Festivals and Faces!

February and March brought two of the major festivals in the Nepal Hindu calendar…

A few weeks ago, we witness thousands of folk (100,000 the media estimated), tramping past our office window and flocking to the huge Pashupatinath temple just a little down the road. They were heading to join the celebration of the Hindu festival of Shiva Ratri – The great night of Lord Shiva, destroyer of evil - we were lucky enough to be opposite the holiest Hindu shine glorifying Shiva.

At the sun fell lower over the Kathmandu foot hills we headed out to join the revelers – Shiva Ratri is a day when ‘intoxicating substances’ become legal for the day. Sadus (some naked) from all over the Hindu world who, just a week before set up camp in the temple complex, distribute (i)licit substances freely – its more like Hindu Glastonbury than your average day at the temple. The reason said is that Lord Shiva liked to dabble and hey, it’s his day!

The atmosphere was akin to bonfire night; a night festival it really is, as the sun ducked behind the hills the feeling was riotous – gaggles of men chanting, bonfires, blessings and butter lamps. As darkness descended we decided it wasn’t the place for good ‘Nepali’ girls like ourselves (!) so headed home. Not before stopping off at our local shine; again a huge bonfire, hundreds of flickering butter lamps and whole families making offerings and hoping for some of Shiva’s blessings.

Almost a month later – Holi, the festival of colour; it could be mistaken for the festival of water bombs – the week before it was difficult to avoid the occasional soaking from a wayward balloon lobbed from a rooftop. The excitement started early; kids shrieking on rooftops at 7.30, the women opposite taking great please in rubbing red powder all over my face - I was covered with paint by eight. Our little white face were like wandering targets as we ventured through our local neighborhood; but at least we could provide significant amusement of those lining the sides of the road and the roof tops above, just waiting to adorn us with their chosen colour. The day continued as it had begun – water bomb, green, red, waterbomb, blue, red, pink, silver, yellow….as the end of the day brought the end of the festival, I wasn’t sure if I would describe our number as a beautiful spectrum of color or a resembling a muddy rainbow…

The day of Holi is the day when the caste system breaks down, you can throw colour and anyone with no retribution. Caste is pretty important here and is indicated from your surname. Perhaps then surprisingly, I don’t note the divide between rich and poor as starkly as I did in Cambodia. Of course, there are super rich Nepali people and the spectrum of the rest of the population heads down from there, but, it seems to me the whole country is poorer.

The stats support my insight, with the UN ranking only Afghanistan in a worst position in the whole of Asia, according to its ‘development indices’. Some of the reasons are obvious it is hard to develop a good economy when you can’t supply a consistent stream of power to your capital city, even harder to provide basic services in remote locations days walk away amid some distant mountain plateau, putting in more roads is super costly and only benefit small the number who live there.

But then there are the less obvious reasons. Like Cambodia, Nepal has suffered its own recent and internal conflicts; between 1990 and 2006 Nepal underwent considerable turbulence in an attempt to embrace more open political systems. From 1996 the country faced internal armed conflict when the Maoists launched an insurgency. In 2001 there was a royal massacre in which the king and other members of the royal family were killed and in 2002 the new king declared a state of emergency, sacked the government and assumed direct rule.

After ten years of civil war, three weeks of demonstrations in 2006 brought an end to the King's rule and the restoration of Parliament. This ended a conflict that had claimed more than 13,000 lives, displaced 40,000 people and inflicted considerable physical, psychological, social and economic damage on these Himalayan people. The impact of this conflict is not obvious to me, but now and again you notice; last week the government declared no money feature a picture of the king would be legal tender; in our household at panic ensued – empty your piggy bags, getting sorting and quickly change the money before its useless.

The years of insurgency slowed down growth and development to a degree where some remote regions in Nepal saw a regression in terms of food security, participation in national issues and availability of basic services. Five years later one-third of the population still lies below the poverty line, the Nepalese have the lowest life expectancy in Asia and the largest share of undernourished children.

Cauliflower!

Cauliflower. It’s big here. It features in at least two of my daily meals. Usually roti bread (chapatti) and curried cauliflower for breakfast, a snack at work (noodles or mo-mo’s) then rice, dhal and curried cauliflower for dinner. It’s lucky I like cauliflower (although after four months I am not sure I will ever want to see one again).

