Abby, Joanna, and I are super tired so we decided to chill out and watch Gilmore Girls for a little while. Classic.

I talked about the trial that Joanna was going to for one of the girls in my blog yesterday. Well, she didn't think she would be too intimidating in cargo pants and a t-shirt. She looked through her clothes and found a white blouse that would work. So we were on a skirt hunt. We grabbed a tuk and went to this street we saw that had some pretty nice looking stores. As soon as we walked into this one store we knew we were in trouble. In awe we climbed the shiny black stairs and all the lights came on as we reached the top. A never ending sight of rows and rows of clothes. This would have been a girls dream, besides the fact that every item was over $100. So that place was a flop. We were running out of time because she had to be at the TLC center by 1 and it was 11:30. We had a fashion crisis. We ran to the Russian Market and after 20 minutes of sweating we found a pair of dress pants. Joanna said those would just have to do. So no worries, she went to court looking very professional.


Just to update everyone about the trial. Joanna went and as expected was very frustrated by the court system. The judges answered their phones and slouched back in their chairs. The girl that went was so strong though, no tears, no cracking voice. She looked everyone right in the eye and told her story. I cannot imagine the kind of courage it would take to stand in the same room with someone that hurt me to that extreme and stand tall. I admire her more than she will ever know. They go back for a final ruling July 8th so it's not completely over. Continue to pray for the girl and her trial.

We took two of the girls that are in art school to a photo gallery yesterday. The fine art school was showcasing photographers from Phnom Penh. The pictures were so real and raw, showing pictures from around the city. The gallery was put together beautifully. There was a poster in Khami and English explaining the pictures and the artist who took them. It was a great mix of sad and happy stories. Many of them about restoration of the person. An example being, one child was forced to beg since they could walk, and because one person helped them out they are now in school and wanting to be a teacher. The two girls really enjoyed it and hopefully this opened their eyes to a new style of art.

Twice a week the girls go to yoga that is taught by one of the girls that has graduated from the TLC program. These girls are in a program called the Star House program. There, they live in an apartment, work, and integrate back into society alongside each other. They are all so sweet and all the girls from the TLC house look up to them as big sisters. We tag along with the girls to yoga and we are basically just entertainment for them to watch. Their little Cambodian bodies can move in ways that us American girls could never think of. They all make it look so easy. I have to say though, we have improved since the first session we went to.

After yoga we were all heading back to the TLC center because we were picking up Joanna after the trial and going to dinner. We raced the girls back in the tuk tuks. They had their own and we were in ours. It was a pretty intense race with lots of screaming, laughing, and strange looks from other moto drivers. Our driver Mr.Khar was determined to win and we beat them by a good 30 seconds.

We decided to venture out of our normal restaurant routine we have and ate at a place called the Noodle House. It was absolutely delicious. It was an Asian noodle place and we each got a different dish. I haven't been that full in a long time.

We just decided to have another girls night at Joanna's because it was so late. So we walked down to the movie store and bought one for $1.50. Incredible, I know. This restaurant/bar that is on the same street as Joanna's hotel gives you baskets of popcorn while you're waiting for your food and we were all craving popcorn. So on a whim Joanna asked them if we could just pay for a small bag of popcorn. Fifteen minutes later, the biggest bag of popcorn I have ever seen comes out in a plastic bag. They obviously don't mess around when it comes to popcorn. Don't worry, you will get to see a picture of it.

Today we're going to tye dye t-shirts with the girls. I'm sure this is going to be a fun time.