Hello from Cambodia 13

Its been a while since the last Blog mainly because we haven’t been at home much in the last 6 weeks. In fact this is being written at Jean’s kitchen table in Battambang. Our absence from Phnom Preuk is due to the fact that Cambodia seems to have been on holiday since March. In theory the schools shut down for 2 weeks over Khmer New Year period and offices and shops close for the 3 days of the New Year, April 14th to 16th, a bit like our Christmas. In practice the schools began to close down at the end of March and were not up and running again properly until May.5th This was followed by 3 days off on 13th to 15th May for the King’s Birthday and the following week Monday and Friday are also holidays for the Royal Ploughing Ceremony and the birth or death of Buddha, still haven’t worked out which. Consequently it has been difficult for us to work in the schools as the teachers are not there. We did make an appointment to meet with one headmaster but after a 40 minute journey into the wilds we arrived to find the school locked up and not a soul about. Sophen’s wife, who teaches at a local school with 18 other teachers, went to work on the Monday after the holidays to find she was the only member of staff to have turned up. As you can see teachers’ motivation is a major problem in Cambodia. It doesn’t help that now is the season for planting tapioca and corn in our district so many teachers are too busy working on their farms to come to school and many of the children are too busy helping their parents harvest the bean crop to have time to come to lessons anyway.

The prospect of being in Phnom Preuk for over a month with even less to do than normal was so daunting that we decided to get the hell out of there for a few days and took our selves off back to Koh Chang (which means Elephant Island – see photo) in Thailand. Five days of lying on a palm fringed beach by a sparkling blue sea or sipping gin and tonics while watching the sun sink through a crimson sky …… this volunteering lark is hell. Unsurprisingly Jon made a stunt kite out of plastic bags and bamboo – it flew!

In Cambodia, Laos and Thailand the New Year is a big deal. It is both a religious and secular celebration, so the Wats go into overdrive with ceremonial chanting, drums and gamelans, (oh goody) while everyone else parties all night with Karaoke music being played at full blast over mega sound systems (hooray). There is a tradition that at New Year you should be cleansed by water, and our first experience of this was when 2 elderly ladies in the Pagoda we were visiting gently poured a trickle of scented water over our heads and marked our faces with a stripe of talcum powder, charming we thought ……then we went outside. The roads of Koh Chang were lined with young people armed with any receptacle they could find, soaking any transport which dared to run the gauntlet. We were touring the island on a moto and were continually soaked by high power hoses and bazooka size super soaker water pistols. It was all extremely good humoured albeit very dangerous. Thinking that New Year celebrations would be over we returned to Phnom Preuk to discover that as usual the Khmers had extend the holiday and the jollity was still in full swing. There is a water throwing tradition in Cambodia as well but typically they fling plastic bags of water at passers by, so every roadside is now lined with thousands and thousands of little plastic bags which no one will ever pick up. Rather stupidly we went on a cycle ride and were accosted by the local youff who soaked us from head to toe and rubbed talc onto our faces, but in a very good natured way. Pleased to say we got our revenge when later they passed our house and we turned the garden hose on them.

Our work in the District was further disrupted when someone in the VSO education office decided that the end of April would be a good time to have a 2 day conference and to hold it in Koh Kong, the Province in the south west which is the furthest away from everyone else in Cambodia. We decided the quickest and cheapest way to get there was to travel via Thailand rather than the 3 days it would take if we had to go via Phnom Penh. So on the way there we popped back to Koh Chang for a couple days for a bit more beach therapy. In fact the conference was fun if not actually useful and it was great to meet up with all the other Volunteers. Koh Kong proved to be very beautiful. One of the few areas of Cambodia that is close to the sea and consequently cooler and more geared for tourists. We took a small speed boat through the river delta to visit some waterfalls, passing mangrove swamps and monkeys on the way. While climbing over the rocks by the waterfall Onno slipped and fell the river taking the Khmer guide with him. Fortunately no one was hurt but a digital camera and 2 mobile phones had an early bath which didn’t do them much good. While in Koh Kong we visited a little school which is situated on an island about 40 minutes boat ride away from the main town. The combination of an inspirational head, committed staff and supportive community had produced a model school where the kids were obviously motivated and eager to learn. The rest of us education volunteers are deeply jealous of Nicky who is based in Koh Kong. Not only does she have the seaside, proper roads, a civilized climate, and beautiful scenery she also has schools who actually want to teach children, its not fair!!!!

