I continue to get messages from other Peace Corps applicants who are waiting for their formal invitations to serve. Everyone asks the question - since our wait has been difficult - for our most current status. Each time I wish I could respond "It's a GO!" But not yet.
We continue to check with the placement officer about once a month. The last time we checked was at the beginning of November when she wrote back the following:
I wanted to just give you an update on the medical approvals I’ve requested. I sent for medical approval for the eight remaining programs to which you could serve as a couple for the 2012 year. I’ve gotten three negative responses back so far. We have given the remaining five programs a reminder to give us their responses soon. I will let you know as soon as I hear back from the remaining countries. Thank you for the amazing amount of patience you have exhibited in waiting for your placement. I am keeping my fingers crossed that we will have some good news from the remaining five programs. Sincerely, (name not posted)
The issue again seems to be medical approval, but - from our perspective - it's difficult to understand what's holding the assignments up. But we've got to trust that the people in the field are more knowledgeable that we, and keep our fingers lightly crossed.
So how are we managing the wait? Our strategy is to continue to engage the placement officer by trying to keep our profiles in front of her. So I wrote back to her the following:
Thanks for this update. We are keeping our fingers crossed that at least one of the five remaining programs will accept us. It's been a long road, but I sincerely appreciate that you're pushing the portfolios out to prospective programs.
Our daughter returns home (permanently?) Monday after 3 1/2 years working in Cambodia, with her new, 9 month old baby. That's a great Turkey-day treat.
So that will keep our minds and bodies busy while we await the outcome of Peace Corps placement process.
In the meantime, I'm continuing to work on projects for our son's NGO, Human Translation. org. As you probably know, Northern Cambodia is really suffering from the flooding that occurred several months ago: Crops gone, roads lost, live stock decimated. My son has started a new relief fund, and we're managing the fund-raising. So far, we've raised about $25 K. He'll be returning to Siem Reap where his naturalized Cambodian NGO called Community Translation Organization (CTO), is trying to mount the relief effort. He'll be there during the month of December before returning to the states. The good news is that the 600 hectare reservoir significantly helped mitigate the flooding in the villages of Balangk where the organization is working. Unfortunately, two of the six canals that were dug from the reservoir collapsed during the flooding, but as the water recedes, they can be rebuilt by hand and there's a possibility that - with the right instruction - the villagers will be able to "dry farm" another crop of rice in the next few months. CTO has several grants from Australia Aid and the UN's work for food projects. So, with some more hard work, I think the villagers will make it through. But not unscathed. Part of the relief fund will be spent on restoring clean water and sanitation. It's a mess.
So, while we're waiting for PC's determination of a placement, we're relatively busy here. Judith is continuing to teach at a local college, and they've offered her another term, and I have financial work coming in too. So we're not sitting on our hands. Nonetheless, we're extremely hopeful that PC will find a place for us. We both feel that the skills we will learn will substantially help us achieve our own goals, and I'm confident that we have something to offer, where ever PC might send us.
Our health continues to be very good and our spirits could not be stronger. We both wish you a Happy Thanksgiving. And thank you for your work on our behalf.
Sincerely, Tom
So is this strategy working? Well, we still have no more news, but I did receive the following back from the placement officer last week:
Tom it is great to hear you are both keeping busy. I’m very glad you and your family are able to help with relief efforts in Cambodia. Your attached photo is a real eye-opening---I can almost imagine the difficulty of living in such a situation.Thank you for you the update. I will be in contact with new information as soon as I can.
And why are we continuing to push on Peace Corps placement when we have this other NGO to occupy us?
The answer is pretty simple: Peace Corps offers a chance to learn more, to do more, and to build our skills in this important area of service. At the same time, it's just one avenue of service. And if one avenue becomes blocked, it's important to us to seek others. It's like any job that needs doing: you persevere until you find the path that works. There's no romance about it. You just do it.
One of my favorite "old" movies that we recently watched was 1958 production of "The Inn of the Sixth Happiness" with Ingrid Bergman. No doubt it seems terribly romantic - this woman applies to work as a missionary and is rejected over and over again. The missionary stuff doesn't attract me, but the real-life personage of Gladys Aylward is inspiring. She's somebody who wouldn't take "No" for an answer.
I have no inclination to be a missionary, but I do have a desire to make a difference in some of the places where I know my skills can be of use.
Meanwhile, we're settling in now with our daughter and her significant other and her baby, who have just returned from Cambodia after almost four years. Our son Tobias was here too, as well as our son Dagan with his two boys. It was the first time in a long time that we were all on the same continent, in the same country, in the same town, in the same house, at the same time. It was an overwhelming experience - chaotic, exhausting, and terrible fun. Who knows how many of these will be left to us?
We sat around the table, made a toast to our recently departed cat Gus, and drank a bottle of 1981 Robert Mondavi Cab Reserve that I'd been saving for a special occassion since the time I worked there. (And it was still drinkable after 30 years.) A good time was had by all, and it was a Thanksgiving to be remembered.
