Back to civilisation

I’ve been in New Zealand for a week now and I’ve still not made my mind up about Cambodia and am not entirely sure I ever will.

In some ways I can’t stand the place. I’ve met some characters I’d never want to see again. I met people who will stop at nothing to screw over anyone in their path. Cambodia seems to be a place where theses people are making huge steps forward in society whether you like it or not. But what is coupled with that is fear. There is so much fear and distrust in the culture that it actually stops some people making any steps forward.

Let’s face it. I wasn’t too good with the whole hierarchy thing. I’m (as I’m sure everyone agrees) not overly surprised about that. I suppose in order to respect it you need to understand it. I found that people were often nice and sweet to your face and would then walk away and do what ever suited them. This seemed to be a common and accepted way of life that I often managed to upset.

I hate that curiosity and asking questions is not encouraged, especially, in schools. There is no thinking for themselves and no understanding of why things are right and wrong. They just are. For those who do step up and ask questions they seem to struggle the most in society.

It makes me angry because I imagine the place in 30 years time and just see the bad elements of society being pushed to the forefront.

But then on the other hand I absolutely love the place. I adore how hard the people work, especially the kids, picking up rubbish to make their money for the day to just go out and do it again the next day. They look like adults working hard and then you see this glimmer of an innocent child, laughing, joking, stealing fruit off the neighbours tree and trying not to fall out the tree at the same time. This alone could and often did make everything else seem trivial.

I loved witnessing the most underprivileged share with their brothers and sisters everything they had, making sure they got out the rain first, they got the first bowl of rice, that no one bullied them.

How nothing but simply raising my eyebrows could make a bunch a kids giggle.  Language doesn’t have to be verbal.

Unfortunately, my emotions have never been in the middle about Cambodia, its culture or its people.

I don’t think I’ll ever figure these people out and what has dawned on me over the past 5mths is that I don’t think a lot of the Cambodians know what is going on most of the time either. If they can’t figure out their own people I am pretty impressed with what I’ve learnt in 5mths.

I was always very realistic about what I was going to and what I came from but it seems that what it takes you months to get used to soon becomes a part of you and could takes you just as long to get back to normality again.

I was told I’d probably experience reverse culture shock but it hasn't been like I thought it would be. I knew what I was coming to in New Zealand, I knew how things worked here and was very realistic about the fact I was coming back to what is, by comparison, a rich country so haven’t really been taken by surprise by much except the lack of noise. There are no motorbikes, no “Tuktuk Lady?” every 5mtrs as I walk down the road, no rubbish man squeaking his rubber ducky at 5am as he walks down the road collecting what ever he can to sell and no Asian pop blaring out of mobile phones. The stimulation is a lot less and almost seems boring by comparison.

It’s no secret we have huge amounts of space in New Zealand, most of which is full up with sheep or rugby fields, but we also have a huge amount of personal space. It’s great to have my personal space back but is also a little strange as well. We interact with each other so much less and it takes so much longer to push out the boundaries. Simply smiling at someone means you’re crazy not that you are just acknowledging that they are there.  

It must have taken my body about 5 weeks when I arrived in Cambodia to keep food down and be able to process it. What no one tells you is that when you’ve only eaten curry, everyday for 5 mths, your body forgets how to process anything else. Chewing is a whole new, forgotten, experience.  

I’m frozen to the bone. As I flew over the Southern Alps to Christchurch I felt this shiver down my spine when I looked out the window and saw mountains with snow on them. I thought “Crap. I’ve not got any winter clothes!” There is wind, which is not connected to a monsoon, sun that’s not hot and sweaty and I’ve been covered in as much clothing as I can pile on since I stepped foot off that plane. The complete lack of humidity leaves your body thirsty for water all the time.

As cliché as it is, I walked past the house I grew up in this morning and was shocked when I thought about what we considered poverty to be.

But what has probably hit me the hardest is how easily you move onto the next phase and forget that there are 100s and 1000s of people still out there, and in a small office in Barry, Wales, continuing to do the work day in and day out.

Some decisions are easier to make than others

Over the past few weeks I’ve been faced with and have made some decisions that have changed my path.

A few weeks ago I got a call from my mother saying that my grandfather had a major stroke and was rushed into hospital. I received the news just before I went into a class and found it almost impossible to get through the class without falling apart.

I’m from what used to be a small town and grew up with my grandparents there for every part of my life whether it was a major or insignificant event, often being one of the only stable things around. I’ve always been very close to my grandparents and have missed them dearly the past 10 years I’ve been away from home. My grandfather unexpectedly stepped into a father role for me when I was 6 and as an adult was one of the only people in my family who I felt understood my decision to live on the other side of the world, himself originally being from Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Every time I leave New Zealand I say goodbye to people as if I will never see them again but I feel like I have been given an opportunity to go home and spend some much needed time and to say goodbye for what may be the last time.  How could you give that up?

One thing I’ve learnt from being here is that my family, and those who I’ve adopted as family over the years, are more important to me than I’d ever imagined. As much as I love doing this kind of work, if my own family and support network is not strong I am not able to help others as effectively as I’d like to be able to.

So I’ve made the decision to go on to New Zealand 5 weeks earlier than originally planned. My decision came down to one simple question. As harsh as it may be, what comes first, family or Cambodians who I may never see again?

Having spent so much time here around people who don’t have a family or have a disjointed family, often with people living on opposite sides of the country in order to earn money, I have a lot more respect and time for my own family and loved ones.  I’ve thought about my family a lot since being here and when I received the news from my mum I knew what I needed to do

It’s been hard to explain to the teachers and kids my desire to be with my family at this time as life here means something different and so many of them do not have grandparents. When I told them I was leaving I was given completely blanks looks. At first I was a little angry as I felt like they had no compassion but when I got home I realised that, as I’ve been learning over the past months, they value life in a different way. 

I’ve spent a lot of time working on the management of the project and teaching. The work has by no means been easy. I’ve battled through the intense heat, floods, snakes, scorpions, spiders, putting my foot in it over and over again culturally, volunteers throwing themselves out of tuktuks, being a woman in a male dominated environment, being sick, some way or another, the entire time I’ve been here – just to name a few! In some ways I feel like I’ve achieved everything and nothing all at the same time. It’s been a place of many challenges and very mixed emotions.  I’ve passed on a lot of skills to the founder so that he can better prepare for the unexpected and run the project on the ground more efficiently. I feel like I have passed on as much as I can and as much as he can take in. I’m now curious to see what changes he takes on and what he doesn’t.

