Cao Lanh, Dong Thap Province, VietNam

I'm in HaNoi now, in the north where the temperature is great. 22 C and dry. Fantastic time of year to be here. Just spent the past several days in the south, up the Mekong Delta close to the Cambodian border in Cao Lanh. Part of the project included monitoring some training at a small rural police station, right on the Mekong River. I was last at this station in December of 2006, and was leading some police simulation based training on child interviews. We used 2 little girls, 11 and 10, who lived at the police station (not uncommon in rural areas) where their fathers worked as the "actors" in the simulations. They were awesome. Fantastic sense of humour. We took photos afterwards, had them printed in town and came back the next day to give them to the girls. Flash forward four years and eleven months. Back in Cao Langh, same police outpost, and the two girls are still living there! They even remembered my name. The pictures were lost a couple of years ago when the river flooded. We posed for new pictures and I'm having the new & old printed and laminated for them. So, here is the 2006 and 2011 photos, taken in exactly the same patch of ground in the station compound. The boat/river pic is taken from the same spot. Very cool experience to see them again, chat, visit with one of the mothers who works as one of the canteen cooks at the compound.