Alison's Adventures in Cambodia

Over and out

2007-12-01T15:00:00.000-08:00

I've been back in Blighty for nearly 2 weeks now, and already the previous 26 months seem like a distant dream!
I have had the most amazing time in Cambodia, and I feel very privileged to have had the opportunity to live and work in such an interesting and welcoming place. Overall it has been a fabulous experience for me, and hopefully I've done some good for the people there
It's good to be home though, and it's surprising how quickly I'm getting used to life here. I am loving being able to communicate easily again, and it's been great to come back to the British cuppa, jeans and boots, Strictly Come Dancing and the run up to Christmas.
Many things are much as I left them, which is good for me. My greatest pleasure has been in catching up with family and friends, not forgetting Cappucino the cat. I've rejoined Quintasia, my singing group, although I won't be performing with them until the new year, and I'm looking forward to dusting down my vocal tubes and singing again. I'm back to work in a slightly different role with the PCT, and - joy of joys - am now based at Bexhill Hospital which is a healthy 25 minute walk from my house. I seem to have missed a horrendous two-year NHS reorganisation, and am returning at a time when things are beginning to settle down - what great timing! Although there have been a lot of staff changes in my absence, I will be working with many great old friends as well as some lovely new ones.
I have a number of fun pre-Christmas celebrations lined up, and will be spending Christmas in the Isle of Wight with all my family.
As I am no longer "Alison in Cambodia", this will sadly be my last blog posting. I have enjoyed updating the blog over the last two years, and it will remain on the world wide web as a record of my experience. Thank you for reading it, and for all the interest and support I have received while I've been away.
Over and out!!

Myanmar Magic

2007-12-01T09:19:00.000-08:00

The Foreign Office and popular opinion said don't go, but in spite of airline and visa difficulties our trip to Myanmar went ahead. And it was great. Myanmar is a beautiful and fascinating place, with friendly people and interesting sights. We managed to cram plenty in to our fortnight there. In the capital, Yangon, we visited the incredible Shwedagon Pagoda, which spoiled us a bit for the many thousand other pagodas in the country. In Mandalay, we explored ancient Burmese cities, and attended a comedy night with the notorious Moustache Brothers, where I sat on the same seat that the opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, had previously parked her posterior! That was the extent of our acquaintance with political events, and we saw nothing of the repression and human rights violations that have been in the news. I had my face painted with the yellow paste which Myanmar people of all ages wear to make themselves beautiful, and met some charming long-neck Karen tribespeople (what a barbaric tradition, though). I cycled round the plains of Bagan which are chock full of pagodas, and boated on Inle Lake alongside the rather odd leg rowers (apparently it saves their arms from aching). A highlight of our holiday was the hot air balloon festival at Taunggui, with fabulous animal shaped balloons in the afternoon, and balloons covered with candles at night.

Travelling around the country was difficult, with terrible roads and uncomfortable buses and trucks, but it was all worth it.

Missing the boat

2007-11-11T01:22:00.001-08:00

I had intended to stay only one night at Tha Ton in the far north of the country. However, a crisis in the form of a cancelled flight into Myanmar next week meant that I became absorbed in looking for alternative options at the internet shop, resulting in my losing track of time and missing the daily boat down-river to Chiang Rai. Once I got over my annoyance with myself, I was very happy to stay an extra 24 hours in such a beautiful place. Apart from the fabulous scenery, Tha Ton is host to a rich diversity of different ethnic tribes. I was fortunate to be invited to join a party in a Shan village that I biked through, which was great fun.
I made it on to the boat the next day and spent a very enjoyable four hours relaxing on the river, even at the rather touristy rest stop we made where elephants are kept.

Changes in Chiang Mai

2007-11-11T00:37:00.000-08:00

I've spent the last week in the north of Thailand, mainly based in Chiang Mai. The city has sprawled beyond my 17-year-ago recognition, and is now full of traffic and noise. However, I stayed at a very friendly guest house and had a good time, hiring a motorbike to get out to sights in the lovely surrounding countryside, including to an umbrella making village and to a wat on top of Doi Suthep hill.

There's a great weekly night market which I enjoyed visiting.

I organised a trip with two fellow travellers to Doi Inthanon, the highest mountain in Thailand, which was very cold at its peak. I had to wear all my clothes in layers to keep warm, and my leech socks had an outing again!

Where shall I go today?

2007-11-04T01:03:00.000-07:00

With nearly three weeks at my disposal before meeting Ken in Myanmar, I arrived in Bangkok planning to travel to China and Tibet. However, not having arranged my visa or flight in advance, I found my plans thwarted by the expense and delay in sorting things out. I therefore abandoned my Chinese plans and started pondering - where should I go instead?

Having seen most of south east Asia already, I decided that Thailand was the best option for a lone and budget conscious traveller (well I have been a volunteer for 2 years!). Some beach in-action seemed a good place to start, so I took a luxurious overnight bus and then boat to the famed paradise island of Ko Samui. Big mistake. I hit the monsoon season at its worst with constant rain and flooded roads. Although naturally a pretty place, the vast number of tattoo parlours and the low cloud did not enhance its appeal for me, so the next day I headed back to the mainland and then westwards to the unspoiled Khao Sok National Park.
In complete contrast to Ko Samui, I stayed in the deep jungle in a charmingly rustic bungalow, where I could shower under the stars, as the only guest of a friendly family who treated me as one of their own. I hired a personal guide to take me trekking in the park, which was full of my most hated creatures - leeches - hence my fetching jungle attire, including protective leech socks!

From Khao Sok, I went to Krabi, a gorgeous beach resort with my favourite limestone karst scenery everywhere. I had forgotten that this area was hit by the tsunami, and it is amazing how it has recovered since then. There are evacuation route signs everywhere in case the unthinkable should happen again. While in Krabi I hired a natty little electric step-through motorbike to see more of the beautiful province, and I also attended a great Thai cookery course. I'm looking forward to practising my new skills when I get back to England.

I've just arrived in Chiang Mai now and plan to travel round the north of the country for a week. But who knows what I'll actually end up doing - I don't think I've ever had quite such a spontaneous holiday before!

What a difference .....a border makes

2007-10-25T22:25:00.000-07:00

I'm in culture shock! On leaving Cambodia, I travelled by noisy, filthy bus on a hideous, potholed dirt road to get to the Thai border. I then had to struggle with four pieces of luggage (helmet, laptop, holdall and rucksack) for a kilometre through "no mans land", bizarrely passing a number of big casinos. Dirty, sweaty and exhausted I suddenly emerged into a completely different world. A new and pristine VIP bus awaited to whisk me down a sleek highway to Bangkok. The bus was spotlessly clean and had air con, fabulous reclining seats and even a trolley dolly. We stopped every 2 hours for breaks at the cleanest public toilets I'd seen for a long while. I could scarcely believe the luxury and comfort, while my fellow passengers did not seem to find it at all remarkable.

What a difference 17 years makes as well. I was last in Bangkok in 1990, and it was a very different place then. Now there are gleaming skyscrapers, elevated roadways, a metro and skytrain system, and a strong sense of prosperity from the fashionably dressed commuters. I was so excited by all the transport options that I tried out the new metro, skytrain and the fabulous ferry-bus just because I could.

There's a Dunkin' Donuts and Boots on every corner, and even Tescos has come to town. It's sad to see that some of the more charming, traditional ways of living are changing, but there's no doubt that Thailand is no longer a developing country.

Khao San Road, the famous backpackers street, no longer peddles bootleg cassettes and fake degree certificates to ragged, rucksack-toting youngsters, but is now like Ibiza on speed.

One downside to all this new wealth is long traffic jams of cars and a seeming addiction to fast food, resulting in numbers of alarmingly obese people - definitely not something I saw when I was here last.

Leaving the Thom

2007-10-25T22:05:00.000-07:00

I've gone!! Kompong Thom is now no longer my home, and I'm not sure if I'll ever get back there again. My last week was spent packing, throwing out and giving away my things; I had accumulated an amazing amount of "stuff" over the last two years.

Two recent Barang arrivals to Kompong Thom took a lot of my big things by motorbike truck to their house.

I've been round the town saying goodbye to many friends, including the family who run the internet shop where I spent so many (often frustrating ) hours. On my last night, I gave away small possessions to the waiting staff at the Arunras restaurant, where the staff had treated me like one of the family for so long.
My friend Rachel came for the weekend to give a hand, and she helped to keep me sane with all the Cambodian beating of chests going on around me! The CoDeC staff threw a second leaving party for me, and a delegation came to my house to escort me to the bus stop on my last morning.

Now I'm left wondering if the last two years really happened!

My legacy

2007-10-23T20:42:00.000-07:00

My time at CoDeC is up!! So, what have I achieved? After a very slow first year, I think I did pretty well, and my final meeting with VSO and CoDeC confirmed this. I'm leaving behind an organisation which is more professional, confident and with better team spirit than when I started. Everyone participates in staff meetings and decisions in a professional way, and some good work practices which I modelled for the staff (punctuality, wearing a crash helmet, greeting/saying goodbye to colleagues when they arrive/leave the office) have been noted and are now the way things are done.

The old Executive Director, a good man, retired a month ago, leaving an opportunity for a new appointee to move CoDeC further forward and for the existing staff to take on more responsibility and to develop their skills. It would have been great if I could have stayed on a bit longer to help them through this management transition, but never mind.

Thanks to my efforts, CoDeC was successful in securing a range of project work during the last two years, to the benefit of the poor rural communities it serves. The office is a more comfortable and efficient place, with fans, chairs, desks, notice boards and now a clock and a picture which my parents and I gave as leaving gifts.
I'm sure I will be remembered most, though, for the five new networked computers and a seminar building which we plan to build on the CoDeC site, funded from money which I arranged through the German Embassy. The photo shows Savann signing the contract with the builder, with a picture of the building on the whiteboard behind. We don't bother with architect drawings here!

My VSO replacement will not be arriving until March next year, but I think that he or she will have a very rewarding time working at CoDeC. I am very sad to leave my CoDeC family, but hope to stay in touch in the future.

Vacation in Vietnam

2007-10-14T22:20:00.000-07:00

Yet another Cambodian national holiday last week gave me the opportunity to have a break in north Vietnam with a VSO friend. We started in hectic Hanoi, overrun by motorbikes but nonetheless full of charm and character. We joined the locals for a spot of early morning tai-chi by the central lake – a fine start to the day.
We then travelled on the overnight train to Sapa near to the Chinese border, to trek through stunning scenery. Many colourful ethnic hill-tribe people live in the area, and we were able to visit their homes, find out about their ways of life and watch the women sewing and embroidering all day – they always have a needle in their hand. Our vivacious trek guide, a member of the Hmong tribe, had a superb command of colloquial English learned from tourists; she named me “Diamond Geezer”!
We also hired motorbikes for a day to explore on our own.

We moved on to picture-perfect Halong Bay, where we stayed on a luxurious junk. As well as visiting caves and watching the gorgeous panorama as we went by, we also swam in the bay. The Bay was swarming with tour boats, but this didn’t spoil our time there. All in all, a great trip.

