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.
In June of 2008 I toured the rural community of Balang, Cambodia, inspecting a reservoir dam that had recently been constructed by Human Translation and Engineers Without Borders. As noon approached, the Buddhist monk who traveled with us, Mean So Meth, needed to eat as prescribed by his order, so we approached an elderly man who was shaping a timber under a tree with a hand adz. His name is Met Sin.
Met Sin stopped his work, greeted So Meth with a respectful prostration, laid out reed mats for us, and joined us with four of his grandchildren. When he learned that I was the father of the man he had come to know through Human Translation, he became curious. He inquired of my age and we discovered we were both approximately the same age. He inquired about my health, as he was obviously proud his own good health. He inquired about my grandchildren, as he was proudly supervising four of his own grandchildren. How many did he have? I asked. He couldn't say for certain.
My son sat beside me, acting as translator, as well as my wife – whom Met Sin respectfully ignored. His youngest grandchild looked to be about two – precisely the age of our own youngest grandchild – standing naked before us while his sister cleaned him off with the water from our water bottle.
I'd seen several hundred photos of Met Sin's grandchildren through the HT website, so I immediately felt attached to them in a special way: Beautiful children, each with a unique, individual curiosity.
As the monk finished his meal, he got out a piece of paper and began drawing on it, showing it show Met Sin. My son explained that the monk was demonstrating how voting worked because the historic second national election in Cambodia was coming up. Met Sin, my son explained, was illiterate and had never voted, and the concept of voting was new to him. His grandchildren listened and watched the exchange with intense attention.
Later I reflected on the parallels between our lives: our ages, our good health, our grandchildren, etc. We both lived in rural, agricultural communities of precisely the same size. He had been rice farming for subsistence in Balang while I had been working in the Napa Valley for wineries and grape growers. His children might have been my children; his grandchildren might have been my grandchildren; his small house might have been the same house where I had lived for the past 25 years.
Met Sin was even preparing to vote, as we in the U.S. were preparing to vote in our Presidential election.
But then I reflected on the differences between our histories: Met Sin had lived through Cambodian independence, the reign of the Khmer Rouge, the Killing Fields, the imprisonment of the entire population on forced labor communes, and the recent Civil War that had left his land riddled with land mines and unexploded munitions. And yet, when the Civil War was over, he had returned to his ancestral land at the side of this reservoir -- ruined and now rebuilt by Human Translation, EWB, and the community. He is a survivor.
In 2009 we returned to the Trav Kod Reservoir, and I'd hoped to see Met Sin again. He was away, working, but we met his wife who showed us the new fish pond where she was raising catfish - another community project sponsored by HT and it's local Community Translation organization. The little pond was a plastic-lined hole that had been dug beside their hut, and she proudly showed us how they fed the fish with the special fish food that HT had provided. It seemed like a small thing to my eyes -- a hole in the ground -- yet it's an important addition to their resources: A source of reliable protean. And if there is extra, they can sell the fish for cash.
The reservoir itself was full. The Army had improved the road and ox carts were crossing the water gate with loads of rice straw. Children slept in the carts on top of the straw as the caravan moved slowly towards the village. The previous year I'd seen ox carts carrying wood scavenged from the forests surrounding Kulen Mountain. At the time, I'd thought that the carts filled with wood was picturesque, until I realized how quickly the land was being denuded of forest. This site of the rice straw seemed like another small improvement: One that was less severe to the ecology.
I took this photo of the reservoir and one of the current HT team right before my camera's battery failed. HT had come a long way, and Met Sin's family had come a long way in a few short years.
When Tobias had first come home from Cambodia on his first trip -- committed to helping the community at Balang rebuild the reservoir -- I was as skeptical as the next person. But it had come together -- as it still is coming together -- and it makes me proud to know him and his work. Proud as a father, but also simply proud of another human being.
This Feb and March Judith and I will be returning to S.E. Asia, and I hope to be able to travel out again to meet Met Sin and see how his extended family is growing up. He's had the pleasure of seeing my family -- at least Arwen and Tobias -- mature these past six years. I want to see how his grandchildren are fairing too.
This morning, on the concrete step, beside the pots of plants and flowers that still await their turn with the gardener, there sits a small Cambodian lion. My son Tobias brought it home to us long ago on one of his trips, and at first I didn’t know what to make of it. It’s a curious gift – another curio to join the herd of wooden elephants and the other assemblages of bric-a-brac that inhabit our book shelves.
