Ellie directs naptime

Ellie is getting more and more into imaginative play. This morning she decided that since we put Ben down for his morning nap, she was going to put her stuffed animals down for their naps. She's even covered them up with her burp rags to simulate blankets.


Next, it was time for Ellie and Daddy to take pretend naps. They each needed a "sleepytime friend" (ie stuffed animal to sleep with) and a burp rag. They pretend-dozed on the sofa, which is ironic because Ellie feels very strongly that her crib is the only appropriate place for her to sleep, and would never fall asleep on the sofa.

Bath Time

We went out to breakfast this morning, resulting in two happy but syrup and fruit-covered children. So it was bath time for kiddos when we got back.

Ben on the Move

Ben is getting more mobile everyday and loves to "cruise" from the coffee table to an arm chair to a bookcase or around the wooden gate and metal railing around the stairs. He's also sporting a line of bruises across his forehead from his misadventures, but when he falls, the best way to make him happy again is to stand him right back up.

Out of the Green Zone, Into our Hearts

Our Mexico City buddies, Lourdes Lamela and her husband, Kevin Kreutner, came to visit us during a vacation in SE Asia. Lourdes survived the visa line with me, and in fact, our 5:30 am running sessions were responsible for getting me back in shape after Ellie was born. At the time, her husband, Kevin, was waiting for a place in a Foreign Service orientation class. He spent his time having coffee with Nathan, taking Ellie for walks, working in the Financial Services section of the embassy, and going to Iraq twice as a USAID consultant.

Since we left Mexico City, Kevin officially entered the Foreign Service and he and Lourdes were assigned to work in the political section in Baghdad. They had amazing stories about overseeing elections, spending hours identifying VIPs at dangerous checkpoints, and being awaken by mortarfire in the middle of the night. They also work literally all the time--about 9am to 11 pm everyday, though they do sleep in on the weekend and report for duty at 10 or 11.

Coincidentally, another friend and colleague of ours here, Dana Williams, was a friend of Lourdes' from grad school at the University of Texas. So we had Kevin, Lourdes, and Dana and her husband and three kids over for a fun if somewhat loud and chaotic dinner.

Front row: Ben, Cole, Sam, Lourdes, Ellie, Nina, Kevin
Back row: Nathan, Greg, Dana

Where Your Levis are Born

I visited some garment factories here recently. I don't have the stats with me at home, but the garment industry accounts for 73% of Cambodia's exports and 40% of its total economy (that is, GDP). Garments, tourism, and agriculture are really Cambodia's only industries. The vast majority of Cambodian-made garments are exported to the US. In fact, a single U.S. based retailer, The Gap, singlehandedly accounts for 9-10% of Cambodia's GDP.

Anyhow, thought you all might be curious to see where your clothes come from. (Keep in mind that these are top of the line factories in terms of working conditions.)


Fabric is carefully laid into a 1-2 inch thick stack and a pattern--usually drawn onto newsprinter with a fancy computer--laid on top. The cutter uses something that looks like a band saw to cut them out. (At least I think that's similar to what a band saw looks like. It's been a long time since I took woodshop.) Notice the steel mesh glove he's wearing for protection.


This woman is using an industrial-strength sewing machine. She wears a mask over her mouth to keep out dust. Many factories have color-coded bandanas or t-shirts that employees wear to show which product line they are working on.

Here's the machine that puts the rivets in your jeans!

Jobs at a garment factory are very gender stereotyped. The vast majority of workers--including the sewers, ironers, and packers--are women. Men tend to be involved in cutting and packing. Although most garment factory workers are women, most of their union leaders are men.



Garment factories are enormous--this average size one was probably the size of 2 football fields and had about 1000 employees. Some of the largest in Cambodia have 10,000 employees.

Our Little Codebreaker

Like generations of parents before us, Nathan and I revert to code when discussing things around the kids that we don't want them to understand. Most often, this involves dessert: do we have dessert? what is it? should we have it right after dinner or is it so close to the kids bedtime that Nathan and I will have it after the kids are asleep? Our standard dessert is fruit, which here means apples, crunchy Asian pears, dragon fruit, mango, watermelon, plie mein (which we think is called longan in English), or rambutan. But sometimes we have cookies, sticky rice, or pumpkin custard as a special treat.

So the other day, Nathan and I were discussing whether we had "f-r-u-i-t" for dessert. Ellie overheard, and knew we must be talking about something good if we were spelling it. She wanted some, but given that she can't read, she can't spell (although she does know all her letters). So she asked us for "s-r-u-t".

Just today, I found some cute-looking panda cookies at the store as a special treat. Nathan and I started talking about whether we should have the marsupials* after lunch or for snack. Ellie, again knowing that if she can't understand what we're talking about, piped up and said with perfect diction, "Can I have a marsupial?"

*Then, while we were finally eating the marsupials at snack time, Ed said he didn't think pandas were marsupials after all. I looked it up on the internet, and all the respectable, science-oriented sites like the National Zoo say they are not marsupials. But there are also a lot of pop culture references (like the "eats, shoots, and leaves" joke) to pandas as marsupials. So, I'll leave this question to our resident biologists John and Scott: Why does everyone seem to think that a panda is a marsupial if it really isn't?

Send in the Marines!

With the completion of the new embassy compound here, we have for the first time in Cambodia gotten a detachment of Marines to guard the place. We had almost all of them over for dinner a while ago (while Grandma Beth and Grandpa Dick were here) to welcome them. This is all of them but one, who of course was standing duty at the embassy. They are all lovely folks, and we are very glad to have them here.

Happy Standing Ben

Here's a good shot of Ben doing his favorite thing - standing up. This is what he looks like a good deal of the time these days. The smile is most likely directed at Grandpa Dick, although it could be Mommy.

Ellie finger paints

We may have posted something like this before, but she is just so darn cute when she covers herself in blue fingerpaints! Thanks, Liz! (For those of you who notice the proximity of paint to mouth, never fear - non-toxic and washable.)

Ben gets a haircut

Well, we've been getting a bit of flak here recently, mainly about the lack of updates about the kids. We haven't had all that much going on since the last post, but there's a certain aunt in Minneapolis who has expressed a particular desire to see photos, so I'll try to post a few. Here's one of our excursion from this weekend, getting Ben a haircut. He did relatively well, given that it was only his second, and it was his first one out of our house. The woman doing the cutting is someone we simply call "Karen Hair", since that is how she is listed in Jen's cell. There you go. A photo of Ben, along with an irrelevant bit of trivia from our lives!