason,” he said.

In a meeting with international investors on October 14, Hun Sen announced that legal action was being taken against four members of the Cambodia Watchdog Council, a nongovernmental organization that had issued a statement on October 11 criticizing the border agreement.

On October 15, police arrested Cambodia Watchdog Council member Rong Chhun, who is also president of the Cambodian Independent Teachers Association, as he was attempting to cross the border to Thailand to seek asylum. No arrest warrant was produced, but he was charged with defamation and incitement under articles 60 and 63 of the Cambodian penal code, which carry prison terms of five years for incitement and one year for defamation and a fine up to $2,500. Charges have also been brought against other members of the Cambodia Watchdog Council, including Chea Mony, President of the Free Trade Union Workers of the Kingdom of Cambodia; Ea Channa, representative of the Student's Movement for Democracy; and Men Nath, president of the Civil Servants Association.

“Legal action should not be used as a tool of repression to silence the political opposition and government critics in Cambodia,” said Adams. “Hun Sen needs to accept that in a democracy leaders will be criticized when they make controversial decisions.”

In a speech broadcast on Cambodian television on October 17, Hun Sen threatened to abolish the monarchy and sack military chief Ke Kim Yan and other officials if they did not abide by his orders. He warned international organizations and foreign governments not to interfere. He called on the Thai government to extradite Cambodians suspected of fleeing to Bangkok over the weekend to seek asylum. (See appendix below).

The Cambodian government is now pressuring the Thai government to return individuals who have fled to Thailand for sanctuary. Returning persons to a place where they face persecution would violate the strict international legal prohibition against non-refoulement.

“The Thai government should not even discuss the return of individuals who are facing persecution for the peaceful expression of their political beliefs,” said Adams. “To do so would make Thailand complicit in this assault on free expression.”

Certainly makes for an interesting week at work!

Cambodia's Newest Two-Year-Old

Happy Birthday, Ellie!

Today is Ellie's birthday, but that lucky girl has already had two birthday parties. Saturday we had a joint party with Charlie, a friend of Ellie's who turned two on Saturday. Charlie's parents, Tom and Laura, hosted, which made it the easiest birthday party we've ever thrown. We brought coffee mugs, fruit, and a cake to their house and they did the rest. Actually, there wasn't a whole lot more to do. It was basically a big playdate with "Happy Birthday" and cake at the end. They even agreed with us to make it a "no gifts" event. We were very happy to keep things low-key and simple.

Everything went well. It turned out to be bigger than we had hoped, but that's because Tom and Laura have been here longer and have more people they feel like they should invite. We ended up meeting some neat new parents, and Ellie and Charlie had a blast.

Dads and squirmy birthday kids
(Tom, Charlie, Ellie, and Nathan)

Casual birthday party for parents and kids

Today we had Ellie's family birthday party. She opened gifts, we sang "Happy Birthday" (for about the 10th time since Saturday. She's really milking this for all it's worth!), and ate cupcakes. She even blew out the candles by herself!

Ellie was supposed to be helping put sprinkles on her cupcakes, but she thought it was more fun to eat them.

Yum! Cake!

In case anyone wondered if a "no-gifts" birthday party and encouragement to to send fewer gifts translated into deprivation, let this photo be proof to the contrary!

Thanks to everyone for the gifts they sent. Now she has some neat new clothes, handmade purse and slippers, lots of new books and stickers, bath toys, two music CD, a music/video/game CD, and several cassettes of family members reading and singing to her, and other fun new toys. She'll be occupied for days just trying this stuff out! (And we'll get real thank yous to you later, as she has time to check out all these cool gifts!)

Finger Foods for Ben

Encouraged by some dinner guests who were giving their 10 month old tons of finger food--including grilled cheese sandwiches--to eat, we decided to let Ben have his first go at finger foods. White rice was perfect: bland, sticky, and so cheap it didn't matter that more was on him than in him. And it kept him happy for a few minutes while we ate dinner, which is always a bonus.

Ellie's First Day of Preschool

Monday, in addition to being her birthday, was Ellie's first day of preschool. If starting pre-school at 2 seems a bit young, we agree. We thought it was really wierd when we arrived in Phnom Penh that everyone kept asking us if we were going to put Ellie in preschool. But we quickly learned that there are several high-quality, cheap, international preschools here. More importantly, since there are no parks or libraries, having your child go to preschool buys them access to playground equipment and a natural place to meet other kids.