The lion is very crudely made of an indeterminate metal, somewhat greenish in color, and still black with the grime of a recent forging. It was forged in the shape of the Khmer lions that stand guard over the headwaters of the Siem Reap – a temple lion of the Khmer kings. Its a dog-like figure, with a narrow Khmer dog waist and a large Chinese-style head full of sharp stylized teeth, has a dragon-like ruff running down its spine to the tip of its curled, tufted tail.
When I first held it, I thought it might be made of bronze because of its heft. I thought all it needed was some metal polish brushed on with an old toothbrush to bring out the golden patina that I believed lay hidden beneath the grime. So I went to work on it, polishing and brushing, until my fingers turned an aching green. This lion is no bigger than a mouse in my hand but the grime was so deep and the forging so rough that I could only barely get the slightest glimmer out of the metal. And within a few days, that glimmer was gone again, lost in dark green oxidation. In the end, I gave up, and then sent it on a surreptitious journey across many different stations throughout the house: First it went to the fireplace mantle, then to the oak bookcase in my office, and then, several years ago, to the concrete step where it now guards the front door. How, precisely, it ended at the front stoop is mysterious to me. Perhaps Judith relocated it there, or maybe even Tobias or Arwen. But there it sits, guarding the door, and that’s where I found it this morning.
Meanwhile, my son Tobias has gone off to Cambodia again and again. At first he had gone on a lark, but as each trip ended, he came back a bit more somber. It disturbed me because I couldn’t understand what was changing him.
Then two years ago, just exactly at this time, we went to visit Cambodia where he and his sister Arwen are working. The town is Siem Reap, near the ancient Khmer capital of Angkor, and it was a trip filled with many awakening things.
Arwen took on the role of being our hostess, putting us up and helping us get our bearings. She even became our point person as we bartered in the markets: Too much, too much, she would say. Only two dollar, only two dollar, was the response. Somehow she knew that if she persisted, she’d strike the bargain right where she wanted it.
Meanwhile her brother Tobias – present but in the shadows of our conversations – came and went and came and went again. He was like a kind of ghost; a face remembered; a silent, thoughtful presence just beyond our reach.
Then, near the end of the time he was able to spend with us, he drove us out to the project where he had been working – a great dry basin where a trickle of water ran in the creek, and where two young boys were throwing a net to catch minnows for food.
It was here that I felt we had at last found him. His NGO was constructing a large concrete water gate to dam this creek and flood a reservoir, so that rice paddies could fill and flourish once again. But right now, where we stood inspecting this massive construction site, we were nowhere and in the heart of nothing, as the sun beat down on us on the dry red Cambodian soil, and the boys threw their torn and crudely patched net again and again into the shallow water. His cohort, the monk named Somet, covered himself with his crimson robe, to shade his shaved head from the heat. We looked about, took photos of this moonscape, and tried to imagine the place where we stood someday flooded with water. A water buffalo plied the reeds in the distance. The boys threw the net again. Nothing.
Later, he drove us to Somet’s wat, where there were the ruins of a Khmer monastery, and where stone lions once guarded the temples of the monks. But these lions had been tipped off their pedestals, and their wide mouths had been broken by the rifle butts of the Khmer Rouge years before. Then they dragged an artillery cannon up the rise, up the sacred steps of the monastery, and mounted it on the roof of one of the temples. The roof eventually collapsed, crumbling under the weight. So the canon had been dragged clear of the rubble and now stooped in the grass like yellow giraffe at a water hole, barrels pointing down, waiting for more nothing.
The temples were built in typical Khmer style: Small rectangular rooms called “libraries” connected by long enclosed corridors. Their roofs were made of carefully hewn stones that were tilted against one another to form triangular pyramids. The Khmer engineers had not yet discovered what we today call the Corinthian arch when these building were built. Now many of the libraries and corridors have collapsed and are merely blocks of stone piled through the forest.
In the gray-green jungle, brilliant red signs stuck on spindly poles displayed crude drawings of skull and crossbones to warn of the land mines that still riddled the paths.
The grass was alive beneath the leaves with termites, eating through the forest litter.
Tobias and I climbed down into one of the long ruined libraries of the Khmer monastery. The stones were fitted within a hair’s breath of one another, but the great window lintels had long ago cracked and were now held in place by giant wooden timbers, fourteen inches thick. It was a desperate attempt to save these ancient temples from final collapse, but this technique made the buildings look even more decrepit.
