Khaotic Kathmandu

Festivals and Faces!

2011-03-22T06:32:00.001-07:00

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!

2011-02-16T19:28:00.000-08:00

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

2011-01-30T20:01:00.000-08:00

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

2010-04-01T18:54:00.000-07:00

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

2009-10-05T17:42:00.000-07:00

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...

2009-09-05T19:40:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-29T01:05:00.000-07:00

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.

Tasty Treats

2009-03-11T18:37:00.000-07:00

To say that rice is important here is a ridiculous understatement. Rice is Cambodia’s subsistence; without it I am certain they would no longer know how to survive.

It is reflected in speech, eating ‘nam bai’ translates literally as ‘eat rice’, kitchen ‘house for rice’ and restaurant ‘rice shop’. I offered my translator a sandwich for lunch the other day to which he replied ‘I will die if I don’t eat rice’. It is used for offering in temples, fed to cats and dogs, children often only eat rice and it is not unusual for an adult to have three lots a day.

However, with the rice comes other things, some weird and some wonderful. I survive generally on a diet of rice and vegetables. My cooking technique tends to be chuck in ginger, garlic, chilli, soy sauce and some veggies and you have meal.

There is a Cambodian saying that goes something like ‘the only thing with 4 legs that Cambodians don’t eat are tables’ and its quite true. Being veggie I have (unfortunately!) missed out of the strangest things eaten here, however my top five would be;

In at number 5 Fried Spiders – the bus to Phnom Penh stops at this tiny none town called Snoul which is famous for its fried spiders. Ladies walk around with big trays full of them...but... as I was horrified to discover they also walk around with big white buckets full of live ones. They are huge and horrible and I hate them!

4, Prohoc - The Cambodians love it and it is basically their national dish and to be totally honest I have tried it and in Fish Amok it does taste ok. When I am eating it though I try to not remember that it is whole fishes left to rot (or ferment is the more polite way to put it) for a couple of weeks. Yummy!

3, Pig head – it is not unusual to see a whole pigs head plonked on a table in the market, I am not entirely sure what happens to them and how they are eaten and even less sure I want to find out but none the less they are bought and I presume eaten... I went to the market yesterday and was going to a take a picture but I just couldn’t bring my self to do it!

Number 2 rats, yep rats – there not supposed to be town rats that eat people’s garbage, but field rats, but to be honest if I was going to purchase one I am not sure I would be able to tell the difference? I have seen a few colleagues chicken dishes...with bits that don’t really look a lot like chicken... rat curry anyone?

And my number 1 favourite Baby chicken eggs – ok, so I might be stupid but I didn’t realise that egg we eat are not fertilised, however for Cambodia fertilised eggs are left just until before birth and then cooked and eaten. Sometimes they pluck out the occasional feather or foot but generally the whole thing (apart from the shell of course!) is consumed!

Ok so if you just can’t wait to come over and try some of these tasty treats, these menu items I found recently are sure to be the final convincing factor....

I wonder if they took out the bones...

Roasted Frogs anyone? Tastes like chicken!

Fried intestine with Black Pepper, hmmmm, lovely:

and my personal healthy favourate, Fermented shrimps with Intestine and Lard....

To be honest, most of the things I eat here are lovely, but there are somethings that just will never be on my shopping list!

Education: 30% there or 70% to go?

2009-01-20T16:46:00.000-08:00

Its 6pm, 7 days into a new year and I am sitting on the dusty balcony in the pitch-black, bare foot in my vest top. It was minus 10 in the UK last night and it really does feel a world away. The power often fails here this time of day, people begin to arrive home and switch on the lights, I think it overloads the fragile power supply. I keep my laptop charged to provide an hour’s ‘light’ entertainment. Preparing dinner by candle light is not a problem though; I only have two gas rings.

I am unsure what to include in this blog. Recent beach holiday? It’s not what I am here for and I want to educate with my blog. Cambodia women I am becoming friends with? I will save that until I can take some pictures and tell their stories. Food? I am looking forward to writing that one as they eat some crazy stuff. But it feels about time I should write about work....

