Cat pictures?

Sorry, couldn't find a NGO cat right now.

We seem to be missing chapter 6...

Ooops....just saw it. Tomorrow chapter 6.....sorry.

CHAPTER 8: TNGO IN TROUBLE

They reached Phum Sohmbow an hour later. Mun Sopheap led them into the village chief’s house. The interior was dark and smoky. The entire village was jammed inside, crowded menacingly around Lillith-Marie Bennington-Smith, who was tied to a pole in the middle of the house. Brad Erskine thought she was being unusually quiet until he saw the gag in her mouth. Mun Sopheap made a respectful sompeah to the village chief.
Dr. Murtch and Brad Erskine stood nervously by his side.
Mun Sopheap spoke for several minutes in Khmer. Some of the villagers began to relax, and the chief even managed a faint smile.
Just as the village chief began to motion to his assistant to cut Ms. Bennington-Smith free, Dun Chheat Meas nudged Say Sory. “Wait a minute!” he said. “It’s the other two!”
“That one,” said Dun Chheat Meas. He pointed at Dr. Murtch.
“Remember him? He’s the one who talked us into participating in the TNGO Model Irrigation Project that flooded the eastern half of the village.”
The crowd of villagers muttered and sidled closer.
“And that other one, over there,” said Say Sory, pointing at Brad Erskine, “he’s even worse. He’s the idiot who persuaded us to try the TNGO Model Flood Recovery Project—the plan that made us cut down all the coconut palms and use the wood to build a bridge across the flooded area. That bridge was so poorly designed that it washed out the next day. So now we have no trees, no coconuts, and no bridge either—and the eastern half of the village is still underwater.”
Some of the men in the crowd reached for their knives. Their muttering grew louder. “They’re all from the evil TNGO!” cried Dun Chheat Meas. “Get them!”
“Friends—” said Mun Sopheap in Khmer. But then he saw the look in the villagers’ eyes, and suddenly he felt an invisible hand clench around his throat. The words he wanted to say died deep down in his chest, long before they could reach his paralyzed tongue. He tried to swallow, but his mouth had gone dry. It was no use.
Brad Erskine pushed him aside. “Let me try,” he said.
He turned to the crowd. “Friends,” he said in Khmer. He spoke slowly and simply. “We mean you no harm.”
The villagers of Phum Sohmbow looked at each other in consternation.
“We TNGO staff members are in Cambodia to help you,” he said, picking and pronouncing the Khmer words with the greatest possible care.
Half the villagers fell on the floor. They began to moan and writhe. The others backed away, fear gleaming in their eyes. The village sorcerer gestured menacingly at Brad and muttered a protective incantation.
“And as for Ms. Lillith-Marie, here,” Brad went on, “why, she wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

