Hello from Cambodia 6

So here we are in a new house, in a new job, in a new town, in a new country, in a new continent all of which are very, very, very different. The journey from Phnom Penh (PP) to Phnom Preuk (PPk) with an overnight stop at Battambang (BB) took two days. We travelled on from BB in a battered right hand drive truck which was very scary when overtaking a massive lorry on a bend! All our worldly possessions including 2 motorbikes, 2 bicycles, 2 comfy chairs and 2 bookcases were all tied to the back and a young lad perched on the top of the pile, in fact for most of the way he sat on the saddle of one of the motos. The trip took 6 hours non-stop on appalling roads but the truck only broke down once and unusually we were only stopped once by the police so they could claim a “fine”. When we arrived we were delighted with the house as the landlord had almost completed all the promised renovations eg installing a staircase and electric ceiling fans. However Jon despairs of the finishing eg plaster splashed all over the walls and ineffectual grouting (most of which is on the tiles rather than between them). Unfortunately not all of the works have proved successful eg the plumbing in the upstairs shower room was suspect resulting in water pouring through the kitchen ceiling. They decided to dig up the tiled floor to investigate (this is after Jon spent 4 hours on his hands and knees with wire wool tidying up the grouting). Work is still ongoing as we write 3 days later.

Also our water is supposed to be pumped from a well in the garden into a tank on the roof but this keeps on running dry, probably cos the water’s running through the kitchen ceiling. This proved a little inconvenient when three fellow volunteers came to stay last weekend and we had no shower or toilet facilities, but we’re sure these little hiccups will soon be sorted out.

The dry season officially starts on November 1st and sure enough its not rained since. Also the temperature has dropped so it is quite pleasantly fresh and we are not constantly bathed in a pool of sweat. We now have to cover ourselves with a sheet at night and the cold shower in the morning has now become a feat of endurance rather than a welcome release. The Cambodians, however, are traumatised by the temperature change and the early morning finds them huddled in puffa jackets, gloves and woolly hats, its about 20ºC! The lack of rain means that the dust is building up. We didn’t realise when we viewed our new house that what we thought was a little used back lane is in fact the main road to Thailand and consequently heavy trucks laden with agricultural produce trundle passed the door throughout the day. The situation is exacerbated by the fact that opposite us is the main repository for the Cambodian soya bean harvest and day and night trucks are loading and unloading giant sacks containing every bean in the country. The ensuing dust cloud settles on every surface against which the lovely Touch, our , armed with her twig brush wages a constant battle. She also hand washes our clothes which turn a sandy brown after every moto excursion, life would be very uncomfortable without her.

The landlord and his family live next door and are very friendly and welcoming, perhaps a little too friendly and welcoming because if we leave the door unlocked they are constantly popping in for a chat. The first few days there was a continuous flow of cheerful neighbours doing a grand tour of our house regardless of whether they had been invited or not. This seems to have calmed down now that the novelty has worn off but it is still not unusual to be relaxing with a beer on the balcony in the evening and be startled by the appearance of a friendly Khmer who has let them selves in and up the stairs without knocking. Privacy appears to be an alien concept here. We’re not sure how many people, dogs and chickens of all size and ages live next door but they all greet us with a cheery smile. The only unwelcome visitor so far is the spider who lives under the fridge (see photo). It made a visit to the kitchen at night terrifying until Jon very bravely evicted her (I hope she doesn’t come back with her even bigger mates).

We have decided to cook for ourselves as we need something to pass the time on these “long winter nights” and it also gives the excuse for the daily trip to the market. As most people here have never seen a Barrang before our first visit was met with huge interest. We were followed about to the sound of oohs, ahhs and giggles, they seem to find Jon hugely amusing. We are now getting the hang of what’s for sale basically fresh veg, eggs, pork, chicken, various unidentified types of fish and bizarrely tins of Princes pilchards in tomato sauce. After a week the culinary imagination has just about dried up so its tomato omelette for lunch and vegetable and rice for dinner again! Actually its not that bad and we did produce a very successful dinner party for five last weekend using only two gas rings and a wok.
The District Office.
We’re beginning to settle into a routine at work now. We have been given a room in the district education office which, despite the lack of glass, the piles of chicken pooh and clouds of mosquitoes we are making quite homely. On Monday we held interviews for our assistants (translators). There were ten applicants and the interviews took place at our house because it’s bigger than the district education office (DOE)! At times the proceeding descended into farce especially when half way through the plumber decided to dig up the bathroom floor with an electric drill. The range of ability of the candidates varied from the young man who’s stammered reply to the first question was “I can not speak English” to the two amazing lads who we have appointed. Sophea and Sophen are both teachers and speak excellent English, you will hear a lot more about this dynamic duo in the future.

We have spent our mornings visiting the local schools, which usually involves a death defying moto ride. The schools vary from two roomed huts that flood in the rainy season to quite efficient, clean and tidy well run institutions (there is in fact one school in the district which has no building at all but we haven’t been able to visit that, for obvious reasons). There is so much to say about the Cambodian education system but we will leave that for later blogs, but here are a couple of observations so far:
Children as young as six are unable to walk the five kilometres to school because they have no shoes ie flip flops.
In the hot season some schools can not afford to buy clean water so the kids are forced to drink polluted well water, they get sick so their parents do not let them come to school again.
How on earth can we begin to do anything constructive to improve the standard of Cambodian education when faced with basic problems like these?

However we have not given up hope yet, we’ve seen some excellent teaching, often against all the odds, and we’ve only been in the job a week.

Sam Rong (left) and O Ta Sok Primary Schools. O Ta Sok has 2 classrooms divided by a wooden wall, when one class is doing spoken work the other has to be silent. There are often 40 kids in each room and when it rains the tin roof means nobody hears anything.