I went to the village for a couple of days last week...where we also ate cauliflower. On the 4 hour bus journey I was fortunate enough to be sat on the correct side; the side where I couldn’t see how few inches of road remained at the edge of a massive drop into an icy Himalayan torrent. But we reached our destination safely, ate rice...and cauliflower...as I proclaimed for the hundredth time about the enormous amount of rice Nepali people eat, Jiban said ominously ‘you will see why later’. And I did. The climb up to the village was roughly equal to four hours of step aerobics. It wasn’t unpleasant though, women from the village bounded down the hillside in their bright saris, some bouncing babies tied to their backs. At the top a view of the lovely village of Yanglakot and the snowy tops of the high himals peeked over the lower foothills to greet us. At 1832 meters were 488 metres higher than Ben Nevis.

Our bags followed us up. Sexistly I had expected a male porter, but a smiling lady had arrived, shorter and skinner than me. Not only did she load my massive high tech rucksack with loads of technical bits for carrying it, into her wicker basket (ah the irony), she also loaded the bags of the other three staff, a bit of shopping from the local town and proceeded to do the 4 hours of step aerobics. Amazing! Throughout the week I saw people carrying inordinate amounts using wickets baskets - its balanced using strap on the top of the head and rested on the lower back. Nepalis say that if you pick up a water buffalo every day from the day it is born, you would be able to carry a fully grown one, after seeing that women with all our bags, there’s a part of me that wants to believe it!




Our PHASE health workers can’t go 5 steps in the village with someone greeting them and wanting to chat, it’s obvious they are very well respected. Yanglakot is the LEAST remote of our health posts, others are up to 7 days walk from the road. Our young health workers (most of them are in their early 20’s) live in the villages for most of the year and deal with anything the communities might throw at them. Acting as doctor, nurse, midwife, counsellor, paramedic they are often the only health professional for miles around. In Pushbar’s house two bags sit, waiting, in the corner, one labelled ‘emergency’ the other ‘delivery’, she ready to go out any time of the night of day to help.

Pushpar (the healthworker in Yanglakot) and me

I managed to spend a little bit of time in school, we have some alternative schools here to allow children to catch up, the teachers are fantastically committed, I think resource wise they have less than a lot of the Cambodian schools I went to. The houses look so cute, and make for great scenery against the tiered paddy fields which now, as it dry season, contain potatoes and mustard. As they are made out of stone, it makes it cold inside.

I was going to say it has got a lot warmer in Kathmandu, I take that back. We had a day of rain and now are back to being able to see our breath again. I got three sets of Nepal clothes yesterday, beautiful colours, lovely detail and made especially for me, but I won't be able to show them off until it get a bit warmer as I am usually found bundled up under several jumpers.

Saturday tomorrow, our only day off in the 6 day working week, im hoping we can go to one of the temples on the hills around Kathmandu to get a good view of the valley.

Just one last thing - this morning there was a woman at the bus stop with a goat on a lead?!

Week one

So, 1 week. Kathmandu. The low-tech airport must be one of the smallest of any capital. Greeted with the bustle of a developing country; taxi drivers with tiny vehicles that had seen way better days and questions about “where you stay miss?”. Police, using brooms, literally swept the touts away from the handful of foreigners on my plane.

Claire and Amma

At ‘home’ I was warmly welcome by Amma, my Nepali mum. We communicate well given we share no common words; she’s more confident than me than I will pick up some Nepali soon! She usually wears a smile and constantly does that funny head waggle, which generally denotes agreement on most of the Indian subcontinent, unless I try to do something for myself. It feels wrong to leave my dinner plate where it is for her to clear and to be brought coffee on a tray, but that the way it works here it is an insult to her hospitality to try to help. Maybe in time she’ll let us get involved. I did feel I was becoming a real part of the family when a couple of days in she offered to help me die my hair black! I don’t think I fit in too well as the only blond of her large household!