We decided to return to Phnom Preuk the long way round as the road takes you through the Cardamom Mountains which is one few remaining areas of unspoilt forest. The scenery was spectacular although very unusually they were showing an English language film on the video on the bus, this proved rather distracting because as Jon pointed out we were here to see Koh Kong not to watch King Kong! Phnom Penh gave us the opportunity to chill out with friends and stock up on necessities, although distressingly Marmite cannot be found, even for ready money. We were introduced to a charming French colonial hotel where you could lounge by the pool all day for the price of a glass of iced coffee. Well everyone needs a little R and R sometimes

Back in Phnom Preuk we arranged to have a planning meeting with all of the District Education staff to clarify exactly what it was they wanted to achieve in the area and what would be our role. As a relationship building exercise we offered to hold the meeting in our house rather than the office and provide a meal afterwards. We asked our cleaner if she would cook the food as we were not convinced the Khmers would be thrilled with spaghetti bolognaise. Our excitement about the event was severely doused when a hour before kick off we were informed that as 3 of the staff, including the director, had been called off for another meeting they would have to cancel. This was a bit of a blow especially as there were 3 freshly slaughtered chickens bleeding gently into our fridge. But that’s Cambodia for you. In fact we were able to re schedule for a couple of days later and it went reasonably successfully although 2 of the staff only managed to arrive just in time for the dinner.

Many Volunteers have taken advantage of the fact that because of the national holidays, if you take 2 days leave you can have 10 days off and have gone travelling to Viet Nam, Laos, or Bangkok. We decided to conserve our money and leave so we can use them when all our visitors arrive over the next few months (Will and Russell are coming in 5 weeks time – wheeeeee). Very kindly Jean has offered to let us house sit her lovely flat in Battambang and we intended to spend a few days exploring the local area. This proved to be a very wise decision as our lap top has been infested with swarm of viruses which has made the poor thing very very sick. Jon has spent the last 2 days desperately trying to salvage all our music and photos, which it would break our hearts to loose but it is a very slow progress. The moral of the story being, “back up as you go”. In fact aside from the hours sweating over a hot disc drive we have had had a very pleasant time cycling to the out lying villages, visiting pre Ankorian ruins and a giant modern Buddha. On the way we stopped to see the local cottage industry of spring roll wrapper making.

The temperature has dropped and the rainy season is just beginning. The last 3 days have seen spectacular thunder storms and diluvium rains although it does mean that it is even less possible to get things done. The usual response to any request being ”I’ll have to wait until the rain stops”. The Khmers seem quite surprised to learn that in Europe people go to work in the rain.

The natural history of Cambodia has now reached Mammals. Cambodia used to have a rich diversity of wildlife. Monkeys, elephants, tigers and rhinos all abounded in the forests which covered the country but in the last half centaury due to war, landmines, logging and deforestation there are very few animals left. Any poor little creature that wanders into an inhabited area is promptly killed and eaten. The only mammals which we have seen in Phnom Preuk are domesticated (with the exception of the rats which we really don’t want to talk about). Cows and pigs are the main source of meat. There is no concept of dairy and it is impossible to get indigenous milk or cheese (which probably accounts for our weight loss, although the absence of red wine might be more of a reason). In the wetter rice growing areas water buffalo are used for ploughing and these huge docile animals are really picturesque wading through the rice paddy with a small boy on their backs. On the Tai border the land is too high and dry for rice so here they use huge white oxen as the beast of burden although round our way it is more likely to see a tractor pulling a plough. There are cows every where, many families seem to have at least one that often lives under the stilted house. They are allowed to graze by the side of the road where they are tethered through the nose on quite long ropes. When passing a cow on your moto you have to careful that it has not wandered across the road trailing its rope behind, because a sudden movement could tighten the line and decapitate you. Considering the amount of pork that is eaten we rarely see pigs, except on the backs of motos. Apparently most families do keep a pig or 2 “out the back” and transport 2 or 3 of them at a time to the slaughter houses in baskets attached to the seat of the moto. A real shock the first time you see it.