A young woman hugged her baby protectively against her breast and began to whimper. A small gecko lizard hanging upside down on the roof went into convulsions, lost its grip, and fell unconscious to the floor.
The village chief turned to Mun Sopheap. “All right, all right,” he said. “We’ll let her go. Just make him stop talking.”
Two of the village children were staring wide-eyed at Brad, sobbing inconsolably.
“We’re really sorry about the flooding and the coconut trees and the bridge,” Brad went on. He felt a new surge of eloquence well up within him. “But we have some great new projects in mind for your village if we can just get some government funding. In fact, TNGO wants to sort of ‘adopt’ your lovely village of Phum Sohmbow as a pilot program to show what we can do if—”
“ALL RIGHT!” screamed the chief. He fell to his knees before Mun Sopheap. He moaned and pressed his forehead into the dirt floor. “Anything you want! Anything! Just make him stop talking!” By now all the villagers were crying and prostrating themselves on the floor, offering to give TNGO anything they owned, everything, if Brad would just please, please, please stop speaking Khmer.
On the way back to Phnom Penh, Lillith-Marie rode with Brad Erskine and Mun Sopheap in the second Land Cruiser. They followed Dr. Murtch’s vehicle down the country road. The fading sunlight of the early evening turned the ricefields a deeper, lovelier green.
“Your Khmer must really be improving, Brad,” Lillith-Marie said. “You were very persuasive.”
“Thanks,” said Brad.
“What did you say to them to make them let me go?” she asked.
“Oh,” said Brad, “it was nothing, really. Right, Mr. Mun?” Mun Sopheap nodded, speechlessly.
\ \ \ \ \
TNGO is Terminated
Termination Day minus 30. The beginning of the end for TNGO stemmed from the seemingly innocuous fact that Mrs. Joyce T. Bastable had been born many years ago in the tiny hamlet of Grundoon, Arkansas.
There were so few people from Arkansas employed in the FORGOVAID that when the Clinton administration swept into power that the new political appointees automatically assumed that Mrs. Bastable held her position in the Office of FORGOVAID’s Inspector General because she had some connection with the Clinton campaign or family and should therefore be retained in office.
In fact, Mrs. Bastable was an extremely conservative Republican, a point of view she promptly and forcefully conveyed to Lillith-Marie Bennington-Smith as soon as she cleared customs at Pochentong.
“Are you British, dear?” Mrs. Bastable asked.
Mun Sopheap, head of TNGO’s Cambodian staff, was at the wheel of TNGO’s Land Cruiser, driving them toward TNGO’s Phnom Penh villa. It seemed to Lillith-Marie Bennington-Smith that Mun Sopheap had been looking at her with a strange, longing expression lately, but there was no time to explore that now.
“British?” said Lillith-Marie Bennington-Smith. “No, I’m not. What makes you ask?”
“Your hyphenated name,” said Mrs. Bastable. “The only people I know who have hyphenated names are British.”
“Ms. Bastable—” Lillith-Marie began.
“Mrs. Bastable, dear,” said the visiting inspector. “I’m sure you agree with me that this ‘Ms.’ nonsense is just a passing fad.”
“Well, actually, I—” said Lillith-Marie.
“You know, I haven’t seen a single church since I arrived,” Mrs. Bastable said. “Where do you go, dear? You must take me along with you to meet your pastor on Sunday.”
By noon that day Mrs. Bastable had, in her inimitable and overbearing way, quoted several Biblical proverbs to Lillith-Marie to the effect that it was God’s plan to subjugate women to men; asked her why she was not wearing a “Pat Buchanan in 2000” button; explained why Tony Blair was no better than a damned red Communist; and made several pointed inquiries about why TNGO had refused to sponsor NGO status for the Phnom Penh branch of the National Rifle Association.
Mrs. Bastable’s sole weakness seemed to be her queasy and very delicate stomach. For lunch she had eaten only rice and white bread, explaining that foreigners simply did not know how to cook decent, wholesome American food. She sipped a mild herbal tea throughout her afternoon inquisition into TNGO’s many shortcomings.
Lillith-Marie Bennington-Smith, who had adamantly refused to spend more than eight seconds in the company of anyone to the right of Che Guevara since she graduated from
Antioch College, spent the afternoon simmering.
By 6:30 pm, when Mrs. Bastable launched into her third attack on the immoral nature of the American welfare system, Lillith-Marie finally boiled over. Smiling sweetly, she invited Mrs. Bastable to a Khmer restaurant which she promised had clean silverware and spotless toilets.
“‘Ladies’ rooms,’ dear,” said Mrs. Bastable. “I’m sure your mother taught you that ‘toilet’ is such a vulgar word. Well, if you’re sure it’s clean and the food isn’t too foreign....”
An hour later they were seated on the verandah of the Pohjniy’tahn K’oout, watching the sun set slowly over the Mekong.
Mrs. Bastable was just beginning to inquire why a sweet young thing like Lillith-Marie Bennington-Smith hadn’t found herself a nice young man to take care of her so she could quit her job and stay at home when the first course was place before her.
Mrs. Bastable paused in her monologue and looked down at her plate. From a soup that seemed composed of black, brackish water a host of tiny eyes like little beads were staring up at her.
“Oh my God,” said Mrs. Bastable.
A beatific but somehow sinister smile spread over Lillith-Marie’s features. It had been a long day. Or perhaps it was just that Mrs. Bastable’s company made it seem that way.
“These are what?” Mrs. Bastable said. Lillith-Marie explained.
“With the beaks?” she said. “And the little claws? Oh my God. And the Cambodians actually eat them? Oh my God.”
“Never mind,” said Lillith-Marie. She smiled again. “Don’t eat
them if you don’t want to. Here, have some prahok.”
To be continued

Still no chapter 6

Tomorrow, otherwise everybody is getting confused.

Francis wrote:Ooops....just saw it. Tomorrow chapter 6.....sorry.

That what you said yesterday

it was censored. smurch and brat had sex.

Mrs Stroppy wrote:

Francis wrote:Ooops....just saw it. Tomorrow chapter 6.....sorry.

That what you said yesterday

Ok.....tomorrow two chapters then.