There are two ways to describe what I have experienced so far:

Education in Ratanakiri province is very poor. Some villages have no school at all; many only have the first 3 grades of primary school. Where there are schools there is minimal infrastructure: small wooden building with no windows or doors to keep out animals, pests, dirt or weather; little shade and no play equipment. Classrooms often don’t have any storage and very few teaching materials or budgets for resources like paper, pencils, exercise books, chalk, and text books. Often there are not enough desk and chairs for all children. Water and toilets are not available to children or staff. Classrooms are dirty. Many of the teachers have had little or no training so lessons are extremely basic.

Or

Education in Ratanakiri province is improving. New schools are been built and the government is working with NGO’s to improve and ensure all schools provide grades 1 – 6. Teachers take the few resources they do have home to ensure they don’t get damaged. Teachers are creative and use resources like stones and straws as teaching aids. Three or four children often share desks designed for two to make space. Teachers try their best to keep classrooms clean, despite the dust and difficult conditions. All school staff are keen to learn and want to attend any workshops offered. The children are fantastically well behaved and always wearing a smile and often somewhat surprisingly, a school uniform!

It is a ‘half empty’ or ‘half full’ type mindset. I have been feeling a little emotional this week, sitting in the back of dark and dusty classrooms surrounded by grubby kids receiving sub-standard teaching, but I try to hold myself in the latter way of thinking - I really believe that if you say and think things will and can improve then that will happen....

So, help improve education in Ratanakiri province? Where do you start? Using very little rhyme or reason I decided to start with five primary schools, 2 in the town and 4 more remote. There are 154 schools in the province, but hey, you gotta start somewhere....

Hun Sen Phum Tmei School, Labansiek Cluster, Ban Lung District, Rantanakiri Province

I support nine wonderful grade one and two teachers to make their classrooms and classes more ‘child friendly’. Last week I ran a workshop on child friendly classrooms (attempt 2 – the first time we tried to get hold of the head teacher the day before with little success. We later discovered he was too drunk to answer the phone!)

The teachers came up with ideas, were really keen to learn and voiced lots of problems. The library has been locked for two years, the classrooms are not secure due to the way they are built so they even take the bin and sweeping brush home at night, it making it almost impossible to put up displays as they too would be stolen. That aside (for now - I will be discussing it will the school director on a sober day!) I provided them all with a recommendation book and they suggested their own ideas about things they would like to try in lessons, putting the desks in groups instead of rows, developing learning corners, etc. I’m excited about my next set of lesson observations; see how they are getting along. I have some new resources for them too thanks to the money I raised at Christmas!

I do feel like a little bit of a fraud being called ‘neak kru’ – ‘teacher’ when I have never taught a primary class in my life. I go away and madly research anything they raise as a problem but to be honest education is basic and just thinking back to the positive things in my own primary school education is helpful.

Kam Bek, Ta Ong Kate Cluster, Kum Mum District, Ratanakiri Province

Kam Bek has 2 teaching staff, serving grades 1 to 3 with 85 children on role. All the children attending school are Krung (indigenous or tribal – but its not very PC to say tribal) and speak this as their first language. The teachers speak both Krung and Khmer and have received teacher training. There is no water or toilets at the school. The school is wooden, not in a great state of repair and not secure. There is no evidence of teaching resources for use in the school and although all children have text books not all children have exercise books and pencils.

Tahouy school, Ta Ong Kate Cluster, Kum Mum District, Ratanakiri Province

Tahouy school has 2 teachers, 1 teacher is untrained (speaks Khmer and Krung) and 1 is qualified. All of the 73 children on role are Krung (indigenous) and as before speak this as their first language. All teaching take place in the morning and the school provided grades 1 - 3. The school has a shortage of Khmer and Social Science textbooks, some student don’t have writing books or pencils, a set of chopstick were the only teaching aid visible in the school. The school is in a decent state of repair but has very little on the walls and no toilets or well. The school has received no 2008/09 budget yet (term started in October).

My idea at these two schools (and a third one called Turn which I haven’t written about) is to get the community and the school working really closely together. I am planning a meeting alongside the school directors with the village chiefs of all three villages next week to try to gain their support; I think the only real hope for the small remote schools is to get the community on board. Schools budgets aren’t enough to buy what the schools need; they receive just 25p per child as their ANNUAL budget. Teachers salaries are $30 a month, which is not nearly enough to live on and $30 can often become $20 by the time teachers receive it due to ingrained corruption. Until these budgets increase (and obviously even after they do) communities and villages will have to look for ways they can work together to educate their children.