Jiban our manager and his wife Locari doing the washing

At the back Lojee, the oldest daughter of our manager Jiban (and our chief translator, her english is amazing) and two of the kids that live downstairs

For the first few days, I wondered through the Kathmandu smog in a dream like state...is this Cambodia? No....it’s really cold. Broken pavements, crazy traffic, little shops selling everything random, there was just so much familiar from my former home, I found it strange and almost unsettling but soon stopped noticing similarities and looked at what was different...

I’ve not seen too much of the city yet, mainly just the inside of my office so I need to steal Claires words here but it's a view I am starting to share, Kathmandu has 'resilience, grimy, chaotic dignity as well as sutble but piercing beauty'. We get the bus to work - they pull up, a guy yells something inaudible, luckily Claire recognises it as where we need to go, hand over 10p fare, we’re off. Lunch time on the second day, out on the balcony of our sixth floor office, a treat - the cloud (or is it smog?) curtains had drawn back to reveal the snow capped peaks of some very big mountains. They haven’t returned since.

Our office is on the the top two floors:

There are a lot of types of shoes here. Outdoor shoes. Shoes to worn in kitchens and inbetween rooms of the house. Socks to be worn in rooms with carpet. And bathroom shoes, to be worn in (you got it) in bathrooms. I haven’t quite got the hang of the all the changes yet.

Power in Kathmandu is hydro and although you think they would have quite a lot of water running off those big hills it seem not as there are constant power cuts. The difference electricity makes to life is huge – no lights after 6pm and no computer when the battery dies is difficult. It does feel a bit like constantly camping, it is as cold inside as outside (in the daytime, colder inside) we sit in the office huddled in outdoor coats on till about 10am. My hair hasn't seen too much water since we’ve been here, as sticking my head under the icy cold (and not overly clean) trickle that come out of the shower seem too painful, we are awaiting our own gas stove.

I am really excited about the opportunities there are with PHASE to develop their education work, I am going to field on Tuesday, for up to 9 days, that feels like a fair while but I am sure it will be a great experience and I am looking forward to seeing our project villages and getting into schools.

Like this? Then like PHASE - http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Phase-Worldwide-Practical-Help-Achieving-Self-Empowerment/162142530485417

The view from the top of my house at sunset:

Leaving the Land of Sunshine, Smiles and Suprises

I haven’t written my blog for a while and I feel this entry will be more about me than Cambodia; that’s ok it makes me feel like the Carrie Bradshaw of Ban Lung but less ‘Sex in the City’ and more ‘Dust in the Village’ (thought the official title is 'Ban Lung City'...), I’ve replaced the Jimmy Choo’s with 50 cents flip flops and the New York taxi with the oldest motorbike you have ever seen...but hey ho, it has its own special sort of glamour!

It gets harder to write about differences here as time goes on and you start to see how much is the same and differences become normal but in the last few weeks I have started seeing things with new eyes again....

Arriving home from a lovely week in the capital, Phnom Penh, it has just hit me that a week today I will be preparing to leave and return to the homeland, on the journey back I started to think what I will miss. As soon as I got home it was obvious – sitting in the sun with great view over the lake, within 5 minutes my landlady’s daughter was inviting me to eat mango with her and her friends, i have been invited to a wedding this evening, people here are just so welcoming and friendly. I will miss my Khmer friends so much they are true optimists, always ready with a smile and a compliment. In many ways I will miss the slower pace of life, the space and the simplicity of life here.

Reading back over the blogs I wrote in my first weeks here so much has changed - I felt so uneasy about the jungle noises, now it’s just a comforting backdrop of sound, I was shocked by how dark it got, now I appreciate it’s just a better chance to see the stars, I didn’t understand the language and culture, I still don’t, but I have learnt so much and really come to appreciate the Cambodia ways.

So in the true spirit of VSO I have started to reflect (god, yes really!) and thinking about what I learned…

How to ride a motorbike – ok so I wouldn’t hop on any bike back in the UK but I never once fell off driving down Sals road in the wet season after too many B52’s with both feet on the floor sliding along in the mud, which is my opinion is an achievement.

