Category Archives: Service Travel

Pepper vs. Sex Trade

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My friend and longtime colleague Tom Gordon loves Southeast Asia. He’s showing it by selling a variety of Cambodian products, included prized Kampot pepper, to help free women from the sex. trade. In July 201, Tom recounted how it all came about in the Orange County Register. Here’s the beginning of the first part. Click on the link at the end to read more on the Register’s web site:

I never thought I’d be selling pepper. Or jasmine rice and rose facial scrub. Or damask scarves.

In fact, until I Googled it, I had no idea what damask was.

It has been a crazy year.

Last year on May 13 my wife, Cris, had taken our black Lab, Shadow, out for a walk. While they were waiting at a stoplight on Main Street in west Orange, an SUV made an ill-timed left turn, hitting a small sedan and sending it up on the sidewalk. Cris and Shadow were both hit. Cris somehow got her foot caught under the car before rolling up on the hood. The result was not pretty: a trip to the UCI Trauma Center, six days in the hospital, more than 70 stitches, a compound fracture of her left ankle, a broken right leg and an amputated big toe.

Her recovery was long and slow. Over five months she progressed from bed-ridden to a wheelchair to a walker to crutches to a limp. We had a lot of time to talk and think and we discovered our priorities had changed.

Just a month before the accident we had visited Cambodia. We have been to Southeast Asia many times and Cambodia — a poor nation with a tortured past — touched us most. During our visit we toured a pepper farm in Kampot Province. The pepper was spicy and the farmers were sincere. We asked one farmer what we could do to help. His answer was simple: “Sell our pepper in your country.”

Between visits to the orthopedic clinic at UCI and appointments with home-health nurses, we decided we would give it a try.

Sounds easy enough.

Keep in mind, Cris is an art director at an ad agency and I have been a newspaperman for almost 40 years. What did we know about business licenses, international shipping, customs brokers and Pay Pal?

Not a lot.

Read the entire story about the growth of the Pepper Project here.

Find out more about the Pepper Project and its products here.

Find out more about the Daughters of Cambodia, a faith-based non-Government organization reaching out to victims of sex trafficking in Cambodia, here.

 

 

Travel With Purpose

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Have you have ever felt a little guilty for indulging yourself on vacation? I have found ways to do good and see the world at the same time.

Now I enjoy a massage under a Hawaiian palm as much as the next guy, but I can also get into other changes of pace and place.
“Mudding out” inundated homes in sweltering New Orleans was a far cry from a luxury trip, but physical labor is different from my desk job and we did get to see the area — albeit in tatters — and eat cajun-style aligator, begnets and other local delectables, plus get the satisfaction of lending a little help to people in need. So I count such a trip as an “alternative” vacation.
I had similar experiences taking medical supplies to indigenous people living 19th Century-style in the mountains of Oaxaca, Mexico, and lending moral and spiritual support to New Yorkers shaken in the wake of 9/11.
These days, with growing interest in “service travel’ or “voluntourism,” there are many opportunities to mix good deeds and pleasure. While you can always take the more spartan route with a church group or Greenpeace, there are also opportunities for do-gooding sprinkled into a traditional vacation.
For example, along with the fine dining, entertainment and other amenities of a cruise, passengers on certain sailings can now opt for shore activities such as beach cleanups, conservation efforts and hands-on support for local non-profits. It’s another way to get to know and support the people and ports that cruise ships visit.
Here cruise blogger Cynthia Boal Janssens shares how cruise lines are giving guests opportunities to give back.
You can learn about these and other opportunities from Expedia CruiseShipCenters/Orange County.

Here is the story I wrote about the New Orleans experience, which was published August 9, 2006 in the Orange County Register: MUD OUT, HOPE IN Keith Dier fingers little treasures fished out of the muck of his Chalmette, La., home nearly 11 months after Hurricane Katrina blew away normalcy. Soccer trophies, a metal cross, a set of New Orleans Saints tumblers, Beatles LPs, damaged photographs. “Thank God my wife isn’t here right now. She’d break down,” he says as volunteers from Kansas and Orange County dump wheelbarrow loads of moldy drywall, soggy furniture, ruined books and just about every Dier possession onto a heaping junk pile in front of the family’s home. Until Aug. 29, 2005, the Dier family had much in common with mine. They had lived a comfortable life on a suburban street for years. They knew their neighbors. A senior year in high school approached. They had no clue that they were about to lose their house, their neighborhood, their church and their livelihoods. I went to New Orleans for a week in late July unsure of what to expect. Along with six other men from Saddleback Church, I was to do “mudouts.” That’s when crews of 20-plus volunteers attack an inundated house and pick it clean down to frame and foundation. We joined volunteers from across the country.

