A Family Affair

I went to Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, last weekend to have a wee break with my mum and her husband Dave, who I hadn’t seen in almost 3 years.

Phnom Penh was an eye opener for me. It’s a complete genocide overload but what got me the most about the place was that it was developed. Buildings, streetlights and sealed roads everywhere. By my reaction and the fact my jaw was on the ground most of the time you would think I’d be in  Antarctica for the past 6 years. 

But ultimately I went down to pick up my mum and bring her up to Siem Reap for 7 days.

For as long as I can remember my mum spoke about wanting to go overseas to volunteer. But raising 4 kids alone and not having been in full time employment while I was young, it was only ever a dream that was being lived through me. How things were about to change!

I knew when I became involved in SAFE I’d end up on a trip at some time but when I made the decision to come to Cambodia I contacted my mum and said “Pack your bags. We’re off to Cambodia.”

At the end of her first day volunteering she said to me “That has to have been the best day of my life so far!” In the tuktuk ride on the way home she told me all about how the kids were really curious about her and where she came from and spent hours asking questions.  She told me she had a new, 17 year old, boyfriend. One of the boys in the class took a shine to her and made her a picture at the end which said “Dear Karen, Thank you for teaching us. I love you.”

We decided to do a bit of a fun arts and crafts day with the kids and make masks with them as mum had brought over glitter pens, paints and stickers from New Zealand. They love English classes but we wanted to try something different. They would need to use a different skill for this and use new words to describe what they were doing. An English lesson without them knowing it!

We sat outside a café in the morning preparing for the arts and crafts lesson later that day and as I stepped away to take some photos of a woman for my Carrying Cambodia album, as usual a tuktuk driver went “Tuktuk lady?” I decided to talk to this man for a few minutes while I waited to get the shot I wanted and he started telling me about how he was a soldier and he’d left the army because of the corruption and how he liked being a tuktuk driver. I told him what I was doing here for the next few months and he thanked me over and over again. I asked if he’d ever thought about saying something different to the customers rather than “Tuktuk lady?” like every other driver does? He looked at me curiously and I said “Why not say……..Beautiful lady. Would you like a ride in my tuktuk?” His face lit up and I asked if he wanted me to write it down. He came over to our table and saw all the paper we had and asked if my mum would make him a sign he could hold up. Next thing he was off to the shop getting it laminated. Back 5mins later and a lady was jumping into his tuktuk after he’d shown her the sign. Doesn’t take much to make someones day.

We’d aimed at about 30 kids turning up that day, as most of them have to work in the rice fields or look after the buffalo during the day, but prepared for 60 kids just in case. We could not have been less prepared had we tried (very unLeah like). I set up tables outside under the shade of the trees for 30 kids, went inside to finish preparing and came out to see 60 kids waiting patiently for us to start.  Then within the next 20mins at least another 2 groups of 10 kids arrived. Every time I looked up there were more kids coming to join in. There were kids I’d never seen before wanting to make a mask.

We were flat out for 2-3 hours making new masks for the kids to decorate and helping them with the ones they’d already made. It was at least 38 degrees (mum doesn’t like the heat and it's not even their hot season) and we needed to keep our shoulders and knees covered at all times while on the Pagoda site. It was a tough time keeping up with all these eager kids in the heat.

Teachers here are very serious people and hold much status in the community. I think I’ve been a little bit different for them (story of my life) and they have not known how to handle the fact I’ll get involved with the kids and will play and laugh with them.  I’m not sure the kids have the same boundaries as everyone else though…………….

For some reasons some of the kids, as well as one of the grandmothers, have a thing about my bottom. They insist on smacking it every opportunity they get. I’m not sure if it’s the size, shape or just the fact I laugh every time that they keep doing it.  Any time I bent over to help a kid with their mask I got this wallop on the bum followed by the sound of a kid running away laughing. Not quite like working in an office in London!

The kids were loving the glitter, coloured pencils etc that they were stashing them in their pockets and bags to take them home. It was so hard to say no to them. They found another use for the glitter though………………I was the victim of a glitter ambush taken out by about 70 kids. They covered my hair, face, neck, arms, back. I’m not sure what parts they left out. It’s taken days to get it out of my hair but made me laugh like I haven’t laughed in ages.

When the glitter fight was over I had 2 hours of lessons to assist with in the 38 degree heat. I was so itchy by this point.  

To get to the school I was working at this week, I had to walk up a long dirt trail, through a small community, to get there. No westerners in sight, let alone one covered in glitter. As I was walking along I noticed this wee boy of about 4 following me with a huge grin on his face and his eyes open wide. He couldn’t stop staring at my face and giggling. I said “Hello” in Khmer and he put his hand up, waved at me to stop talking and went, “A-tay. A-tay” (No. No) but continued to follow me, stare at me and giggle. He followed me almost 1km up the path to the turn off to the school. He ran ahead of me and just before the corner, waited until I passed him and walked down the path to the school. As I walked down the hill to the school all the kids that usually run at me stepped back from me and went “Ohhhhhh teacher.” They spent the next few hours just staring at me and talking to each other and pointing at me.