How to speak Khmer – my khmer is still much worse than most of my VSO colleagues and when I try and speak quick I still always get I, you, we, her/him which is makes me feel pretty incompetent but here it doesn’t seem to matter so much, if you say 3 words people either don't have a clue that you are speaking khmer or are impressed and claim ‘che khmai’ – ‘you can speak Cambodian’.

Patience – So I am still not the most patience person on earth and never will be but I did think I knew that given time, encouragement and patience amazing things can come from unexpected corners, but until I asked the same question 5 times getting a completely different answer each time and then took the time to understand that every answer was actually right for its own reasons...I think I can say I have learnt more patience.

If you keep hitting your head against a brick wall it’s going to hurt – the wisdom of Tania…there’s just no more to say…except I don’t know what I would have done without it.

What else…

There is no limit the things you can get on a moto or number of people you can get in a car, mosquitoes are the most annoying creature on earth, you can still like really loud techo music even if you live in a remote village in Cambodia, there are some things that it will never seem right to eat, big spiders might not be my friends but generally they don’t eat you, dust is dusty....and a 10000 other things.

Obviously I have learnt more than I can mention professionally and if I haven’t already I could bore you by talking about it here, I could write another ten pages about the world of ‘development’ but I am not going to because what I have realised is that when you come here it is easy to feel self important as it feels like such a big life move but on leaving I understand more clearly what I tiny weeny part I had in this massive industry, I have my opinions though and they are not all good ones but one thing I will say is that there are lots of great people working in development who really want to see positive change.

So, I am coming home: Sarah G is famous for have a plan – and right now, I the only plans I have is to return to this land of smiles, sunshine and surprises and to carry the memoiries and inspiration of all the amazing people I have been privileged to meet into the next part of my life. What will I do now? Answers on a postcard please. What’s my address? I will let you know when I find one!

Recovering from Ketsana

One of the district towns in Ratanakiri.

On Tuesday 29th October, Cambodia was hit by Typhoon Ketsana; reported in the media as “the most ferocious storm to lash the kingdom in living memory”.

On Tuesday we decided to leave the office shortly after a huge tree fell down just outside, thankfully my colleague George drove with me home from work as there were a few moments I nearly got blown off my bike. Tanya a fellow VSO and I choose to camp out at our friend Kylies house, although we were all locked in (and without power) it was obvious the winds were reaching pretty high levels, but it was the amount of rain that was to do the most damage.

Two major rivers, the Sesan and Srae Pok run through from Vietnam into Ratanakiri province and hundreds of wooden houses scattered the river banks. Over Tuesday night and Wednesday, the both rivers burst their banks and rose to devastating levels, in some areas increasing by 12 meters. Thousands of villagers were forced to flee their homes. Rice, livestock, houses and belongings were destroyed or washed away. Over 20,000 people were effected as massive areas of land flooded.

The river levels have now dropped and many people have returned to their homes. Schools and other public building are housing the homeless. In the provincial capital of Ratanakiri, Ban Lung the local and international NGO’s and the governments Disaster Management Committee have been meeting almost daily to co-ordinate the relief effort. Four wheel drives carrying rice, plastic sheeting, fuel, cooking oil and other essential supplies have been travelling to the district throughout the weekend.

On Sunday 4th October, I travelled out to Andong Meas district with one of the relief trucks delivering rice, fuel, water filters, cooking oil.

Loading up the rice supplies:

Loading the supplies into the boat to take up river:

The first thing that stuck me is that everywhere you look clothes are hanging out to dry, everything would have been soaked and I suppose covered in mud and whatever else the river washed in:

A materess out to dry in the sun:


I took a walk up to the school as I had been told the day before by the head of the Provincial Office of Education that many schools had lost all books including text books and some have lost everything. The textbooks have been put out to dry but I am not sure they will be salvageable:

The school is on a little ridge but on the side of the building its clear where water level rose to:

For the villages one of the hardest things to recover from will be the number of homes lost, there was a house here you can see the post that it stood on:


Maybe this used to be their house:

The food and essential supplies will hopefully reach those who need it most in the short term, although the media are reporting that some areas are still inaccessable. In the longer term, people whose food sources were already fragile, will become increasing insecure. People in the village will be very concerned about their ongoing food security; so much rice and existing stock have been lost. Although there has been wide spread devastation across Asia over the past weeks in many areas people may have savings in the bank or insurance to fall back on. In Rantanakiri villages people have little alternatives to their farms and animals.

