The story of the little girl in which Buck artistically fell in love part II

As I thought I better take the short cut over a level covered with garbage I was surprised when a bunch of girls suddenly shouted over to me, gesticulating wildly, "Caution, caution, don't do that !! " on Khmer in my direction. The surprise became panic, as the whole level of garbage began to wobble and I realized, that just the upper layer of garbage was dried again after a massive monsoon rainstorm and everything lower was a meters thick yucky marshy mass of toxic silt. Every breakthrough would have been a sure entrance into the garbage hell Cambodia without any chance of return. OK, it was an adventure and I was content, I had collected a whole lot of data of potential garbage girl candidates anyway.

It came the time as Buck and his team came back to Cambodia and I proudly got my index out with all garbage girl candidates. What made me a little bit uncertain, was the fact that Buck put the picture of little Srey Toy, he had taken with his I phone, as a desktop picture on his laptop.
"I want this one !!" the master had got into the head. I suspected what meant this for me. Garbage dump! "3 times I'll still go there, Buck. If we then haven't found her, we forget the trash ok?"….

...the months passed and the shooting had to be started soon... But where was Srey Toy? As a very last attempt to find the girl we copied lots of "WANTED" pictures of the little girl and I made me on my bounty hunter mission on the garbage dump once again, this time with a Khmer colleague from my TV station.
Arrived in the silt , of course we asked immediately for the girl and what has never happened yet immediately happened. At once two families knew the kids face 100 per cent !! ... They know the family and their house. WOW. Mission accomplished? Well, some pointed in this direction, the others pointed exactly in the opposite direction! Fg Khmer! Anyway, I took this only branch of hope and went in one of those directions, till I came to a house al last. "Fehlanzeige!" Once again a Khmer class A confusion high performance. So, let’s take the other direction. And there came a strange woman along who pretended to be the mother of this garbage girl, the garbage mother. I still couldn’t believe it. The mother must be able to recognize her own child, mustn’t she? And after another hour she was finally there:
BUCKS ARTISTICAL LOVE SREY TOY!! The rest was easy: buying a telephone for her and promising her a career as an actress in a big German cinema production.

Meanwhile, my girlfriend Siyan had the idea to give 10 dollars to a little garbage boy in order to send him to buy a coke for her…I still wondered, why this one is so pleased ... now of course this one didn't come back any more. I would have been supposed to permit this to me, but this is another story.

This initial approach turned into a deep and supporting friendship. After Srey Toy had turned off its appearances in SAME SAME BUT DIFFERENT, this didn't mean the end of all relations for Buck not at all. He supports the family to this day and makes it possible for the little girl Srey Toy and her sister to go into a nearby situated Khmer/English school. The family could celebrate an adequate wedding of its daughter thanks to Bucks help and the family could move into a dignified flat house and get rid of it's "Einraum slumhut" made from plastic tarpaulins and stuff. And what does this mean for me?... Garbage dump, at least once a month!

Jan