An important historical date

2007-10-09T03:36:00.000-07:00

October 13 2005 marked two very important occasions. It was the day I left the UK for Cambodia and also the day my nephew Ben was born. There are a number of parallels that can be drawn between Ben's development and my own during the ensuing two years. In 2005 neither of us could talk or understand anything that was going on. Like Ben, I was the centre of attention and adoration even though I did nothing to deserve this. If I smiled or gurgled, people were enchanted!
Two years on, and Ben is a walking, talking personality, and I've come on a long way too. While far from fluent, I can hold my own with the language and I can understand Cambodian culture to a reasonable degree. I can even join in with what's going on around me. I've also adapted to the environment and can bear the heat and humidity. Life is generally more comfortable and easy. Shame I'll be leaving soon.....

Travels in Takeo

2007-09-30T04:37:00.000-07:00

Hot on the heels of the holiday with my parents and sister, I headed off on a weekend break to Takeo province with three VSO friends.

The Cambodian festival of Pchum Ben is on at the moment, and our visits to Takeo’s temples gave us an insight into this celebration of ancestors. Local people take it in turns each day to prepare food for the monks which they then lay out in the pagoda.

One of the temples we went to see is only accessible by boat during the wet season. We got stranded on the temple island in a huge thunderstorm with darkness quickly falling, but eventually bit the bullet and sped back to the distant town in pouring rain, nearly black sky and into the remains of a gorgeous sunset. Exhilarating but damp.

Party

2007-09-30T04:23:00.000-07:00

In honour of my family visit and my impending departure from Kompong Thom, CoDeC held a party for us. All the staff went to great trouble to dress in Western clothes, while Sally and I turned up in Khmer style.

There were lots of speeches celebrating my time at CoDeC. The staff gave me a special gift - a silver handbag - and my parents/sister a ceremonial bowl set. We all took part in the Khmer dancing, and there was also some karaoke singing - but not by any Ridouts. A very happy evening.

The luxurious lifestyle continues...

2007-09-30T04:01:00.000-07:00

The holiday with my parents and sister just kept getting better and better. We flew to the south of Laos and took a 2 night boat tour on the Mekong River, where we were lucky enough to have the whole boat to ourselves, complete with our own tour guide and a staff of more than 10 people. We had sole use of the whole upper deck, and we visited local sights at our own pace.

One trip to a pre-Angkorian temple site took us through leech territory, necessitating socks tucked into trousers and a lot of hopping to avoid the creepy crawlies. We travelled on to Cambodia, and made the inevitable visit to Angkor Wat before

spending time in my home town of Kompong Thom, where, amongst other things, we visited the families of a couple of colleagues. We finished up by seeing the sights of Phnom Penh. Our holiday together was unforgettable with an amazing range of wonderful experiences.

Lovely Laos

2007-09-17T02:55:00.000-07:00

I'm writing this from Laos, where I'm on holiday with my parents and sister. The limestone karst scenery around VangVieng is spectacular.

Sally and I went tubing 4kms down the fast flowing Nam Song. It was very exhilerating once I'd worked out how to stay on.

Crossing the river in a dug out was a white knuckle experience! Sightseeing in Vientiane included visiting the national icon Pha That Luang. We're flying off to Pakse in the south of the country tomorrow and getting up at 3 a.m. Ugh.

Motorbike adventure

2007-09-09T05:01:00.000-07:00

This weekend marked the beginning of my holiday season! I biked 140 kms to meet my friend Jo in Oudong on the other side of Tonle Sap lake. We had a great weekend visiting the many temples of this important Cambodian site. This was possibly my last major motorbike trip before I leave, so I made the most of it.

With my return to the UK looming ever closer, I am planning to pack in as many trips and holidays as I can while I'm in the region.

As well as seeing more of Cambodia, I am planning to go to Laos, Vietnam, Thailand, Tibet, China and Myanmar in the next few weeks. The life of a volunteer is very hard!!

More flooding

2007-09-09T04:50:00.001-07:00

The floods around Kompong Thom at the moment are very picturesque, turning fields into glassy lakes. Many houses have been cut off, though, and people are having to wade through water to get to their homes.

The poorest people live in the houses with the shortest stilts, so they are living very close to the water surface. These people build their own houses out of local natural resources - wood, bamboo, grass and leaves - and have to regularly replace roofs, walls and floors.

HIV and AIDS training

2007-09-09T04:42:00.000-07:00

This week, because the road to the CoDeC office was still flooded, I volunteered my house as the venue for a 3 day HIV and AIDS training course for 14 CoDeC staff plus a further 5 participants. Organising the chairs, flipchart paper, snacks, drinking water, house cleaning, etc, and having people in my house from 7.00 a.m. until 5.30 p.m. was EXHAUSTING, and I was very glad to get my house back to myself at the end of the course.

A VSO volunteer facilitated the training for us, and highlights included a visit to the centre for Voluntary Confidential Counselling and Testing at the local hospital, where a number of the course participants took HIV tests. Thank goodness all were negative, but I was shocked at how anxious the women were before they got their results; they know and accept the fact that their husbands are unfaithful and irresponsible. We also met the local group of People Living with HIV and AIDS (PLHAs) at a pagoda, and many of their stories were very upsetting.

Floods

2007-08-26T04:06:00.001-07:00

The Stung Sen river in Kompong Thom burst its banks near to the CoDeC office two weeks ago. Now the only way to get to work is to park my motorbike 100 metres away, roll up my trousers and wade! Beneath the water, the mud floor has become extremely slippery, and it is very hazardous for me to walk through the water carrying all my valuable possessions, particularly my laptop and mobile phone which will get ruined if I slip. I have watched two colleagues get a drenching so far – hope I won’t be next! In the photo I am standing with another VSO volunteer who will be providing training in HIV / AIDS to my CoDeC colleagues in the near future.

Worthy causes

2007-08-26T04:02:00.000-07:00

There are so many worthy causes in Cambodia, and it’s easy for VSO volunteers to support them. While at our conference in Sihanoukville, I found out about the work of the Cambodian Childrens Art Project, a local NGO that helps vulnerable children who sell trinkets on the beach to have an education, a daily meal and to understand their rights. It also teaches them to paint, and provides materials for them to produce pictures which are sold to tourists. I arranged for the Project to exhibit some paintings in our conference hall, which raised awareness about the Project and also some money from selling pictures. The children were so excited that their work was being shown in a posh hotel, and those who helped to carry the heavy display stand to the top floor were thrilled to travel down in the lift!

We also arranged for the local blood donation service at Sihanoukville hospital to come to our conference hotel, and 15 people gave blood in the lunch hour. In general, VSO volunteer blood is better quality than that of local people because we are more healthy, and Khmer people only ever give blood to save their own relatives, so there is a desperate shortage in the hospitals.

Another thing I did was to ask VSO volunteers and staff to collect their hotel room toiletries each day. I have now given a huge bag of toothbrushes, soaps, combs and shampoo to the local NGO which runs the Happy Happy Club in Kompong Thom. The orphans and vulnerable children who attend the club each month learn about the importance of hygiene, and at their next meeting will be given these small gifts.

Conference Fun

2007-08-26T03:55:00.000-07:00

After months of frenetic preparation by the VolCom committee, the VSO Cambodia annual conference finally took place in Sihanoukville to much acclaim! The committee members and I arranged a full week’s programme designed to develop the skills, professional knowledge, networks, ideas, team work (and lots of other admirable objectives) of the volunteers and VSO staff, but the main goal was to have fun!! I arrived with the committee to the seaside resort a day before the rest of the 80 participants to prepare the meeting rooms, hotel and evening venues, working until 11 p.m. making posters and decorations. One of my jobs in the week was to give out prizes for ‘significant achievements’, which ranged from the volunteer with the best suntan to a group of volunteers who saved the lives of some Khmer teenagers who got swept out to sea by the unusually dangerous undercurrents. Shockingly, six people drowned in Sihanoukville the week we were there – our volunteers heroically saved the lives of at least four people.
We organised evening entertainment every night, including the much anticipated fancy dress party with its theme ‘Something beginning with P’. The week ended with elections for the new VolCom committee, and as I could only serve for one year, my term as committee member is now over. Being a committee member has been an interesting, worthwhile and enjoyable experience.

All dressed up

2007-08-23T05:56:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, four VSO friends and I went on a Khmer style photo shoot. This is a popular activity in Cambodia, particularly for brides and grooms. The proceedings started with some eyebrow shaving - bad - but the make up, hair styling, dressing and photography were brilliant fun. Hair pieces and jewellery were provided, and we ended up hardly recognising ourselves!
Here's the before and after shots....

Bird flu scare

2007-08-06T05:38:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago, a Khmer friend told me in passing that 80 of his 100 chickens had died in the previous few days. He was only concerned with the loss of his chickens for food and income, and had very little interest in why the birds had died. Could it have been bird flu? I asked. Well, he said, yes maybe....

Naturally I was very anxious so I reported my concerns to the authorities even though he did not want this. Staff from the Department of Agriculture went to his house and took a chicken away for analysis. I was promised that I would be informed of the outcome. I’m still waiting to hear, and as I’ve waited so long, am assuming that my worst fears weren’t realised....

Gas

2007-08-06T05:32:00.000-07:00

It was my birthday last week (thank you to all those who sent good wishes), and to celebrate I invited some friends round to my house for a meal. The guests had arrived and the dinner was cooking when suddenly the cooking gas ran out – the first time that’s happened since I’ve been here. As the food was not yet edible, I considered taking us all out to a restaurant, but in the end I phoned a local shop keeper (in my best Khmer) and arranged to meet him at his house to escort him back to mine to install a new gas bottle. All went to plan, and dinner was finally served a mere 45 minutes late.

I love Cambodia.... where else would you get a shopkeeper to open up 3 hours after closing time and then deliver and install gas for you with no call out charge or complaint and just because you’re in the middle of cooking ?

Kirirom National Park

2007-08-05T23:50:00.001-07:00

Last weekend two friends and I visited Kirirom National Park, a high, cool and picturesque spot only 2 hours from Phnom Penh. We had a fabulous sweat-free weekend walking around pine clad hills and lakes! We climbed to the top of a waterfall where we watched Cambodians at leisure splashing around in the water fully clothed. One of the villages in the park has established a very successful eco-tourism enterprise, and it was really interesting to see how community-run tourism can bring such sustainable benefits to the people and to the local natural resources.

Free range cows

2007-07-23T05:38:00.001-07:00

Cows are wonderfully laid back here and roam all over the place looking for food. If my front gate is open, they sometimes come in to graze on my plants, and there are often several cows wandering around the CoDeC garden. I saw the baby cow in this picture being born; the owners just watched and let the mother cow get on with it. The other picture shows a cow which has recently taken to sleeping outside my gate at night. Unfortunately Cambodian cows are very stupid and don’t have any road sense. Not being fenced in, they wander in front of fast traffic on the main road. I was recently on a bus which hit and killed a cow. There was barely a murmur of interest from my fellow passengers. There is no sentimentality about animals in Cambodia.

Carting the kids around

2007-07-23T05:30:00.000-07:00

Children are transported by their parents in ways that would be considered far too dangerous and uncomfortable in the UK. Tiny tots are often seen in the front basket of bicycles or motorbikes, and slightly older ones on the luggage racks. I have seen up to 7 people perched on one motorbike. Another difference here is that parents don’t provide a private taxi service for their children as they do in the UK. The children are responsible for making their own way to school or anywhere else, usually taking their smaller siblings with them. If they don’t have use of a bicycle, they walk.