We had three preschool options: Tchou Tchou, the French preschool; ICAN, a British-style preschool; and Garden & Gecko, a montessori preschool. We didn't really see the point of exposing Ellie to French when she's already exposed to Khmer and we have no plans to serve in a French-speaking country, so we ruled that out quickly. I toured the ICAN facility and it seemed impressive, but we heard from other parents that "British-style" means a heavy emphasis on academics from a very young age--not something we thought was appropriate for little kids. Ed toured Garden & Gecko. He liked the director, and during circle time--the closest thing they have to formal instruction--the 3 year olds were learning to do the hokey pokey. That seemed about the right level of formal instruction to us, so when a new class for 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 year olds opened up, we signed Ellie up the first day. She'll be going a total of 9 hours a week--3 hours/morning, 3 days/week.

Ellie did great on her first day! Nathan and I both went to drop her off and we were prepared to stay for an hour or so until she settled in and felt comfortable. We ended up leaving after ten minutes. No tears, no anxieties. She started playing with puzzles right away and seemed to like her teacher. In fact, I think saying goodbye was harder on her dad than on her.

That's Major Spande to you

Today was a big day, at least by our standards. As most of you know, Ellie turns 2 on Monday. She has a number of friends from playgroup who are also turning two this week, and one of them, Charlie, is two today. His mom and I had decided to have a joint birthday party for the kids, and since Saturday is a better day than Monday, we had it today. It was basically a biggish play date with two birthday cakes (so each kid could blow out candles). It went well, and Ellie has been singing the Happy Birthday song all day. That was nice, and it was at Charlie's house, so that was even better (less cleanup on our part).

Tonight we had a dinner party at our place, five adults and 3 kids in addition to our family. It was a great success - good food, good conversation, and the kids all had a great time. Mostly new folks, and we all get along well. It is always good to know that the people who we'll be working and playing with for the next few years are good folks.

The best part of the day, however, came as we were just heading over to Charlie's house for the party. We had gotten everybody loaded in the car, and Jen noticed that she had just missed a call from the DCM (the number two guy at the Embassy). She's been working on this report on the AIDS situation here, and she thought there was some problem that needed urgent attention. So we pause in the driveway while she calls him back. All of a sudden Sinen runs to our car to tell us that there is an important phone call inside. I go in, and it is the Embassy calling to say that the DCM needs to talk to Jennifer. Uh oh. I tell them she is calling him back on his cell, and go back to the car. She has the biggest grin on her face as she is talking to him, and I quickly realize what the call is about. She got promoted! This was the first time she was eligible for promotion, and it is a very big deal that every time the Department has been able to do something good for her - tenure first, now promotion to FS-03 - it has done so.

For those of you who don't know the details of the Foreign Service rank system, an FS-03 is the equivalent of a GS-12 or GS-13, and is the same level as an Army Major. There is a modest salary increase that comes with this, but the big thing is that it means people are recognizing that she is doing a fantastic job. The DCM was very impressed that she got tenure and promotion the first time she was reviewed by the relevant commitees. I wasn't shocked, but it is still nice to know that people are paying attention.

Our Seventh Anniversary

We just got back from a lovely weekend celebrating our seventh anniversary at the beach in Sihanoukville. Yes, we're a few weeks late in celebrating, but Oct. 3 and 4 are Cambodian holidays, so we thought we'd wait and take advantage of the long weekend. Here are some photos from the trip:

Job possibility

Jen is really jealous of how I find jobs. A few months before graduation, the technical VP at Epic called up Max, one of my professors, and asked if any of the people on the college ACM programming team were interested in a job. I was, and shortly after that, I was hired. After Epic, I just contacted the Fool because it looked like such a cool place to work, and after a day of interviews there, I was hired. It was the only place I interviewed, or really even seriously applied. After the Fool, I managed to work my way into the job at the Embassy in Mexico, I'm still not sure quite how it happened. One day there was no funding, then a call came to say there was funding and a job if I wanted it. These jobs just happen, and I'm never sure quite how.