The government is bringing in a new law to govern how charities are set up and run in Cambodia. I think it’s a great idea, some of the restrictions and requirements are too harsh for a non-government organisation (NGO) but at the same time there is absolutely no monitoring of NGOs going on here and they can basically do as they please. So in order to regulate them the government is brining in a bit of a controversial law. With the requirements that need to be met to register under the new law there is quite a bit of work to be done, especially for grassroots charities who do not have the finances to employ the manpower to complete the papers. Without the new registration, when the law comes into force, the charity in Cambodia will not be able to function.

I’ve worked on the different requirements needed for the registration but working in a culture where forward planning is not the norm, has been a challenge in itself. It’s been hard not just being able to fix the project, as I’m here to teach someone to do these things not do them for him and I’m so used to fixing things in my day job that need fixing. What I saw as issues they often did not see or were not capable of being able to look further ahead. The change in regulations will determine how the charity will run here and only time will tell what happens.

I’m finding it hard to step back, say goodbye to the kids who are so willing to learn, the teachers who have come on leaps and bounds with their English and teaching abilities and a community who have totally embraced me into their world.  All you get to take home are the photos and the memories.

I’m pretty sure about the things I’ll miss and won’t miss when I get back to civilisation again. The kids I’ll miss like crazy but I’m more than happy to leave the greed behind.

So sadly this week my time here comes to an end.  I’ve said goodbye to the kids who left me with huge hugs, smiles and a letter for my grandfather from one of the kids. In a few days I board a plane to Christchurch, a city which now looks very different to the one I left and to an old man I love dearly and can only help by being there and giving my time.

Weird and wonderful beliefs and rituals

Cambodians are a suspicious bunch and just generally have some strange rituals they perform. Often these ceremonies mean there will be public holidays associated with them or Cambodians just take the day off cos they feel like it and often do not see it necessary to tell you about it as they don’t understand that we don’t have the same rituals and beliefs in the West.

Cambodia has a mixed culture and a strong Chinese influence and a lot of the festivals they have, which are not Buddhist, are Chinese. It’s often hard to get any explanation as to why they are doing things or why a festival is taking place, as the Cambodians don’t question anything. They just do it whether they have an understanding of its importance or not.

Everything is based around luck, happiness and making offerings to the ancestors and Gods. Often buses stop so you can stop at sacred places to make offerings and pray/pay for good luck and happiness (you’re just meant to know when the bus is leaving cos there is no warning that they are going to announce they are moving on again). There is an expectation that everyone will want to pray to Buddha in a temple and they have little understanding as to why you wouldn’t want to.  They seem to have this fear of bad luck and I’m wished good luck by everyone I cross paths with. “Good luck to yoooouuuuu.” I hear it so much that I’ve realised I’m saying it too.

All businesses and common places, at some point, will have a blessing performed by the monks.

My guesthouse recently had a blessing, which lasted 3 days. There just seems to be a lot of chanting going on at stupid o’clock, a lot of incense burnt and the monks get paid a substantial sum to do the blessing. In some ways you can see the comfort it gives the Cambodians and can understand it from that point of view. However, the second day came as a wee bit of a surprise. As I went down for dinner the monks were sitting there talking away and here’s the dwarf monk getting stoned in the middle of the dining room. I wondered if this was part of the ceremony?!

I came down from my room one morning and could smell burning, which was a little strange as I couldn’t see any smoke. I followed the smell to the front of the guesthouse and saw the staff throwing money into a pot, which had flames coming out of it. Slightly confused I had to go a little closer to see why they were burning money and was curious as to how much it was. I thought, isn’t this a poor country and they are burning what money they do have? They told me they were burning money for their ancestors and the more money they burnt the better their (ancestors) lives would be in the after world. No wonder they all want to be rich. I’m not sure how their ancestors would be using Cambodian Riel and US dollars in their next life and what they needed to pay for?! Thank God it was all paper money. This was my first exposure as to how much value they put on the afterlife.

As you travel just out of the city you see house after house with these things tied to a fence or post outside of the house. I initially just assumed that they were scarecrows and were there to protect the rice crops but just not in the most logical place. Cambodia is a place where logic is often so far out the window this didn’t seem all that far fetched. As I started seeing them in front of houses which didn’t have rice fields I decided to ask questions and was told that they were put there to ward off the evil spirits and ghosts and bring a family good luck.

I didn’t tell the recent volunteers that the teachers genuinely believed in ghosts as it’s not exactly part of the orientation but later wished I had.

The volunteers decided to do some lessons with the teachers about story telling and covered fairytales, crime, non-fiction and ghost stories etc. They asked the teachers what each kind of story involved and when they came to ghost stories asked, “Are these stories true or not?” and were met with a unanimous “Yes. Of course.” They then spent the next 30mins trying to convince these 20 something males that ghosts were not real and couldn’t understand why they all believed they were and could not be swayed. The volunteers went home so confused that night and were laughing when they asked me “Do you know the teachers believe in ghost?” I can only imagine what the teachers thought of the volunteers after the lesson and the conversations over their dinner table! Going back in to teach the lesson the following day and approaching the ghost section again, when I’d then explained that ghost were a very important belief in Cambodian culture, the volunteers had to tread carefully and found all new levels of professionalism. 

The best thing is when someone asks me what a certain ritual or belief is in English as often I have no idea what they are on about and they have to explain. Some of the stories that come out are quite funny.

One day a teacher goes “Leah. What’s it called in English when you grill the baby?” and left me standing in front of a class of male teachers who were eagerly waiting for an answer. Trying to answer this one with my jaw not hitting the floor, laughing or thinking that they all abused children was a hard task. Usually, I automatically show my emotions all over my face. I asked him to explain what he meant and he went on to tell me how the mother lies on a wooden bed and they put a fire underneath her for the baby until the baby is gone. For a few seconds I thought that maybe this was one of the cultures where they ate the placenta (I wouldn’t put it past them).

It was so hard to find a balance between what they actually already know and answering questions they have honestly without crossing the cultural and professional line. I’m quite pleased I don’t get asked questions like this in my day job! This is however the teacher who asked what the word was for a man who caught a woman for sex.

