Going Batty

Sometimes I can't believe I get paid for this. Last evening was one of those times. We had spent much of the morning and early afternoon driving through the Cambodian countryside, past roadside stalls and newly harvested rice paddies, crossing the Mekong River shortly before noon.

About 2:30 we pulled up to a farmstead where I interviewed members of a savings and loan group. Every five minutes a large, loud truck would pull in and disgorge a load of rock and soil, revving its engine, grinding its gears and raising a cloud of dust. We could barely hear each other speak. An hour later we strolled to the next farm, where a family is raising hundreds of thousands of bats and selling the guano for fertilizer. "You should see them at 6 p.m. when they swarm out for the evening," the farmer said.

A swarm of bats? Don't worry, we told him, we'll be back. We had just enough time to drive to the nearby border with Vietnam to take photographs, stopping at a little stand to sip coconut water through a plastic straw.

At 6 p.m. we were back at the bat houses, ready for action. The little guys weren't cooperating though. It was 6:15, then 6:20. "I'm losing light fast," Misty said.

But at 6:25 the bats began darting out of their nests, 20, 50 then a 100 or more at a time, swirling out of their palm-leaf homes and into the Cambodian night.  One of them was this little guy, who was none too happy to meet us when the farmer pulled him from his nest three hours earlier.

I like to think of him now, just ending his day (like most everyone else I know, on the other side of the world) while I'm just beginning mine.