None of your business

2007-07-14T22:42:00.000-07:00

On TV’s “Blind Date”, Cilla Black famously asks her contestants “What’s your name and where do you come from?” Here, the first question I am asked by strangers is “How old are you?”, followed by “How many children do you have?” There is a great deal of surprise that I am not married (“Why not?”), and while this explains why there are no children, I am sometimes asked if I don’t have children because I am lazy! I am often asked about money (“How much do you earn? How much is your rent? How much do your clothes cost?”). As I walk past, people I have never seen before call out to me “Where are you going?” and “Where have you been?”

In the UK, the response to many of these personal questions would be “None of your business!”, but here everybody knows everybody’s business, and it would be rude not to give the information asked for. Now that I am used to being quizzed in this way, I don’t mind at all, and it’s refreshing for me to be able to ask local people the sort of questions that would be taboo back home. I can ask poor people about how much money they have, how much they’ve lost to money lenders or gambling and how they cope with the challenges of their lives. I can ask sick and disabled people (including those with HIV) how they got their illness or disability, how it has affected their lives, what sort of treatment they get and how much this costs. Many people are willing to talk about their experiences during the Pol Pot regime, and I have heard some desperately tragic stories. I can even ask women how often their husbands beat them. The people seem to be pleased that I am taking an interest in their personal affairs. It is such a privilege to learn so much about their lives and culture in this way.

What I can’t ask them about, though, is politics and corruption. People are afraid to openly speak out against the government, or to complain about the corruption that is ruining their lives. Printed copies of a recent UK report by Global Witness on the role of the “kleptocratic elite” controlling illegal logging are banned. The Cambodian language news media (TV and newspapers) is at the mercy of the government, so news is often skewed. On these issues, people tend to just accept what they're told and not ask questions.

Wells Update

2007-07-01T05:12:00.000-07:00

A grand total of 11 open wells, funded by the generosity of family, colleagues and friends from England, are now providing water to hundreds of needy people in the Stoung District of Kompong Thom. Around 40 people are benefiting from each well, and they are using the water for drinking, cooking, washing and watering crops. It has been an immensely satisfying experience for me to see the project all the way through, from the fund raising stage, to identifying the needs, agreeing the plans with the communities, watching the work progress and now to the final stage of seeing the people enjoying using their lovely new wells. The final cost was around $200 (₤100) per well, which I think is money extremely well spent. Each well has been inscribed with “Donated by Alison Ridout’s family and friends, England” - not my choice of words, but we couldn’t list everyone who had contributed.

If in the future you happen to be traveling on National Highway 6 through Stoung, keep your eyes open, as at least four wells can be seen from the road! Stop and say “suasadey” to the people you have helped – they would love to meet you! The photos show the before, during and after stages of one of the wells, plus another shows how some families collect their water.

Cookery lesson

2007-06-30T21:40:00.000-07:00

Last week, I joined some tourists for a Khmer cookery lesson. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and wish I’d done it sooner. I now know what some of the strange items in the market are, how to prepare them and how they can be deliciously cooked together. During the day, I learned how to make spring rolls, cambodian chicken curry, fish amok (my favourite Khmer meal, beautifully served in a banana leaf cup) and a desert of coconut, banana and tapioca.
Since the course, I have bought fish from the market – finally! I was always too squeamish to buy fish before, as mostly they are still alive and thrashing about. Also, I am a product of an academic school which didn’t have home economics on the curriculum, so I had no idea how to cook fish unless it was prepared and wrapped in cling film! I have started buying things I didn’t even notice in the market before – galangal, kaffir lime, morning glory, fish sauce and lemon grass. I’m even eyeing up the meat (every part of the animal is available, including pig faces and cow hooves, and covered in flies unless you buy it at 6 a.m.), and trying to work up the courage to buy some of that soon!

Happy birthday, Your Majesty!

2007-06-23T21:36:00.001-07:00

21 June was Queen Elizabeth II’s 81st birthday, and to mark the occasion the British Ambassador held his annual party in Phnom Penh, to which all the Commonwealth citizens living in Cambodia were invited. For me, it was a great excuse to put on my glad rags, eat good old British grub (miniature portions of fish and chips, Lancashire hotpot, fisherman’s pie and Cornish pasties!) and drink Pimms and wine surrounded by wonderful ice statues of London sights (Tower Bridge behind us in the photo!). I enjoyed my taste of the high life, but for me the evening was in stark contrast to the rural village of stilted huts and barefooted people wearing kramas which I had visited that morning.

Volunteer fury

2007-06-23T21:34:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago, VSO London announced a 20% cut to the volunteer allowance in Cambodia. Unsurprisingly, the majority of the volunteer community is furious. As a member of VolCom, the VSO volunteer committee, I have been in the thick of all kinds of heated correspondence, calls and threats of action. Volcom held a weekend meeting to discuss the situation. Many volunteers felt devalued, and believed that the decision and the process for making and implementing the decision was flawed. The strength of feeling against the cut was heard loud and clear by the London office, and today’s response is that the decision has been suspended, so that further consultation can take place. The right short term decision, but in the long term the agony is prolonged! This has been a rather uncomfortable fortnight...

Bats

2007-06-23T21:32:00.000-07:00

Having no power to light the streets last week had the favorable consequence of enhanced viewing opportunities of the magnificent starry night sky. As my evenings were spent outside, I was also able to watch the flight of bats which swarm from their daytime home on Kompong Thom’s ”bat tree” at dusk. Weird creatures, and for me a bit like being on the set of Scooby Doo!

Camping

2007-06-23T21:27:00.000-07:00

Kampong Thom’s electricity company excelled itself last week. The daily power cuts of an hour or so didn’t have a high enough nuisance effect to warrant charging a higher price per kilowatt. The ante was upped and power in the town was turned off completely for 4 days. For me, this was a nightmare. I can cope without electric light – candle power is fine – but no fan at night is impossible. After 2 nights of not being able to sleep in the heat, I set up camp in my living room and slept in front of open doors. As there was no electricity in the office, I took my laptop to my friendly local restaurant, and plugged it into their generator-powered electricity for the price of coffee, but my work productivity (and CoDeC’s) was not very high for several days. Power was restored a few days ago, so I don’t know if this means that agreement to the higher price has been reached.

Fantastic Facilitators!

2007-06-09T03:30:00.001-07:00

That’s my VSO friend Jo and I, who have just run back-to-back four day facilitation skills training workshops, firstly at her NGO in Kampong Chhnang (CCD) and then at my NGO in Kampong Thom (CoDeC). We have been preparing the courses for nearly 3 months, putting in many more hours than I would have done for equivalent training back in England. Our verdict is that the courses were exhausting but extremely worthwhile and great fun. We had lots of translation issues, in spite of having a translator helping on each course, but we became more skilled as the courses progressed. Our Cambodian colleagues are almost childlike in their love of games, drawing, role-plays and appreciation of new things, which made them really rewarding to work with. We introduced a range of new skills and concepts to them, including designing Powerpoint presentations (in between power cuts!) and developing SMART objectives. Jo and I shall be following up the training by providing supervision in the field, but I am confident that the participants have really learned what we taught them and will put their learning into practice.

Livelihoods Study Tour

2007-06-09T03:25:00.000-07:00

Three weeks ago, I attended a VSO Livelihoods Volunteer workshop in Battambang. The workshop was held at Ptea Teuk Dong (Coconut-Water House), the NGO centre for street families I’d visited with my CoDeC colleagues earlier this year. We stayed in Ptea Teuk Dong’s visitor accommodation, comprising these charming traditional houses, newly built by the centre’s beneficiaries as part of the training they receive. The houses have a lovely rural outlook, with lots of night-time firefly sightings – magical! All our food was prepared and served by residents learning the catering business, and the youngsters again gave a wonderful dancing performance. During the two day workshop, we visited communities where locally based VSO volunteers work , and were taken to see this newly dug fish pond. The purpose of the UV light and plastic sheeting is to attract insects at night time, which fall into the water to become fish food.

House warming

2007-05-16T22:38:00.000-07:00

We've just come to the end of party season, when anybody who is anybody throws a wedding party; or, if no one in the family is getting married, then a party for any old reason. Here I am at the house-extension warming party of the director of a local NGO. Party invitees are sent a very grand personalised invitation letter, and are then expected to give a "gift"of $10 whether or not they are able to attend! Most people go along to get their money's worth. It's a chance to get dressed up to the nines, have a 7 course meal with plenty of drink and to dance the night away, Khmer style. I am sitting with Savann, a colleague from CoDeC. Unfortunately I'm in the wrong type of Khmer party-wear, without so much as a hint of satin or lace. The fashion police would not be happy.

Quackery

2007-05-16T22:36:00.000-07:00

Cambodia has the most amazing set of health care beliefs. Cupping is very popular, whereby glass cups are placed on the body and heated with a flame to draw impurities out and cure headaches. I often see people out and about with red circles all over the faces and chests after they have been "cupped". Coining is also widely practised, even by educated Western Khmers, as in this picture. A coin is rubbed up and down on the skin until it makes a raw red mark. This is supposed to relieve the symptoms of colds and headaches. Possibly there may be an element of merit in these cures, but I'm absolutely certain it is not safe practice to light a fire under the bed of a woman giving birth, particularly in a wooden house!

Ratanakiri

2007-05-16T22:25:00.000-07:00

Cambodia celebrated the Kings birthday last week, meaning there was yet another national holiday. As part of my mission to see as much of the country as I can, I headed off on a gruelling 12 hour journey to Ratanakiri in the north east with 6 other VSO volunteers. Ratanakiri is famous for its beautiful wild countryside, lakes and waterfalls, and we saw it at its best. We hired two 4-wheel drive cars with guides, which is the only possible way to get around during the rainy season. We swam in a lake, took a boat trip to visit some tribal communities and visited a rubber plantation. Recommended!

Wot a scorcher!!

2007-05-02T22:35:00.001-07:00

While the UK was basking in delightful above-average April temperatures, Cambodia’s weather has been hellishly hot. April is always the hottest month in Cambodia, but this year was exceptional, with most days getting to above 40 degrees. It was like living in a sauna and the humidity meant that I had sweat cascading all over my body 24/7 – yuk. I didn’t move more than was necessary, and only then very slowly. My poorly hand gave me a good excuse to really slow down – every cloud has a silver lining! It’s now May and still very hot, but there are indications that we are soon to enter the rainy season, which will provide some respite.
I don’t know if this year’s temperatures are a blip or part of the ongoing trend towards global warming. If it’s the latter, the Cambodian people can’t be blamed, as they consume and pollute so little relatively. Their ecological footprints must be among the lowest in the world. So...... will you lot living in developed countries please stop doing what you’re doing!

Back to Khmer New Year

2007-05-02T22:29:00.000-07:00

Just before my accident, I took part in some lovely traditional Khmer New Year celebrations. Like last year, CoDeC arranged for some monks to come to bless us, so the staff spent a happy day preparing flowers and gifts for the small ceremony in the office, and transported the monks on the backs of their motos to and from their pagoda.

On New Years Day itself, everyone dresses up and takes a picnic to the pagoda for more Buddhist blessings.

One tradition I managed to avoid this year was water and flour throwing. This little girl seems to have covered her own face with flour.