Baffled as to what they were talking about I did more digging and finally came to understand that most women in rural areas have a home birth and after giving birth, the woman and newborn baby remain on the bed, warmed by charcoal heat from underneath and covered by curtains for a few days to one week. The mother and baby are segregated from normal life and are not allowed to bathe with cold water for the entire time.

They believe that this treatment improves their blood circulation and their skin becomes more beautiful.  Some even insist that it provides them with physical energy for the following months after childbirth.  But at the same time, the mother is able to take a complete rest during this period. 

They also put a heated stone, covered with cloth, on the mothers belly. As the charcoal burns out they hold “the fire ceasing ceremony,” or “the (baby’s) eye opening ceremony” On this day, the mother and her baby  appear in public, and the placenta, which has been kept for a while, will be buried in a suitable place by her husband following the advice of the local medicine man.

Remind me not to have children in Cambodia!

What exactly do you sign up for as a volunteer?

I’ve found that as a volunteer, especially a long term one, your job is never what you think it’s going to be. Finding where your job starts and ends, let alone when your day starts and ends is tricky, especially when Cambodians start their 6  working day week, at 6:30/7am and have no problem ringing you at this time. I usually have a clear 9am rule!

2 weeks ago 2 new volunteers arrived and have had a bit of a bumpy road since they arrived. I think Cambodia is a love it or hate it place and unfortunately it can change by the day. Even I still have mixed feeling about this place.  

They arrived late in the day and when Kassia went to her room and turned on her aircon it comes out with GRRRRR and then plop. Out of the aircon flies a fish, which lands on her floor. She then has to figure out how to get it off the floor and into er………the toilet? I found the whole thing quite amusing but have since learnt that Kassia does not like any creepy crawlies or animals for that matter, at all. She’s even tried to kill the gecko in her room.  We still haven’t figured out how a fish ended up in the aircon.

When they arrived the city was flooded and it only got worse as the first week went on. Flooding for a day is a little new and interesting but as day one was over and the water got higher and dirtier they were about done. I think the only reason they didn’t jack it in then was because they couldn’t get out of the city.

On their second day they decided to go for a walk around town to see what the place was like. The water was knee deep by this point and was a very murky brown colour.  Mille came back home with the  look of death on her face. “I hate this place!” She’d fallen in a pothole and landed waist deep in the water. Not the best introduction to volunteering or Cambodian life.

The journey to work has been a bit of a difficult one since the floods started. We drive down a road, which is surrounded by forest and has no streetlights, so at night the only light is from the tuktuk. There is a section of road, about 50m long, where the asphalt has ripped off the road from the current caused by the flooding. We decided that rather than battling through in the tuktuk we would get out of the tuktuk and walk over to meet the tuktuk on the other side. We started walking, using only the light of our phones, through floodwater and shingle and then Mille and Kassia start screaming. I just assumed they were being a wee bit girlie and started laughing. Mille was back in the tuktuk at lightning speed and Kassia was running through. As I got in the tuktuk the diver was laughing. I sat down and when all the laughing and screaming stopped they told me that they had seen a snake as we were walking through. I can’t honestly say I wouldn’t have reacted the same way as them if I’d seen it.

I’m getting over my fear of snakes big time and have been pushed to the limit a few times. I’ve had so many situations where I’ve had no choice.  I’m by no means saying I like them and would like to see them on a regular basis but I’m not so scared anymore.

When I was in Kampong Cham I got chased by a guy with a snake wrapped around his arm who thought it was funny to see how white I could get and clearly wanted to learn a few choice words in the process.

I was at a friends place the other day and his brother turns up with these bags and shuffles round the back of the house. I asked what he had in the bags and was met with the response “Cobra.” OH NO. 7 sacks with snakes in them!

The brother was a fisherman/snake catcher and sells them at the market. They are worth big bucks by Cambodian standards so the risk is worth it. They put the snakes in the bags in the bathroom and they were wriggling round like mad. They were pretty feisty. For some reason I had this uncharacteristic fascination with seeing what was happening. Then I looked on the floor and there was something moving. “What’s that?” “A turtle.” “What? They are endangered!” I think what I’m learning here is that when we talk about things being worldwide restrictions they are often only western world restrictions.

At different times I’ve treated some of the kids for simple cuts and bruises, which were not being treated at home. The kids at school asked if I was a Dr as I put Savlon on an infection on their foot.

The other day one wee girl I’ve been working with turns to some of us and tells us she is unwell with womens problems and asks if we can give her something to help.

It’s so hard cos from what I’ve learnt on a cultural level I can’t do anything and this would be crossing the line but then again they never talk about anything like that so the line has already gone out the window. So when the culture goes out the window what’s next? We decided that someone who spoke Khmer would talk to her parents on the weekend when they saw them and tell them that she needed proper medical treatment.

When I saw the girl on the Monday I asked what happened with the parents at the hospital and was told that their response was “I have no time to take her to hospital. I have other kids to look after and have to work. If you want her to go you take her.”

If a child is asking you for basic medical treatment what would you do? How can I say no? It’s even free for them.   I most certainly do not believe in rescuing people, more so now than ever, and think everyone has the ability to work themselves out of poverty but this was a child asking me to simply take her to the hospital for basic medication cos her parents couldn’t be bothered to go. Surely it’s a right to have treatment?

So we asked the girl if she wanted me to take her to hospital and she jumped at the opportunity to go. I made arrangements to meet her at the hospital the next day and when I turned up at the hospital her mother was standing there with a second child. She tried to dump a second child on me and told me she needed to see the Dr too. The guard kindly translated which should have been “I’m not their bloody mother or a babysitter. I agreed to take one not two. Grow up and be a parent.” and she stayed for the next 4 hours as we went through the hospital outpatient process.

As I’m sitting there with this family waiting to be seen all the other parents come over and ask who I am and why I’m there with Cambodian children. The mother starts having a conversation with some of the women and one lady turns to me and says “Big legs. Small middle” and shows me on her. She was surprised I had a smaller waist than her and I said “No baby” and she responded with a very inquisitive tone “No husband?” and I responded “Yes husband. No baby.” It’s so much easier to just say yes as they don’t seem to get it if you say you’re single or have a boyfriend at my age. Husband is just easier.  As the woman translated about 10 women went ”Ohhhhhhhhhhh.”