Thanks to those who send their encouragement as we await Peace Corps placement. This is an update of that process.
What's happened since the last post
At the most practical level, nothing has transpired: We still are awaiting for a placement.
But behind the scenes there has been activity at the DC headquarters, so our hopes have not been dashed, and we're still getting encouragement (from you and from PC).
Since our last posting we've sent emails to our placement person at PC. The temptation, at this juncture, is the tap our foot with our hands on our hips and chide her with questions like "What's taking so long? ! ?." In fact, many of our local friends roll their eyes at the delays.
But we have cordially requested explanations, and then when the answers we received didn't exactly match what we understood to be happening, we dug deeper (and deeper) to try to figure out what went awry.
For instance, last time around (when they were placing couples) they submitted our portfolios to a number of programs in North Africa. But there was something in our medical profiles that wasn't accurate. In my case, it was a very slight allergy to certain kinds of sea foods. In Judith's case, it was a limitation in the weight she could lift (nothing over 25 pounds). As a result, (we believe) the portfolios were returned with a rejection for placement by these programs.
But the placement officer had no visibility into why we were rejected, other than a sort of blanket "because of medical restrictions." She had no visibility, even, of what was in our medical portfolios. And of course, because we also have no visibility into their records, we were really at the mercy of whatever the medical sector of PC had written about us.
So we went back to the PC evaluation nurse, got her on the phone, and "cordially" argued that there was something amiss.
Poor Nurse! We've spent so many phone calls with her, trying to get past the obstacles that she saw in our medical evaluations. But, because we were pleasant - but persistent and insistent - she had begun to listen to us. We'd overcome a number of these obstacles in the past, and each time she seemed just at thrilled as we were that our health "on paper" seemed to be "improving". So, this time, she said point-blank, that probably the reason our portfolios were being rejected by the programs was NOT my wife's restrictions, but my incredibly minor food allergy to certain shellfish.
So, the long and the short of it is that I had to explain to her that I never died from this allergy, but merely had the usual problems people do when they eat something that their body doesn't like. And since, in Cambodia and Laos, I've eaten things that Poor Nurse would probably not even consider as food (frogs, red ants, crickets, snakes, pre-historic-looking bar fish that stared at me with jaws filled with a mouth full of sharp teeth, etc.) and suffered only from the usual maladies of "bodia-belly" and other lower intestinal parasites, I actually laughed over the phone at her deep and sincere concern. And I realized that absolute honesty on the medical evaluation forms is unquestionably a hazard if one really wants to go into PC.
Fortunately, Poor (lovely) Nurse said "Oh! Well, I'll remove that restriction from your records!"
Wow! I felt like Kafka, in "The Castle", getting permission to move into the next waiting room. A victory! "I really am NOT a crippled, decrepit, lunatic with grandiose dreams of serving in Peace Corps. I'm just a healthy world traveler with something to offer!"
So Lovely (but previously misunderstanding) Nurse then went down through our entire medical records and said she would consider removing all restrictions. It was like listening to a recalcitrant J. Edgar Hoover suddenly turning into Bobby Kennedy over the phone.
And I realized that she must have the most thankless job in Washington, DC: A job of rejecting hundreds (thousands?) of people who sincerely want to serve, but are not physically up to the challenge. Her voice softened over the phone. Her affect of "sympathetic sternness" shifted in key, and it actually seemed as though she were thrilled to "white out" those restrictions. A thankless job, being Nurse. How many arguments has she gotten into over the phone? How many people has she had to disappoint over her years as PC Nurse? How many people have hung up on her "Bang!" after they lost their appeals? What a thankless job!
So I said, in my most sincere voice, with a light ironic laugh, "Thankyou! I really appreciate your special effort on our behalf."
And she said, quite simply, "You're very welcome. I KNOW they want to place you. You had a placement, but the program got canceled. I KNOW they are trying to figure it out. You have real skills that can be useful!"
Wow! THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU I was thinking. Kafka, eat your hear out!
So we hung up the phone. And waited. And waited. And waited.
Then last month, as we were returning from a trip from Colorado, in the waiting area between flights, I got a brief email on my cell phone from the placement officer. A couple who had been assigned to Central Asia had suddenly dropped out of placement. "Would you be interested? You'd leave in January or February! Can't guarantee anything. Have to send them your records. What do you think?"
Would we be interested? WOULD WE BE INTERESTED? I immediately key-in "Yes! Fingers Crossed! Hope to hear from you soon!" And then Judith and I sat in our cramped airline seats, hoping the answer would be "Go!" and what we would Skype to our daughter in Cambodia who is returning home in November "You'll have the whole house to yourself!" And trying to remember which "stan" is in Central Asia where the Peace Corps has projects. And trying to keep our enthusiasm under control.