Accident statistic

2007-04-22T03:03:00.000-07:00

Statistically, it was bound to happen. I have been involved in a motorbike accident. I had hired a motorbike to visit Kep during the Khmer New Year holiday, and I collided with another bike on a dirt road. The other guy's fault, needless to say. I found myself lying on the ground wondering who I was, where I was and what I was doing - a very strange experience! VSO emergency support was brilliant. I was taken to a local hospital where I was met by two VSO translators, who sorted everything out for me and then arranged for me to go to Phnom Penh to get a check up at a clinic and to recuperate at the VSO accommodation. The main damage was to my left hand, which swelled up to twice its usual size and sustained a couple of cracks in the meta-carpels, so I now have to wear a hot and smelly plaster cast for three weeks. I had four stitches put in my upper lip, which puffed up to look like a duck's bill. After a few days rest in Phnom Penh I’ve returned to my life in Kampong Thom, but I’m still feeling a bit fragile. Getting dressed, opening jars and washing up are all very tricky, while washing my hair is impossible. On a brighter note, statistically I shouldn't have any more accidents now! P.S. Yes, I was wearing a helmet!

Water for the Poor

2007-04-07T00:19:00.000-07:00

Readers of this blog may have been wondering what happened to all the money collected by Hastings and Rother PCT in December 2006 which was destined to buy wells in Cambodia. Good news: the money was added to by some further very generous donors, to make a grand total of $2100, which I have now given to Mr Kimchoeun, Director of CoDeC, the most trustworthy person in the whole of Cambodia! This has been enough to buy at least 7 wells for groups of households living in areas which have literally no water during the dry season. Mr KimChoeun took me to the target areas and we discussed the projects with the local people, who are, needless to say, DELIGHTED to be the beneficiaries of this aid. The wells are being built during the next few weeks, prior to the start of the rainy season.

In the photos you can see the state of the current drinking water - Mr KimChoeun has a stronger stomach than me! - and some villagers' previous attempts to dig their own wells in the porous sandy soil. One young boy got so excited that he started to dig the hole for his well within minutes of the end of the meeting with his family and neighbours! I will post a further report once all the wells are finshed and operational.

Barangs come out of the woodwork

2007-04-01T04:42:00.000-07:00

Having been the only Barang in Kompong Thom for a while, suddenly there seem to be loads of us!! Unfortunately, most will only be living here for a few months, but the current count is 10: 2 Austrians, 1 German, 1 American, 2 Australians, 1 Belgian, 2 Dutch and 1 British (me!). To celebrate this significant development, I held a party .... the first of its kind in Kompong Thom, complete with music, lights, food and drink! Two of the group have a badminton court at their house, so there are plans to have regular Barang get-togethers on the badminton court – Europe vs. the Rest of the World!

Election fever

2007-04-01T04:38:00.000-07:00

Today is Cambodia’s second ever Commune Council election day. Commune Councils make decisions affecting people at local Commune level, and are made up of elected members of the major political parties. CoDeC got involved in the run-up to the election, by organising candidate debates held in large Open Forums at three locations in Kompong Thom province, which were then broadcast on national radio stations. Prior to the Open Forums, we held meetings with the local communities to help them to prepare questions based on the issues most important to them to ask the candidates. At the beginning of each Forum, monks blessed the candidates and the debates were then strictly controlled by a neutral moderator. Democracy and free speech are still unfamiliar concepts in Cambodia, and these candidate debates were ground-breaking. Apart from our Open Forums, there has been a lot of political campaigning over the last two weeks. A huge cavalcade of trucks drove up and down the main streets on Friday to try to encourage people to vote for one of the parties. Polling closes at 3pm this afternoon, and the results will be posted on the doors of the polling stations one hour later. The British Embassy has encouraged foreigners to keep away from election events this weekend, although I don’t think there will be any trouble here in the Provinces.

It’s mango season

2007-04-01T04:35:00.000-07:00

Yum, yum, yum, yum, yum, yum, yum!

In the photo, the stall holder is having his lunch-time snooze. I usually have to wake someone up if I want to buy anything between 12 and 1.30 p.m.!

Motorbike Trials

2007-03-25T03:39:00.000-07:00

I’m not sure which I find more difficult: riding my motorbike on dry sandy roads or on wet slippery roads. The dry season will be here for another few weeks, and the dry sand seems to be getting deeper, meaning that I have trouble getting a grip on my tyres . On a recent ride with me, Rachel kept having to bale the sand out of her shoes. Last week, however, we had an unseasonable 12 hour rain storm, and the road got quickly churned up. After this it was like trying to ride through chocolate.

Lily of the Alley

2007-03-25T03:25:00.000-07:00

Lovely Lily lives in a small house in an alley! She has been doing my laundry (by hand, of course) every week since I arrived, and she has just started cleaning my house twice a week. Why oh why didn't I get a cleaner before?? It makes such a difference to me to come back to shiny floors, rather than floors piled high with dust. I know it's incongruous for a volunteer to have a "servant", but I can justify it by saying that I'm investing in the local economy!!

Trip to Stung Treng

2007-03-17T00:29:00.000-07:00

International Womens Day was a national holiday, so I took advantage of the long weekend by visiting far flung Stung Treng province with two fellow VSO volunteers. Stung Treng is home to five other volunteers and we three visitors were made very welcome by them, with invitations to parties, to staying in their houses and to borrowing their motorbikes. We were shown around their workplaces – a hospital (grim!), community health offices and an NGO office. In the photo, Meng is presenting some of the work of her NGO. The three of us had a glorious day trip up the Mekong river and into Laos, going through beautiful scenery and swimming in the river only 100m from some rare Irriwaddy freshwater dolphins.

Rubbing shoulders with the Prime Minister

2007-03-17T00:23:00.000-07:00

Last week I attended a meeting at the plush Intercontinental Hotel in Phnom Penh where Hun Sen, Cambodia’s Prime Minister, gave the opening speech. He told the audience that he planned to stamp out corruption and land grabbing by senior government officials. If he manages to do that, then hoorah!

I was there to represent VSO at its information stand. Here I am with some other VSO volunteers and staff. I helped to produce the large plastic-coated poster, which was an interesting experience in working with a printing company.

Sand castles

2007-02-28T21:58:00.000-08:00

When I returned to my house last week after nearly four weeks away, I was confronted with knee-high dust (well nearly) throughout, plus a big pile of sand outside my gate. My landlady, who lives in Phnom Penh, is in Kampong Thom at the moment and had arranged to have her land extended at the back of her three properties by building a wall and filling in the waste land at the back. I’m quite sure that no land deeds were exchanged! Anyway, the sand was moved bucket load by bucket load about 80 metres to the back of the property (haven’t they heard of wheelbarrows?), and every day since I came back more piles of sand have been dumped and moved. A very slow, hot and tiring process, but hopefully security on the plot will be improved. Apparently people living in the road beyond the waste land had been using the property as a cut through to the market.

The two children who live in the house next to the new wall in the photo have enjoyed playing on the piles of sand. Even though I have been living in my house for 16 months, they are still excited by the novelty of having a Barang next door. Every time they go through the side passage to their own home, they shout out “Hallo - Goodbye” to my house, whether or not I’m in sight. I feel like the Boo Radley of Kampong Thom!

Year of the Golden Pig

2007-02-20T06:22:00.000-08:00

The Chinese New Year was heralded in this weekend. My Khmer teacher, Chheng An, invited me to a family get together at his parents house 25 kms away. When I accepted the invitation, I didn’t realise that I would be asked to take Chheng An’s 4 year old son on the back of my motorbike. The little boy has been transported on motorbikes since before he could sit, so no one could understand why I was concerned for his safety, but I got really worried when he started falling asleep behind me. However, we arrived without incident; thank goodness for the child’s innate sense of balance and self preservation! We spent the morning mostly sitting around, eating and snoozing on hammocks. Chheng An’s brother in law was the only one who had any sense of occasion, and he prepared gifts for the spirits, including a newly plucked chicken and cigarettes.
Back in Kampong Thom, the lion dancing troupe was being kept busy, going round houses, restaurants and shops. The usual fee for the troupe to perform at your home is around $20. Outside each house the lion and boy performed a ritual dance accompanied by drums and bells, and then went inside to bless the shrine (every home has one!) and all the rooms. They would then return outside and a long string of firecrackers would be let off. The lion would then stand on its back legs to stretch up to grab a gift of food dangled from above.

Pyjama parties in Battambang

2007-02-13T21:19:00.000-08:00

Last week I went to Battambang, Cambodia’s second largest city, for a partnership meeting with ACR, one of our donors. The meeting was held at a centre for street families and abused women and was a really inspirational place, with its holistic approach to helping poor people by providing support in housing, education, health, hygiene, farming and alternative livelihoods. Families live at the centre for a year, learning how to look after themselves and all sorts of other skills, and are then given a small plot of land and a basic house so that they can integrate into village life. There is a school for children and young people, and one of the skills they all learn is traditional dancing. It is amazing that only three months ago the dancers in this picture were living on the streets and had never danced before.
During the week we visited an HIV/AIDS project. The man in the photo has HIV, but he is remaining positive and active, keeping busy rearing his fighting chickens and arranging cockfights. It was the first time I’d seen any evidence of cockfighting, but I hear it is very popular in rural communities.
The most wearing part of the week was sharing a hotel room with my Khmer colleague. When we arrived back from the meeting at 5.30 each day, she’d immediately get into her night wear and spend the rest of the evening flicking through TV channels. She was scared of ghosts and intruders, so didn’t like me leaving the room, although I managed the odd quick trip to the internet shop! She’d go to sleep with the light and TV on, clutching the remote control! On the last night, I woke in the middle of the night to find she’d invited another of the meeting participants to share our room. They were both asleep fully clothed on her single bed with TV and light on. Our visitor then had a noisy half hour phone conversation at 1.30 am.! No thought that she might be keeping the other two of us awake. All part of the Cambodian experience.....!

Lovely Laos

2007-02-13T21:12:00.000-08:00

I’ve just had two weeks holiday with Ken in neighbouring Laos. What a beautiful country! I was surprised to find that Laos is quite unlike Cambodia. The scenery is very varied, with limestone karst landcapes, low plains, high mountains and lots of clear water (not the muddy variety of Cambodia!). The facial features of the people are coarser than the Khmers and they have darker skins. Their lifestyles are more basic in some ways and more advanced in others. Their woven bamboo houses look charming, but are not very comfortable by our standards, and there is no privacy. Food is spicy, often eaten without cutlery and has sticky rice as the main staple. Laos has a fascinating history, including an appalling period 30-40 years ago during the Indo-China War, when US funded bombs were indiscriminately rained on the country. In spite of all the bomb damage there are still lots of beautiful wats to visit, and I also enjoyed seeing the mysterious Plain of Jars, which is a bit like Stonehenge, in that no one knows quite why the stone jars are there. The capital city, Vientiane, makes Bexhill-on-Sea seem like a heaving metropolis. January in the mountainous areas is really cold, particularly for me coming from steamy Cambodia. Travelling around the country is hard work, so it’s not a place for softies, but the rewards definitely outweigh the effort.

VSO trip to Pottery Province

2007-02-13T21:07:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago, I went to Kampong Chhnang (a province located on the west bank of the Tonle Sap lake) for a VSO Livelihoods Sector workshop, which I helped to organise. Instead of the usual all day workshop in a Phnom Penh meeting room, we opted this time to do a study tour in a province. 25 of us visited a community fishery group in a remote village, accessible only by boat. It was interesting for me to compare the achievements and challenges of the fishery group here with those of Kampong Thom. One big difference was that this village is located right on the river, whereas some of the so-called community fisheries in Kampong Thom are more than 20 kms from the nearest fishing ground! The lifestyles of the local people are very primitive, and while it was nice for us to be away from motorbikes and cars for a day, I am sure the villagers would prefer to be a little more connected with the 21st century. Back in the town of Kampong Chhnang, I stayed a couple of nights with a VSO friend, and we had a nice bicycle ride through lovely scenery, visiting chhnang (pottery) workshops and passing this pretty wat.

