Recovery Process

I read and read and read about the history of Cambodia before I came out here and I think it’s given me a little more understanding of the ideas the people I am working with have and why they react and/or think the way they do.

Some of you will know the history of Cambodia and Pol Pot but most of you will be my age so will not have heard about it in detail. In short, while he was in power anyone with any education, and form of knowledge or skill was killed. All foreigners were expelled from Cambodia, embassies closed, and any foreign economic or medical assistance was refused. The use of foreign languages was banned. Newspapers and television stations were shut down, radios and bicycles confiscated, and mail and telephone usage curtailed. Money was forbidden. All businesses were shuttered, religion banned, education halted, health care eliminated, and parental authority revoked. Therefore sealing Cambodia off from the outside world. An estimated 2 million people were killed. That’s about half the population of New Zealand!

If you want to know more, the following link is great. It sums Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge up in about 2mins. http://www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/genocide/pol-pot.htm

Taking into account what was taken away from theses people, Cambodia and the Cambodians seem to be keen to move forward and leave their past behind, whilst not forgetting it. Some days this place feels like it’s changing by the day and then some days I’m quickly thrown back into the reality that there is a huge lack of knowledge and any ‘thinking outside the box’ is not going to happen any time soon. And I’m working in the village, 15km outside of Siem Reap, where more people have only been to the city a few times.

This can simply been seen at the markets where every second stall is selling the same goods. They do not see that if they sold the same trousers as the woman 2 stalls down but put pockets in them, that they would reach a different audience and would have a little more bargaining power, instead they are all in the weaker position of having to undercut each other.

With all medical professionals wiped out under the Khmer Rouge there is a huge lack of knowledge within the health sector and those that do possess some knowledge lack the resources to be able to do their job properly. They are doing the best they know how with the knowledge and resources they have. As a result of lack of knowledge of simple healthcare, Cambodia is one of the hardest hit aids countries with an estimated 100 new cases a day! Needles are reused, not sterilized and donated blood is rumoured to not be checked before being used. I’m sure the brothel outside my place is adding to the epidemic! I’ve heard a lot of the volunteers and tourists say “if I get sick, send me to Thailand. I’ll pay”

I am by no means doubting that these people need money. That is very clear! But it needs to go into the right hands and just handing over money will not allow the Cambodians to grow. They need that money to go hand in hand with skill and knowledge so that they can provide a better future for their children and their childrens children. However, this has to be done slowly and the people need it to be done gently so that they can learn and try things for themselves rather than having a westerner turn up, fix something and leave. This is being done all over the place and is by no means sustainable. What happens when that westerner leaves? What knowledge was passed on?

These are the issues I will be faced with everyday. As mentioned before, I’ve not really had any culture shock as such but the lack of knowledge is not something I could have prepared myself for. It’s totally caught me off guard and is something that comes up in the classroom all the time.  It’s important to bear in mind even if you manage to change one persons way of thinking and how they work, live, think etc. that person still has to live in the wider community where others do not think like that. This will be an issue I will face when we really start looking at the finances and what opportunities there are for trade.

The Principal of the schools was telling me about the history of the project and the issues they have faced to date and when I questioned him about some of the money and how long it was going to last, how long people had offered to support him with different bits and pieces his response was “Well you know I used to be a Buddhist Monk and we do not talk about money”. OH FUCK!! OK here we may struggle a little and how do I get him to change his attitude?  Roadblock number 1. 

Welcome to the 3rd world

In some ways I can’t believe I’ve been in Asia a week already and in other ways I feel like I’ve been here for months.  I suppose the idea of making your home wherever you are at that time is useful advice. 

I flew into Bangkok and travelled overland to Siem Reap last weekend. I wanted to travel to Cambodia overland as I felt I needed time to unwind from London life, it’s a lot cheaper and also wanted to take in the scenery. I’m not sure I will be doing it like that again though. The border is easy, it’s just the stops and all the guys along the way that are trying to make a quick buck that are the problem. My bus stopped short of the border and we were told that we were not leaving til 3.30pm (it was 11am) unless we wanted to take a taxi to Siem Reap, but we would have to pay extra for this. Everyone on my bus paid the extra money, which was double what I’d paid for my ticket, except me and another Canadian/Cambodian guy. My response being “I’m here for 6mths. I’m in no hurry” and also thinking they were taking the piss.  So much to everyone elses surprise, they didn’t get a taxi but ended up on the same bus as me, and now for double the price. Again at the border the bus driver and his many men tried to get everyone to pay for their visas. They were not having a good day with me as I already got mine in London. I felt like the Queen Bee as they seemed to think I was an easy target. Boy had they taken on the wrong blonde that day. The Canadian/Cambodian guy kept laughing at me and the situation and said “You certainly know what you’re doing”. I wasn’t going to tell anyone I had no bloody idea!

So 8 hours later, some god awful Cambodia equivalent of Eminem blaring out all they way from the border, a four hour journey, I arrived in Siem Reap, my home for the next 6mths, in what appeared to be the monsoon season starting early. It was like the heavens has opened up and every god there was punishing their people all at once. Soaked right through! What my brain couldn’t comprehend was how it was still 32 degrees and it was raining? They’ve told me it will be like this everyday til November.