A couple of days passed. The email was received. "No! For medical reasons!"
Whose medical reasons? What happened? Why - if our medical portfolios have been purged of restrictions - have our portfolios been rejected? The placement officer could not tell us. But, she said, the next round of placements will begin in Jan.
So that's where we are now. We've made progress! But only to the next room within the Castle.
Are we disappointed? Yes! We never thought that trying to get into Peace Corps would be a career path, but here we are.
Are we discouraged?
No! This is not a whim for us. This is a very strong desire for both of us. A kind of calling. And maybe with some added fortitude we'll make it yet.
Besides, maybe it's time to talk to my congressman again.
I've been working a lot with Tobias on developing the new Human Translation website, and my favorite part of it is the photo record of the Trav Kod water gate. There's several hundred photos up now in albums at www.humantranslation.org/media.html . Scroll down past the video, and you'll see the albums laid out. These photos were taken during and after the building of the dam.
Releasing the Protein
My favorite album, at the moment, is the last one that is entitled "Stocking Trav Kod Reservoir Ceremony" which occurred in July of last year. You'll see the reservoir, and the hundreds of locals who showed up to release fish and frogs into this reservoir. Click on the album picture, and you'll be walked through a slide show of the ceremony.
This was a great project that is still on-going. I'm hoping that Tobias will put up some news in the blog about what's going on at the offices of HT really soon. There's a lot of news, but I'm not at liberty to report it. (Mum is the word). But look at the About page (www.humantranslation.org/about.html) and click on the Partners link.
I'm not exactly certain how the world has skipped and jittered in such a way that these events happened. Sunday, our son Tobias was one of 49 individuals honored by his holiness, the Dalai Lama in San Francisco at a ceremony entitled "Unsung Heroes of Compassion." He was being recognized for his work in the organization that he started, called "Human Translation."
The last two days have seemed like one of those euphoria-induced highs from a previous decade: A massive positive flow of energy that seemed to wash down the hills of San Francisco into the bay. It was not merely the excitement, but an actual sense of positive energy that seemed to lift our spirits and perhaps affirm what it means to be human. So I will, as best I can, report from my perspective the event and the feelings that it inspired.
I met Tobias the evening before at the Ritz-Carlton, which is way up near the top of San Francisco. They had invited the honorees to arrive the day before the event to get to know one another. There were 49 honorees altogether, from all over the world: India, Alabama, Israel, Washington State, Zimbabwe, New Jersey, etc. It was truly a gathering of people from all over the world. And each honoree had been permitted to bring a guest, and Tobias permitted me to be that guest that night of orientation. We ate a buffet dinner and then mixed about. I met Jack Kornfeld from Spirit Rock, and lots of others, and Tobias had a look like the cat that had eaten the canary: He was clearly in his networking element. There were nuns from India, Tibetans, Chinese, English, Aussies, Americans, Canadians: All people that Dick Grace had encountered in his many travels. Tobias and I split up at about 8 and I drove home, while he stayed at the hotel in a kind of reverie of networking frenzy.
Judith and I came in the next morning for the ceremony itself while the event was still getting organized, and had a chance to revisit some old acquaintances who I did not expect to see there: Tim Mondavi and his daughters, and many others. All told, there were about a thousand people who had ponied up $500 to attend this event – something way beyond our means, but which we managed nonetheless.
The event was a sit-down luncheon in a humongous banquet hall. Peter Coyote was master of ceremonies (I kept asking Judith if we were in the middle of a NPR TV show about brain health), along with Isabelle Allende. Jack Kornfeld gave a wonderful talk about the nature of compassion, as understood by Buddhists, with some lovely anecdotes and stories, all told with humor and masterful nuances.
Tobias sat at our banquet table – one of the two tables seating his supporters from Human Translation – and once again he looked like the cat who had eaten the canary. Judith was all smiles, chatting and laughing. Food was okay, and I had a nice chat with the couple beside me. It seemed like we were in a sea of crazy people, all smiling and happy, and yakking away.
Then the Dalai Lama came in, walked through the room in that rambling gait that makes him look like a wise old Orangutan, greeting various people before arriving at the dais. He sat and talked a bit in response to two questions from the audience, and then there were three wonderful performances, one of which was by Justin, who had sung at the Human Translation fundraisers in the past. I had spoken with Justin before the event in the waiting room. He was so happy to be there, he just glowed. But he was very nervous. When his time for his singing began, the energy was ecstatic. His Holiness sat at the dais, and at one point seemed to be rocking to the music itself, as Justin sang "Old Man River". Then Justin was greeted by the Dalai Lama, after his wonderful performance and later he was still so nervous that he was shaking when I caught up with him. His singing was incredible: Indescribable. The energy was contagious. He had received a standing ovation.