Living in a pigsty

2007-01-14T03:06:00.000-08:00

The lady in this photo actually lives in a pigsty!! CoDeC agricultural staff have built a very smart concrete pigsty (including mosquito netting, no less!) for the benefit of a poor rural community. Good quality pigs have been purchased and a pig food production enterprise has been set up – see photo. The community selected this woman and her family to be the pig farmers for six months, and CoDeC gave them training in pig raising skills. In return for their work in looking after the pigs, the family can keep some of the profit and at the end of the six months they can take two piglets home to raise for themselves. Another family will then be selected to be pig farmers for the next six months. The family think they have been very lucky to have had this opportunity. They are so poor that six months in a pigsty is attractive to them, even though they just sleep in hammocks, and have no electricity, kitchen or bathroom. I found the smell quite overpowering, but I suppose that if you live in the pigsty you must get used to it.

Technology I wouldn’t be without

2007-01-14T03:04:00.000-08:00

These are the top six possessions I value most here in Cambodia:
1 Mobile phone – my lifeline. My VSO friends and I send and receive lots of texts, and I can instantly contact home or be contacted if necessary. My mobile also serves as a torch during power cuts.
2 Motorbike – for getting around, giving me freedom and I love riding it!
3 Laptop – I couldn’t do my work without it; it comes to the office with me twice a day. I also use it to prepare e-mails, store photos and music, and it contains all the information I need most.
4 TV – for my aerobics programmes, keeping me up to date with news and so that I can veg in front of American movies. I watch far too much TV here, but it’s often too hot and I’m too tired to do much else. I now have a DVD player as well, and have some DVDs of British programmes which are very comforting to watch!
5 Fridge – for keeping ants out of food, keeping food fresh and for lovely cold drinks
6 Digital camera – for memories of my varied experiences, and also for making friends with local people. They love having their photo taken, and are in raptures if I subsequently bring them the prints

Who has the power?

2007-01-14T02:43:00.000-08:00

Over the last year, the electricity company in Kompong Thom has been steadily raising prices by holding its customers to ransom. In order to get the provincial government to agree to the price rises, we customers are subjected to power cuts nearly every day. When I arrived here, electricity cost 1200 riel per kilowatt; the most recent price hike has brought it up to 1600 riel per kilowatt, but the electricity company doesn’t want to stop there. Already the price is far too high for most people, who earn less in a month than the value of my bill. No wonder that the majority stick to using car batteries for their light, have ice boxes and go to bed very early! This photo is of Rachel preparing a meal by candlelight; note the fleece she wore during our two week winter!

On top of the rip-off prices, I’m only given a small window of time in which to pay my bill, and on two occasions I have paid late, meaning that my power has been summarily cut off! Fortunately when the power was cut off one evening last week, I could use candles for light and it was cool enough to sleep without a fan, so I managed to get through the night until I paid up in the morning.

Cold snap in Cambodia

2006-12-31T00:13:00.000-08:00

It has been relatively chilly here for the last week. The Cambodian winter only lasts a fortnight, when the temperature comes down to temperatures of a hot English summer. I have needed to wear a fleece when I go out in the evening, and in bed I have been covering myself with a sheet; it’s still not quite cold enough for a blanket! It is hot at midday – more than 30 degrees - but it is much less humid than it usually is and therefore very bearable. In fact, the weather for me is just perfect. The Cambodians, however, don’t like it at all, and wear big coats and complain a lot. Here are Kaknika and Sophoin in the office – they didn’t take off their hats, coats or socks all day!

“Do they know it’s Christmas time at all??.....”

2006-12-20T21:12:00.000-08:00

Christmas passes by unnoticed by most Cambodians, but, thanks to a fundraising campaign in Sussex organised by the fabulous Amy Hindhaugh, some very poor local people will be having a happy new year. Amy collected $900 from staff of Hastings and Rother PCT in the run-up to Christmas. Back here in Kampong Thom, my CoDeC colleagues, who know the local needs best, considered how the money could most effectively be used to benefit a poor community. We decided that the greatest need was for water wells to be built in a nearby village which has no clean water during several months of the dry season. The current water supply is in the form of shallow, open wells which are not able to provide year-round water. The $900 will pay for several very deep, covered pump wells to be installed.

The PCT staff members’ generosity will change lives. People will be able to drink clean rather than polluted water, meaning that they will be healthier and thus able to maintain their livelihoods. They will be able to grow crops to prevent their families and animals becoming ill or even dying of starvation. Once the wells are installed, I will put photos on a future blog posting.

I’ve discovered that there are lots of other ways that I would be able to spend small amounts of money to directly benefit local communities. The ultimate aim of third world development is to help people to help themselves rather than just give them money, but there are some basic things out of their reach which they need before they can start helping themselves. While I’m not here to be a fundraiser, if you would like to give any money (no matter how small) directly to desperately needy people, whilst ensuring that none of your hard earned cash is swallowed up in admin costs, mis-management, inappropriate causes, corruption or duplication of aid, then I would be pleased to organise this for you and let you know how your money has been spent. Contact me by e-mail: alisonincambodia@yahoo.co.uk.

Meanwhile, Christmas comes to Kampong Thom....

2006-12-20T21:04:00.000-08:00

Well, just to my house! I’ve decorated my living room with lights and other decorations and have lots of exciting presents waiting to be opened under a tree. I started my celebrations last weekend in Phnom Penh, where I could be spotted sipping cocktails in Raffles (where else?) with some VSO friends. I gave each of the CoDeC staff a small token gift at yesterday’s staff meeting, which they were all delighted with. Rachel, my VSO friend from Siem Reap, is staying with me for the week running up to Christmas. We’ve been enjoying some festive treats together, mainly in the form of food and drink, whilst justifying our indulgences by chanting our mantra “Well, it is Christmas week!” An Australian volunteer, Stuart, has also been in town for a few days. Christmas Day, though, will see me in the office; there are no seasonal national holidays here.

Bribery and corruption

2006-12-20T21:00:00.000-08:00

I have been hearing about the corruption which goes on in Cambodia's school education system. Schooling is free to all children, BUT if the pupils don’t give a few riel to the teacher every day, they don’t get any help in the classroom. If they fail their end of year exams, they are supposed to retake the year’s schooling again. However, most teachers will accept a bribe of $5 from a failed pupil to allow them to go up to the next class. If the teacher takes the moral high ground and refuses the bribe, the child would then go to see the headteacher, who would have no qualms about accepting it. Corruption continues into the university sector, with students effectively buying their qualifications. This situation completely undermines the whole education system, and means that the qualifications of even hardworking and able students are worthless.

It is the same in other public sector services.
 Police stand at street corners flagging down vehicles and demanding payments from unlucky passers-by on trumped up charges. If people actually need the services of the police to recover stolen property or solve a crime, they need to pay heavily for it.
 Fishery officials accept bribes from illegal fishermen, thus undermining the attempts for communities to manage their own fishery resources. This also means that illegal fishing continues, causing long term problems to the environment, fish stocks and livelihoods. The same happens with forestry officials, who are effectively supporting deforestation and all the long term environmental and livelihoods problems that this brings.
 Hospitals are supposedly free of charge, but unless patients pay the medical staff they won’t get any treatment at all. Even when they pay, the health care here is absolutely rubbish, if not dangerous.

At one level, the corruption is understandable. All public sector workers earn around $30 a month, which is nowhere near enough for one person to live on, let alone support a family. The national government is completely corrupt, and sets the example that others follow.

In my opinion, corruption is the biggest problem in Cambodia, and the cause of poverty and many other difficulties. If public sector workers were paid a living wage, maybe the acceptance of widespread corruption would reduce and Cambodia could start to move forward. My hope is that the international community in the form of donors and NGOs will hold their Cambodian beneficiaries increasingly accountable for the money they give, and where there is the slightest sniff of corruption support is immediately withdrawn. This would be a hard lesson for Cambodia, but very necessary if the country is to progress.

Why don’t they like me any more?

2006-11-29T16:32:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I went on a bike ride through nearby rural villages, and was surprised to find that I wasn’t greeted with the usual joyful calls of “Hallo Barang” (French person) from every direction. In fact, people seemed actively hostile towards me. I soon realised that their attitude may have had something to do with the Vietnamese flag that I was sporting on my new hat. I turned the hat inside out and - hey presto – people were friendly again. Although the Vietnamese brought about the downfall of Pol Pot in 1979, they did so for their own ends, and there is still a lot of mistrust and dislike between the two countries. In fact, my Khmer friends could not understand why on earth I wanted to spend a week visiting South Vietnam last month! I have now sewn a Union Jack over the offending flag; hope the locals appreciate my attempt to be politically correct!

Shiny new office

2006-11-29T16:26:00.000-08:00

CODEC has just converted its ground floor motorbike park into a new office - see before and after photos. It’s so posh; tiled floor and walls, glass windows and even curtains. As soon as the Director had made the decision and found the funds for the building work, he made a phone call to a builder and work started the next day. It was all finished within three weeks, without any need for planning permission, health and safety inspections, project management or qualified trades-people – very refreshing! And very cheap by our standards – the workmen earned around $2 per day. Lots of plastic chairs were bought, which means less sitting on the floor for me – hoorah! A couple of desks have been installed, one of which is nominally for me, although I am sure it will become a hot desk for all staff over time. Upstairs is now supposed to be a space for workshops and meetings but all the recent meetings have been held downstairs to show off our lovely new room!

McVities Digestives arrive in Kampong Thom

2006-11-29T16:25:00.000-08:00

Two weeks ago, the TELA petrol service station opened a shop selling all kinds of western food “luxuries’. Previously, I would buy things like tuna, pasta, mayonnaise and orange juice in Phnom Penh and then carry them all the way home on the bus, but now I don’t need to. I can even buy ice-cream locally now. Life changing!

Kathen festivities

2006-11-19T03:25:00.000-08:00

Last week Cambodians celebrated Kathen, a Buddhist festival. The Codec Director, Mr Kim Choeun, organised a big celebration in his village. About 300 people were invited to his home for a garden party. His home is a typical wooden house on stilts, with no electricity or bathroom. In the garden is a well, cows, pigs and chickens. We all gave gifts for the pagoda and ate rice porridge which was prepared in massive vats. I wore my best white blouse and sompot (skirt) and received even more admiring comments than usual. The day after the party, three open trucks crammed full of people travelled from the village to a pagoda 90 minutes away, where the gifts were given to the monks and a day long service was held. I didn’t make it to the pagoda which was a shame, but the journey would have been very hot, dusty and uncomfortable for me.
Pictured with some of the gifts in his home are Mr KimChoeun and Kaknika’s grandmother. I gave Kaknika’s grandmother a lift home on my moto, and felt I’d truly integrated into Khmer society by having a woman with shaved head and no teeth ride side-saddle while I was wearing traditional dress!