The doctors were amazing and the hospital incredible. 1^st World medicine for a 3^rd World country. The wee girl now has medication and I’ve done all I can. The question now is whether they give it to her or sell it. The latter is not so farfetched.

You can only do so much for people and I may have done the wrong thing but I’d do it over again in an instant.

I wondered if we should be buying TVs for these people as a form of aid and birth control. Maybe the boredom levels would drop, the educations levels increase and the birth rate drop?

Living with a disability in a country where everyone is disadvantaged

I grew up with people around me who had some form of a disability or another as my parents were both psychiatric nurses. I suppose this exposure at such a young age always made me treat everyone the same no matter who they were or what their disability was but also heightened a curiosity in me as to how people with disabilities function.  Being in the 3^rd world has been an interesting environment to watch this section of society deal with the day-to-day challenges that the world and the 3^rd world throws at them.

There are so many people here with disabilities but most of them are landmine victims. Seeing limbless people is now just the norm. I’ve spoken to people that are just simple victims, who have lost limbs, and then have spoken to people who planted the landmines and lost hands and fingers as they went off. Each person has a story. Some innocent. Some not so innocent. When I asked a guy who had his fingers blown off and had been left with small ball bearings in his chest and groin from a mine going off in his hands as he planted it, why he had planted the landmine he said “It was kill or be killed. What would you do?” I suppose if you’ve never been faced with this you will fortunately never know.

There is no doubt the kids here are cute and I love the energy they give me but there has to be one over and above all the others who I will always remember.

While I sat having dinner in Kampong Cham, on the banks of the Mekong, this wee boy appeared next to me and just stared at me. This happens a lot in Siem Reap and usually means that the kids are begging or trying to sell you something so I just went about my business. But the difference was this boy asked for nothing and after about 20mins of just staring at me and looking away when I looked at him he made eye contact with me and smiled. Then he pointed to his arms and my arm as if he was asking what was wrong with my arms (apparently there is something wrong with my skin cos I have freckles). I went to answer, as I do with anyone here, and he then signed that he could not speak or hear.

My sign language is basic and is Kiwi sign language, which is different to Khmer sign language, but I’ve been communicating with people who have not spoken the same language as me for months now so what difference would adding sign language to the mix be?

I spent the next 30mins with him telling me in some way or another his name, his age, how many brothers and sisters he had, that his parents were at home, that he went to school and that he could do circus acts. As he left he shook my hand, which was very western so I knew he’d either been doing his homework or been communicating with other westerners, smelled his hand then smiled, gave me the thumbs up and melted as if to go “hmm you smell good.”  

I was so impressed with the level of curiosity this boy had and how his disability didn’t hold him back at all. He was more pushy and craved to speak to someone more than the people here who are living with no disability.  The sad thing was that with no voice this kid was not even able to laugh. I could only tell he found something amusing by the expression on his face.

The education system here is not good enough to cope with the kids with no disabilities let alone a deaf and mute kid. I saw him the next day in a government run school uniform and wondered how they were catering for him, especially after one of my teachers asked me if his student was allowed to write with her left hand and what was wrong with her?

What I can’t understand is why there are so many different sign languages in the world. Apparently 200! People who are deaf are cut off from most people anyway. Wouldn’t it be better for there to be one sign language so that all deaf people could communicate no matter what country they came from? Surely it would make them less disadvantaged in the long run? Who thought this stupid idea up of having so many different sign languages? 

When I went to the Killing Fields in Phnom Penh there was a restaurant across the road from the entrance. I stood at the entrance with my mum and her husband and this wee girl came up to us with this leaflet advertising a restaurant across the road which was run by people with disabilities. As we walked in this guy comes rolling over in his wheelchair (or some contraption that looks like a wheelchair). He’d successfully set up a workshop and a restaurant, which was run by people with all sorts of disabilities.

As I watched him work and listened to his story I couldn’t help but compare him to all the other disabled people in the street here who don’t seem to be able to get out of the rut they are in and aren’t able to make a living for themselves outside of holding their hand out.

Wee girl handing out leaflets for the restaurant - photo taken by my mum.

The one thing that you come up against here more than I could have ever imagined is mental health problems. There are so many people here who suffer from some level of mental health problems and are struggling on a day -to-day basis. It may be simple depression or post traumatic stress disorder. A lot of the mental health problems seem to be a result of the violence and destruction experienced from the years of the Khmer Rouge being in power and the civil war, which only ended in 1998 when Pol Pot died. That means everyone my age has seen extreme violence and destruction. How can you see half of this and not expect there to be some form of mental health problems?

I’ve worked with a lot of characters over the years and am lucky enough to one day be one of those grandmothers who will have great stories but the guy who I’ve been working with here clearly has some mental health problems.  I don’t know what he has seen and experienced but I believe he has manic depression. I suppose like any job managing personalities is the main difficulty not the work itself. Battling through a culture and language I don’t understand let alone dealing with someone who has such extreme highs and lows is exhausting. I never know what I’m walking into and leave work totally zapped some days.

I can’t help but wonder how much awareness there is of mental health problems here. Everyone knows about physical disabilities but this is harder to explain. Especially if the people who are experiencing the mental health problems have no sense of the outside world and do not see, on the same level as an average westerner, how messed up some of the things were that they experienced and how messed up some of the things here are now.

It’s quite difficult here as the religion plays such a huge part of everything, especially, how the disabled are treated. Many Cambodians believe that those born with a disability did something wrong in a past life and are paying for it in this life. Some people understand that they have a disability and assist that person and do right by them and others have no desire to help others as it’s interfering with nature.

The longer I spend here the more I think being disabled does not mean that you need to be disadvantaged.

Is a leader born or made?

 No one is going to argue how important education is, especially those of you with kids, but is a bad education system better than no system at all?

The government in Cambodia has set up and runs schools all over the country but their system is seriously failing the Cambodians it’s been designed to help – the children.  Having a King who studied in Czechoslovakia, North Korea and France you would think more emphasis would be put on education.

The school system here is designed in a similar way to a Kiwi or British system except that they do it in 2 shifts. They take one lot of kids in the morning from 7-11am and another lot from 1-5pm.   The children must all wear a blue and white uniform to school which of course costs money. It may not be a lot of money but if a family survives by growing rice purely for themselves to eat or they are rubbish collectors who bring in $2 a day, on an extremely good day, how do you fight a losing battle?