Finally, each honoree was introduced to the Dalai Lama by Isabel Allende and Peter Coyote. A description of their projects was read as they came forward. Tobias, towering over His Holiness, bent low to receive a silk Khata (scarf). All of us at the HT table were beaming in incomprehensible joy for the recognition that he received.
That was pretty much describes the ceremony.
However, though this describes the event, it does not describe the level of energy that permeated that room. I think it was akin to a drug-induced euphoria, like psilocybin or something. Quite potent. The cynical nature of my general outlook had led me to anticipate a sense of vertigo. But, after speaking to many of the honorees the night before – hearing about their projects and their efforts – by the morning of the event it was clear that I had already checked my cynicism with my coat at the door.
These were honest-to-goodness bodhisattvas: People who were doing good deeds because their nature made them that way.
One little woman, from India, had opened an orphanage in Darsana where she takes in street urchins. She is, I swear, shorter than five feet tall, and her desire is to take all the pain of the world and exchange it for the happiness that she feels. That’s her desire. She exudes happiness – crazy happiness – while she takes care these 80 orphans. She and her husband, whom I also met, are child-like and sweet, managing as best they can – sort of like coming across Hansel and Gretel in the deep dark woods, before they meet the witch. They were just bubbling with happiness, and had just come off the plane after 30 hours of travel. “This is our first time” she kept saying, like a person who was on a first mescaline trip. Their energy was contagious.
Now imagine a room of fifty people like that, surrounded by a thousand supporters. All of them had this sort of contagious energy. A sort gathering of spiritual batteries, all getting recharged by the Dalai Lama, who sat at the dais and switched all our switches off and on, little verbal switches, and changed all the negative polarity to positive polarity like a master spiritual electrician: His high little voice rising and falling, then deepening, then suddenly laughing and making us all laugh. Then, quite suddenly, he said “That’s all! Good bye!” and up he got to leave, again wandering like an old Orangutan through the hall.
It was no wonder that Tobias looked so happy, to be among such a group of truly outrageous crazies. He fit right in.
Tearing him away from this festival of compassion was incredibly difficult. A couple of the members of his board of trustees, Linda Scheibal and Susan Shay and husbands and donors, wanted to have some personal time with him. So eventually I extracted him and we climbed even further up Knob Hill to the St. Francis Hotel where we opened a couple bottles of wine and sat around and talked.
Finally, it was about 6 and we wandered back to our cars – some people wanting to party on – and Judith and I came home. It was a wonderful event, far in excess of energy than I anticipated.
This is my report on the 2008 Fund Raiser for Human Translation. It was a great event, but not without its own little drama.
We got there about 4:30, and the event was supposed to begin at 5. The day was beautiful, clear sky, not too hot. We were still some of the first people to get there. It was at Clos Pegase Winery, and I'm including some pictures here so that you’ll see what it looked like.
The vineyards at the winery.
They had set up the tables, and the event was to be sold out. It’s a beautiful setting with wine caves dug into the hill behind the winery.
Tables set for supporters.
Judith and I scouted out the caves, and found Megan (Blaire’s sister) getting ready for the opera concert, along with the three other singers. The caves are not what one might normally picture in one’s mind: They are like Hobbit Holes built into the hills, plastered in stucco and painted, with little alcoves containing Grecco-Roman sculptures, and then barrels mounted on skids that can be moved about with forklift trucks. They’re about 20 feet wide and 20 feet tall, and they have a wonderful echo effect.
The wine caves.
Megan and her friends were dressed in formal attire and they all looked beautiful. The stage was at one end of one of the farthest caves with a grand piano, and was jammed with folding chairs. I wished the singers good luck, and thanked them for their support. I told them about the staff back in Cambodia, and how I wished you could attend to see their performances. They said they were proud to be a part of the fund raiser for Human Translation because they knew that what HT was doing was making a real importance to the families and artists and children of Cambodia.
The performers.
As people started to come into the caves, there was a mounting sense of excitement. Such a magical place to hold a concert! People had dressed up for the occasion, and came in holding glasses of champaign – also donated to HT’s fund raiser. It’s hard to imagine how many people have contributed to this event. Volunteers, donors, and just old valley friends – many of whom I had not seen in years, and some who – though I knew them by sight – I had never met. As Judith and I were separately introduced, we individually thanked as many as we could. But there were so many. Some asked if we were proud of Tobias, and I said “Of course!” But I also said that HT team was what was really important, back in Cambodia and here in St. Helena.
Megan and supporter of HT.
And then I told them a little about what I had seen in our recent trip. It’s hard for them to imagine Siem Reap and Balangk – especially in the opulent setting of the winery.
A child back in Balangk, Cambodia
But they listened, intent, and some said they’d been attracted to the event by the newspaper articles that had recently appeared, and some said they had heard of the event through word of mouth.
The concert was packed.