It is looking like the same thing is happening yet again. A few weeks ago we had dinner with a British couple that has been here for 10 years or so. They know everybody. She does education work, he does a bunch of things in the NGO world, mainly helping start lefty nonprofit businesses. One of the guys he knows here runs a business called Yejj. They do IT consulting, support, etc, and use the profits to help train disadvantaged Cambodian people. They teach, among other things, workplace skills, IT basics, and English. It looks like a fantastic company, and the director has indicated to me that he thinks I could certainly get a job with them. We just need to sort out the details - how many hours, how much pay, specific responsibilities. So it certainly isn't a sure thing, but it is looking very promising. And I think that I'm ready to get some part-time work. We've got Ellie signed up for 3 mornings a week at a preschool starting on her birthday, and that will give me the time to do something like this, I expect. We'll have to see. In any event, it is nice to pursue to know that my options aren't limited to staying at home. If I decide to stay at home full time still, it will be truly that - my decision.

Julia and others

Ellie loves everything and everybody these days. She literally doesn't know the word hate. She has also been missing Julia. We asked her who she wanted to invite to her birthday party, and without even thinking she said "Julia!". That was followed a few hours later by this:

Ellie: Ellie loves Julia.
Daddy: That's really nice. Julia loves you, too.
Ellie: Ellie loves Melissa.
Daddy: And Aunt Melissa loves you also.
Ellie: Ellie loves Uncle Pete, too.
Daddy: And Uncle Pete loves you.
Ellie: Ellie loves cucumbers.
Daddy: Um... great!

Another exciting croup experience

Ellie and I have been sick for the past few days. At first it was just a cold with a mid-grade fever. Nothing to worry about, we figured. I took her in to the SOS Internatinal clinic here, and the doctor gave her Robitussin and said to keep her comfy with that and ibuprofin. Then yesterday afternoon, about 6 hours later, I hear her cough, and it sounds like a seal. Uh oh. But she changes position (she's sleeping on the sofa at this point) and the cough gets more normal. Ok, perhaps just a false alarm.

Well, needless to say, about 9pm the seals are back, this time with stridor, the wheezy breathing that comes with croup. Jen and I are both remembering January, when we had to take her into the ER in DC because she was having so much difficulty breathing. She's not that bad yet, but we aren't in DC, so we are getting nervous. We call the SOS clinic, and the on-call doctor says to just bring her in so he can examine her and give her the steroids if necessary. We start to rush around, call a good friend to come and just make sure Ben is fine, and when he arrives we zip out to SOS, at around 10pm. The doctor does a lengthy exam, listening to everything, and then they pull out the nebulizer. Ellie screams and fights, but they take a break in the middle to give her steroids, and the second time on the nebulizer she's much calmer, and she even falls asleep at the end.

After we come home, she has a few more awakenings, but she sounds much better, and this morning she woke with no fever. She's been gradually getting better all day. You'd think that was good, but I've been keeping pace with her, only in the opposite direction. I've been spacy and feverish all last night and all day today. I don't quite know what we'll do if she's running around full bore tomorrow, and I'm still like this. We also appear to have infected Sinen, so we are working with just Somany, who has her hands full with Ben. I've been on Ellie duty in order to limit the infection as much as possible. Ah well, we'll see how it goes tomorrow.

The good news is that the SOS took our call very seriously, and is more than capable of handling croup or similar problems. They have a whole mini-ER set up, and there is always somebody on call. That makes us feel a whole lot better about being here.

Em and Aaron come for a visit

Em and Aaron became our first visitors this weekend. We had a lovely and relaxed time shopping at the Russian Market, going to Tuol Sleng, taking the Phnom Penh reality tour (which is what we call Jen getting lost on the way to the Killing Fields), having terrific massages, shopping for silk, eating at an open air bar overlooking the Mekong, and taking Aaron to the SOS Clinic. (OK, that last part wasn't so much fun, but he should be on the mend now!)

The bottom photo is us in front of the Independence Monument, one of the major landmarks in town.

Ellie feeds Ben

Here's Ellie feeding Ben a bottle. She really loves to be involved with him. She's also helped us to feed him solids by sitting on our lap and holding his bowl of food, or putting some rice cereal on his spoon. And she is surprisingly patient with him. Every other word out of her mouth is "No, Ben!" but she rarely hits or pushes him--even when he grabs her hair or her toys.