Class size here can vary from 3 children to around 70. Often children have to work to earn additional money required to feed their family. Children who want to continue their education past grade 6 are likely to have to travel long distances to school and I was in a school recently where 20 children sleep on the floor of the classroom every weekday as it is too far for them to travel from their village every day.

I could write so much more about education here but I hope I have given a taste of what it is like. Other work I am involved in includes – starting to support CARE’s (an international NGO’s) Community Support Team, the NGO Education Network Meetings, and I haven’t even mentioned Borey Kamkor 3 which is the school I am hoping to do the most work with. Im starting to teach the Borey Kamkor teachers English on Wednesday evenings, so that will be interesting as they know hardly at the moment!

I never know what to expect when I go into the next classroom - from chickens, dogs and pigs wandering around, to children being given the cane, to great lessons with singing and clapping and cheering. It always exciting but sometimes sad, frustrating, tiring, etc

It is not hard to find the energy to go to work every day when you are greeted with this....

but it is hard to make enough hours in the day and to find the answers to ANY of the numerous problems faced. The answers aren’t going to come from me though and it would be arrogant to suggest they could, but with confidence, information and motivation I am sure teachers, communities and school directors here can do great things with the little they have.

Just one final thought, I have read a fair bit about development, the World Bank, inequality, etc but it has always been something happening to people far away. I now work for a project funded by the World Bank, and things I read about development now have so much more impact, as I see and work with the people described. I found this is an Oxfam publication recently and it is really really relevant to life for Cambodian people living in Ratanakiri province:

Charities used to say that if you give a man a fish you feed him for a day; teach him how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime.

But…
‘A man is just as likely to be a woman and that woman already knows how to fish.
She would like her river left alone by illegal logging companies or fish poachers.
She would prefer that her government not build huge dams… dams that have damaged her livelihoods.
She would prefer that the police not violently evict communities to make way for the dam.
She doesn’t want charity. She would like respect for her basic rights.’
A female village leader, Cambodia

If you want to read the whole publication (its really good!) its at: http://publications.oxfam.org.uk/oxfam/display.asp?K=9780855986292

The Celebration of the Soya Bean...

2008-11-30T22:00:00.000-08:00

They have a saying here - ‘Drink for drunk, if not drunk, drink for what?’, it makes for a pretty good party...

Our invite to the ‘harvest of the soya bean’ party came from Rowit the owner of the bar which is a favourite amongst the ngo’s here. He wasn’t very liberal on the details “Saturday go to big party”. New to the idea of packing a US army hammock and travelling by motorbike on dirt roads to a party, I left my high heels at home (in England) and we (our 3 volunteer assistants, Bas – my dutch VSO colleague, Ros – an Australian farmer, Kylie and Phil – Australians who work for Care and two French friends) departed unsure of what to expect.

Bumping along on my own bike for the first 25km, the roads turned from bad to terrible and I had to give over to Rowit and ride with Narin - although I wasn’t defeated I was seriously hindering progress and we needed to get there sometime this week.

A few motorbike problems later, our arrival was thankfully just in time to miss the slaughter of the cow, instead 15 or people were now working on constructing a wooden structure to form the bar. Cambodian hospitality is unrivalled and lunch of coconuts, chicken soup and rice was immediately served. I past up on the chicken soup but was asked if I ate egg , then immediately offered...the egg...the unborn egg from inside said chicken - also politely declined.

A visit to the lakes followed, off we set further into the middle of nowhere. The track started off ok past a village whose inhabitants open mouths made it obvious they don’t see white people too often. We were first met by an interesting bridge crossing, I think the picture says it all...

We then thought our plans were foiled, finding this in the ‘road’...

But this is Cambodia and nothing is impossible...

Seven bikes made it across with no one even ending up in the mud. A few water features later...

And a short trek through the jungle...

And I was starting to feel I was in that song from my childhood “we’re going on a bear hunt, im not scared, we come to the some mud, we can’t go under it, we can go over it, we will have to go through it” but after – mud, rivers, long grass, planks of wood across rivers ( I don’t think they deserve the title ‘bridges’), jungle, and very rocky tracks, we reached the lake...