Dogs. They infest the place and spend most of their time mating with each other. Sometimes no matter how much you avert your eyes you will see copulating canines. Consequently they appear in very weird shapes and sizes but none of a breed that is recognisable. The bitches are either pregnant or feeding and usually look exhausted. In fact most of the dogs look sick, undernourished and full of mange; many have lost all their hair, not a pretty sight. The puppies, like all baby animals look cute for a month or so then they mysteriously disappear. Never eat meat in the market that is advertised as “special”. We are especially fond of the dogs at 4 am when for no apparent reason every mutt in the district joins in the “twilight barking” .which can last up to half an hour!. The above aside we have never felt threaten by a dog and have been told there is no Rabies in the district. The neighbour’s dog Pom is a lovely lady although she does have a sneaky side. If there is food around she will drop on to her tummy and wriggle closer and closer to the table convinced she has made herself invisible. When you tell her off she looks about her with amazement as if to say, “Gosh how did I get here.”

So we are back to Phnom Preuk on Friday and hope to get down to a continuous period of hard work until our good intentions are interrupted by the forth coming elections, disintegrating roads, floods, planting crops, harvesting crops, weddings, funerals, political rallies, religious ceremonies and all the other stuff that makes Cambodia such a wonderful but infuriating place.

Hello from Cambodia 12

At last we have started to do some proper work. We ran a workshop for 30 people on Effective Teaching and Learning and it went off without a hitch, well almost. The 2 trainers who came out from Battambang were very inspiring and could have taught some of the nerds we’ve seen doing INSET in English schools a thing or two about presentation techniques. Every so often they would break into group singing, which everyone had to take part in, including us. We were amazed when they started to sing, “ My Grandfather has a farm, ei ei o “ to the tune of “Old MacDonald”. Of course we had to sing our English version, which caused some consternation because Cambodian ducks do not go Quack Quack, they speak Khmer. The photo shows a participant over come by the brilliance of the workshop. No actually, one of the teachers had to bring his daughter along and, love her, she slept all the way through it on a table.

Yesterday we drove to a school about an hour away, which is set against the spectacular backdrop of a mountain, to observe the teachers who had attended our workshop cascading the ideas on to their colleagues, who seemed equally enthusiastic. It was quite heartening, Of course we have been to enough INSET ourselves to know that the initial inspiration soon wears off when faced with the actual chalk face and you slip back into the easy old bad habits. It must be even harder to initiate new teaching methods when faced with 50 kids with ages ranging from 6 to 14 and you have been up since 5am tending your fields, but it’s a start.

On the way Jon had to fill up his moto at the local equivalent of BP. The price of petrol has gone up from 3800 Riels (just under $1) a litre to 4600 Riels since we got here, now that is inflation!

Part of our lack of progress so far is due to the fact that we are supposed to be working in partnership with the local District Education Office. Unfortunately this has not really taken off mainly because they are rarely in the office and when they are they claim to be too busy to work with us. This is probably not because we have pissed them off; we get on quite well with them when we see them, but more due to their lack of confidence in their own ability and a fear of showing themselves up. The picture shows us in our office showing the Director of the DOE some pictures we had taken of schools we had visited.

His mode of attire is not unusual for him and the gold you can see is but a small example of that which he has, including in his mouth. The head of Education from the VSO HQ in Phnom Pehn came for a visit earlier in the week and has done a bit of bridge building so hopefully we will get more cooperation from now on. Overall he seemed quite pleased with what we have achieved so far though we got the feeling that he had not realised the full extent of the problems we have to face out here physically, culturally and socially. He has promised us more support, which is encouraging, but we’ll believe it when we see it.

