We made a pilgrimage to the village near Quang Ngai along the central coast of Vietnam where US troops massacred 504 "noncombatants" during four hours on March 16, 1968, just over 40 years ago now. Many people have heard of the My Lai massacre and this sign indicates the site of an irrigation ditch where some of the villagers where machine gunned to death by Lt. Calley and others. At the same time that Charlie Company was going beserk in "My Lai", the troops of Bravo Company killed 97 civilians in a nearby hamlet, Co Ly. The book, "Four Hours in My Lai" by Michael Bilton and Kevin Sim is an exhaustive study of what happened before during and after the massacres.

This is one of many photos of murdered villagers taken by Ron Haberle, a US Army photographer with Charlie Company. Haberle's photos helped convince skeptics that something terrible had taken place on March 16, 1968. The story only came to light in late 1969.

My friend, Larry Buck, who is also a clinical microbiologist arrived last week with his wife, Mary Ann. Larry will spend one month here working in the microbiology laboratories at the National Institute of Public Health and at the National Pediatric Hospital. Larry and I worked together at the University of New Mexico until I left in 1997. Larry just retired in January 2007 and has been doing some consulting for the American Society for Microbiology and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Kenya and Botswana. Here we are with the microbiology laboratory staff at the NIPH. That's me in the white shirt and Larry in the orange T-shirt.

Collecting recyclabe material

Perhaps the most marginalized people in Phnom Penh are the people who walk the streets pulling carts to collect recyclable materials. In Khmer, they "roat echay". They call out "echay" to let homeowners behind their walls know that they are passing. Homeowners typically sell their cans, bottles and paper to them and the "echay" people then resell them to middle men who collect trucks full of these materials. Often the "echay" people are mothers who must bring their children along with them in the hot sun. The child in this rickety cart is three years old but she was so thin and underdeveloped, she looked much younger.

This is Socheata, age 14. She is learning English in school and she wants to become a doctor when she grows up. I hope by the time she is ready to go to medical school, the teaching will no longer be in French. Would be Cambodian doctors and pharmacists still have to learn French to attend the government Faculty of Medical Sciences. Although this is a bit of an anachronism, some graduates from the medical school are then sent to France for advanced training and professors from France come to teach at the medical school. Socheata is fortunate to have been born into a family of silversmiths in a little village near Oudong, a former capital of Cambodia, not far from Phnom Penh.

Svay Ken's painting

This is a recent painting by Svay Ken, one of Cambodia's great artists. After he survived the Pol Pot genocidal regime, he worked as a waiter at the Raffles Hotel. At age 60, he began painting. Although he continues to paint, at age 75, he is slowing down a bit and his health is not so good. A group of us went to visit him last Friday night and it did cheer him up. This painting quotes many Buddhist admonitions.

One of the things I enjoy in Phnom Penh are the sights we see on the streets while riding to work everyday. This tuk-tuk is so full of fresh bananas that the passengers are sitting on the front of the tuk-tuk.

Today is election day in Cambodia and now the streets of Phnom Penh are relatively quiet and some shops are closed for many people have gone to their home provinces to vote. In the days leading up to the election, convoys of trucks loaded with people supporting one or another of the 11 political parties rolled through the streets of Phnom Penh blaring out songs and speeches of the candidates. This truck was part of a Human Rights Party convoy passing along St. 289 in Tuol Kork on the last day of the campaign.

Dixon is a little town on the Flathead Indian Reservation along Montana Hwy. 200 between Ravalli and Thompson Falls. The Dixon Bar is its most famous landmark. I used to collect empty beer bottles along the highway and redeem them for 2 cents each at the Dixon Bar. I used the money to buy comic books, bubble gum and firecrackers - essential stuff for a kid. The Dixon Bar is for sale, but at $1 million there haven't been any buyers that I know of, or can even imagine. Dixon is close to the National Bison Range at Moiese, MT. Up to 500 buffalo share the 18,500 acres with elk, deer, black bears and coyotes. Buffalo meat from the National Bison Range was a common lunch item for us in the Dixon elementary school. Unfortunately, the old bridge over the Flathead River was swept away by ice many years ago now. Some of the best swimming and fishing holes were on the other side of the river.

Salad makings

I am always amazed at how much produce or other cargo can be loaded on a moto. I wonder how this woman can drive safely with so many vegetables in her lap and hanging from the handlebars. Yet, this is a common sight on the busy streets of Phnom Penh.