Of course it is against Cambodian sensibilities to walk and the motorbike came with us much further than I ever thought a motorbike could go with walking only featuring in the final stretch. I was quite glad as there are no bears here but I did hear the word tiger a few times.

By the time of our safe return the sound system has been set up...

And dinner was in the oven...

Darkness fell and although it was only 5.30 it signalled the commencement of the drinking. 24 litres (!) of gin had been ordered and gin fizz was on the menu – gin, 7up and lime juice. This is all mixed up in a barrel in the middle of a large circle of men (Cambodian women don’t drink) each participant gets a plastic cup and a drink master scoops you a glass full and make sure your drink is never empty...but also makes sure you are drinking it!

A spare rib or two later...

And the party was in full swing by 7pm ...

A few more gin fizz’ and I tried my hand at Cambodian dancing, which kind of involves waving your hands around

A meeting was held amongst our number as some wanted to return that evening, it was decided that we were all far too drunk and we should all stay. Bas and Phil took this as a signal to ensure they had absolutely made the most of the free gin...

As the party died down we all slept soundly in our hammock... obviously NGO workers would never attempt anything as irresponible as driving home after the party...people could crash into trees, fall off their bike serveral times the follow this with hysterical giggling, spend entire journys thinking we are heading the wrong way and are going to end up in Vietnam...no nothing like that...

The Mekong Tides a' Turning

2008-11-24T16:09:00.000-08:00

The Cambodian National Boat Race has the same prominence in Cambodia as our FA cup final. Two million people descend on Phnom Penh, its broadcast on national telly, the king’s there…just minimal fuss!? Taking place at the time of the full moon, its the ancient celebration of the end of the wet season and the phenomenon of the Mekong river changing the direction of its flow. In wet season the Mekong expands meaning it flows ‘backwards’ but then in November when in stop raining the river changes its direction of flow.

VSO’s endeavour to integrate into local culture is taken to the extreme or some might say ridiculous - as boat full of brangs is the equivalent of Khmer people rocking up to do the Tour de France on a ‘Cambodian’ bicycle - rusty, sporting a little basket on the front and not a gear in sight.

So, I know people who row, and I have seen rowing, granted only on the TV but seemily that qualified me for the team and I took up oars for our first (and only) practice session. Although my main concern should have been speed and timing I was much more troubled with the amount of river water going into my mouth which meant regular paddle breaks, however I didn’t feel too bad as only half the boat seemed to be paddling at one time. But after lunch, a pep talk from captain Bas and some motivational dancing and whistle blowing from our Khmer skipper (you know, the small guy at the front…) we managed what we thought were some pretty good times…

Last year VSO came 5th. That is 5th in the looses sense of the word as there are only 2 boats in each heat; so essentially we were ‘only’ beaten by the winner of the race 2 behind us. Our aim was 4th…

Race day came and as promised to captain Bas we were hangover free, after dishing out our lovely pink t-shirts were travelled in style (Cambodian style - the back of 2 pick ups) to find our boat. We found it and our challengers the red team, found us, they weren’t really looking too worried!

The race takes place downstream so the first challenge is paddling upstream. I am not sure if it was the fact we looked completely incompetent of they just wanted a close look at the competition that lead our red challenges to hold on to our boat and assist in our upstream paddle.

At the start of the race the atmosphere was fantastic, somehow over 400 boats were in order ready to paddle crazily down stream in their heat. Our boat caused several double takes (we were the only other boat that contained women never mind the fact we were barangs) but this was normally followed by smiles and cheers and we enjoyed the attention. This turned to slight apprehension after a boat about 5 heats before us sunk, but hey we had practiced, what could possibly go wrong!

Nothing did, the reds were half a length in front of us before we had even realised the race had started, and there is debate in the VSO ranks about if we came 4th or 5th but it’s the taking part that counts - we had made it and I hadn’t even got that much water in my mouth!

Three fantastic days of water festival followed - the river comes alive with millions of people, food stalls, fireworks and flotillas of brightly-lit boats and there is an electric atmosphere as the full moon rises over the capital...

The photos are at www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=42427&l=003f2&id=509349727

Rantanakiri Roads...

