After breakfast at the Frangipani Arts, we set off to visit CWCC (Cambodian Women's Crisis Center) women's shelter. We met first with the director and some of the administrative staff. The director has quite and impressive background starting with work in the mid 1990's with Oxfam, some time with other NGOs and the government.

We had a formal presentation explaining the history, organization structure, business plan, and accountability and monitoring for the organization. The organization works with women who are victims of domestic violence, rape, and sex trafficking and includes work with individual women, families and communities, and now education for the police and judges. N The major problem is domestic violence, and, as in our country, often related to alcoholism. Sex trafficking is also a problem, especially with proximity to Thailand. Women had a very subservient role in society here. If there is a choice to be made for which child to send to school, it well be the boy. Girls are often left to tend children while parents work or are put to work themselves in the rice fields. If families are desparate for money, girls may be sold or rented out for the day for sex. The shelter accepts girls as young as 8 years of age.

We toured the women's shelter which has a child day care facility, vocational training for cooking and sewing, and the living quarters. We were invited to stay for lunch by the women working on cooking skills, but the schedule did not allow for this. The whole program is quite impressive in its breadth, but progress is slow and everyone doing such work is aware that one moves forward step by step.

From there we went to Rehab Crafts, a center that employs about 20 people with disabilities, primarily from either polio or land mine injuries. They make various products with sewing, stone cutting, wood carving. For most, the disability does not interfere with their ability to do the work, but rather than to get work in the first place. The bookkeeper had lost both arms just above the elbows and is able to use a calculator and write very neatly with a pencil holding it between both stumps. The director who spoke to us had a leg injury from a landmine. We saw a couple of adaptive mobility devices for the workers there as well.

The afternoon after lunch was free time. Sandy and I went off together in a tuk-tuk and headed to the Russian Market. We wandered up and down the narrow stalls and made some small purchases. We then went for a cold fruit drink to Jars of Clay, a coffee house whose profits support women's issues down the street. Then off again on the tuk-tuk, being "marketed" out and headed for Wat Phnom which I had visited before. We walked around and found a small museum in the bottom in the back with some 3D dioramas of the history of Cambodia and Phnom Penh. I found a silk shirt there which I was able to negotiate down from $6 to $5. The women's XXL had no chance of fitting me, but I did find a emn's S that worked. It was nice to look at the few items they had for sale without being hassled. The father of the woman who sold the shirt spoke some English and told us his older daughter is a doctor in New Jersey and that he is an artist and painted the backdrops for all the dioramas. We walked up to the top to enter the pagoda when I was accosted by some man in a uniform demanding $1 (which had not happened with my first visit.) It appeared that this was for the use of the camera. I just sat down outside and Sandy went it and he walked away.

We then walked down to meet the tuk-tuk driver and decided to go over to the river area and check out the famous Foreign Correspondents' Club, a 2nd and 3rd story bar with great views of the river. Per the guide book, the restaurant was the premier Phnom Penh restaurant about 10 years ago, but has deteriorated. We dismissed the driver and tuk-tuk as we were just a few blocks from the hotel. We looked at the view and left. Sandy doesn't drink alcohol. The drive from Wat Phnom to the "F" was in the midst of rush hour traffic and that was quite a trip, took us about ½ hour to go less than 1 mile. At the intersections there are no traffic signals. Traffic is bumper to bumper with no clearly defined lands, motorcycles interspersed between every larger vehicle and creating "lanes of their own. Crossing the intersection is a free for all at best. It was quite the experience which I will have to remember when I am home and stuck in traffic, recognizing my plight is not so bad.

As we descended the stairs from the "F", there was an art gallery just next to the base with colorful, contemporary art. We were both attracted to it and spent some there and made some purchases. The artist, "Stef" is French Canadian and came to Cambodia in the mid 1990s. His theme is "Happy art in the face of despair." We walked up the street a few blocks, found a restaurant which is non-profit that supports disadvantaged youth. We were both open to eating Western food and were not very hungary. Sandy had fish and chips and I had carrot-pumpkin soup and bruschetta. Finally time to head back, so we walked the six blocks or so back to the hotel.