The boat ride up the Tonle Sap River into northern Cambodia takes five hours. This time of year the river is broad and flat, swollen into a great lake that yields a bounty of fish for the people living along its banks. One-room shacks rise on stilts at the water's edge, their walls and roofs made of dried palm fronds. Each house has a cow tied in the yard and a huge earthen jar for collecting rainwater. There is no electricity or indoor plumbing.
People travel by dugout canoe.
Naked children playing on the banks of the river laugh and wave as the ferry passes. Sophie imagines her own kids, well fed and well clothed, splashing in the pool at their country club. She hopes someday they will come here too and will share her sense of mission. At her uncle's house in Phnom Penh, Sophie bows to two Buddhist monks as they chant blessings for the money she offered, umbrellas shading them from the sun. Orange-robed monks are again a familiar sight in Cambodia.