Hello from Cambodia 17
on Chris and Jon in Cambodia (Cambodia), 18/Jan/2009 08:31, 34 days ago
It's cold!!!!!! No kidding the last few weeks have been bloody freezing. There is a continuous strong breeze so there is the "wind chill" to be taken into account and last week there was a severe weather warning. Ok, it's all relative compared with the Arctic weather you have been having in Europe, it's currently 26°C ( or 78°F in old money ) but at night we have taken to putting a blanket on the bed and snuggling up for warmth. Jon is even wearing socks! Actually what this shows is just how much we have acclimatized to Cambodia and not just to the temperature.Work has settled down and we do have some sense of achievement. In December we at last held the workshop on Effective Teaching and Learning (ETL) which had been cancelled on three previous occasions due to factors ranging from; "Thailand might invade" to "the teachers are all harvesting corn".We also applied for and got a small grant from VSO which allowed us to put bars on the windows of three schools in the district. This is important because without bars the schools are not secure and teachers are reluctant to decorate their classrooms with examples of kids' work and educational posters because they are often vandalized by the local youth. (Sound familiar? but we use CCTV and electronic alarms in the UK) Can you imagine a primary school classroom with no pictures on the wall, not even the alphabet? The three headmasters were so thrilled when we told them we had got the grant, one actually clapped his hands with glee.A knock on effect of this was that we were able to support the setting up of libraries in schools as now books can be permanently displayed without being nicked. The problem of absence of books was overcome by Olivia and the pupils and staff of Queen's School, Bushey who raised over£200 for a library by some creative fund raising. Many, many thanks to them, they can not imagine how much their gift was appreciated by the children of Phnom Touch Primary School and the opportunities it has given them to widen their education.There are several EU sponsored building projects going on in the district at the moment. A new school is being built to accommodate the children of families who have just moved into a new village that has grown up on the site of a cleared, mine field. This not before time as the lady teacher, who only qualified this year, currently has to teach a class of over 60 kids in the local café, yet is doing so with the enthusiasm and humour which would put many established teachers in the UK to shame.Also O Pichenda, our local primary school, is being expanded by four new classrooms. It was so chronically overcrowded that lessons were being taught in thatched shacks which were unusable in the rainy season.They also teach three shifts a day as opposed to the norm for Cambodia which is two. Yes you're right this means that most kids in Cambodia only get four hours teaching a day.Opposite our office the new "Women's Affairs" building is under construction. This is a source of great interest to Jon who is continually amazed by the building techniques being used. eg. No real foundations to the walls and everything built out of very stiff concrete. Note: ground flattening using a tree stump on a pole.The monks continue building the Wat extension and greet as she cycles past every morning with a cheery“Hello, how are you” from their perches on the scaffolding (lashed together bamboo poles).With the dry season comes the dust. Touche, our cleaner, went to Phnom Penh to meet her family who were visiting from Canada and so there was no one to dust and mop efficiently (our attempts were pathetic). By the time she returned a week later there were small sand dunes piling up in the sitting room and we were loosing ourselves in a sand storm as we tried to cross the kitchen.Also since the tapioca harvest has now been collected the fields are brown and dry (see photo).The dust is actually dangerous as the clouds on the roads created by the huge Thai trucks, which carry produce across the border, mean that car and moto drivers are often driving blind. There have been several fatalities as drivers, overtaking a truck at speed, run head on into a taxi coming the other way.November brings the Water Festival which marks the end of the wet season. In Phnom Penh this is celebrated by the Dragon Boat Races. Boat teams from all over the country come to compete and for the last three years VSO have entered the only Barrang team. In a series of heats two boats race each other over a 1000m down the Tonle Sap River past the king. The hardest part is paddling upstream to the start point. The VSO boat did well coming 5th in a two boat race (ie they