What about those families who work as sex workers, in a country where birth control is almost nonexistent? The family size increases and there are more children who need to attend school.

On top of the school uniforms there is the added cost of the kids having to pay for all of the paper they use. It may not be that much and I don’t think a ‘free lunch’ works but it’s all added costs that people here do not have. 

So immediately you have a large section of society who can’t even afford to get their kids there in the first place and access the system. Thank god it’s not compulsory to attend.

But the biggest problem of all is that the teachers often do not turn up to school. Teachers are very respected in the community and are often untouchable.  A wee bit of power and they can do what they want and are not questioned. The culture is Do as I say, not do as I do, but when you get to my position you can abuse your power as well. So the kids are attending charity run schools so that they can pick up on where the government schools are failing them.

But sadly the charity run schools are failing the kids just as much as the government schools are.

With so many charities you would think that they could work together to create a better education for the children and adults who have missed out over the past few generations. In Siem Reap alone there are 300+ charities. Most of which are running a number of schools each.

Barely any of the charities are working together to capture more children and more communities. Their egos seem to be getting in the way of what they are actually saying they are trying to achieve. There are areas that are over run with schools and then areas that have not been touched at all. Many of the charity schools are run by people who are not on the ground trying to understand the culture they are working in and are being kept afloat by volunteers who fly in and fly out. 

Many are not even offering national qualifications, let alone internationally recognised qualifications, which the students can some day take with them.  Or the system that they are offering does not provide the child with a job, prospect of a job or even to know how to look for one when they finish school. So most of them are ending up doing the same job they would have done if they never received the education in the first place.

That of course happens in many countries. It is ultimately the individuals choice what they do with the education they have been given but the paths need to be there to open up when the education stops.

Where the charities and government are failing the monks seem to be taking in a lot of the boys who cannot afford to go to school. But it makes me wonder, how are they supporting these kids, how many can they take in and should a child have to leave their family to go live in a temple just to get an education? 

Providing an education here does not stop at teaching English and Khmer. There is a huge knock on effect. You then need to consider also teaching simple hygiene – installing the facilities for this, simple finance, family planning - that’s culturally sensitive and most importantly a food programme. You cannot expect any results in a class from kids who are hungry. So if you’re in, you’re in for the long haul.

There are many people here who sponsor individual children to go through the education system. I’ve questioned many a time whether it is a good idea to sponsor an individual child or to sponsor a school and then allow more children to be given an education and opportunity. Surely to grow a community is a much better than an individual but at the end of the day every community, group and organisation needs a leader.

I’ve met so many kids since I arrived that they all seem to mould into one but there are some kids that just have this glimmer of hope in their eye. This spark that says “if you give me half a chance I will run with it and make something of myself.”  I can’t help but be drawn to this fighter spirit.

There are these two kids at Touch a Life who have been born into a life of poverty and work as rubbish collectors. This is the lowest of the low in Cambodia. Seeing the kids working so hard in rubbish at an age they should be at school, playing with their friends and are so innocent is heartbreaking. You see them in the street working and they seem like grown men at the age of 10 but then they walk in the gates at Touch a Life and you see the pure innocence of a child.

I knew there was something about these two wee boys that I liked but couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Then I heard that they were working as rubbish collectors and on the side cleaning peoples shoes. They had invested in shoe polish and brushes and had started their own business. When asked why they were cleaning shoes they said that they could work half as long with less effort and for more money if they did this as well. At 10 and 14 that’s fighting spirit if ever I saw it.

Because women here are seen as second class citizens and are widely ignored they seem to be able to better themselves quietly with no one feeling overly threatened by them and are leaps and bounds in front of the guys. The classes I’ve attended are a good 70% female dominated.

From the women that are given a skill and a chance they are bettering themselves by learning and creating a better standard of living for their family. Most of the girls want to do jobs that will help people and their communities develop and they can give back in the long term. They seem to have an ability to think about the future in a completely different way to the guys. While the men are also learning new skills, given the opportunity to leave and better themselves they take it and don’t seem to return but the women return to their villages, set up a business and pass on the skills therefore bettering the village as a whole.

The women seem to be the answer to community based development in Cambodia.

Whilst there is no doubt that education is important, it expands the mind, provides for communities in the long term, is the answer to a lot of problems and ultimately opens doors I can’t help but wonder if it’s all at some point been taken too far in the West.

At the age of 14 I left school for 6 months as I was very sick and as a result was left so far behind with most subjects I couldn’t catch up. I went back to school part time until I was 17 and then left all together.  Any study I’ve done after that I did in the evenings.

There is no doubt I’ve met some great people who have helped me a lot to get to where I am but I also worked my arse off to get there and be the person I am today. I’ve never done things by halves and doubt I’ve ever got a job because of the education on my CV. In fact, it’s created a lot of problems for me, especially in London, but once I get in somewhere I’ve managed to get people to forget about the lack of letters after my name and employ me for me.

So education in Cambodia is a good start, but, there needs to be doors that will open at the end of it otherwise these kids will just end up where they started.

Whilst I think a good standard of education should be offered to all is education simply about going to school and about how many letters you can get after your name? Or is it about creating opportunity for yourself and those that you see potential in and running with it? Some of us learn just as much, if not more, out in the world than we ever would do in the classroom.  

So I’m left with the question…………..Is a leader born or made?

The rains came down and the floods went up again

The floods here have been really bad the past 2 weeks with Siem Reap even hitting the 6 o’clock New Zealand news and the Guardian in the UK.  

Where I live is prone to flooding, apparently the Tonle Sap Lake, in the middle of the country, doubles in size each year, but all of the Cambodians I’ve spoken to are saying it’s the worst they have ever seen with reports that 150 people have died and 100s more have been bitten by snakes in the water.

It started to rain last Friday and the water was over ankle deep in some places within an hour. By the time I decided it would be safe to cycle back home from work my feet were entering the water as the bottom of my peddle was closest to the ground. It took so long to cycle home cos everyone was trying to get out and home at the same time and you couldn’t see any potholes, which are a problem when it’s dry and you can see them. 