We are still on good terms with the monks who are in the process of building themselves an extension to their pagoda. As we drive past them on our way to work everyday we get muffled shouts of “hello, how are you” from holes in the ground. The pictures are of Onno, one of the Dutch volunteers, at the top of the hill which our Wat is on, the Wat in Kampong Cham and some of our monks, yes some of them are that young! Monks are not always our favourite people though. Last weekend we were staying at Jean’s house in Battambang, which backs onto the main Wat and was consecrating a new temple. This kicks off at 4am with worthy words interspersed with gamalan music broadcast at full volume from the loud speaker situated on the Pagoda roof. As the morning progresses this evolves into chanting and drumming with, what sounds like, a bad stand up comedian thrown in for good measure. In the afternoon the fun fair starts up with dodgems and roundabouts accompanied by the usual Khmer karaoke tunes, although we swear at one point we heard the Carpenter’s “its yesterday once more “. Believe us there is nothing mystical about these monks. After 16 hours of this bloody awful row we all had splitting headaches and were screaming blasphemies, which I’m sure, even the Buddha would have countenanced. To top it all at 8pm the local night club joined in with its “duf, duf, duf”, and we had to resort to Gin and Tonics to deaden the pain. If that’s living in the big city give me the peace quiet and boredom of Phnom Preuk any time.

And now the weather report. HOT HOT HOT. At times the thermometer on our balcony was reading 100 degrees, and it’s in the shade. It is almost impossible to go outside during the main part of the day and we have to keep the fans going all night. To put it politely, we are continually damp and have taken to wearing Khmer dress about the house. For Jon this is a kroma, a short cotton wrap around skirt, and Chris has made 2 loose kaftan style frocks out of kampots. Very fetching but cool in every sense of the word. In the last week there have been thunderstorms rolling around in the mountains that bring the occasional showers of rain, which are cooling but nothing like the deluge we can expect when the rainy season hits with full force next month.

The highlight of the last few weeks is Sophen building his own house. We have been visiting it regularly to inspect the work in progress. He had to get the wood from an old barn that was being pulled down, take out all the nails, plane it and then re use it. It has been quite a saga, and he was really worried that his money would run out. Over all it has cost him about 700 dollars, but he is so proud. Now he and his wife Sophala can start a family. Note that the shed in the background is where he and Sophala are living now, with several other teachers, and he is a deputy head of a high school!

Cambodia is now gearing itself up for the New Year, which in theory lasts 3 days but in practice goes on till May. The schools have already closed and everyone is going back to their home villages for family gatherings. Consequently the Education office is even more empty than usual (ie just us) and as the market will also be shut next week there will be bugger all for us to do out here. We considered taking a city break to Kula Lumpur but guessed it will be even more humid and horrible than here so we are probably going back to Thailand for a couple of days where we can lie in the sea and cool down. Another reason for evacuating Cambodia is that along with the tinsel and shiny decorations that have started appearing in the market stalls, think Woolworth’s before Christmas, there are also a huge number of water pistols going on sale. Apparently it is a New Years tradition to squirt water and throw flour at unsuspecting passers by, so in order to avoid resembling doughboys we think discretion is the better part of valour, and are going to run away.