More information: http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2009100528742/National-news/storm-leaves-kingdom-on-verge-of-crisis.html

Almost a Year...

Kirsty, the volunteer coming to replace me arrived this in a week and next week will mark a year since I arrived. Time really has flown and I have already started to reflect on some of the things I have done. It’s been a busy couple of months trying to get a lot of things done before the start of the summer holiday and I have been lucky enough to have some money that my parents raised to spend on things I felt were important and VSO doesn’t have money to fund;

First Aid Training

First Aid Kit

We offered 26 schools directors first aid training and I was pleased they all turned up, which hopefully meant this was something they were really interested in. Suzanna a VSO doctor from Kratie about 5 hours away kindly agreed to do the training and we funded small first aid kits.

It all went great and there were less ‘local’ suggestions than we expected. Although the generally accepted way to stop a nose bleed is to hit a person on the forehead which, according to Suzanna, is unlikely to stop the bleeding, but may distract the poor kid.

As expected, we were asked about snake bites, and told local people ‘cure’ this by electrocuting the wound, if you don’t have power, no problem, just use the spark plugs from your motorbike! Suzanna suggested they could try this but taking the person to a health post might be a little more effective.

School Directors with thier First Aid Kits

We gave the director a quick test at the end and only got 7 wrong answers out of 103, and 9 people wrote they had learnt something new about managing nose bleeds; a small success!

Libraries at SaHa Kar and Ta Lou

Teacher reading to the students

On 3rd July Narin (my assistant) and I set off on the moto to Saha kar school loaded with – 200 books, 7 metres of floor lino, 5 meters of plastic covering for books, a hand wash bowl, two bars of soap, 1 volley ball, 1 football and 2 straw mats...no I didn’t think it would ever be possible to get two people and all that on a moto either, but this is Cambodia and it’s not unusual to see 5 double mattresses or even a house loaded on to the back of a Honda Dream moto.

New library at the school

We had a fantastic morning setting up the library; the kids were so excited to see their new books. All Cambodian children seem to read out loud so all you could hear by the time we left was a low mumbling as they all read the books. I got some money to pay for the books from a NGO in New Zealand and the money raised in Leeds paid for lino and mats of the floor and plastic to cover the books.

Children choosing books

This is a temporary library, set up in the back of a classroom. A couple of days later we had a meeting with the village chief and others from the community to talk about building a small, wooden building on the school site to house the library and also act as a community resource centre. We will fund the materials to build this (nails, tin for the roof) but the community have agreed to supply all the wood (not something they are short of in the jungle) and actually construct the building. They wanted to wait until dry season but when they found out I leave in November said they would have it done by then, so hopefully I will be bringing photos home!

The roof and beams the community will use to build the library

A similar project is happening at Ta Lou school which is in a really remote location (2 hours on a moto, a river crossing and a short walk). It is a fantastic school with a really committed school director and great community involvement. They have also asked for nails and other materials but again will supply their own wood and labour to build the library building. I have agreed with them we will fund books and they have requested ones on agriculture, discovery, stories (their words) and a dictionary.

Summer School

I am writing this the week after the summer school projects and I’m only just recovering! It seemed like I have been planning it for weeks and it great to see it finally happen – 16 Europeans, 10 Khmer translators, 6 schools, 24 local teachers and over 600 children!

Our first project in Veirachay school went really well, we hit a few problems – the school was completely flooded so we had to use the pagoda, but it was nice to have the monks around to laugh along to some of the games.

Flooded school grounds

Our busiest day was 176 children but we had fantastic staff so all went smoothly – the children were divided into 4 groups to do logic games, sports, arts and music, chosen because currently Cambodia schools do very little of these types of activities. In all the schools we were working alongside local teachers so hoping that they will pick up some ideas.

We stayed out in the villages a couple of days sleeping in hammocks and drinking the local rice wine with the teachers! Im looking forward to doing it all again (on a smaller scale) when 3 trainee teachers from Leeds come to visit me next week....