The concert cave was soon crammed with the audience, and each concert piece was introduced by Robin Shay – the son of Susan Shay who is a key board member, and Megan Scheibal’s boyfriend. The four singers each had a couple of solos and then a couple of duets and then a couple of foursome pieces. One performer, Justin, sang “Old Man River” with such beauty that we were all transfixed. (And this comes from a non-opera buff!) The concert ran for about an hour, with one brief intermission. The volunteers literally came out of the woodwork, as they leaned forward between the barrel racks to listen from the wings. It was a wonderful concert, too wonderful to really describe. The group received standing ovations, and were called back for encores. Wow! You have no idea how impressive these HT supporters were by donating their talents with this concert. They had flown in from New York City, 3000 miles, just to perform at this concert, for free.
The encore.
After the concert the audience made its way back out through the caves to the courtyard where each person was pre-assigned a seat. The tables were laid out beautifully with sparkling wine glasses and red tablecloths and lots of bottles of wine. The sun was just starting to set, and the air was starting to cool down. Everyone seemed ecstatic about the concert, and then the food was served.
The dinner.
The food had been donated and prepared by the master chef, Ron Golden. It was lovely, came in multiple courses, and was served family style. As I was sitting there watching the food being served, I was reminded of Metsin (or was it Mitsen) and the little lunch we had under the tree on the mats with Somet and Tobias and Chai.
Lunch beside the water gate with Somet and Met Sin and grandchildren.
The contrast was right up front for me, and I told some of the people at the table about that experience
After people had gotten through most of their meal, Phil (another HT board member) stepped up to the lectern with a mic and introduced Dick Grace. Dick is a local philanthropist who has been instrumental mentoring Tobias in the development of HT over the last four years. He had never given any money to HT in the first years, waiting to see if Tobias was serious, but last year he donated generously, leading the rest of the auction in that successful event. So having Dick talk about HT was important to this group because it showed them that he was still very much a supporter.
Dick Grace
Dick then introduced Tobias, who was dressed in slacks (thank god he wasn’t wearing those jeans) and a simple blue shirt. Tobias thanked everyone for coming, and thanked them for last year’s contribution, and congratulated them on supporting the successful building of the reservoir.
The water gate and the reservoir construction, thanks to HT supporters.
He told them that without their support none of what had been accomplished would have been possible. Then he talked about what needed to be done now: The installation of water filters, and the development of the educational program. It was a short talk, and he said that he had prepared a film to give them an idea of what the projects had been about and what was needed still. So the lights were dimmed as the night grew dark, and the wide screen TVs lit up.
Tobias introduces the video.
And then the technical glitches started. Oh my gawd! How to describe them!
Technology run amok.
As a background, Tobias later told me that they had spent lots of money to hire a professional company to bring in the audio-video equipment. But the crew had messed up, bringing the wrong equipment and not enough wide screen tvs. As the concert was going on, they were still trying to get things to work, and had been forced to go from Plan A, to Plan B, and finally to Plan C before they had things working. Now they were on Plan C, which was a back-up DVD that Tobias had burned the same morning with the final revisions. But then the AV crew had left! They had gone off without doing a complete run-through. And now Tobias and his volunteers were forced to do it by themselves.
The video started out just fine, and then it started to skip, echoing out a terrible screech as the feedback kicked in. They halted the video, and started it again, and once again the system crashed. Poor Tobias. He’d been working daily on this video for the entire two or three weeks since he’d been home, working as long as 10 hours a day uploading, and cataloging, and editing the hundreds of hours of video he’d taken back at the project. He finally halted the video and tried to speak to the audience, to recover the moment. But then the microphone didn’t work either, so his voice was drowned out by the commotion within the audience. What a catastrophe. What a mess. He stumbled and fumbled and finally – as the microphone finally came back on line – turned the proceedings over to the auctioneer.
The people at the table where we sat were very understanding. They were sympathetic to Tobias’ plight. One said to tell him that the message had been received, even if the video hadn’t been seen. Judith was obviously sad as well.
I got up and found Tobias in the shadows, being hugged by Blaire. I gave him a big hug, and told him what others had said. “The message had been received. Everyone understood.”
But he was devastated, I could tell. He was looking back at the courtyard, where all those people had been assembled, where they had been waiting to understand a little more of the tremendous success that HT had accomplished …. People had flown in from all over the world to support Human Translation at this fund raiser, and here – after weeks of preparation – Tobias' set-piece film had failed.
But he swallowed his pride and said “I think we’re gonna be okay.” The auction had started, but the audience was a bit distracted. The first auction items had started to be bid, but there wasn’t much activity from the guests.
Then Dick Grace got up and spoke again. He reminded people briefly about why this event had been mounted. And he said that Tobias should try to show the video one more time.
There are times when one wonders how the universe is constructed, how its gears and cogs can sometimes slip and scrape and bring things to a halt. Or how a stray electron can short out a circuit board one moment and bring things to a raucous end. Sometimes I think that what happened to Cambodia in the 1970s was an incident like that: Things collapsing, and the wrong people taking over, and then terrible, chaotic things happening that spun out of control. People forced to escape carrying their kids, crossing rivers and mountains and suffering terrible losses to get somewhere safe.