A lot of people told me before coming out here how I will struggle with Cambodia and not having the basic comforts I’m used to so I came with very low and what I thought were realistic expectations. Much to their surprise, rather than mine, I’ve not really noticed it that much at all though. There is obviously poverty, it’s the 3^rd world, one of the poorest countries in Southeast Asia and it’s a country that has only recently come out of war, but it’s as you expect. No one feels sorry for themselves and their lack of “stuff “ by western standards, so why would or should I? After 6 days I’m already used to seeing 4 people on a motorbike, avoiding crater size potholes, only drinking bottled water, the noise and changing my routine to avoid the heat.

Siem Reap is an interesting city. It of course suffers from extreme poverty but there is also a massive divide between the rich and the poor. It makes you wonder who is actually benefitting from the mass tourism that has been thrust upon this city…………………………………

As I walked into my guesthouse there were frogs and lizards everywhere. There is a garden in the middle of the building where all of the frogs gather at night and the sound they make is deafening. I’ve been able to unpack and this place will be my safe haven for the next 6mths whenever I need to escape the realities of Cambodia.  I knew I’d come across things I may find a little hard and will have to come to terms with but as I closed the door to my room I was greeted with a sign saying “Having sex with a child is abuse and is a crime”. Hmm ok. So I knew this was something that would be faced with during my stay but not so immediately. The only real issue I have is that I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that I’m not going to have any hot water for 6mths but I assume that I will be get more than my fair share of that in the monsoon rain.

I was prepared to get sick, especially to have stomach problems, while here but unfortunately I’ve been sick most of my first week. My stomach has been fine but I’ve been bitten to pieces, even though I’ve taken every precaution I could possibly take. I’m not sure if it’s mozzies, bed bug or red ants but I’ve got about approx 300 bites and counting on me. If I’d never had chicken pox before I would have assumed that’s what I had. I’m assuming it’s the village mozzies who like a wee bit of sweet kiwi blood as no one in the city is having the same problems as me. Whatever it is that’s biting me I seem to be allergic to and the bites have become infected. So my body is chocoblock with whatever medication it can take at the moment and I think I’ll hit the wall in about 2 weeks.   

While in Cambodia one of my jobs will be to assist the Khmer teachers with their English. The main village I am working in is a protected village within the Angkor Wat boundaries. My new drive to work sure beats the tube everyday! There are approx. 300 families in the village and the majority of them are rice farmers or palm tree climbers. They start work in the rice fields at about 5:30am and finish just before sunset, which is around the same time as the schools start.

The teachers have lessons with me from 2-4pm daily and then classes for the children are from 5-7pm. The children are often late as their parents keep them in the fields as long as they can due to their high labour value. Classes are approx. 100 kids a class and are predominately female as it’s more economical for the families to let the girls leave the fields to attend school rather than the boys. 

The teachers all work in the rice fields in the morning with their families and then come to class. I’m always amazed at how perky they are when they arrive. Theses guys are doing an amazing job. They have all worked as volunteer teachers for approx 2 years. The teachers are quite funny and seem to have got used to my sense of humour quite quickly. I’ve just learnt I can’t take the piss out of myself at all as they just don’t get it. They seem to have no shame in asking me every question under the sun, no matter how inappropriate I think it might be but I’ve quickly learnt that it’s not reciprocated.

It’s been amazing how quickly the children and their families have embraced me into their community.

On my first day I was sitting outside the classroom and a girl asked the guy I was with what was wrong with my skin.  I explained that there was nothing wrong with my skin, I just had freckles and that it was normal for people that have a Scottish background, that they were just like the spots she had on her nose, but I just had them all over my body. Then suddenly, the woman grabs one arm and the guy grabs another and I start to think “Oh shit this is that part in the movies where they usually sacrifice the foreigner cos they believe they are possessed by the devil”.  She then, with her wet hand, tries to rub them off. Maybe that’s the part where they expected me to go “I’m melting”?

After my first day meeting the teachers and students I went back to the Principal’s house and suddenly this plate of food was presented to me. “Oh shit. It’s fish and I can’t be rude” was what went through my head (for those that don’t know, I don’t eat fish). So in order to not offend on my first day in the village I managed to eat as much as I could of this plate of fish. They must have noticed I was avoiding the fish and only eating the rice but nothing was said. The next meal out and the first words out of my mouth were “I don’t eat fish. I don’t eat fish”. I knew I couldn’t do it again.   

On my 4^th day at school one of the girls comes running up to me and gives me a picture she has drawn of me which says “I LOVE YOU” on it in English and Khmer. The same day the kids just overloaded me with fruit that they brought to school. Half of the fruit I ate I’d never seen or heard of.

On my last day at the school (I’m rotating schools weekly) one of the boys turned up with a rice cake made from rice and palm sugar in the shape of a love heart.

Then on the Saturday I went to visit the village where I would be spending the following week. We stopped at a villager’s house and suddenly there were 15 kids that came out from behind the bush to meet me. They had all seen me walk up the track to the village and followed us to the house. They presented me with this enormous coconut (bigger than my head) with a straw hanging out the top of it. 1 lesson (playing games in a temple) and 4 hours later I finally finish this coconut. 

I’m amazed by the generosity of the Cambodians. Those who have nothing to give but seem to find you something, anything, to share with you and make you feel welcome as a guest in their house. 

For those of you that have not seen the photos yet please use the link below;

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/set=a.232662603418341.64005.100000238085236&l=8857e43198