2008-10-27T18:12:00.000-07:00

The first trip to my new home town felt like journey to the end of the earth. Although we left at the crack of dawn, hours before our arrival the tiny wooden huts dotted along the side of the road had already faded into the darkness, leaving the occasional small bright dot of fire. Tarmac had become a forgotten fantasy, as in the last three hours the crowded bus shook deeper into the jungle, creating a feeling akin to an earthquake.

My first impression - its dark and the jungle is loud, really loud...instant conclusions were drawn - “sh*t there are a whole lot of creepy, crawly, slithery, jumpy and scampering things out there!”. Conclusions which were almost as instantly confirmed by the presence of some such wildlife in my hotel room and later that evening by Chris “there are quite a few insects and snakes here, oh and every house has rats”. Great. It made for an unsettled first nights sleep.

But as the sun rose over the Laos mountains my new home didn’t seem such a scary place after all. By 10am I had met my lovely new colleagues - Bas, Norman, Chris, George and their Cambodian assistants and found a wonderful new house thanks to Sita, my new assistant. Although Sita's official role is translation, the first week proved he will actually do a million and one things to make sure I can function here and be at least as useful as my right arm! Things were defiantly looking up and a fantastic visit week to my new home town followed.

The whole of Rantankiri province resembles a giant motocross track so overnight I became, not too bad at ‘off roading’ (Oli you’d be proud!) (and even better at sitting on the back and letting Seta drive!). The roads (not that they deserve that title) are unbelievable, i have no idea how even a four wheel could get along some of the routes we travelled.

Although I love the motor biking I am trying to not be overconfident. Apart from ‘don’t crash, don’t crash, don’t crash’ other things going through my head include ‘bloody water buffalo/dog/cow/child/pot hole(!) please get out of my way’ and under no circumstances whatsoever do I want a collision with a water buffalo or any of the above. The challenge of serious mud still remains...

The small perfect black dot from Google Earth turned out to be one of the best natural swimming pools I have ever seen and evenings were not short of entertainment thanks to a couple of good bars, friendly bar owners, a little NGO community and a steady stream of backpackers.

After visiting 7 schools I have absolutely know idea where I am going to start. There are SO many issues - I am really not exaggeration when I say they have no books, pens or teachers. Its going to make school improvement very interesting, but I am not too worried (note sarcasm - im terrified) as I have heard talk of school improvement plans…so (as BCC people know), it should all be just fine!?! Anyways more on that when I get started in my job.

Just one more week of language training to go and as last nights home stay proved I have a whole lot to learn in just one more week….better get cracking… This months photos are at www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=37217&l=b9729&id=509349727

Buddhism, Barangs and Bicycles...

2008-09-30T19:10:00.000-07:00

Kampong Cham is a tumble weed town - we are learning to speak Khmer here to ensure our knowledge doesn’t extend to ‘som, khnom chang ting srabia mouy doub’ (can I have another beer please) as it might if we had stayed within the (fairly) bright lights of the capital. Khmer is hard to learn, made harder with a hangover.

Cycling round the streets of this forgotten river port one of VSO's best bikes, Im greeted with a chorus of ‘hellos’ and the occasional cry of ‘barang’, the affectionate Cambodian name for westerners meaning...'long nose'. Its not malicious - I don’t think Cambodians have it in them, its almost a compliment. Westerners are told 'your so beautiful, you have such a big nose'! My bike fits in well on the Cambodian transport scene; it lacks gears and brakes. So the advice to ‘just keep going’ at crossroads (noted in my last blog) is valued as its my only real option.

This weekend was ours thanks to the Buddhist festival P’chum Benh. Buddhism is the state religion and most of the country would class themselves so. Many may not understand the main teachings but the religion still underpins how society works and the way people think. This contributes how lovely the people are, we are so warmly welcomed everywhere and while this may be somewhat influence by the amount of wealth we are perceived to have, it does feel more genuine than other places I have visited.

Some of the most friendliest people around are the monks. Most men under 30 become a monk at some point whether it is for 10 years or 10 days. Though not being allowed to touch a women is one of 227 rules, they are pretty keen to talk to the females in our group.

As part of P’chum Benh Cambodians take food offerings to the temple for their dead relatives. The dead relatives don’t seem too fussy, they’ll accept anything - rice, sweets, a cup of coffee, diet coke, etc. However it you don’t take any thing you are in trouble, your relatives soul is cursed and will bother you for the rest of the year.