Its time for the wild life section; Birds. There are surprisingly few wild birds around here but considering that they have cut down most of the trees it’s understandable. There are a few sparrows and swallows about and some blackbirdy type things but nothing exotic. What there are however is chickens, everywhere. The splendid cockerels strut about majestically and are treated as family pets. They are trained for fighting, by showing them their reflection in a mirror, although we have been told they do not fight to the death here. They do not crow “Cock a doodle doo”, but an abbreviated “Cock a doodle d…” which is deeply irritating at 4am. Some of the females have very beautiful plumage and would win a prize in an English country show, but the majority of the poultry are scraggy, featherless little bags of bones. They scurry about pecking and scratching, usually accompanied by a clutch of chicks that are no more than balls of fluff. We have long passed the “oh how sweet stage “ as when you are on the moto you have to continually swerve to miss the little buggers. They also go in for caged birds. One neighbour has a myna bird that follows him around, trotting along beside him chatting away like an irritating child. Next door they had a beautiful collared dove in a tiny cage that didn’t have room for it to spread its wings. Recently the cage has been empty, we are not sure if this is a good or a bad thing.

A little R&R at a swimming pool in a hotel in Battambang. It's regularly topping 100F here and the water was a god send even if a little expensive at $5 for the day.

Finally, bicycles. Although Chris is stupidly pleased with the way she is mastering off-roading on her moto, she has decided to ride her bike more. The main reason for this is exercise. Due to the state of the roads, the heat and the minefields, no one walks any where in this country and, as we have a lovely lady to do our cleaning and washing, the only exercise we get is climbing the stairs. So a short bike ride to work or to the market means that we don’t loose total use of our legs. The photo shows Chris in the traditional sampot, which she had to wear to the training workshop and the obligatory hat to stop your brain being fried. It’s the best one she could find - honest.

Hello from Cambodia 11

So here we are 6 months in and really beginning to feel like ex pats. We returned from Kampong Chang and the language course with Jon’s Khmer much improved and Chris’s not. We have come to terms with the budget cuts and have started with determination on our mission to make the schools of Phnom Preuk District in to models of excellence for the whole of Cambodia!

The first workshop went quite well. We were supposed to be doing a small session for 3 or 4 volunteer teachers but the principal got a little excited and we ended up doing the workshop 3 times for 5 each. Well that was the theory but only 2 turned up for the last one. Yesterday we were expecting 16 teachers to a workshop on Group teaching and got 9, excluding the baby who was breast fed half way through the session. One teacher wandered in 20 minutes late having gone to the wrong venue, then after a phone call (their phones are going off continually and they think nothing of having long conversations while you are speaking) he wandered off to deal with some private business. The Khmer sense of lack of urgency and punctuality takes a lot of getting used to. However at least we feel that we have got started and are achieving something but it’s going to take a long time!

Our dynamic plans, however, have now fallen foul of the 10 yearly census. The government are using teachers as recording officers and most of the schools in the country will be closed for 2 weeks. We never really know what’s going on. We got into the office one day to find it empty and were told that all the education officers would be spending the week at a workshop to train them for the census so we went home as there was nothing for us to do. Quite often we are the only people in the office especially when there is a crop to harvest and their farming commitments take priority over the education system. This also applies to the students. An unexpected heavy shower of rain means that the next tapioca crop can be planted and 75% of the children do not come to school, as they are busy planting it.

Last week Jon was invited to a Chemistry workshop run by a Japanese woman volunteer who works at the Teachers Training College in Battambang. This is teaching with no resources and it really tests your imagination. How do you produce hydrogen if you don’t have acid in the bottle on the bench (or even a bench) or a Hoffmans Voltameter? Well you improvise; a bit of aluminium cooking foil in a plastic bag with toilet cleaner (21% HCl) added, plastic tubing from the local garage, a washing up bowl full of water and a plastic water bottle to collect the gas in. The scientist amongst you can figure out the details.

Electrolysis, no sweat, stick a couple of bits of wire through the bottom of a plastic storage container and seal with super glue. A splash of battery acid and some water and connect up to a moped battery. Jon and Sophea (who used to be a mechanic before he became a head master) improved on this piece of kit by using a couple of syringes that were lying around(!!) Quite a good pop was obtained! Jon really loved being back in the lab again but as our project concentrates on primary education he isn’t officially allowed to be messing about with secondary science, but he’s not going to let that stop him.

