In mid-July 1980, a group of international aid officials from the International Red Cross, UNICEF and World Food Programme went to the border with a contingent of Royal Thai Army troops from Task Force 80, accompanied by their commander, Colonel Kitti. The purpose of the mission was ostensibly to determine the number of women and children in KR camps along the border in order to arrange food distribution. I went along to take photographs for WFP. Everyone else was wearing boots. I was wearing rubber thongs. We had to walk through thick slippery mud to the meeting point. I walked barefoot, but this was no solution, I could not balance, it was like skiing through grease. The two Khmer Rouge cadres who accompanied us graciously supported me on both sides. I felt ridiculous but it gave me an opportunity to talk to one of them who spoke French. He had once been a school teacher, and was polite, gentle and articulate.