WHAT possesses comparatively well-off women to up stumps and head to the leftover killing fields of Cambodia?
Surely it can't be a holiday. Perhaps it's compassion or, dare I say it, an escape; an escape from the deadening materialism of our western lives.
I don't know because I don't know the nine women and one bloke, mostly from around Mirboo, who fly out on January 21 to scamper around rubbish dumps and schools and villages - where food is scant and water is thick with disease - to give out food, water filters and medicines.
Many might say God drives them to do these things, or that they just want to help.
Whatever the reason, they're off.
Tonight, they'll meet in Gippsland for their bonding dinner.
They'll be glued aplenty in Cambodia. Heading into poverty is challenging any time, especially post-Christmas, but nothing compared to living in it.
This will be Louise Ellings' sixth trip to Cambodia. Louise, 46, of Tasmania, works night shift in a nursing home and as an occasional funeral director, but devotes her days to raising funds for the Cambodian poor.
She first went with a Christian organisation, met children who eked a living by scrounging rubbish dumps near Cambodia's capital city Phnom Penh for metals and plastic they could sell to buy food. "They're knee-deep in rubbish," she says.
"I remember one little boy. His clothes were filthy. The only clean patch on him was a tear-stained cheek. The children are young. Maybe five years old. Many have parents who are dying of AIDS."
On her return to her Australian family, Louise promised they would have a feast that evening.
"I took them out on the back deck, laid a table cloth on the ground, put eight bowls around the rug and two bowls of rice."
Aghast, her children and grandchildren said "but you promised a feast".
"Where I've been this is a feast," Louise replied.
"I told them 'that's all you're getting until breakfast and nobody is to go near the fridge before then'."
I haven't spoken with the Ellings' offspring, so am not sure of the impact of this gesture. It's certainly one way to drive home a message.
Joan Peters, 63, of Inverloch in Victoria, joined Louise on her gift-giving journey in January.
Her husband's eyesight is not so good, so Joan's not returning next year.
"It hits very hard when you see children living in a rubbish dump," Joan says.
She'll continue to make her children and grandchildren more aware of the plight of others.
"There are enough photographs in my home for them to know there's a place that's very different," Joan says.
Carolyn Bourke of Mirboo, Victoria, is among the January contingent.
She's been before, seen this nation whose people have been traumatised by war, where there is no government welfare, and knows the difference the cost equivalent of a few Christmas decorations in Australia can make to Cambodians.
Just $23 buys 1000 worm tablets to de-worm children, $21 buys 50 bottles of lice shampoo.
The Gippslanders hope to take about $10,000 with them for these and similar goods.
I wonder what their grandchildren will get for Christmas.
Louise and Joan will address the East Gippsland Photographic Society in Bairnsdale on December 10.
For details, phone Elden Marshall on (03) 5157 9134.