Many thanks to every one who has sent us emergency supplies, especially the clothes. The dust here is getting so bad that we have to change our clothes twice a day. Thankfully our cleaning lady also does our washing, by hand in a 25 litre paint tub, at the communal pump, but the severe scrubbing the clothes get dosen’t help their durability. Also she seems to add toilet cleaner to the wash to get that Percil white look, and this has had a few disastrous consequences. Its times like this that a grasp of the language would be useful. Eg “ will you use Comfort fabric softener in my wash please.”

The cosmetics have also been very welcome. It is very difficult to remain chic and elegant here when you are a perpetual sweaty mess. Therefore it is a real treat to pamper yourself sometimes with creams and lotions, put on a dress, make up and high heels and pretend you’re off for a posh night out at the Grange. (and that’s just Jon). In fact what we actually do is cook ourselves a bowl of vegetables and rice, open a can of local beer and settle down to watch an episode of 24 Series 2. Actually its not that bad, we are beginning to learn how to relax and after years of stress and over-work at Parmiter’s having nothing to do comes as a welcome change.

Our translators are continuing to be, not only invaluable in steering us around the minefield that is Cambodian etiquette, but also good friends. However sometimes things “get lost in translation”. Sophen claimed that the bats (see later) were as big as kitchens (chickens) and that the participants at the workshop would need snakes (snacks). The most surreal moment was when we texted Sophen to ask him why the children were going to school on a Sunday. The reply came through “They are going for the understanding of mince”. Was this like the “Diet of Worms”? Now we know that Buddhists are a bit mystical; but mince? What he meant was “mines”. Seems there is a big push by C-Mac, the Cambodian de-mining group to get the kids to understand about not picking up unexploded ordinance etc. We have a big problem here as Battambang is the most mined province in Cambodia and the kids need all the education they can get. Some times S and S provide us with just a little too much information. When we asked if there was a bakery in the village where we could get fresh bread, they replied that it was next door to brothel. They seemed surprised that we didn’t know where the brothel was and insisted on giving us a guided tour to both of these 2 village landmarks.

Our highlight this month was a trip to Phnom Sampov, a mountain about 15km south of Battambang city. This is renowned firstly for the amazing caves from whence millions of bats emerge every evening at dusk. For hours and hours they steam across the sky making a strange smoke-like trail as they weave their way into the distance. The mountain is more notorious as the site of the “killing caves” where the Pol Pot regime murdered the educated people. It is very chilling to note that no one in Cambodia can match Jon’s claim that he has been teaching for 31 years because anyone who was a teacher in 1977 would not have survived.

That evening we went a wonderful circus performance in Battambang. The Ponlun Salapak was originally set up 20 years ago in the Cambodian refugee camps in Thailand to give disadvantaged kids a chance to study art. Some of these kids later set up a school for orphans and street children in Battambang and with help from a French NGO it has expanded its range to encompass a circus school as well. The children were hugely talented and very inspiring.


It’s the dry season here at the moment so getting around is not so bad. It now takes us 3 to 4 hours to get to Battambang by taxi as opposed to the 6 and half it took us when we first came and it was a bit wet. Come the rainy season and we will just have to say put. Chris has come on leaps and bounds in the moto stakes and last weekend drove the 25km to the next town down the border. She was dead chuffed and rightly so, the road, in the broadest sense of the word, was still full of ruts and rocks and she did get up to 40 kph at one point.

The motos are great and dead easy to drive, no clutch and very light. Jon is certainly going to buy a motorbike when he gets back. He’s even done some repair work when he cracked part of the engine casing by riding in to a ditch. Sophea said take it to the local moto repair shop but you know Jon he’s got to have a go himself. He didn’t do a bad job but the repair shop would have done the whole thing for 5000 riels (about 65p). They don’t charge for labour here the mechanics earn about a dollar a day (4000 riels). He has also fixed a puncture. The big mistake was letting S&S help to fix the next one he got a week later. All was going fine until they put the tyre back on and pinched the inner tube to produce yet another puncture. They gave up at that point and we took it to the local repair shop where the boy fixed it for 1500 riels (do the maths).