Drinking local rice wine with the school director

Week of Work and Waterfalls

So, what do I do all week? If you have a moment read on and find out...

Monday 25th May

The road out of town was like glass this morning, it’s raining A LOT which equals much mud. There was a flood a couple of days ago, a bridge got washed out and a few cattle died. Losing a cow here is a bit like your house burning down at home, you lose a major asset - except I don’t know anyone who’s got cow insurance.

Sitha and the mud!

A 45 minute journey became an hour and a half but due to Sitha’s amazing motobiking abilities we only came close to falling once.

Mouy school was the first stop and I was greeted by 5 boys and no teacher in one classroom and 9 pigs in the other. The boys were all about 16 but in year 5, so 6 school years behind, but hey who’s counting. We left and headed to school number 2, as there is not much you can do with a few pigs and no teachers...

Not sure these guys will be learning much today

Bei School had managed a teacher but only three students, we had a chat and it seems everyone is out planting crops. Food security is a real issue here, if things don’t get planted on time, crops fail and families starve. When there is farm work to be done, not much else matters. Up against starvation it’s difficult to suggest ways to improve school attendance. That aside the school director was impressed with his new teaching materials (which the teachers made and we laminated) and we went thought his development plan.

We wanted to visit a new school today but after a bit of research we discovered it was 6km down an ox track. Given the mud conditions it really wasn’t the day for ox tracks...

Third up was Pram school, the limping (he’d been bitten by a millipede!?) school director met us with a smile, there were teachers and students – result! The school director here is really young but really keen and I think he really understands what he needs to do to improve the school.

Work starts at 7am so I had done all that before lunch. Two hour lunch breaks are great, Im not sure I will ever get used to grabbing a sandwich at my desk again. The market is currently a sloppy mud mess with rotting vegetables and other unimagables, but I am in charge of cooking at Tanya’s tomorrow and we are a few years off Tesco Metro, so walking books on and shopping list in hand I braved it.

Afternoon was in the office writing labels so they can be translated for the first aid kits we are supplying to schools. We are trying to keep it simple i.e. “this is a plaster, apply it to small cuts” because people may have never used some things before.

Evening was my first attempt as Tom Yam Soup – basically boil stock, kaffir lime leaves, chilli, garlic and lemongrass, add mushrooms, tofu and pak choy boil some more. Then lime juice and coriander. Done. It wasn’t bad for a first attempt.

It’s now 20.06 this is the time of day when it can be quite a lot of effort to pass the time, I don’t have a TV so reading, writing this blog and bed by 10pm.

Tuesday 26th May

Today was an office day to prepare for workshops, after a day in village I am glad to sit at my desk for a bit – met George (another VSO) to talk about making a film that we could use to train teachers. We want to see if we can film a really good lesson and a really bad one and see if the teachers can see the differences.

I have two learning games workshops on Wed and Thurs, so I have to make sure I have lots of games to show the teachers. I will also give them possibily their FIRST EVER copy of the curriculum. Some would suggest a curriculum is kinda essential for teaching and in Cambodia they have a really good document, just most of the teachers have never seen it.

Today’s lunch break feature a swim in the lake, there are not too many tourists around, so apart from 4 guys fishing in the sun I had an entire crater lake to myself - amazing. The lake is the best thing about Ban Lung and I try and go a couple of times a week, Im not quite a brave as Tanya who swims almost 2 kilometres across the middle. Its 57 meters deep so god knows what’s in there... well... a dragon according to local legend!

Afternoon more office and met Kylie about home visits. I work for a NGO called CARE one day a week helping their Community Support Team, we have developed some home visits forms for children who have missed a lot of school. The team just finished the first lot of visits, I have finish the analysis of the results so needed to discuss next steps with Kylie, the field manager for CARE.

Evening we had a ‘girls of Ban Lung dinner’ at Tanya’s house, there are about 6 foreign girls living in Ban Lung, but 4 for dinner tonight. We found out this afternoon Alex has malaria so she wasn’t exactly up for a party (don’t worry mum Malaria is not generally regular occurrence).

Malaria and Dengue are the illness we worry about and often debate which is the worst:

Malaria – might be a chance you have it for life as it keeps coming back, but you can take medicine and it should clear up pretty quickly.