During the class people from the village, including my 4 year old admirer, stood at the back of the classroom just watching me.

After class I went to pick up mum from her school to head back into town. They had not finished when I arrived but I quickly put a stop to that. As I walked in there was this roar of laughter. 

The next day was the last day at school for mum. The kids showered her with food, bracelets, pictures etc. She was totally blown away by the generosity the kids had shown her. People give what ever they can to show their gratitude. We explained to one of the girls that mum was leaving to go back to New Zealand and her response was “But I haven’t learnt English yet!”

Every time it rains here I think it’s worse than the last. This week there have been amazing thunder and lightening storms. In the village I was working in last week, 2 people were struck by lightening and one has died. Another tree came down in the winds and hit a house. Needless to say this all scared the crap out of me a bit as I’d been driving through this village, on the back of a motorbike, during a storm the week before, am back at this school next week and hate lightening at the best of times. Shows how vulnerable and helpless you can be sometimes.

More photos from the week. If you can’t view them please let me know.

Volunteering – Is this really what I signed up for?

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Business meetings Cambodian style

On my first day at work this week my tuktuk, which I take to the main school, got a puncture so my tuktuk driver told me to get off and left me on the side of the road saying “I come back 2 mins.” 30mins later…………………. and he arrives on the motorbike, tuktukless. I hitch my skirt up to an inappropriate height and jump on the back of the motorbike and hold on for dear life.

This week I’ve been working at a school that is 20km away from Siem Reap. In other words the arse end of nowhere! The only way to get to this village is by motorbike along a dirt road, which turns to mud and then a river during a monsoon, and is full of crater size potholes.

While in the wall less classroom the monsoon rain hits, so we decided to end the class early as there was no sign of it easing off and we wanted the kids to get home safely.

Of all the days to forget my coat (it’s more of a plastic sheet) I had to borrow one from the teacher to get home. As I pulled it on, it ripped, right up the side, from my knee to my armpit. With no other option we head back to Siem Reap in the monsoon rain dodging potholes full of rainwater along the way.  

I couldn’t do anything but hold on and knew that I had no other choice but to continue to drive through the rain so I began to laugh. I pretty much laughed all the way back. Someone gave me a bit of advice about Cambodia which was, laugh at the things you can’t change. I saw no better time than the present to adopt this attitude. Arriving back in Siem Reap an hour and a half later I was soaking wet from head to toe.

The next day the ride home could not have been any more different. In pitch black, as there is no electricity in the village, all I could hear was the sound of the frogs, smell the open fires for cooking and see stars in all directions. I thought “Yep. This is what I signed up for.”

Work here still manages to be a struggle. The teaching side is very rewarding but the organisational side is a long slow process. I think the word of the moment is roadblock. I’ve learnt to focus on my small achievements like:

1.     Catching my tuktuk driver, who spoke no English 10 weeks ago reading an English/Khmer dictionary

2.     Providing a tuktuk driver with a stable income

3.     Having the kids run up to me when I arrive at work screaming “Leah. Leah” (note: I do expect this when I get back home!!)

4.     My laundry woman is practicing her English and is making huge steps forward

5.     I’ve been able to show some of the kids some affection they would never have had otherwise

Business etiquette here is so different to anything I’ve ever experienced. I find it really hard that no one questions anything. They are so status focused. From the instant they meet you they want to know who you are, what your age is and what you do for a job. I know we have this at home where we asks where people went to university but it’s a whole other level. I love that they have respect for their elders but this in a work environment can be taken too far. It means that if people are not happy, satisfied or are doing the right thing they are not questioned and everything is just accepted as “that’s the way it is.” It doesn’t seem like people are accountable for their actions and decisions. I’m finding that very hard as I was taught to be respectful to everyone, especially elders but to always be independent and question if something did not make sense or seem right. Some things here I have to accept I will not understand, like or change. What is the point if it is a cultural thing that will not change? 

They also never say no and do not make eye contact. If they do not agree with something you say they agree with you then go off and do what they were going to do anyway. This has left me in a very confused state on so many occasions. Is it lying or just cultural? I know how I would have viewed it on week 3 but I’m on week 10 now. I’m not sure how anything gets done at all. How do they disagree with a fellow Cambodian or does it all come down to status?

I’m trying to pick my battles.

People are incredibly respectful of you being a foreigner and giving up your time to come and help but I’m coming up against a roadblock I’ve never come across before………. being a woman. 