Continuing the series “The Flora and Fauna of Cambodia” we come to
Reptiles and Amphibians. Our house geckos, Hugh, Carol and Richard, continue to flourish though they do tend to squabble a lot. More dramatic is the Tokai, a 15 inch lizard that lives in the ceiling of our office. We rarely see him but he makes an incredible racket with his “croak” from whence he gets his name (tok-ai). Well the other day he came out on to the wall in pursuit of Mrs Tokai and the two of them scuttled about above our heads. Sophen and Sophea were really worried by this as apparently if a Tokai bites you it takes the combined efforts of 7 widows to get him to let go! The unexpected rain the other evening brought out the frogs, keeping us awake at night with their noise and invading the chicken, whoops sorry that’s kitchen. The other day Chris came across a lizard who had had a close encounter with a moto. His amputated tail was still wriggling about on one side of the track while he watched it from the other side (weird). We also have a beautiful multi-coloured lizard that sits and suns himself on a tree stump outside our office and makes no noise at all. As a post script we have included a photo of the giant flying beetles that bombarded us in swarms last night on the balcony. They dive bombed our heads like a scene from the birds and one crawled up under Chris’s skirt but she did not discover it until she undressed for bed, the screams were heard in Bangkok.

Another surreal moment yesterday was when Jon emerged from the shower wrapped only in a towel to find 2 monks, resplendent in their saffron robes and shaved heads, half way up our stairs. They had popped in for a visit and a chat and to practice their English. This included showing off they new super duper mobile phone and proudly playing a down load of Ronan Keeting and Westlife singing Father and Son. So much for Buddhist mysticism.

We are thinking of you all as spring approaches, we miss the daffs. Keep sending all your news. Happy St David’s Day. J and C

(Just a note, our email addresses are: chrisgreen56@hotmail.com and jondeg1@hotmail.com)

PS. The baby that Jon is holding is Touch, our cleaner's grandson.

Hello from Cambodia 10

Happy New Year.

This blog is being written in our room in the Mekong Hotel in Kampong Cham. We are back here for 2 weeks for the second part of our language training. Getting all 17 of us (David has dropped out) back together again at this time has probably been a very good idea. We are all realising that the honeymoon period is over. The initial excitement of being in our placement has faded and optimism has become rather jaded as we are coming to terms with the enormousness of the problems we have to face and a realisation is dawning that we are not going to be able to revolutionise the Cambodian education system by Christmas. There has been a lot of group hugs, metaphorical and real and mutual affirmation that there is some point to our being here. (See photo of Baz and Mairead (the long and the short of it) Also by discussing our problems with each other we realise we are all encountering the same frustrations and try to devise some strategies to make something happen in this infuriating country.

We remind each other that at the VSO training in England and since we have arrived here we have continuously been told not to expect anything constructive to happen in the first nine months and we should just observe and build confidences and “drink tea”. As most of us were quite dynamic, hard working professionals in our previous lives where we are used to making things happen fast, it becomes very frustrating when through apathy, misunderstanding and mistrust your best laid plans keep smashing into brick walls. It hasn’t helped that due to cut backs by VSO London, our budget has been greatly reduced so many of the projects we had planned have had to abandoned or severely pruned.

Moaning aside, we have had a lot of fun. We are taking advantage of the fact that gin and tonic is very cheaply available in KPC as are Snickers bars and digestive biscuits. The evenings have been spent playing Helen’s Game and Werewolf, which is a Dutch form of Mafioso. We are also taking the opportunity to give each other mutual support when taking our first course of de-worming tablets. We have included a few photos of the sights of KPC. When we arrived we were surprised to see how much the water level in the Mekong had dropped since we were last here exposing the base of the huge bridge that the Japanese built opening up eastern Cambodia. Every morning and evening the river was swarming with little boats illegally drift netting tiny fish. Also the drop in the water level means they have been able to build the bamboo bridge that runs between the town and an island in the river. Every year this is swept away in the floods and replaced in the dry season. It appears very fragile and wobbly but is strong enough to support a car.