We decide on P’chum Benh day to do like Cambodians and visit the temple:

The Lonely Planet says ‘local expats like to cycle to Wat Hanchey in the dry season. Err...its not quite the dry season…but we left anyways. Typically (and hence the name wet season) the heavens opened when we reached the temple. Monsoon rain is nothing like English rain, after a couple of minutes you need to squeeze out your bones to feel dry again. So there we were, two hours from home sheltering under a plastic sheet. All would have been fine had myself, Emma and Hollie not needed the bathroom....

Cue our second 'adventure toilet experience’ in as many days (the previous day Emma, Janice and I had jumped off a boat into knee deep mud, to go behind a wall of different monastery - much to the amusement of our other VSO colleagues).

After far too many minutes trying to explain to the Cambodians what we needed (its one of the those you can’t do the actions for if you want to retain any aspect of your dignity) we were directed to the monks toilet - fully adorned with monk toothbrushes and buckets of orange robes. If I could have got any wetter, this would have been the place to do it. A waterfall was coming in (worryingly) through the electric light fitting but it was a toilet non the least, even if it did give ‘wet room’ a whole new meaning! We made it home drenched but fine - think if I was an expat I would stick to the dry season too.

Just a few more days before I head off for a week to visit the place I will be working, looking forward to finding me a new home… photos of last weeks are here: http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=33206&l=e055a&id=509349727
Sx

First Impressions...

2008-09-15T23:19:00.000-07:00

I moved to Cambodia. I’m a little unsure how it happened - I was so busy catching up with friends and organising my retrospective world, I forgot to look forward - it felt very sudden when I arrived.

Arriving, I think, in any developing country is a shock to the senses - it would be impossible to describe how it feels to be hit by the tropical heat, and such diverse smells and sounds. Small things are a sudden challenge - walking down the broken pavement, avoiding piles of rubbish and peoples lives that seem to spill out on to the street. Crossing the street is taking your life into your hands - the advice given is ‘start crossing, keep going consistently and the traffic will weave around you’. Well, its worked so far!

From what I have seen so far Cambodia it is in some ways in accelerated state of development but it is completely inconsistent. I had a Cambodian mobile number within hours of arriving yet when on placement it is a 24 hour round trip to see one of the only 3 doctors in the country which VSO trusts.

In Phnom Penh (PP) they have gone from 3 to 300 cash points in around 4 years yet the Police are people to avoid. If you do encounter them (maybe for speeding on your push bike!) then bribes need to be paid to prevent hours of sitting in the police station only to ultimately pay a larger bribe to a more senior officer.

There are Lexus’ everywhere yet ones with no number plates and blacked out windows are above the law and can be seen being helped to drive around traffic jams and through red lights.

Obviously a lot of this stems from the Khmer Rouge (KM), Im not going to say a lot until I learn more but we did go to the Genocide museum yesterday, I think this sums up what we saw:

"Although the KR regime officially ended with the Vietnamese capture of PP the KM policies of forced collectivization and social constructionism left behind a legacy that lingered long after its formal demise. The KM left behind a vastly uneducated and unskilled society, a displaced, diasporic and traumatized nation, a population of 70% women, many widowed from the regime, and a country riddled with landmines that continue to main and kill.

The KR shattered families and homes, destroyed financial, educational, religious, cultural and political institutions and perhaps most terribly of all - annihilated trust. Its a legacy far from over and a legacy that will take generations to heal.”

Although corruption is rife and infrastructure has in no way recovered, the people, I think I have come a long way in just 30 years since the KR ended.

All in all it has been a great couple of days - we have a team of 23 for training including British, Irish, Indian, Dutch, Ugandan, Kenyan and Philippino volunteers made up of 2 doctors, 3 nurses, 1 hospital manager, 6 educationalists, 3 people advising on income generation from sustainable forestry products and a few others. We had the weekend off so have already sampled Cambodian clubbing, it was ok helped by the fact beer is 35p a pint! Tropical hangovers are not nice (at all) but we recovered around the pool of a fantastic hotel by the Mekong river.

This week the real work starts!

Sx

One week to go...

2008-09-02T08:17:00.001-07:00

I'm not feeling all that ready!