Uncle Ho

2006-11-18T19:37:00.001-08:00

I’ve just been on a week’s holiday to Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh City is only 6 hours by bus from Phnom Penh, but the two places are completely different. Ho Chi Minh is noisy, modern and industrial and the people aren’t so smiley. It’s difficult to believe that South Vietnam is part of a communist country. It is really geared up to tourism, and I felt rather “packaged” on the tours that I took. However, I enjoyed my trip very much. I visited the famous CuChi tunnels where the Vietcong guerillas lived during the American/Vietnam war and also the fascinating spiritual Mecca of CaoDai. I had a couple of days at the lovely beach resort of Mui Ne and took three days to travel back to Cambodia by boat and bus through the Mekong Delta. I arrived back on Saturday on the Mekong river to a wonderful view of the golden spires of Phnom Penh - it felt like I was coming home!

The Tonle Sap – one of the wonders of the world!

2006-11-03T02:20:00.000-08:00

For 6 months of the year, the Tonle Sap river – the lifeblood of Cambodia – runs backwards, causing massive flooding in the middle of the country. The Tonle Sap lake swells to 10 times its dry season size, becoming the size of Wales and hosting a unique eco-system, with a huge variety of fish species and vast areas of flooded forest. Lots of people live in floating villages on the lake, as pictured here. The reason the river runs backwards is that it can’t drain into the Mekong River at Phnom Penh during the rainy season, because the Mekong itself is so full. Now, however, the rainy season has just finished, so the rivers are not so full and the Tonle Sap can start draining back into the Mekong and running the right way. The Cambodians celebrate this amazing phenomenon every year by holding a Water Festival. Each village mans a dragon boat and competes in heats all around the country with the finals being held for three days in Phnom Penh. It’s a very colourful affair and Phnom Penh will be rocking this weekend, with 3 million people travelling to watch the races. Unfortunately I will miss the Festival, because I am taking advantage of the national holiday and heading off to explore Vietnam, but I have managed to view some boats practising - spectacular.

Code breaking

2006-10-31T01:51:00.000-08:00

I have recently started learning to read and write Khmer with my new teacher, ChhengAn. It is seriously tricky. There are no gaps between words and no punctuation (so no opportunity for me to get my red pen out!), and it is really difficult to follow text. There are 32 consonants, many of which sound exactly the same to me. For example, eight of the letters correspond to our ‘d’ and ‘t’ sounds, and are pronounced eight different ways, but I cannot distinguish between any of them. There are 24 vowels, which are mostly completely different from English sounds. To make matters worse, if the vowels come after certain consonants, they sound different again, and if a word starts with two consonants, then the second consonant is written under the first in a different sub-script form. There are two styles of printed Khmer, both of which I will need to learn. Vowels are placed before, above, below or all around the consonants, so when reading you have to read from left to right and back again to check the vowels. The script is so difficult that by the time I leave Cambodia I really don’t expect to be able to do much more than look words up in a dictionary.

A boy and a boat

2006-10-29T02:23:00.000-08:00

Last weekend, I went on a cycle ride through the stunningly beautiful October countryside. Wherever I cycle, I am greeted with excited "Hallo's" as I pass by, and as soon as I stop I am immediately surrounded by fascinated children. Last weekend when I stopped, a boy invited me to his house, and then showed amazingly kind hospitality. He and his mother got some coconuts for me from their tree, and then he commandeered a boat from some other children to take me out on the river. He showed me round his family's plot of land, with it's rice field, chickens, pigs and cows. We ate lunch in the area under the house, where the family spend most of the day. He has set up a school room here, where he teaches basic English to the neighbouring kids for an hour every day. I had a great time and am constantly impressed with the warmth of the people.

Got up, had breakfast, went to work, ……

2006-10-25T22:33:00.000-07:00

I’ve now been in Cambodia a full year! Life ambles on, and what was once amazing is now quite mundane. I have developed a daily routine, which starts at 6 a.m. with me exercising to ‘Aerobics – Oz Style!’ on the TV under a large fan - it’s too hot to move later in the day! (I had become very lethargic and lazy, so I’m now taking myself in hand!!) Then I have my first shower of the day, after which I cover myself with mosquito repellant, pop to the market for my breakfast bread, sweep the house and moto to work for 8 o’clock. I usually spend four out of five days at the office, at meetings (very tiring when I understand so little), working on my laptop, writing reports or proposals and chatting to staff (as best I can!). Needless to say, it’s all a far cry from these same activities back in the UK. I have a tw0-hour lunch break, which is when I go home and shelter from the heat, before returning to work. For the last hour of the working day, I often give an English lesson to any staff members who turn up (plus assorted relatives!). About once a week, I go to “the field” usually to observe or take part in one of CoDeC’s workshops or meetings with rural villagers. I finish work at 5.

After work, for the last few weeks I have been having Khmer lessons at my house on three evenings a week . I’ve just started learning to read and write, although I don’t think I’ll ever be able to do much more than decipher a few words. If I don’t have a lesson, I often go for a cycle ride or go to the market for vegetables. The aerobics programme is repeated again in the evening, so I sometimes exercise again if I’m not too tired. After another shower I usually spend the rest of the evening indoors, cooking my meal and watching TV (a displacement activity for studying Khmer!), before going to bed at about 9.30 or 10. About once a week I go out for an evening meal at the local hotel restaurant, where the staff treat me like a long lost friend! I usually go away to Phnom Penh or Siem Reap every other weekend.

So, everyday life is not really that exciting but it’s quite pleasant. There are now a couple of other barangs staying in Kompong Thom – an American and a Filipino – who I can see occasionally, but most days I only see Khmer people. However, I’m not lonely as I’m in daily text contact with various other VSO friends in other parts of the country and I go to the internet shop two or three times a week to get my fix from the UK!

Chicken Raising

2006-10-14T03:33:00.000-07:00

While I was in England, I was asked a lot of questions about the work that CoDeC does, and how it impacts on the lives of the poor people. Here is a typical case study of one of its beneficiaries:

Poeuk, 48, is a subsistence farmer with eight children and an 88-year old father who lives with her. Four of her children go to school and the other four work in Thailand. She has a small house (3 x 6 metres) with palm leaf roof and walls and a bamboo floor.

She joined the savings group set up in her village by CoDeC in 2000, and she started saving 1000 riels with the group each month (US$0.25). In 2005, she was selected by the other group members to become the “Model Chicken Farmer” in her village. CoDeC staff gave her training in the techniques of chicken raising, including setting up a chicken hut, selecting the right breeds of chicken, maintenance, sanitation, feeding, monitoring animal weight, vaccinations, natural resource substances and documentation. CoDeC also gave her 245,000 riels (US$61.25). With the money, she built a chicken house (size 2.5 x 3.5 metres) with a palm leaf roof, 30 chickens, chicken feed, materials and veterinary treatments. She raised the chickens following the guidelines given in CoDeC’s technical training courses. She is now the village expert in rearing chickens, and can show other villagers how to do it. She has benefited financially from selling chickens, and has earned a total of 50,000 riels (US$12.25) in eight months. Her family has eaten 13 of the chickens and she is left with 12 of her original 30, plus many more offspring, who are all busy laying eggs.

Although most rural families keep chickens, there is a surprising level of ignorance about how to rear and treat them, which is why CoDeC has to provide training and support. So far, Poeuk’s is a success story, although a profit of $12.25 may not seem much. However, it concerns me that no contingencies have been put in place regarding bird flu. If it does strike in Cambodia, Poeuk will be greatly disadvataged.

Comparisons

2006-10-07T03:25:00.000-07:00

My trip to the UK has given me the opportunity to reflect on some differences between England and Cambodia. In many ways, life in England is so easy and convenient:
- Supermarkets are a joy, crammed with everything people could possibly want to buy – see photo of the Cambodian equivalent!
- Car driving gives fast, dry and easy access wherever people want to go
- People have enough money for all the necessities of life and are baled out by the government if they don’t
- Homes are secure, comfortable and full of technologies not available in Cambodia – washing machines, cookers, microwaves, dishwashers, hot water, computers, entertainment systems
- The weather is pleasant (especially at the time I visited!) and does not really hamper daily living
- Offices are efficient and productive and use advanced technologies
- Jobs are available and terms and conditions are good (usually!)
- Education and health services are good (yes, really!) and are for everyone
- Information is immediate and available to all
- People can and do openly complain about government (even though there is far less to complain about than in Cambodia)
- Some television programmes are well worth watching (although there’s lots of dross)
- Incidences of corruption (e.g. in football) are rare and scandalous, while in Cambodia there is an acceptance of widespread corruption at every level

However, in some respects England does not compare so favourably:
- England is over-regulated to a ridiculous level. (Car seats for 12 year olds? Tell that to Cambodian kids who drive motorbikes as soon as they can cycle, sit on bonnets of taxis, travel in crowded open trucks, share up to 7 people on a motorbike and carry their baby siblings in bike baskets or in scarves slung between the handlebars.) English workers spend more time complying with regulations than getting on with their work.
- People work long hours, get stressed and often don’t enjoy their jobs (except PCT staff of course!)
- People spend far too much of their lives travelling, commuting and sitting in traffic jams
- The media whips up public opinion so that everyone seems to be thinking the same
- Childhood is not so free, and children don’t have the benefit of living with large extended families
- People don’t have time to stand and stare and are not so relaxed
- English people make unhealthy lifestyle choices in spite of having the information and opportunity not to do so – overeating, smoking, binge drinking, not doing physical activity, driving gas guzzlers, .... (why???)
- Bringing up children is a major palaver - expensive, time consuming and prevents parents doing other things with their lives

In general, I think that England has become over-developed and needs to ‘get back to basics’. Cambodian people seem to be happier than English people.

Golden Wedding Celebrations

2006-09-28T02:05:00.000-07:00

My main reason for coming to England during September was to participate in the Golden Wedding Celebrations of my parents. My brothers and sister (Philip, James and Sally), their families and I hired two cottages in the Cotswolds for a four-day long party, culminating in a Golden Meal on Saturday night. We had a ball!

These photos show: the happy couple in the stocks at Stow; the family at the Golden Party; and 7 of my 8 nephews and nieces in height order, three of whom are already taller than me - it has been so nice for me not to tower over everybody else for a change! The "quintessentially English" villages and pretty countryside around our base in Stow-on-the-Wold will give me lovely memories of England to take back with me to Cambodia.

Blogging from Bexhill!

2006-09-27T02:50:00.000-07:00

I am writing this from my home in Bexhill, whilst visiting the UK for a 2-week holiday. I have found that I have re-adjusted to life in England with no problem at all! I am having a fantastic time catching up with family, friends and colleagues, and I’m really appreciating the wonderful weather here and the non-stop eating fest I’ve been having. I have been surprised to hear that my blog continues to be regularly read by so many people, which means that I will have to strive to improve the quality and frequency of my updates!