And then there are times when somebody says, “Remember why we are here. Let’s try it again.” And I don’t understand why, in the midst of all that, suddenly the gears mesh or the electrons suddenly pop and behave themselves, and the wondrous universe starts to make sense again. For some reason, the thing that failed once, or twice, or three times adjusts itself, and begins to work properly, as if nothing had ever happened.
And that was what happened that night.
The video ran the third time without a hitch. People saw a bit of what I had seen: What HT was doing on the ground, tens of thousands of miles away, in a place not much different than where we were sitting now – in a rural place, surrounded by lush countryside, in small communities, peopled by individuals of good will. The construction of the water gate, the clearing of mines, the grassing of the embankment, the faces of the hundreds of people there, in Balangk, who were changing their lives with a little help from Human Translation. The video talked about why Tobias had come to Cambodia, and how he had become involved, and what the steps were that HT was taking to help. It was a good video. It was personal, and honest, and it was asking for more help from these people in this valley. And as it ended, everyone applauded – and I hope you heard that applause, even though you’re so far away.
This is the video that everyone finally saw:
The auction begins.
And so the auction began in earnest. There were quite a few items – trips to Paris or Maine, wine, lots of stuff. There’s something about a charity auction that is unique, in that people will bid well above the value of an item because they want to really support an organization. At the same time, they’ll bid more than they normally would give outright because they feel they want to get some value for their money. I don’t pretend to understand it, but that’s human psychology I guess.
But the real trick at a charity auction is to leverage that basic human dynamic to get more out of the audience. And the auctioneer HT had at this event was an expert. About half-way through the auction he stopped it and said “And now, ladies and gentleman, we come to the part that we’ve all been waiting for: A time to pledge support for Tobias and Human Translation’s project. We’ll start the pledges at 10 thousand dollars, and then lower them step by step until everyone has had a opportunity to pledge. So now, who will pledge 10 thousand dollars for Human Translation?” And Dick Grace raised his paddle.
The pledging of support for HT begins.
“And who will pledge nine thousand dollars” and two more people raised their paddles. “And five thousand dollars” and four or five more people raised their paddles. And so it went, four, then three, then two, then one, then five hundred, then three hundred, then two, then one. And when the pledging was over, in ten minutes, the auctioneer said “Give yourselves a hand. You’ve just pledged nearly 85 thousand dollars for Human Translation.”
And the people did applaud, and they applauded very loudly, and if they couldn’t hear them back in Siem Reap, I swear they must be deaf!
Tobias after the pledge drive.
The auction then continued for more than an hour, with things like a pasta making machine going for several thousand dollars, and on and on. You have no idea of the pandemonium that was taking place.
Happy supporter of HT.
It was crazy. Absolutely crazy. People were pouring wine and in tears. And when it was over, Tobias thanked everyone, and people left happy, if somewhat lighter in their wallets, and it was about ten o’clock at night, cold and clear, with stars shining down on this strange little valley where people seemed to have more money than common sense. Everyone was in good spirits, even Tobias, at how well HT had done.
Tom and Judith
Special thanks go to all the loyal board members of Human Translation, who brought this wonderful event to fruition. And to the hundreds of community members who donated time and resources and so much more. There are too many to mention. And to the Engineers Without Borders, who devoted so much time and energy in the design and the construction of the water gate. And of course to performers who donated their special talents for this occassion, for the benefit of the people of Cambodia.
If you want to learn more about Human Translation - and maybe even make a small donation - go the http://www.humantranslation.org .
Vishika (whose name I'm sure I've mis-spelled) is one of the most vocal supporters of HT and has a story to explain it. Her parents carried her out of the killing fields of Cambodia after the Pol Pot regime of the Khmer Rouge took over the country. Her mother was also at the fund raiser, and made the satay and pot stickers. Tobias met Vishika after his first trip to Cambodia back in the states. Her cousin Ceda now works for HT back in Siem Reap. Vishika and her brother Thai - who was born in Thailand after the family's escape - went back to visit relatives about a year ago for the first time. I had a chance to meet him at the fund raiser too.
While Tobias was working on the video, down at the Methodist Church in St. Helena ten volunteers showed up to stuff programs, catalogs, and bidding placards into neat packages for the event. What a production line!
In little over an hour, nearly 300 packets were assembled, checked, listed, and checked off.
Human Translation has sold out the event.
Stay tuned for more, tomorrow, when the event takes off, with opera in the caves, a vineyard picnic, and the auction itself.
This is a slide show documentary of our recent excursion to Balangk Commune near Siem Reap, Cambodia following Tobias Rose-Stockwell, Director of the Human Translation Organization. It documents a single day as he and his engineer, Chai -- along with Venerable Mean Somet, a Buddhist monk -- show us the progress of their water irrigation project.