Our group included a Laguna Hills councilman, an Orange County sheriff’s sergeant, a dentist and me, a newspaper editor. We had seen a fair amount about the hurricane’s destruction. We had heard big and sometimes contradictory numbers.None of that prepared us for the view on the ground. Shopping center after shopping center is deserted. Pole signs are twisted, toppled and missing letters. Electricity remains absent in swaths; stop signs substitute for broken traffic signals. Some streets are deserted; others have a few FEMA trailers in front yards indicating that owners are back but not in the home. Poor neighborhoods, middle class neighborhoods, upscale neighborhoods. “Could this be the United States?” We recount the finger-pointing and tales of corruption and inefficiency while the enormous scope of the destruction sinks in. We know we will not solve New Orleans’ problems. But we have resolved not to be paralyzed by scale or blame or unanswerable questions. We are making a simple offering of a week’s time in hopes that we might help a family or two. That a few people might be heartened by support from a faraway state. That we might obey Jesus’ instruction to help those in need. Volunteer headquarters is the shell of a church and school whose congregation and students scattered. The gym is stacked with supplies, foodstuffs, insulation, bedding. Classrooms are packed with cots and bunks for rotating volunteers. New drywall is up without taping or texturing. Generators rumble constantly to power lights, fans, refrigerators and computers. “We didn’t even get to say goodbye,” says Keith, 42. “We evacuate every year and it’s always, ‘We’ll see you in three days.’ ” That was the mindset when the family headed to Keith’s parents’ house in Slidell, across Lake Pontchartrain. But reports of the hurricane’s power spurred them to head for Texas, eight hours away. After a couple of days, the Diers moved to a shelter. There, they met Jerry and Ann Hays, a couple in their 70s who offered them a mobile home on 160 acres in Texas.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Keith says. “I asked if he was sure. After all, we had three teenage boys. They can cause some wear and tear.”

Keith Dier looks through remnants of possessions salvaged from his home.

Jerry Hays said they should settle in for the school year so the boys would have some stability. He built them a soccer field and took them out on all-terrain vehicles. “He was like a grandfather,” Keith says. “And he refused to take a dollar of rent.” The Diers are grateful for the kindness of the Hayses and now strangers from California and Kansas. They want to do something to pay back. “I want to clear houses on my day off. It will not be as emotional when it’s not my own house,” Keith says. “And if you folks ever get hit by an earthquake in California, you’ve got my number.” It’s not like the Diers haven’t done their own good works. Weeks before the hurricane, their priest asked Lynne, a teacher and Eucharistic minister, if she knew anyone who might take in a troubled teen. Stephen had been arrested twice, and the judge would not release him to his drug-addicted mother. The priest worried that custody would harden him and hoped a family might give him a fresh start. Keith had coached Stephen in soccer, and Lynne knew that they were the right family. She also knew it was a risk. They might be a good influence on Stephen, but he could also be a bad one for their sons. In Texas, Stephen had a successful sophomore year and got in no trouble. When the Diers returned to Louisiana, Stephen stayed in Texas with another family to finish school.

“It’s really worked out great,” Keith says. “He’s far away from the element with which he got into trouble. He has a chance to go to college and make something of himself.”

And one of the Diers’ sons will attend college in Texas on a soccer scholarship. Keith, Lynne and their other son live in a FEMA trailer in Keith’s parents’ front yard in Slidell. Keith is back to work at a Winn-Dixie supermarket. Lynne has found a new job with the school district.

Service travel can include hard work that is extremely fulfilling.

Mudouts are strenuous work. Heat and humidity keep shirts soaked. Toxins and stench in moldy houses require respirators, gloves and long sleeves and pants.This is not work a couple can pick away at on weekends without a big crew. Our group gutted two full houses and part of a third in five days of work. When the job is done and the house is down to its bones, owners are able to envision rebuilding. But, maybe even more importantly, they feel the support of others as they navigate a long crisis.

“I feel like I don’t have to cry anymore,” Lynne says. “I’m tired of crying.” There are decisions to be made, to be sure. And big questions: Can they trust the levees to hold if they increase their mortgage debt on property still sitting below sea level? Is it better to walk away and start over somewhere else? Will others return? The Diers know they will stay in the New Orleans area, where they have one grandchild and another on the way. The hurricane spared few of their possessions but all family members are alive and healthy. “I used to be a type-A personality,” Keith says. “I had my plans, and I got frustrated if things didn’t go perfectly. I’ve learned that if something is not going to affect you in two weeks, then it’s not a problem.” Homeowners join relief workers for dinner and a worship service on the Friday night ending our week. The dining hall at relief headquarters is dressed up with tablecloths and plastic flowers. We eat lasagna, salad and chocolate chip cookies to the roar of industrial fans. We hear a message about priorities – God’s and ours — and sing about faith, hope and love. “You know what you all do?” Keith says as the night draws to a close. “You give people hope.” If my little offering can do that, it might not be as little as I thought.