In this damp, cool shade beneath the ground, it struck me how far this solemn young man had come. I remembered how once years ago he had stood leaning against the door jam of my VW bus on a Halloween night half a world away, watching the full moon rise above the vineyards where we lived. Back then, it seemed that door jam was a threshold to his life, and he said “This is the last time I’ll see a full moon on Halloween here.” He was at that time 14. Now he was a full grown man, six feet six inches tall, skinny as a stork, living his life 10,000 miles away, in a haunted place a thousand years old, more frightening than any haunted house we might have imagined. It seemed truly an ancient place of the dead.
But it was the experience in the mine field that focused my attention that day, visiting the site where the CMAC crew was clearing canals that led from the dam. Tobias had driven us as far as he could along the rutted red sand road, through the stumps of brush and trees that had been leveled to the ground. The truck could go no farther because the ruts were deeper than the axel of his truck, and we had to climb out and walk the remaining mile: Tobias and Somet leading the way while Judith and Chai and I followed on the foot path. Along the path all plant life had been mercilessly cut down twenty feet on either side. Every 30 feet a concrete pillar documented that CMAC – the Cambodian Mine Action Committee – had swept for mines.
Eventually we came upon the CMAC crew: Ten men in blue uniforms, some standing beneath a makeshift blue tarpaulin roof strung between two enormous termite mounds. Others were sweeping the area ten yards ahead with metal detectors. They wore no protective clothing other than a plastic face shield. They were searching for anti-personnel mines and unexploded munitions – things they called UXOs for “unexploded ordinances”. I asked if they had found any. “Yes,” Chai said. “10 anti personnel mines and 14 UXOs.”
Where, I inquired. “Where we just came walking,” Chai replied. “Yesterday.”
This news seemed to silence Somet who, sitting down in a folding chair, looked blankly off into the scrubby jungle. Four years earlier, Tobias had asked him about mines in this area, but Somet had assured him there were none left. “No, no mines here! No mines here!” Now this CMAC crew had revealed the hidden truth: Had Tobias or his engineers strayed this way to clear the canals, they might have been maimed or killed. It was a thorn in his friendship with Tobias, though it was not clear if he had betrayed Tobias, or if Cambodia itself had betrayed them both.
But Tobias said nothing now, and took photos of the men, the termite hill, the cases of UXOs that had been found, and the map showing the crew’s progress. He looked pale, perhaps from the heat. And he looked solemn and wasted.
Somet, who called me Father and who called Judith Mother, said nothing more. He held my hand as we walked back through the mine field towards the truck. He held my hand tightly, like a child who was frightened, but who was pretending that he was being brave. He is 34 years old – the age of our oldest son Dagan – and had grown up in this place: Knew it like the back of his hand. Tobias – who led us now back through the mine field – was 27. He walked casually, almost sauntering, across the ruts in the road, talking with Chai.
When we arrived back at the truck Tobias made an announcement. “I have to turn the truck around, and in order to do that I have to leave the road here. So I want all of you to stand back 30 feet while I do this.”
But the mines have been cleared, we said. There’s no danger now.
“They have swept for anti-personnel mines and UXOs”, Tobias replied. “They didn’t sweep for anti-tank mines, so you’ll have to wait while I turn this around.”
And then it was that I awakened from the dream of Cambodia into the realities of the place.
It’s one thing to visit the rubble of an ancient nation as it struggles to right itself from its long history of civil war and to marvel at the changes that are taking place. It’s another thing to visit the ruins of Khmer kings and Hindu temples and Buddhist monasteries that lay deep in the bush and contemplate the enormity of history that permeates the place. And it’s still another to walk a mine field where men in blue delicately scour the earth of plants so they might pick out the detritus of war.
But to watch your own son navigate the ruts of a road – not knowing what lay beneath the crust of red dirt as the wheels of the truck spin and the engine roars – is a transcending experience that focuses your mind to the present.
“One time, they set off an anti-tank mine,” Tobias had told me. “It was an explosion I will never forget.”
Here, there was no telling what might happen in this moment. But this time, there was nothing. Tobias threw the truck into reverse, and then pulled it from its rut, out onto the embankment just within the concrete markers. And so we climbed back in, drove the long red road back through the villages, through the fields of saw grass so sharp it can cut one’s arm, as naked children waved to us “hello, goodbye”, and women pulled their bicycles to the side to let us by. We drove two hours back into the city of Siem Reap. And then on to the airport where we boarded our plane and flew 30 hours home, here, safe.
