I love electricity. Living in Phnom Penh, the largest city in Cambodia, my wife and I are some of the blessed few (when compared to the entire nation), who have access to power, and running water.

There is a young man named Nicholas wearing patched black jeans and a faded ripped T-shirt talking to me with his fingers, a cigarette butt in hand. He alternates between his hands in his pockets and his hands in the air, waving.  We are standing outside of the Nordstrom’s at Pioneer Square in downtown Portland.  Across the street both tourists and locals sit at Starbucks to sip lattes and read newspapers. To the right of us, an attractive blond couple walks out of Abercrombie and Fitch, carrying two bags of shopping, the store label printed in bold black letters. They wear worn designer jeans and walk to their car, a Cadillac. And besides the two men standing in front of me on the red brick sidewalk, everything is normal, we could be outside of any Nordstrom’s in America.