First Impressions...
on Sarah G in Cambodia (Cambodia), 16/Sep/2008 06:19, 34 days ago
I moved to Cambodia. I’m a little unsure how it happened - I was so busy catching up with friends and organising my retrospective world, I forgot to look forward - it felt very sudden when I arrived.Arriving, I think, in any developing country is a shock to the senses - it would be impossible to describe how it feels to be hit by the tropical heat, and such diverse smells and sounds. Small things are a sudden challenge - walking down the broken pavement, avoiding piles of rubbish and peoples lives that seem to spill out on to the street. Crossing the street is taking your life into your hands - the advice given is‘start crossing, keep going consistently and the traffic will weave around you’. Well, its worked so far!From what I have seen so far Cambodia it is in some ways in accelerated state of development but it is completely inconsistent. I had a Cambodian mobile number within hours of arriving yet when on placement it is a 24 hour round trip to see one of the only 3 doctors in the country which VSO trusts.In Phnom Penh (PP) they have gone from 3 to 300 cash points in around 4 years yet the Police are people to avoid. If you do encounter them (maybe for speeding on your push bike!) then bribes need to be paid to prevent hours of sitting in the police station only to ultimately pay a larger bribe to a more senior officer.There are Lexus’ everywhere yet ones with no number plates and blacked out windows are above the law and can be seen being helped to drive around traffic jams and through red lights.Obviously a lot of this stems from the Khmer Rouge (KM), Im not going to say a lot until I learn more but we did go to the Genocide museum yesterday, I think this sums up what we saw:"Although the KR regime officially ended with the Vietnamese capture of PP the KM policies of forced collectivization and social constructionism left behind a legacy that lingered long after its formal demise. The KM left behind a vastly uneducated and unskilled society, a displaced, diasporic and traumatized nation, a population of 70% women, many widowed from the regime, and a country riddled with landmines that continue to main and kill.The KR shattered families and homes, destroyed financial, educational, religious, cultural and political institutions and perhaps most terribly of all - annihilated trust. Its a legacy far from over and a legacy that will take generations to heal.”Although corruption is rife and infrastructure has in no way recovered, the people, I think I have come a long way in just 30 years since the KR ended.All in all it has been a great couple of days - we have a team of 23 for training including British, Irish, Indian, Dutch, Ugandan, Kenyan and Philippino volunteers made up of 2 doctors, 3 nurses, 1 hospital manager, 6 educationalists, 3 people advising on income generation from sustainable forestry products and a few others. We had the weekend off so have already sampled Cambodian clubbing, it was ok helped by the fact beer is 35p a pint! Tropical hangovers are not nice (at all) but we recovered around the pool of a fantastic hotel by the Mekong river.This week the real work starts!Sx