Special thanks to Ken for organising so much of my busy schedule, and to Amy, Chris and Alison for arranging activities with PCT colleagues. Here are a couple of photos of a few of the many people I have met up with:

Amy and Alison at 'That's Amore';
The Quintasia girls (Denise, Carol, Julie, Helen and Wendy)

Further Human Resource Mis-Management

2006-09-04T07:15:00.000-07:00

This is a photo of our new Agriculture Field Officer, Paulin, conducting a Pig Raising workshop with villagers.
The way he was recruited by CoDeC left a lot to be desired, although a recruitment process of sorts was followed:
- The job advert was posted on the local school noticeboard, with no job description or terms and conditions available to prospective applicants.
- Shortlisting involved 8 CODEC staff members meeting together for a whole afternoon, with no agreed person specification.
- Selection involved an interview, a written project plan and an observation of a one hour training session in a local village. On the face of it, this range of selection methods was good, but....
- The interviews were ridiculous: Each applicant was wheeled in, given a copy of the questions which the Director then verbally asked, while a committee of four people scored each response against a set of "ideal" answers which the Director had written. Nobody looked at the applicants at all, and no introductions were made!!! ( I couldn't let this particular bit of bad practice pass unchallenged).
- One question was "CoDeC may not get any money from the donors to pay you, so how many months would you be prepared to work for CoDeC with no salary?" (Guess what the "right" answer to that one would be!!)
- Applicants were sent to the area underneath the office building to write their project plan. Paper was provided, but nobody thought to provide them with chairs or tables!
- The observation of a training session in a real village environment was a good idea, but there were no agreed criteria that each observer looked for.
- No references were taken up, and none of the statements on the CVs were checked.
Fortunately, in spite of all of the above, Paulin is a very good new member of the CoDeC team.... and he is getting paid a salary!

VSO Conference (Beach Beano!)

2006-08-27T05:04:00.000-07:00

Last week VSO Cambodia held its annual conference at Sihanoukville, a beach resort. 85 VSO volunteers and staff attended and I had a great time catching up with everyone. The conference was really well organised and the schedule was fun and worthwhile. Unfortunately the weather was mostly terrible, with monsoon conditions, culminating in the road between PP and Sihanoukville being impassable for several days. However, as you can see, we did manage to get to the beach between storms, and I even managed to get sunburnt on our last day.

While I was in Sihanoukville, I gave blood for the first time in my life. One of the volunteers is a doctor there and she arranged a special blood giving session. I had a few problems (couldn't get enough blood out of one arm, so had to get some out of the other; spurting blood afterwards; felt faint; some bruising) but it wasn't too bad.

At the conference, I was elected on to the Volunteers Committee, which looks after the volunteers' interests and liaises with the VSO office. I was quite honoured to be chosen, as there was stiff competition. As a committee member, I will be travelling to Phnom Penh for meetings regularly, which will be good for my social life! The new committee will be responsible for organising next year’s conference. A very high standard was set this year, so I think we will have our work cut out.

"I love your nose...."

2006-08-20T20:44:00.000-07:00

...... I have been told several times by market stall holders!!! Every day, my colleagues say to me "Alison sahaat", meaning "Alison is pretty"! I thought it was a joke at first, but no, they really do think I'm a bit of a bombshell!! Cambodian people have a very different idea of beauty. They love my white skin, portly shape, short blond hair and even my glasses!!! Richer Khmer women spend a lot of money on whitening creams and hair dye to try to look less Asian. By contrast, Western women prefer to be tanned and slim with pert noses and they like long glossy black hair. A clear case of the other side's grass being greener!

My birthday in Cambodia

2006-08-06T01:32:00.000-07:00

Cambodians don’t usually celebrate birthdays. Many of them don’t know in what year, let alone on what day, they were born. Since I have been here, I have introduced my colleagues to a few western birthday traditions by buying some of them small presents, cakes and cards to mark their days. In return, they organised a birthday party for me this week! Kaknika’s grandmother made a huge bucket of Cambodian curry which was brought round by motorbike and eaten sitting on the floor. Everyone gave me gifts. Savann presented me with this rather fetching pair of pyjamas, while other presents included a nodding dog, a wind-up music box with ‘Don’t Forget Me’ engraved on it, and a miniature bird cage complete with tweeting birds! Hardly the most sophisticated presents, but all were well intended and I was very happy to receive them. There were sparklers and a cake with my name written in icing, and after I blew out the candles I was sprayed with plastic string! Certainly different from birthdays back home!

Conference and field visit

2006-08-06T01:02:00.000-07:00

Last week I went to Siem Reap for a 4 day conference organised by ACR (Australian Catholic Relief), which funds one of CoDeC’s programmes. Attendees included representatives from each of the six Cambodian NGOs which ACR supports. CoDeC staff reviewed last year’s Community Credit / Savings Groups Project, and signed a contract for next year. As usual, although I listened intently to the discussions, I only managed to catch the odd word and I did not understand about 80% of what was said!
The Director of ACR, Sokhany, is an impressive woman, having previously been nominated for a Nobel Peace prize, and she sets high professional standards for the NGOs to achieve. For some reason she has taken me under her wing; in the group photo she is sitting on my lap!
On the final day of the conference, we went on a field visit to observe the work of one of the other NGOs. In this picture, all these healthy-looking people have been diagnosed as HIV-positive. We talked to them about how the NGO helps them to have medical care, counselling, support, training, money and food. We observed a World Food Programme lorry delivering food to the local monastery for distribution by the monks. Each person diagnosed with HIV or AIDS is given a card which entitles them to a weekly allocation of rice, cooking oil and salt. I found the visit quite disturbing, but I was very pleased to see that these vulnerable people are getting such good support and that the food aid is being honestly administered.

Human Resource (Mis)Management

2006-07-28T20:06:00.000-07:00

CoDeC’s Director, Mr KimChoeun, called a staff meeting last weekend. He demonstrated some appalling HRM howlers:
He announced it the day before, and didn’t provide an agenda.
Staff don’t usually work Saturdays or Sundays (except sometimes at community workshops), so there was no consideration for peoples time or personal commitments, and they won’t be given any time back in lieu.
Mr KimChoeun started off by explaining that he wants CoDeC to achieve the new Cambodian NGO Good Practice Standards (a bit like Investors in People or ISO), and proceeded to read the guidelines out to us from his book for the next two hours. There was no discussion with the staff or planning of how it will be done.....
Then the staff had their annual appraisals. Each person was given a short form with some arbitrary criteria to rate, e.g. "rate yourself on timekeeping from 1 to 5". They took 5 minutes to complete this and handed it to their District Coordinator who endorsed it (although there was supposed to be some discussion with the rest of the district team)!! Mr KimChoeun collected them in for checking, and the next day told the staff to redo them as he wanted to see a range of scores and not just all 4’s and 5’s!!! When I think of the appraisal industry in the UK, and all the time, money and energy we invest in training for appraisers and appraisees....!!!!!! In some ways, I was quite taken with the simplicity of this appraisal "model", and CoDeC can at least mark off the box that says it has staff appraisal, but I think there will have to be changes next year!
Next, the staff were asked to write their job descriptions on another form. They apparently do this every year, and were given only 15 minutes to complete the forms, with no opportunity for reflection, discussion, reference to their previous job description or guidance. In the UK, it is the employer who decides what the purpose and responsibilities of each job is, so that the staff member knows what is expected of them. The CoDeC way is completely off-track!
I was quite frustrated at this meeting, as I do know about HRM and I could have helped Mr KimChoeun to do things better. However, he didn’t discuss his agenda with me in advance, he had pre-printed the forms and I couldn’t let him "lose face" in front of the staff by criticising his efforts at the meeting. Also, I had no translator to help me to communicate, as Tha was recovering from his motorbike accident. So....... I will have to make do with giving him feedback as soon as an opportunity arises (which may not be for weeks), and suggesting that we have a preparatory meeting prior to next year’s meeting! One good thing (for me) was that we sat at a table for most of the two days. We usually sit on the floor, so I was relieved from getting backache!

Rice planting season

2006-07-28T20:04:00.000-07:00

The rural community is very busy at the moment planting rice. Most families have small plots of land where they grow rice for their own consumption as well as for income. Kampong Thom province is mostly very flat, and there are paddy fields as far as the eye can see, all divided into small plots. The schools are closed so that the children can work with their families. As I’ve cycled around the countryside, families have invited me into the paddy fields to give them a hand, but I’ve declined so far - I don’t think I’d be much help!

Tha has an accident

2006-07-28T19:59:00.000-07:00

Eight days after his wedding, Tha came off his motorbike while trying to avoid a dog in the road. There were no broken bones, but he got a deep wound on his elbow requiring 10 stitches, a sprained ankle and lots of grazes and black bruises. He has had a week off work recovering, followed by a second week at home with his new wife, as there was no place for him to accompany me to a conference I went to in Siem Reap. Poor Tha... I think the monks got it wrong about how lucky his chosen wedding day would be. When he comes back to work, I will also have to tell him that VSO will definitely not be renewing his employment as my translator after the end of August, so he will have no job.

Tha gets married!

2006-07-16T22:11:00.000-07:00

My translator, Tha, dropped a bombshell a couple of weeks ago, when he announced his plans to get married six days later. We didn’t even know he had a girlfriend! The girl he married was known to me, but she’d always been introduced in the past as his sister!! All very confusing...! Most marriages are arranged, but he and Chinda had known each other for 2 years and chose each other. I’m not sure exactly why there was such a rush to get married, but apparently the monks had told Tha that Sunday would be a lucky day for him! Five colleagues and I travelled the 50kms to Stoung by motorbike, while Bram and Rachel came by bus from Siem Reap. I got a chance to wear my new posh Khmer-style frock, but the glamorous outfits of Kaknika and Sopeap rather put mine into the shade (see photo of them with the CoDeC Director Mr KimChouen and Bram). Chinda and Tha greeted us at the entrance to the restaurant dressed in traditional Khmer clothes, but then for me things started to go downhill.... We were ushered to a table and given our meal straight away (11.00 a.m.); Rachel, being vegetarian, couldn’t eat anything! By 11.30 a.m., about half of the guests had finished their meals, so they got up and left. Chinda then changed into her jeans (so no photo of her!), and by the time our party left at 1.00 p.m. it was all over! It was all a bit of a disappointment; I had expected a ceremony, dancing and speeches. Fortunately, Tha and Chinda were quite happy with the proceedings, although they’ve now reverted to their previous lifestyles, with him living in a room in Kampong Thom and she living with her family in Stoung. People do lead very strange lives out here!

Ants

2006-07-08T03:17:00.000-07:00

I hate them. They get everywhere, and are impossible to get rid of. There is a huge variety of ants here, including my least favourite, the big red biting kind. At work recently, ants cut our electricity off when a huge army of them ate through the fuse wire of the main switch. Then yesterday, I discovered a nest of ants living in the computer monitor in the office. AsI write this, I have ants crawling all over me. Yuk. My mosquito repellent doesn’t seem to deter the little beasts. I’m not very keen on crickets, flies and mosquitoes either….

Rain

2006-07-08T03:06:00.000-07:00

The rainy season is well and truly here, with torrential downpours for several hours every day. It is a relief after the long dry and dusty season, and it is a little cooler... but not much! The rivers and paddy fields are all filling up fast, and there is a lush greenness everywhere. The rain is accompanied by fierce wind, thunder and lightning, and so much water falls in such a short time that the roads quickly become rivers. Nobody goes out in the rain; there are even “resting cottages” by the roadside for motorcyclists to shelter under. The rain seeps in under the doors of my house, but as I have a tiled floor this is not a problem. Last week, a couple of colleagues and I were in the covered market in Kampong Thom when a violent thunderstorm started. We were stuck there, so killed time by eating a sweet dish, but in the end we had to brave the weather. We bought 4 metres of plastic sheeting to shelter under and then waded through the stinking market sewage to get home. Hideous!