The small Khmer lion on my step now has a different place in my mind’s eye. I now guess of what it is made. I now know that the dark patina of green will never shine like gold and that the days of the Khmer kings are over. No. This lion came from Cambodia, and is made of melted brass artillery shell casings, re-forged in a small hot fire by the side of the road, poured into a hand-carved mold in the red sands along the Siem Reap, and sent to market for a tourist to buy.
My son Tobias bought it for me, and now it guards my home.
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.
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.
For about six years now I've been kidded by my friends and family about Tonga. I was depressed with the outcome of the 2000 elections; about the rigged votes; about 9/11; about the lies and missed opportunities leading up to the invasion of Iraq; about the destruction; about the moral hypocrisy that seemed to be coming from an unelected administration bent upon consolidating its power.
I was immersed in books that recorded the world travels of past generations of sailors, actively seeking a safe haven where corruption, where it occurred, was on more on a scale of human failings than institutional decay. Scale, beauty, simplicity, safety, and humanity: These were the goals. More and more, I found my mind turning to descriptions of the island kingdom of Tonga.
I'd complain and quip about what was going on this country, and eventually people would ask: So what are you going to do about it?
"I want to move to Tonga!" became my response.
Tonga! Tonga! The dream of an island kingdom in the South Pacific! Lots of sailing! Beautiful people! Simplicity! Life! Maybe another chance for happiness!
I'd laugh at myself, along with everyone else, but once inoculated with the idea, the dream seemed to take on a life off its own.
"I'm a writer! I can work anywhere!"
"So where do you want to be?"
"Tonga, maybe! I think we should move to Tonga!"
Meanwhile, Tobias came back from Europe and started college in Pennsylvania. Arwen tried Pennsylvania and returned to California with me. Dagan meandered between Northern California, Southern California, and Oregon. Judith was teaching in Pennsylvania. I felt like I was holding down the fort in St. Helena while the world was collapsing around me. "Tonga, maybe!" I kept saying to myself. "Maybe in Tonga I can figure all this crap out!"
By the time the 2004 elections arrived, my disgust with the direction things were moving here had reached a new low. "When are people going to finally wake up?" I demanded. I had done a little election work in Pennsylvania, acting as an election observer at the polls: Helping to roll in the huge, ancient polling machines; helping people with instructions before they entered into their booths; checking peoples' names off of election rolls; helping to tabulate ballots off the continuous-roll ballot machines; cross-checking the results; talking with the volunteer election officials at the little church where I was stationed.
I began to see the election process in the U.S. as an embodiment of those ancient gray machines with their faded black-velvet curtains and their worn, painted levers -- rows and rows of levers aligned into columns of parties, candidates, issues, and initiatives. And the election volunteers themselves, so happy to have someone new to help them out in the basement of that little brick church. They were lovely elderly people from the neighborhood, gray themselves like the old mechanical machines, and slightly frayed at the edges like the velvet curtains. Blue-haired old ladies directed by an earnest old man. Even I, nearing retirement age, seemed young to them. They were as old as the balloting machines themselves, and it seemed that in their eyes they were looking to me, with a bit of hope, that I might take up their work at the next election.
"Tonga!" my heart murmured in denial. "Tonga!"
One of the balloting machines became stuck. It jammed in the middle of someone's vote-casting. It was stuck solid, and the master lever could not be budged. "No problem!" said the elderly man in charge of the precinct. He moved the voter to another machine, and then -- with my help -- we rolled the broken machine aside, opened the back through a set of shiny polished spring-mounted screws, breaking the metal election seal. He could not do it alone, not because the machine was too heavy, but because I was to act as a sworn witness to what he was about to do.
The back of the machine opened downward to reveal the continuous roll of paper, pre-printed with names of candidates, party affiliations, and ballot initiatives for local and county issues. The recordings of each person's vote had been marked like mechanical chicken marks on the roll as the master lever had been pulled. Each vote, a series of punches permanently imprinted beside each candidate.
As I looked into the mechanism of this machine, with its cogs and levers, I felt as though I were looking into brain of the democracy itself: Heavy, technologically ancient, complex, adequately oiled and cleaned, but worn by sixty years of occasional intense usage. It was an artifact of an industrial age that had long since been surpassed by electronics, but still it persisted to stand. I was faced with the fragility of that democracy, yet chastened by the intensity with which the election official performed his volunteer tasks.