were passed by two other races). It was, however, a spectacular event to have taken part in– even though the Tee shirts were a bit pink.Taking advantage of the National holiday we went back to Koh Chang for a few days R&R. The Thais have a similar festival and celebrate by making little boats of banana tree bark decorated with flowers and candles and launched into the sea sailing away the worries of the previous year.On a similar mystical note in December we looked up into the night sky to find a smiley face beaming down at us. Apparently the crescent moon (which is kind of horizontal at this latitude), Jupiter and Venus were in an unusual alignment to cause this phenomenon. The superstitious Khmers immediately took this to be a portentous sign of everything from victory in the war with Thailand to Liverpool winning the European Cup. It just made us smile. (Everyone tried to take the photo, few, including us, were very successful)Christmas was more traditional this year. For a start we were with family as Alice and boyfriend Will’s tour of SE Asia had brought them back to Phnom Preuk.Consequently we really went over the top decorating the house with Christmas trees, fancy lights, tinsel, paper chains and Origami stars. To the amusement of our neighbours we dragged in boughs of greenery to deck the halls (banana leaf rather than holly and ivy). It was wonderful to have them with us as we opened our presents on Christmas morning while drinking Bucks Fizz accompanied by Carols from King’s.We had invited Onno and Corine (Dutch VSO), Renny (American Peace Corps) and Anna (Wandsworth) for a traditional English Christmas dinner and this took some planning, mainly due to the absence of a cooker. After much thought, inspiration and experimentation Jon constructed a very effective two tier oven out of an inverted stew pot and some wire. With the help of the very generous seasonal Red Cross parcels sent by Frances and Olivia and Alice and Will’s culinary expertise we were able to produce a meal of truly festive fayre. This included roast chicken, cranberry and chestnut stuffing, Christmas pud and brandy, cream, Christmas cake (baked in new oven), dates stuffed with Stilton and crackers (a complete novelty for non-Brits). We ate and drank for almost 9 hours interrupted only by some gentle games. The only thing that was missing was Wallace and Gromitt on the telly.[Since the advent of the oven we have become even more adventurous in our cooking with the aid of the BBC Good Food website. Not only are we baking our own bread but yesterday Jon cooked Banana and Pecan cakes and tomorrow is attempting a Sunday Lunch of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. ]The family reunions continued after Christmas with the arrival of Chris’ mum, sister, brother-in-law and niece. It was so good to meet up with them at Siem Reap. We had rather a bizarre New Year’s eve when at 11.15 the staff of the bar at their hotel said they were off to a party. Not being able to face the prospect of being totally dry at midnight we jumped on a tuk tuk and shot back into town just in time to see in the New Year with 1000’s of others at a very jolly street party in Pub Street.The following day we joined the family tour and went on a boat to visit the Vietnamese floating villages on the Tonle Sap. We had been five years before when we were the only tourists there and we had been greeted with welcoming smiles and waves from the villagers. Now this is a much more organised operation with more than 20 tour boats within sight on the lake and a visitors centre complete with crocs and python. The villagers, however, studiously ignored all of us aware that their hard lives have become a tourist attraction.Being over 80 Chris’ mum was the source of great inspiration; skipping over Ankorian ruins, leaping on and off bobbing boats and hauling herself on to rickety tuk tuks far more effectively than her less sprightly daughter – see you’re never too old.While we were in Phnom Penh we tried a variety of cuisines; Khmer, Italian, Indian, Bavarian (though Robbie stuck to Green Curry through out) much of which Caroline photographed. Ottie took advantage of PP’s bounteous supply of CDs, DVDs and iPod down loads, I hope they all work back home!We returned once more to visit the Sunrise Village Orphanage where once again we were impressed with how it is continuing to develop with new facilities such as a theatre and dance studio.It was a very sad day when they all left us to continue their Asian journeys; Alice and Will to Laos and the rest to Vietnam.And so here we are in 2009 wondering what is to come? No matter what the world will throw at us nothing will be as rich and stimulating as our lives in 2008.Happy New Year to all our readers.