We came here via PP where we had a 2 day education Inset, which was just about as exciting and useful as Inset in the English education system, with the added disadvantage that half of it is delivered in a language you don’t understand – or perhaps that isn’t such a difference. As we travelled on to KPC through the paddy fields of the Mekong flood plane it struck us that Cambodia was lush, green and very beautiful, something we had forgotten in the brown bean fields of Phnom Preuk. Much as we love our little adopted town, returning to the clouds of dust generated by the unmade roads which coat everything with a thick brown film is going to be very difficult after the pink and purple bougainvillaea of KPC.

(Photo:What you can but to eat on the road to Kampong Cham)

The language training has been constructive specially since Chris changed to a more differentiated, child friendly group (see photo). We are now aware of the, potentially disastrous, mistakes that you can make by slight mispronunciation. Eg. Can I help you? = Khnom chong chuey te? Whereas Khnom chong chouey te? Means can I f..k you? Also hot and penis are only the slip of a vowel away from social suicide.

Even though we have been here for nearly 5 months we don’t feel we are any closer to knowing Kampuchea. On the surface, the preponderance of motos, western clothes, TVs, mobile phones and Coca Cola suggests a confidently emerging developing nation but just scratch below the surface and you find extreme poverty, high illiteracy, endemic corruption and a national fatalism that makes you despair that anything will ever change. People who have lived here a few years say that massive progress is happening, but when you see entire families living in a dirty one roomed shack with little or no life chances it is difficult to feel optimistic about this place. We hope that our work in the education system is a tiny step towards improving the prospects of the next generations, but realistically until there is a change in the political system and the corruption that is emasculating the country at every level it is unlikely that Cambodia will ever be able to pull itself out of its third world status.

For those of you who are still wondering what the hell we are actually doing out here, which probably includes us, here is a potted explanation. We are working with the district education office in Phnom Preuk helping them to implement a programme that will result in all Cambodian children receiving an education. Practically this means we work with individual schools on schemes which will increase the numbers of children actually being enrolled and reducing the numbers who drop out before they reach Year 9. We are also helping teachers to use a more child centred methodology in a more child friendly environment. Well that’s the idea anyway. How this is achieved with a highly de motivated work force trying to battle against minimal funding is another matter. We will let you know how we get on. While we were in KPC we visited a “model school” which was very inspirational but also very daunting. Here are photos of a “model” classroom and one in a school in PPk, spot the difference.

On a brighter note, here is a David Attenborough, an introductory round up of the wildlife in Cambodia. Mainly it is very, very small, you only know about them when they bite you. We are all continually slapping ourselves exclaiming, “Shit, I’ve just been bitten!” Fortunately this usually results in itchy red lumps and no one yet has succumbed to Malaria (except Bas who had to be flown from his placement in the jungles on the Vietnamese border to hospital in PP. He made a miraculously recovery after 4 days) or the dreaded Dengue fever. The larger livestock tends to come in swarms. Depending on the season or weather, clouds of insects of all shapes and sizes smash themselves into any light source or failing that, your head. The most dramatic of these was the plague of flying beetles, the size of golf balls that crash onto our balcony then rocked around on their backs, like weebles, unable to turn themselves over.
Currently a recent freak rainstorm has brought out the flying ants that emerge in a blizzard that at night turns KPC into a snowscape resembling the Russia steppes in January. However on a more positive side the huge painted butterflies, the giant praying mantis (see photo) and the columns of tiny ants that march around our house have been a source of great pleasure and fascination to us. The lecture on the Fauna of Cambodia will continue in another blog.

By the way the photo of the 2 lads at the computer is of Sophen and Sophea, our lovely translators without whom our job here would be impossible.

Hope we haven’t been too negative in this blog, but as we said earlier, the honeymoon is over. We still love being here and we believe we do have a positive role to play but maybe it’s going to be a bit harder than we thought. We will see.