The project was a collaboration with the New York chapter of Engineers Without Borders, HT's supporters in the Napa Valley, countless contributors to the HT Website, and the community of Balangk Commune.
Most of these photos were taken with my Blackberry Curve cell phone. The resolution isn't great, but it was a handy way to quickly document an amazing day.
Well, I've got to hand it to those busy people at Human Translation and the community at Balang. The monsoons are coming, and they've got the water gate finished just in time. Woke up this morning and a colleague pointed me back to their blog site, and there it was! Skyped Linda S. and she called me right back, shouting with joy. What a milestone! What a great job!
At the blog Tobias says they're now concentrating on finishing the grassing of the embankment -- an important job considering that the rains are already falling.
Judith and I spoke with Arwen and Tobias a couple of nights ago, but I wasn't expecting so much progress. We're getting ready for our trip now in earnest to visit them.
They want me to bring wine -- lots of it -- to celebrate. Now I think it's definitely in order.
This a shot of some of the monks in Balang, standing on the nearly completed water gate, which is an ongoing joint community project by Human Translation and Engineers Without Borders.
The shot was taken in May of 2008.
This is a shot of the backfilling of the water gate.
Last night Tobias sent me a link to the video below, showing the community of Balang digging up grass and planting it on the side of the dam embankment.
Today, Judith and I got the first set of inoculations in preparation for our trip in June to see the actual construction.
Tobias' big dam project at the Balang Province near Siem Reap in Cambodia is nearing completion. I spoke with him last night and he's sounding definitely upbeat and positive. They've finished pouring the concrete and this week, according to Tobias, they'll be back-filling the watergate.
He believes the initial watergate project will be done soon, so Judith and I thought we'd better get there right away. We'll be leaving at the end of June.... An Adventure!
Tobias also did a video of some kids playing around the watergate, and I thought it would be a good thing to show. Take a look. It's wonderful.
A couple of nights ago I was able to Skype Tobias in Cambodia. I had been starting to worry about him because I'd heard nothing for quite a while. Was he okay? I wondered. A father worries, not because of the people -- whom he seems to genuinely cherish -- but because Cambodia has a reputation as a land ravaged by war, genocide, and laden with land mines hidden in deadly places.
When we connected he said he was in Phenom Phen.
"What are you doing in Phenom Phen?" I asked. "I thought you were in Siem Reip!"
"Well, I'm trying to coordinate our dam project with the Asia Development Bank."
????
Long story short, it appears that the engineers that they were waiting for did, in fact arrive and began the process of spec'ing out the dam project -- something that had begun the previous year with an engineer from "Engineers Without Borders." But when these new engineers were working they heard some sort of story that the Asia Development Bank had already begun this same water infrastructure project. So, their initial reaction was "Let the ADB do it! They've got lots of money!"
So that's why Tobias was in the Cambodian capital -- trying to track down the rumors and, if they were accurate -- to discover the actual status of a parallel water project.
Now let's be clear about what I know about this whole Sien Riep dam project.
Almost three years ago Tobias left the U.S. as a tourist visiting S.E. Asia. He'd just graduated from Allegheny College where he'd majored in Art and minored in Psychology. He'd determined he wanted to travel for a while, and set his course for Thailand. According to Tobias, Thailand was wonderful, but he was becoming disenchanted with the tourist attractions in the south, and began wandering northward. He ended up at an orphanage that housed kids with HIV.
He befriended lots of people -- especially the kids -- but became involved in trying to help out. Why weren't these kids getting more assistance? Their needs were pretty basic -- though some had needs that went significantly further. Evidently, it got him thinking. "Maybe I can draw these wonderful people and then sell the drawings and send them the money." That was his first thought, and it was clearly a good thought indeed. So he got to work. All he had to draw upon was the materials at hand, and you can see some of these drawings at his Web site at www.humantranslation.org.
He spent quite a bit of time in Northern Thailand but his time in S.E. Asia was coming to a close. I said to him "You have to go to see the temples at Ankgor Wat before you leave. You may never have a chance to do that again, so do it now!" And so he did. His journal about that experience is at xxxxxxxxxx. Read it! You'll see how a mind begins to blossom with realization and ideas about how life can be so difficult. That one trip was enough to change his life, formulate a direction, and perhaps actually accomplish something worthwhile.
While he was at Siem Riep, where the temples lie in ruins, he was -- essentially -- kidnapped by some Buddhist monks. They spoke little English, and Tobias knew nothing of their language. They asked him to help them restore an agricultural dam to help feed the 5000 or more villagers who lived in utter destitution there.
For some reason, Tobias said he would.
As I say, that was almost three years ago. As his father, I had my doubts about his tenacity to follow through on his commitment. Tobias was known, as a child, to be organizationally challenged. But now I stand somewhat in awe.