Dengue – Makes you feel like you are going to die and there is no treatment, the worst is over in a week but you can feel rubbish for months afterwards; but once your better your ok.

People who have had both say Dengue is worst, to be honest I really don’t want either.

Kylie (Australia works for CARE), Tanya (an English tree surgeon that works in community forestry) and Kathleen (a Philippino working on disaster management) all made dinner. Tanya has an oven so we are still getting over excited about jacket potatoes! Kylie brought the gin....it was a really good evening!

The Ban Lung Girls, looking glum as they all have to write reports tomorrow!

Wednesday 27th May

I was very glad that we had so much stuff to carry we had to take Sitha’s four wheel drive this morning. Motorbikes are getting less and less fun the further and further into the wet season we get.

It is great going to Nong school, the school director is young and enthusiastic and there are two great young teachers. We went through the curriculum and talked about ideas for teaching aids, so much of the teaching here is just reading from the text book and copying the teacher. We worked with the teachers (and roped in a few kids who were hanging about to help) to make teaching resources....

Teachers making resources

Kids helping out

Our last training at this school was about school mapping, basically you draw a map of the village and visit every house to see if the children living there are going to school and if not why not. The director showed me his completed map, he has found 200 children in the local area not going to school... that’s alot even for here. I have brought the forms to the office to analyse the data, after that we will meet with the community representatives and local education people to work out what to do.

School staff and their school map

Afternoon I was back in the office again for a meeting about our ‘Annual Partnership Review’ which is working out with the Provincial Office of Education what worked what didn’t and what we are going to do next year. The actual meeting is in the capital but we have loads of preparation to do.

Another quite evening, there was a huge storm - you know when it is going to be big when stuff starts blowing off the balcony before there is any sign of thunder and lightning, it rained heaps but the thunder wasn’t too bad, sometimes it is so loud it wakes we up in shock in the middle of the night and I think the sky is going to fall in.

Thursday 28th May

It is my assistants Sitha’s last day today, which I am pretty gutted about as it is difficult to get used to working with a translator but he wants to work more on his tourist business. Also my flatmate told me yesterday he wants to move out so I have to find a new place to live which is going to be a bit stressful.

We ran the same workshop as yesterday but today with 14 teachers from 6 different schools. So morning talking through the curriculum, thinking about teaching aids and demonstrating the learning games.

We had a communal lunch with the teachers, Sitha helped the school directors wife do the cooking and the male teachers cracked open the rice wine, a regular occurrence in the village.

Helping with the cooking in the school directors kitchen

Lunch and rice wine

I was a bit worried the drunkenness was going to hinder the afternoon’s performance but the teachers all worked really hard and produced loads of teaching materials.

Making teaching materials

In the evening the VSO team met for a drink for Sitha’s last day, I think he is also a bit sad he is leaving. Sitha brought his wife Ping and his two daughters. As all the kids shout ‘hello’ at any white people Sitha’s older daughter is convinced my name is ‘hello’ she says think like ‘mummy, I saw hello today’

Sitha's wife Ping and her youngest daugher

Friday 28th May

Friday was another office day, the school we went to yesterday are building a library but haven’t got any books yet so I did a bit of googling and set off some prospective emails to see if I can get anyone to support them.

I also emailed everyone I know in Ban Lung to see if I can find myself a new place to live within an hour two friends had invited me to stay at their places which was such a big relief. Im going to live with my friend spanish friend Imma who works for a spanish NGO on health issues.

I met Tanya for lunch at Sals, she sell comfort food so we ate and gossiped for two hours.

In the afternoon we had a meeting with UNICEF and the Provincial Office of Education (POE) to discuss future plan for the ‘District Training and Monitoring Team’ that UNICEF have funded. The plans haven’t been made yet but we are supporting the POE to run a big meeting on the 10th to work them all out.

Every Friday all the ex-pats in town gather at A’dams resterant this week was no exception but it was a bit of a quite night so I was home in bed by 10.30

So thats it a week in Ban Lung, the weeks are up and down but the work has definately developed since I got here and some days are great, some days are not so great but its all in a days work.