After a few hours of rain I decided I would go out to have a look, as there were reports it was knee deep in some places. I just couldn’t understand how that could happen in such a short period of time. I got on my bike, got to the end of the road and it was already knee deep. And I live on higher ground!!  I rode my bike as best as I could another 50m and you could see Cambodians evacuating their homes from the south, carrying bags in their hands and on their heads. It was quite a sight.  There were also reports that people just north of the city were being evacuated in boats. Where were they all going?

I went to Kampong Cham, which is a city that the Mekong runs through, for a few days last week and decided that the best way to see the place was going to be on foot and by bike. In just a few hours I covered over 40km.

The journey there was incredible. Areas that I travelled through with my mum just a month ago were flooded and what was once rice fields now just looked like a never ending lake. Rice fields and feed for the animals have all been wiped out within days. What’s scary is that most people here are farmers to fed themselves not to sell it on.

As I rode my bike over the bridge from one side of the Mekong to the other the first house I came across had water up to the roof. I continued on and saw 100s more houses , and this is just on the roadside, that were in the same condition. About a km down I came across a tent city which appeared to be where everyone had moved to. There were 100s of shacks made from bamboo and plastic. It looked as though people had used what ever they could find to make shelter.   

The water in Cambodia is by no means clean or drinkable and if you do drink it you’re almost guaranteed to get sick.  It’s not something I’d choose to spend too much time in.  What amazes me is that they will eat things that live in it, with fish being a major part of the Cambodian diet, and they wash in the water. I’ve watched the Cambodians lather themselves up with soap in the dirtiest water and wondered if they will be any cleaner when they get out than when they went in.

One reason the water is so dirty is because the sewage system here is so basic for the places that even have one and the second major reason is rubbish.  The water is FULL of rubbish.

Everything in Cambodia comes in a plastic bag. Drinks, ice, food etc. There is no getting away from it. When the Cambodians are done with it they throw it wherever they feel like and it get just sits there for years. You can see years and years of rubbish lying around the place.

With the floods the rubbish that was thrown out the window or tuktuk is now floating in the street and everyone has to pass through it. I’ve seen all sorts float past me. Things you should not have to see.

You see the occasional rubbish truck arrive but they’re inconsistent and I’m not sure anyone knows what it is and where it’s going. I still haven’t figured out what they do with it once they take it away. There is however a company called GAEA who have rubbish collectors all over the country especially Siem Reap. These people work incredibly hard from 12 hours a day, 6 days a week. They barely ever get a break and if they miss work for any reasons they are fined per day. There is a group of about 40 of them that arrive at Touch a Life every Monday, Wednesday and Friday for lunch. This has been happening for years and the workers stay no longer than about 30mins each day but their company have now told them they are not to come to Touch a Life for food anymore. They have instead told them that they will be given 37.5c a day for food. Whilst things here do not cost that much 37.5c will only buy a handful of rice in comparison to 2 servings of rice, curry and egg at Touch a Life for free. For a western company running a business here you would assume that they would care about the people and have slightly better standards than some of the Cambodian run companies. Without these very hard working people Siem Reap would be even more of a rubbish dump.

There is a big attitude here of if you don’t know about it, if you don’t talk about it and it’s not having an impact on you right now don’t worry and they will not think any further forward about their actions.  This attitude is not restricted towards rubbish. I find this an interesting attitude for a Buddhist culture.

But what’s a little water? We’ve still got to work right?  Touch a Life still needed to deliver food.

We loaded up the jeep and took off as usual with people in the jeep and the motorbikes following behind. Little did we realise what awaited us.

The ground in Mondul 3, the area they deliver to on a Saturday, was covered in pools of stale, stagnant water and as we were driving through it was almost coming in the jeep. The guys on the motorbikes came off a few times. Even with the soft, soggy sand we were doing well but then the driver of the jeep drove over some ground that was like a swamp and the jeep stopped and wouldn’t move. We tried pushing it back out but the driver floored it and it just went deeper and deeper into the mud. The funniest things was all of the men who were trying to get it out couldn’t/wouldn’t communicate with each other and just let the jeep go deeper and deeper into the mud just cos they were too pig headed to work together.   I’m a girl so obviously, according to them, I know nothing about how to make the situation any easier so I went and sat by and watched them get further and further into trouble.

Then out of nowhere comes one of the guys we deliver food to who must be in his mid 70s and has TB. He’s as skinny as you could imagine. What I found the most funny was that he, in his state, was allowed to help, but I was not.

Finally after about an hour of working on getting the jeep out they managed to free it from the mud.  The driver turns it around and takes off through this lake of water and we have to wade through it to get back in the jeep and deliver the remaining 200+ meals. I pull my pants up so that they don’t get wet and as I’m walking through, lean over to one of the others and say “That smell is awful.’ We all knew we were walking through sewage. You can’t mistake that smell. 

I’ve always been one of those people that mucks in and gets shit done but I never imagined I’d be mucking into the shit to get the job done.

Last time I was out there at this one village I was teaching one of the girls how to count in English as they need to tell you how many people they need food for. So she turns up with her two front teeth having rotted away from sugar (the Cambodian diet is full of pure palm sugar that the kids suck on and sugar cane drink) and says “Iv. Iv.” And held up her had to say 4. So we started all over again with her numbers.   Then I tried doing them backwards from 5-1 and she was totally confused. As I went she grabbed my hand and counted my fingers “One, two, eight, ten, four” and looked me in the eye with this massive grin on her face as if to say “Look at me counting.”

After walking through sewage, getting the jeep stuck in the mud/sewage, night coming in and knowing that the last village is the worst village for being water logged (it was knee deep weeks ago before the river burst it’s banks so cannot imagine how it is now) we waiting at the entrance of the village with the food and the people came to meet us. What I constantly find amazing is that these people come walking out of areas that I would never dream of living in or having to raise my family in with these massive smiles on their faces.

I often wonder if the water and rubbish will ever be cleaned up. I wonder if the Cambodians have enough vision to see how things could be with clean drinking water and clean rivers to swim, wash and fish in. In some ways to me it looks as if it’s a situation of if it aint broke don’t fix it but then it could also be that they’ve never known any different so why would they strive for better?

Tonight all the shop owners are sandbagging up again as we’ve been told, that just as the water had started to go away, we are to expect our third bout of flooding tomorrow and the next day as a result of the typhoons hitting China, Vietnam and the Philippines.

You’ve got to wonder how much more of a battering this place can take. Who is helping to pick up the pieces of these natural disasters after the journalists leave when it stops being new news?

