In 2006 Graham and I came with Nowra Anglican College to Cambodia to undertake housebuilding with the Tabitha Foundation. While we were visiting the floating villages near Siem Reap on the Ton Le Sap we took many photos of the people begging. At this particular time I took one of my favourite ever photos, one that impacted me then and continues to now. That of the above woman begging with her two children.
We had her picture as our desktop background for the two years before we came back to Cambodia. I often wondered who she was, if her children were still alive and so on. I searched other peoples online photo posts from the area to see if I could identify her in other peoples photos.
Since living in Cambodia I have returned to Siem Reap 3 times. The first two times I revisited the floating villages I did not see her, but did wonder after her. So in January when I took Sarah (my niece) to Siem Reap, I also took along the photo of her. When we reached the floating souvenir shop / crocodile farm I showed a few people her picture. Most of the people I asked knew her, but could just say that she was Vietnamese and very poor, no more about her. Then yes one of the begger boys in a tub knew her well, he would go and get her for me... and he did.
We chatted for about half an hour, in Khmai, (which she and I both speak a little of) and with an interpreter. I blessed her in the name of Jesus, gave her a gift, and thanked her before we left. She may never understand what she meant to me, and I may never understand what she was thinking of a woman with a photo of her, asking after her, blessing her, meant to her. But I did get a sense that I have come full circle and that both of us have been blessed from meeting each other in a unique way.
The child on the right of her is the girl who was in her arms in the original photo. Her older son was not with her, nor her husband. The baby is her third child. The boys in the back are onlookers.
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