Over the last couple of years Tobias has held fund-raisers, started a non-profit organization, connected with hundreds of well-meaning individuals, and managed to raise about $25000 for the project. He's attracted volunteers who have accompanied him back to Cambodia on two occassions, to try to orchestrate the project. He's lived off the separate money that he earned doing Web coding locally in the U.S., while squirreling away every penny for the project itself. And in the process, he founded HumanTranslation.org -- a humanitarian organization that is dedicated to translating good intentions into worthwhile acts of charity and conscience.
If you haven't checked out his organization, I suggest you take a look. It's quite astounding.
I sometimes am lucky to catch Tobias on Skype, late at night, right before I send my computer to sleep. Last night was one of those times. Tobias is currently in the area of Seam Reap, Cambodia -- which is where the temples ofAngkor Watwere built. He's been there, off and on, for almost three years now, working on an interesting project to build an agricultural dam for the people there. How he became interested in this area and involved in this project is documented at his Web site humantranslation.org and the particular story is kind of a parable for how younger people engage the world. You should probably read this story at:
What's become even more interesting, to me personally, is how I'm responding to his project. There was a time, immediately after his first return from Cambodia, when I was very skeptical of his experience. And, to be honest, listening to his stories about his travels and the people he's met, I was probably a bit jealous of his adventures. He had recently graduated from college, had no particular plans in mind, was not immediately involved in any long-term relationships, and was as wide-eyed about the world as most people his age. I kept kidding him that his bedroom was in worse shape than many third-world countries, and he laughed at that analogy. But then, over time, I started to watch him pull things together.
You know how it is, I'm sure. It's like when you happen upon an accident in the middle of the street. You're pulled in multiple emotional directions: Do you stop? Do you help? Do you go for help? Where do you go for help? How do get the help? How do you get the help to the victims?
Or do you turn away? Do you try to put it out of your mind? Do you say to yourself "I really wasn't equipted to help!"? Or "That's someone else's job!"?
I was deeply interested in how Tobias would deal with this particular problem of Seam Reap and the requests of the people for help. How would he sustain his focus? Would he sustain focus?
All these are questions of a father, watching his son move into the responsibilities of adult-hood. And so his journey has become a sort of parable for me too, trying to stay in contact when he is half a world away.
And then, there are the pictures that he sends back: Haunting pictures of kids like these.
This morning, I showed these pictures today to Merriella who comes every week to clean the house. Merriella is from Mexico -- (Yes! She is a US Citizen, in case you're wondering.) She's known Tobias since he was called Toby in highschool, and many is the time I've asked her to help me clean up his bedroom. So she asks what he is doing. And I do my best to explain it to her, but finally just show her the pictures. And she says "These very very poor people! So poor!"
And of course it's true. Then she says "It is good that we send money to help these poor people!"
And I say "Actually, I sent them my son." and she laughs.
Then I look again at the pictures, and here is a young man, holding his own son up proudly to the camera -- his prosthetic leg (his own leg blown off by a mine?) just barely in the picture, and scars on his face, and his little boy naked ....
Can you blame him for looking so proud?
So anyway, what is Tobias up to?
He's managed to incorporate his work into an organization (HumanTranslation.Org) and obtained legal help to turn it into a non-profit corporation with tax-exempt status. (Not a trivial task, in and of itself).
So far, his organization called HumanTranslation.org has raised about $25K of the $50K estimated to build the agricultural dam that will irrigate a second crop of rice for about 5K people. This money has been kept aside and ear-marked solely for the dam project and assorted water infrastructural projects. A lot of help has come from the Orange Kids network.
He's found another good person, named Will Haynes, from Chicago, to volunteer his time over in Cambodia and help in the project. Will wrote a great intro to his own experience that can be read at "Field Report: Words from Will".
He's managed to get a small promotional film started, which has appeared on YouTube, which you can view here!
They're going to start digging the dam soon, having obtained engineering help from Engineers Without Borders.
They've made some sort of arrangement with a water filter manufacturer back here in the US to provide reverse-osmosis (I think) filters for villagers (the orange box in the top picture is one of over 40 installed so far.)
He's planning to return to the states at Christmas time to try to raise more funds.
He's currently trying to help orphans who live in a Buddhist pagoda with an outbreak of scabies (that's what we skyped about last night.)
He's living off his scant savings with no health-care himself.
Seems to be in good spirits, but has no time to write about them right now.
So, that's why I'm posting this somewhat nostalgic message, I guess. Tobias is really out in the world, on his own, making his way. Yes I'm jealous of his adventures! Of course, as a father, I'm proud of what he's accomplished so far! Sure, I'm still skeptical that he'll get it all done -- but there is so much to do! But he's doing something! So how can I criticize, sitting here.
And, finally, he sends his congratulations back to the U.S. to all of us who were involved in the elections. All this, Skyping Tobias in Cambodia late at night.