To see pic the Guardian has posted please go to the following link:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2011/oct/02/cambodia-worst-floods-decade-pictures?fb=native#/?picture=379788825&index=0

I’ve also posted some new pics on the following link;

Cambodia by elephant, motorbike, bus, bicycle, foot..........

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.279574868727114.73860.100000238085236&l=5fd863f466&type=1

and a few additions to;

Volunteering – Is this really what I signed up for?

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.263051757046092.70027.100000238085236&l=7ac3dcfa35&type=1

Are the results more important than how you got there?

I’m learning that corruption comes in many forms.  First you see the desire for more, then the lies, then the greed (actually 2 and 3 often go hand in hand), and finally, unless their conscience kicks in, they take that leap over that very fine line to the backhanders.

With Cambodia being number 154/178 (178 being the most corrupt) on the Transparency International World Corruption Index I’m not sure why I’m so surprised. I suppose cos NZ is number 1 it’s very hard to step away from that mentality and try to understand it. And that’s if you want to understand it.  

For a country that needs so much help it’s hard to find those organisations that are genuine. Charities are BIG BIG business here with 300+ in Siem Reap alone. Finding the right charity to support takes time and patience.

Desire, I can understand, as we all have something in us that makes us want to be better/have something better in some aspect of our lives. But the greed here is unbelievable.  A small glimmer of how money can change someone’s life can make them make some life changing decisions.  Greed in someone’s eyes is like looking evil right in the face. It’s a very haunting look. 

I’ve watched people, who have little themselves, give amazing donations to people and communities only to be met with “Ah. Is that what you are donating?” Books to schools, toilet blocks for communities where the communities of 200+ people are going to the toilet and fishing in the same black stream. It appears that even though donations to the community may be needed and wanted by all the villagers there is more often than not someone who handles the money who may inflate the price, say no these things are not wanted or will insist the money be given direct to them instead of being given as gifts or have actual things built.

No one is safe from this. I’ve watched even the most respected and ‘holy’ people change and be absorbed by greed. The power and respect also gives people an inflated position in the community which then means that they are untouchable and their perspectives on what is ethical or they are entitled to can become blurred. People may start off with the best intentions but can easily become ‘bad apples’.

I get charged the volunteer rate at the market which is of course inflated, but expected, but I’ve watched these ‘caring’ people who are ‘only doing good for the poor children’ scrape money off the top and not give communities what volunteers have paid for. How do people have the communities interests at heart when they are stopping the building and running of basic schools and sanitation, which would prevent most of the community from being struck my serious illness?

We joke about how Asians often say ‘Yes’ to everything, even though they have no idea what we’ve asked, just so that they don’t show that they don’t understand. It’s no doubt frustrating but I’ve been watching this go the extra mile. Often ‘Yes’ means that you can avoid giving people an honest answer and it keeps westerns quiet for a wee bit longer and the money continues coming in. 

The sad thing is that corruption, in whatever form it comes in, could be mistaken for being cultural which it most certainly is not. But if things continue on the route they are going you can see how it has the potential, over generations, to become cultural.

A friend told me a few weeks ago that I just needed to deal with the fact that corruption was here and to just pay any money asked. I can safely say that any money I earned for the project was done so honestly and do not intend to start paying backhanders anytime soon. This is an NGO not a private business. Maybe I’m being stupid but how can I come home, hold my head high and ask people to sponsor projects if I myself do not believe in them?! Trust takes years to be built but can be shattered in an instant.

I’ve cried out of frustration some days at what I’ve heard, seen and experienced and the injustices I’ve seen by Cambodians against Cambodians but then have to remember that as many people there are in the world that want to work in this way there is 100s more that don’t want to. They are out there but they are usually the ones that you hear about through word of mouth because they are too busy doing the actual work that they are meant to be doing.

The Australian couple that I’ve met here sponsor a few projects and have taken me under their wing and shown me a different Cambodia.

They picked me up the other morning and as I got in the tuktuk there was a beautiful Cambodian woman of about 38 sitting there smiling at me. There was something about her calm nature that I instantly like.

She was an orphan who worked for different NGOs around Siem Reap, from the age of 7, translating English and Khmer for the volunteers. She saw the other kids begging and promised herself she would be an educated woman and would make something of herself.  Well, that she has done 10x over.

She’s set up a Khmer run school and invited us out to see the second school she was setting up.

We drove for about 45mins down dirt roads, which had become mud. When we got out we had to trudge through very deep, black, stagnant mud up to our ankles to get to the new school. All I could think was, no wonder Dengue Fever is such a problem in this country if this is how people live! We’d walked for about 5mins and as I looked to my right I could see a green and red painted bamboo hut, which is meant to be a school. It was so basic. 3 rooms which will educate 85 children (built for just US$500) which will be up and running as soon as they can level the ground around the school to get rid of the ponds of stagnant water and build a toilet block, for obvious reasons, and to teach health and hygiene to the kids.    

As I stood there and looked at these classrooms and listened to this woman this wave of emotion came flooding over me and tears started to slowly roll down my cheeks.  Some of it was sadness, some anger and some frustration, as I felt I’d not seen Cambodians for who they actually are. I stopped believing that any of this was possible. One, because I kept being told this was not the Cambodian way and two, because I’d met so many roadblocks in the past 3 months which indicated to me that people did not want to help themselves.  

The Australian couple took one look around and said they would do these things for her so the schools will be open and educating the kids by the end of October/early November.

I don’t know what it is but any donation, whether it is big or small, still makes me speechless.

We then carried on our journey to a school she set up 10 months earlier. The area, just outside of Siem Reap, was absolutely revolting and the stench made you gag. You could almost taste the lack of sanitation in the area.

I walked into her office and all I saw as I walked in the door was 10 brightly coloured files. I stopped. Speechless and the tears rolled down my cheeks again. Progress. In just 10 months she has set up 4 classrooms, has established a fully functional volunteer programme and detailed accounts you would expect to see in London. In her late 30s, and in just 10 months, this woman was now educating herself in how to run a business and was doing an amazing job. The standard of English these kids were speaking, in comparison to other schools I’ve seen, was outstanding. The difference was/is that this woman is willing to learn, to change and her end goal was not to get money in but to actually educate the children and continue to do so for generations to come.