"These machines are older than I am," he said as he drew a line through the spoiled ballot on the machine. "Sometimes they just jam like this, and all you can do is mark where the last ballot ended. He pulled out his clipboard and had me read off the dial of numbers in that indicated how many ballots had been cast on the machine that day. 321 ballots! Then he had me read off the number of ballots that had ever been cast by the machine in its lifetime. I don't remember the number, it was so large. He had me read off these numbers three times, marking them down on his clipboard. Then he signed the clipboard, made a note on the huge roll of paper, signed the roll, had me sign his clipboard, and recorded the date and the time. Then we closed up the massive machine and, together, we rolled it out and down the hallway by the stairs.
"Tonga!" my heart murmured. But the sound of it was a little fainter, a little less intense, a bit like an echo of a desire.
Later, as we closed up the polling place, I thanked the poll workers for the experience. It had been a long night, reading off the numbers off the balloting machine, calling the numbers back and forth, checking and cross-checking each others' work. We had formed a kind of team, and we made little quips about what we were doing as we worked. No one spoke of politics. This was just another job, like raking the leaves or straightening the folding chairs into rows at the end of a church social. We were straightening up after a national election like we were straightening up after a dance. It was a strange sort of dance, indeed. But we were tired. Some of the blue-haired poll workers had been there all day, and they were hungry. I'd been there no more than three hours. I said goodnight and walked out into the rainy darkness and drove to Judith's house.
"Tonga?" my heart now seemed to be questioning me. "Tonga?"
That night my desired Presidential candidate, John Kerry, took the county and ultimately the state of Pennsylvania. I had not voted in that polling place where I worked. I knew I would probably never see those poll workers again. Their looks seemed to be asking for someone new to pass the baton of electioneering, but I knew it would not be me who picked it up. Still, I was humbled by their dedication to an idea about democracy; chastened by their matter-of-fact belief in the process; awed by their persistence to "get it right", "double-check it", "Did you get that number Gladys?" It was like watching my parents do the dishes together so long ago: Doing the dishes of an election.
Tonight I read the news from Tonga on the Internet.
In September, King Taufa’ahau Tupou IV died at the age of 88. The royal family was just completing the traditional period of 100 days of morning. To mark the official ending of the 100 days of mourning period for the Royal Family the Lanu Kilikili ritual or the Washing of the Stones will be held at the Royal Tomb at Mala’ekula, Nuku’alofa to be carried out by the Ha’a Tufunga. The newspaper said that they have just started receiving the fine stones that have been carefully selected from the shores of the volcanic island of Tofua.
But then, last Wednesday a riot broke out as some drunken teenagers got hyped up after a pro-democracy protest that had been going on all week in front of the new king's administration office.
Cars were overturned. Grocery stores were ravaged. Windows were broken. Fires were set. Fortunately, no one was killed.
If you're interested in my double life in Tonga, you should check out this story at Matangi Tonga Online.
It's clearly been a tumultuous time for the Tongan people. In another story on the newspaper, a new volcano is breaking the surface of the ocean in the Kingdom of Tonga. Huge rafts of floating pumice clogged the engines of boat that was the first to actually witness the erupting volcano.
In other news, the electrical utility in Tonga has created a big stir. The electrical utility had been privatized a couple of years ago, but now wanted the government to buy back the assets. The price of diesel fuel to run the generators had ruined the profitability of the company, and it was threatening to sell the assets to Chinese interests. Instead, it was decided to sell the power company to a New Zealand firm. There's still some legal issue about whether the original privatization was constitutional to begin with.
All this is sounding hauntingly familiar.
....my sail boat has been sitting on its trailer for a year. Judith thinks I should sell it and get a smaller boat. I don't know.... (...."Tonga!... Tonga!...Tonga!...)
I miss Tonga, having never ever set foot on the tiny island. I miss the Tongan people, having never met a single one. I miss the ceremonies, the island winds, the coral beaches and the palms. My heart still calls out "Tonga!" and I worry about their riot, their volcano, and their electricity.
But here, in Northern California, the leaves are blowing off the trees and the grape vines. It is time for Thanksgiving, after an important election. Tobias is in Cambodia now, but Arwen and Dagan and Kellie and Judith will all be at the dinner table.
The volcanoes are silent in my heart. The riots have been, for the moment, silenced.
I think I'll pour a glass of wine at the Thanksgiving dinner table and propose a toast.
"To Tobias and Tonga!" I'll say.
And, of course, everyone will kid me. But I think I'll be okay now.
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.
