Start Point
The crinkly spine of Start Point, South Devon, a view south-westwards to Prawle Point, and another northwards to Hallsands (the village that was washed into the sea), Beesands, Torcross and Slapton Sands.
Myers Cooper
Meeting the Dump Kids
Since January 2008 Cambodian Communities out of Crisis (CCC) has been helping to educate and feed 15 children whose families scavenge on Phnom Penh's municipal rubbish dump. The children, who formerly worked on the dump with parents and relatives, attend state primary schools, where, like all Cambodian children in the state education system, they have to pay a fee to their teacher for the privilege of participating in lessons. CCC provides the money for their fees and pays for them to have a cooked lunch each day on the premises of the church they all attend. The project is administered by the pastor of the church, Pastor Sous Sokunthea, and his wife cooks the lunches.
Today I met the children for the first time. Pastor Sokunthea confirmed that their health has improved as a result of stopping work on the dump and receiving better nourishment than they get at home. Some are doing well at school; others are struggling.
The future of the project is uncertain:
- The church's denominational authorities want to sell the land on which the church's building is situated and where the children eat their lunch. Pastor Sokunthea is opposed to this idea.
- The rubbish dump is closing and a new one is being opened father away from where the children's families live. The scavengers may not be permitted to work at the new site and Pastor Sokunthea fears they may turn to crime.
- So far three children have sponsors. The rest of the money comes from CCC's general income, which has declined since the recession started. Pastor Sokunthea could find more children to help if CCC had the requisite resources.
Having met the children, they are now more than faces in photographs and names on reports. I hope we can continue to help them go to school and save them from going back to a life disturbingly portrayed in Marcin Babul's portfolio of photographs here.
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Phnom Penh's changing skyline
From the top floor of the Goldiana Hotel, in the far distance the 32-storey OCIC Tower nearing completion, and a couple of blocks away Gold Tower 42, still in its early stages of construction but likely to overshadow neighbouring buildings before very long.
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Walking in the Howgill Fells: a circuit including Cautley Spout and The Calf
With my friend Duncan Pratt (who took the photographs) I walked from the Cross Keys temperance inn, up the side of Cautley Spout, England's highest waterfall above ground (Gaping Gill on Ingleborough falls a greater distance into a pothole). The broken cascade of falls tumbles a total of 650 feet (198 m). We then walked on alongside Red Gill Beck and Force Gill Beck, up on to the Calf, the high point of the Howgill Fells. We returned via Great Dummacks and Pickering Gill.
Posted from Sedbergh, United Kingdom
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Time to take the plunge
Time to take the plunge, not literally into what is claimed to be the deepest, widest, shortest and straightest canal in the UK (pictured here), but to try out autopost from Posterous to Twitter and Facebook. I wish there was a way of testing these things without the whole world seeing what happens. On second thoughts, maybe not quite the whole world.
Posted from Ulverston, United Kingdom
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