I asked her how much it cost to run the 4 original classrooms per month and she said nothing. What I later established was that all of her material came from volunteers who’d visited the project, all teachers were paid by sponsors and she was absorbing the running costs, which we’re US$35 per month for electricity. She’s turned off her family fridge and told her kids they could buy cold water at the shop for 2c a bottle, so that the students could have fans in the class. When given a donation for a new toilet block she rang the person that made the donation and asked how she could return the US$20 that was left over!! Well this was all a bit new.

What set this woman apart from the rest is her honesty and willingness to learn. You can only help those who are willing to help themselves. It shows that if you are willing to grow and your desire to do this is genuine things can be achieved. This is a place I’d like to come back to in 5 years time.

The People you meet along the way – Part 2

Like I said before everyone seems to know or recognise me around here now. Maybe a sign that I’ve been here too long?  

Down at the corner shop I’ve met two sisters who are around my age and have great English. As I see them almost everyday we’ve built up a relationship and decided to take them out for a few drinks after work with Leo, another volunteer.

We were quietly, as quiet as 4 girls can be, sitting down having a few drinks and Leo comes out with a rude word in Khmer that we’d been taught (my Khmer is coming along a little better than just the rude words) the night before. The two Khmer girls shut up very quickly and just stared at us and asked how we knew that word.

This then prompted a conversation I was not expecting at all. The girls both in their early 20s started asking me and Leo questions about sex. Leo is Dutch, need I say more, and me, well I’m too open and honest for my own good sometimes but this was a difficult situation to be in as the questions they asked were very simple so we said “Don’t you girls discuss these things at home between yourselves?” “Oh no.” “What about when you get married surely you’re been told what will happened and what to expect?” “No”. They knew absolutely nothing about anything. 

As shocked as I was I found it the whole thing was quite sad. In a country with the highest HIV problem in South East Asia why were they not discussing simple sex education at home? If it’s a taboo subject between friends, especially the more advanced city girls, how on earth are they meant to deal with this increasing issue?

So they seem to have this problem, as I’ve mentioned before, of the men frequenting brothels and now the women not discussing, let alone being aware of, simple sex education and what is expected of them and their partner.

It was really hard to find a line between answering their questions truthfully and not giving them so much information that we scared them. As much as I thought it was important they had some element of sex education and they were asking us direct questions and looked at us with big wide eyes. It was clear they were very sheltered and we would be starting from scratch.

Leo and I were very tactful and managed to share as much information as we felt was necessary for a first conversation.  How much information can you give someone that has the sex education of a 5 year old?

I’m sometimes a wee bit too much of a YES person. Sometimes it can really pay off and sometimes you just wonder what on earth you’ve gotten yourself in to!

I met this young Khmer girl on a project I went to visit last week. She was so sweet and just wanted to talk to me for hours. When I left she asked me to go and visit her family to which I agreed.

She lives about 400m from Angkor Wat Temple behind some trees that line the main road to Bayon Temple (for those that have been, right behind the elephant stand before the bridge to Bayon). She told me she was close but I never realised how close. 1000s of people travel past her house every day and the tourists have no idea they are there. I’ve been here for 3months and never knew. What I later learnt was that they receive no financial benefit from the tourists unless they want to become sellers like everyone else. 

Her parents were lucky enough to have jobs that were not reliant on the tourists. The father is a local medicine man who makes medicine from plants. Their kitchen floor was covered in different barks which they brews up to makes teas and pastes.

The mother does something to do with Buddhism. I haven’t quite figured it out yet but from what I gather she makes and sell things for people to leave as offerings at the Pagoda and prays for people too for which she cannot ask for money but if people offer money she can take it. They live a very simple life so their daughter helps support the family.

As I sat there her mother, father and neighbours all come to meet me and ask me questions. I must have spent 3 hours answering questions about myself.

They were so funny. The mother would only speak about my body shape for about 30mins. She told me that when I got married it would go and how I had a good “virgin body” to which I just smiled.

They were all very sweet and asked if I would join them at the Pagoda this week for the start of one of the Buddhist festivals and if I would go away with them at the end of October. Me being me I agreed, it’s all experience, but little did I know what I was agreeing to.

So the following day I got up at 5:30am rode my bike to the Khmer market (I say that as I was the only white person there and everyone kept asking my friend who I was and where I was from) to buy my Sunday Best for the Pagoda. I thought we’d be shopping for a while but I was ushered into one small, 2m by 4m, shop with traditional dresses from floor to ceiling. Then it all started. “You love this one? You love that one?” All I could think was “None of these are me.” So they pick me out a few as I have no idea what is appropriate for me to wear and a curtain is pulled around me. Next thing I have this meringue like thing on and they are all going “Ohhhhh beautiful.”  The only thing I can compare this experience to is how I imagine it would be shopping for your wedding dress with a really overbearing mother and mother-in-law.

After trying on loads of different outfits I managed to get something kind of normal and the response they all gave me was “Oh that’s quite simple.” They have still to learn the less is more rule here.

As my dress was getting altered the girl goes to me “Oh you’re not so big. You just look big.”

We’re now on day 5 and the waters around Siem Reap have not gone down and I live 12km from the lake that has overflown. I’m wondering when they will go down as there is still 2 months of the rainy season to go.  The Cambodians seem to be taking it all in their stride. Businesses are still operating as usual just with a few sandbags out the front for those that can afford it. I now understand why all the houses are on stilts.

The kids seem to be loving the water. They are playing in it all over the city and don’t seem to care what is in it. The big problem is that almost every Cambodian I’ve spoken to cannot swim.

One of the girls, Sudgear, who works were I live tried to make her way home, which is closer to the lake, last night but had to stop and turn back when she got to water up to the middle of her thighs. She thinks the water around her house will be up to her waist considering what she has seen so far.

As she made her way back to work she noticed 2 young kids playing in the water. What the kids and no one else knew was that they were playing very close to the banks of the river and as the wee boy, of about 10, stepped to one side he dropped down and was swept away by the river. The boy screamed out for help but no one including Sudgear could help as they didn’t know how to swim. So this boy was dragged under and is now presumed dead. They have yet to find a body.

I suppose teaching someone to swim doesn’t really come that high up on the agenda here. So Sudgear and I have spoken and this week we start swimming lessons for her and anyone else that wants to come. Years of being a swimming teacher and lifeguard are now paying off.