Parties and nieces

2006-07-03T01:02:00.000-07:00

I have recently been to two parties at the house of my colleague, Kaknika. She invited myself and other CoDeC staff to share a very sociable meal called ‘cow going up the mountain’, so called because strips of beef (cow) are cooked on a conical shaped barbecue (mountain). Delicious and good fun, although all those burning coals inside a wooden house were a bit of a hazard! There was plenty of topping up of glasses and raising them for toasts: ‘Sokapeap laore’ (Good health!)!

The other party was to celebrate the birthdays of her 6 month old daughter and her two year old niece. Kaknika and her husband are raising the niece as their own daughter because the child's own parents (Kaknika’s brother and wife) have moved to another province. There is a lot of sharing in the upbringing of children amongst family members in Cambodia. The 5 year old son of a woman I know died last week from encephalitis, so she was given a niece to bring up instead.

Thank goodness these extended family obligations aren’t the usual practice in England, or I may have ended up with a greater role in looking after my own nephews and nieces! (Only joking, Tom, Oliver, Ben 1, Rosalind, Jessica, Freddie, William and Ben 2!!!).

Red pen heaven?

2006-07-03T00:55:00.000-07:00

At the PCT in the UK, I became known as the Red Pen Queen because I was so finicky about correct grammar, spelling and punctuation. Cambodian peoples’ valiant attempts at written English are creating a big challenge for me. People who can speak fluent English here are still rubbish at writing. The following is a typical piece of translation by Tha, who is pretty good at written English in comparison with most:

Employee, who wants to take annual leave, has to fill in the form which request admin-assistant and then s/he could respectfully submit to Unit Manager at least two weeks before setting planed leave date. If anyone has missed or s/he doesn’t obey this workflow, the Unit Manager must monitor, scrutinize, and couldn’t allow if it is impacted on the project plans.

I can usually understand the gist of such gibberish, but I have great difficulty in then rewriting it into good English. It would be much easier to write from scratch.

Now that I understand Khmer structures better, I have a lot of sympathy for Khmer translators, as in their language there aren’t enough words or tenses, no punctuation, no gaps between words and no differentiation between singulars / plurals or genders. They also have the worst dictionaries I’ve ever seen, with numerous “English” words that look like gobbledygook to me, e.g. abaca, abaft, abapical, abasia, abattial, abaxial........ What?????!!!!!

A drink after work with the girls!

2006-06-17T20:55:00.000-07:00

A couple of times I have gone for a drink after work with my English students. We go to a stall in the market and drink teukraluks, which are milkshakes made with bananas, mangoes, jackfruit and other seasonal fruit blended with condensed milk and crushed ice. Delicious, although rather sickly in large quantities. Of the three girls in the picture with me, only one, Kaknika in the middle, is currently an employee of CODEC. Leakhena in the pyjamas worked briefly for us, and is now waiting to go to America to join her American-Cambodian husband whom she met on the internet. Supnile on the right is the cousin of CODEC's accountant. Most of the CODEC staff are too busy out in the field to come to the office for English lessons every day, so I am currently teaching more non-staff than staff! I don't mind, as they are a pleasure to teach!

Miscellaneous photos

2006-06-10T00:44:00.000-07:00

I'm writing this blog from Siem Reap, where the internet connections are excellent, so while I'm able to I am taking the opportunity to upload a few photos. First, here's one of me in Skuon, aka Spiderville, posing for the camera with a particularly juicy roast spider.

Next comes a picture of a wistful looking boy at a temple wearing an old pair of adult pants with a bit of string round the waist to keep them up!

Then there's a pic of me (looking rather fat) next to an emaciated tribal man from Mondulkiri province. He has holes in his ears with cork-type things through them.

Finally, here's a dyslexic sign to the toilet. Rather reminiscent of Fawlty Towers!

What bird flu?

2006-06-10T00:37:00.000-07:00

The threat of bird flu is steadily being ignored here. Nearly every family keeps free-range chickens while many keep ducks as well. Here are two of several regular visitors to my garden. Apart from being scrawny, these chickens seem to be perfectly healthy. My CoDeC colleagues run "animal raising" workshops and provide lots of tips to poor villagers about keeping chickens, but there's scarcely a mention of bird flu. I keep trying to tell them....

Home improvements

2006-06-10T00:26:00.000-07:00

I have made a lot of changes to my home since I moved in. In my living room, I have had cushion covers and curtains made, and have bought material for table cloths and silk wall hangings. I have bought lamps so that I don't have to use the horrible strip lights, and a comfy chair for lounging in to watch TV. My latest luxury is a DVD player, which I also use to play music.
Outside, I have bought lots of big pots of plants, and I now have a large umbrella for sitting under in the heat of the day and in the evening. I have fixed fairy lights under the canopy and there's a detachable ceiling fan for keeping cool. The place feels much more mine now!

The only "barang" in town

2006-06-10T00:18:00.000-07:00

Rachel and Bram have gone to live in Siem Reap, meaning that I am now the only Westerner left in Kampong Thom. This is really bad news for me, as I can't socialise or communicate with local Khmer friends and colleagues in the same way as I can with fellow barangs. My plan is to try to get away to Siem Reap or Phnom Penh most weekends, and to fill my weekday evenings with getting fitter(there's a daily Aerobics Oz style programme on the telly!) and studying Khmer. This photo was taken at Bram's birthday meal in my garden. The bottle of wine is an exotic luxury!

Expedition to Prasat Preah Vihear

2006-05-27T22:22:00.000-07:00

15 and 16 May were national holidays in Cambodia, giving a 4 day weekend, so 9 VSO volunteers and I hired a minibus with driver and set out on an expedition to Prasat Preah Vihear, an Angkorian hilltop temple resort on the Thai border. The rainy season has just started and the roads were quite tricky in places, but they would be impassable later in the year. We rode on the back of a pick-up for the near-vertical stretch up the mountain. Our visit to the temple complex was well worth the difficult journey. We also managed a side trip to a further important temple site, Koh Ker, on our return home. There are a lot of old temples scattered throughout Cambodia, many of which were ravaged in recent years by the Khmer Rouge.

Internet problems

2006-05-27T21:53:00.000-07:00

For the last 2 months, I have been having problems with using the internet in Kompong Thom. I can receive e-mails and other information fine (so please keep writing!!), but I have great difficulty sending e-mails or uploading stuff on to the blog. For the time being, I will only attempt to post text on to my blog but not photos. Hopefully, when the line has been fixed, I will be able to add my photos, as I've taken some great snaps lately!

Visit to fishing village

2006-05-27T02:01:00.000-07:00

Last week I went on a 3 day “exposure visit" to another province with a group of fishing people. The trip included an overnight stay in a remote riverside village – a real adventure! We were all put up in the house of one of the villagers, but there was no toilet (find a bush outside; if necessary take a spade with you!!!), no bedrooms (rush mats on the floor of a wooden house with 20 other people, male and female), no shower (go down to the river and sit on a bamboo boat wearing a big elasticated skirt to cover yourself, and scoop muddy water over your head) and no electricity (although car batteries were used to power the lights). There was no road to the village; access was by boat. Against my better judgement, I drank some of the tea, which was made with river water - still brown, although boiled for a long time. Fortunately, it had no adverse effects! We held our meeting the next day in the village school room (mud floor, palm leaf walls and roof), while the children were busy cutting down the tree outside with ferocious looking saws. The tree was being taken down because for some mysterious reason locals believed this would stop fires coming to the village. While my experience was great fun and quite amazing to me, this is how the majority of Cambodian people really live. Makes you think!

Village Workshops

2006-05-20T20:20:00.000-07:00

One of my work roles is to add a bit of western glamour and clout at the many workshops and conferences which CoDeC organises. I’m usually seated at the top table with the local dignitaries and asked to give a closing speech, underlining how successful and important the workshop has been. It is quite ridiculous of course, but the audiences do seem to like to hear from me, particularly when I attempt to speak in Khmer! These photos were taken at an agriculture workshop held in the grounds of a pagoda, where the new law on agriculture communities was explained, and a committee for the local village was elected. In my speech I, of course, gave my hearty and unequivocal support to the proceedings and to the new committee!

My Menagerie

2006-04-28T17:57:00.000-07:00

This lizard is one of two who lives on the wall by my front door. At night they come out to guard my house! They seem to be quite friendly, although they keep a respectful distance. Their markings are beautiful, and in the daytime the blue and brown colours change to pink and orange. They can make quite a lot of noise. There are also two large frogs who appear by my door most nights, and my garden often has visits from chickens, cats and sometimes dogs! Fortunately, I haven't seen any more snakes lately.

One Wedding and a Funeral (and New Year’s celebrations to boot)

2006-04-24T22:25:00.000-07:00

After my holiday, I returned home to a busy social schedule. On Monday lunchtime (yes, really!), I was invited to the wedding party of the sister of Sovann, one of my colleagues. All the women who attended were dressed up to the nines in gorgeous traditional bright coloured silk gowns, big hairstyles, white make up and pointy shoes, making me feel a complete frump. None the less, the men all wanted me to dance with them (big white Western novelty that I am), which involved parading in a circle making bendy wrist movements! Great fun!

The mother of another colleague, Sopeap, sadly died at home at 2 a.m. on Thursday after a long illness. By 7 a.m. (only 5 hours later) I had joined the “wake” at the house. Breakfast of rice porridge was being served to around 35 people who had come to pay their respects, most of whom were already dressed in their funeral clothes. A PA system had been hired and set up, along with a canopy, tables, chairs, crockery and cutlery, and funeral paper, candles, incense, food and drinks had all been bought. I was amazed at the level and speed of organisation. Everyone helped in some way, either by cooking, serving the guests, shaving the men’s hair or collecting the monks from the wat. My contribution was to fold pieces of gold paper into cones, which would be thrown at the funeral procession the next day. Three monks arrived mid morning, and they led the assembly in a ceremony which involved a lot of chanting, bowing, giving offerings and throwing water.

Easter weekend marked the Khmer New Year, which is the biggest festival in Cambodia. CoDeC celebrated by holding a Buddhist New Year service in the office (see photo). We spent most of the day decorating the place with tinsel and flowers and preparing presents for the monks. Three monks led the service, which again involved lots of chanting, bowing, giving offerings and throwing water.

Six months on

2006-04-22T04:02:00.000-07:00

I have been in Cambodia for six months now, and I must say it seems a great deal longer! By now I had expected to:
· be fluent in Khmer
· have got used to the heat
· be doing useful things at work
· be thinner
Sadly, none of these have come to pass yet, but I am still hopeful...! One thing I did not expect was that my two Kompong Thom friends, Rachel and Bram, would be moving to Siem Reap in June. This means that I will soon be the only westerner in town. Now I really need to learn Khmer!

Welcome Visitors!

2006-04-08T04:10:00.001-07:00

I've just said goodbye to my first two sets of visitors. On March 13, I met my parents in Siem Reap and joined their tour group for a few days, including a visit to Ankor War, before we all decamped to my home in Kompong Thom. A week after they left, Ken came over for two weeks, and we toured around the country on buses. We managed to see rare water dolphins on the Mekong river, went on an elephant trek in remote hill tribe country, relaxed in a French colonial seaside resort, went clam digging. We visited ancient temples, pagodas, museums, palaces and lots of wonderful places, plus some very grim places, including the killing fields of the Pol Pot regime. It was lovely to see the folks from home, and to catch up on news. I really enjoyed being a tourist in Cambodia; it's going to be very hard to go back to work on Monday!