I never even considered this being an issue. Was I naive or do I just see it as a nonissue? You see it all over the place in London but I suppose women in the west have a bit more of a voice and are not considered stupid. It’s not perfect but there is generally a lot less tolerance for sex discrimination.

I just think there are enough issues that we have to face. Why add something so stupid to the mix?

What I find funny is that it’s like any country, if you hang around long enough you can see that it is the women who are really running the show. It just looks like the men are cos they are more at the forefront and are the loudest.  You have to think, why do they have the saying “behind every great man there has to be a great woman.”

I’m very judgemental and make snap decisions about whether I like people or not, usually within seconds, but that’s never due to their gender, class or status in society. I was raised to treat the rubbish man the same way as my teacher or the doctor……..with respect.  The only reason I’d treat someone differently is if you’re a downright twat.

I was teaching in a classroom last week that was by the roadside. As I was teaching a man in his 40s sat down in the class, as the parents often do, and I thought nothing of it. A few minutes later he interrupted the class and started speaking to the teacher in Khmer. My Khmer isn’t fantastic but I knew from their body language and what I could understand that he was asking about me. I asked the teacher to translate and he explained that the man was a local rubbish collector who saw a white woman teaching a classroom full of Cambodian children and wanted to know what I was doing, so he came over. He asked if he could shake my hand and thanked me for helping the children and his country. I was a little blown away and just smiled. He left me alone for about 2mins, said something in Khmer and the kids started roaring with laughter “Lady. Can I please shake your hand again?”

Quite frankly, in 2 and a half months, I’ve seen enough willy to last me a lifetime.

There are kids everywhere as the Cambodians are going through a baby boom. Most children, funnily boys and not girls, under the age of 5 walk around with no underwear on and just pee wherever they feel like it. I’ve figured out that it’s too hot for nappies, they are probably too expensive and why use a sewage system that’s not overly reliable, but I’ve still not figured out why it’s usually the boys and not the girls.

That said it’s not just the childrens willies I’m talking about. The men wear the equivalent of a scarf wrapped around their waist, which more often than not, only covers the necessities.

I was taken along to a meeting the other day with the Village Chief. He didn’t know I was going to be there and was clearly not prepared for me. When we arrived he walked out in a tiny Khmer Rouge scarf  (I still haven’t figured out if this is in support or if it’s the only thing they have. More than likely in support given the remote areas I’m working in) that was wrapped around his waist.  This barely covered the necessities and I had to avert my eyes as he sat down with his hand over his jewels. Thank god it was dusk. Had it been earlier in the day he may have shared even more! I couldn’t imagine entering into or sending my guys into a business meeting in London dressed like this. Would it increase or decrease business?

The families who live next to the schools, like the rest of the villagers, wash in the well water right outside the classroom. The adults remain covered but the kids stand there starkers while I’m trying to teach. I can’t help but laugh at the contrast to my working life in London sometimes.

If any of you have seen me dance at home you’ll know that I dance with my bum, have no shame and it’s not usually suitable for unaccompanied minors. I went to a leaving party for a friend the other day and one of the local Councillors and his wife were invited. He was a rather large, jovial man that spoke very little English. I’m off dancing, as I do, and the next thing the Councillor is insisting on dancing with me and says in his broken English “Wife. No problem.” Not entirely sure in what way he meant this I just carried on and thought I’d just see what happened. He insisted on trying to dance like me so, here I am on the dance floor, with this guy, teaching him the Leah booty shake. By the reaction I got I think I made a lasting impression.

I’ve had some funny conversations while I’ve been here:

“Leah. Pretty girls. Pretty girls” – my tuktuk driver who couldn’t speak English 9 weeks ago taught            himself this and insists on stopping every time he sees one.

“Fat. Fat.” Pointing at the t-shirt I have on with a picture of Ganesh on it.

“What? Me or Ganesh?”

“You fat like him. I want to be fat like you.”

Leah – Apparently my name means Donkey and Goodbye. It can become very confusing sometimes.

Good – means bum in Khmer. No wonder the kids laugh at me whenever I say it.

“My favourite person is Polpot.” – in an essay written by an 18 year old teacher who was writing about his favourite things.

“No Leah. Prostitution isn’t a Cambodian problem. It doesn’t happen here. It’s a Western problem.”

New photo albums this week…………..

Carry Cambodia

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Easily the best thing about Cambodia

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Barang Barang

Unfortunately for me, over the past 10 days all of the  other NGO workers I’ve met here, including the 5 volunteers from The Safe Foundation, have left and returned home.

Cambodia is a pretty cheap country and volunteers seem to buy buy buy. As a result, all of the volunteers I’d met couldn’t fit their belongings in their bag to take home.

So somehow, unbeknown to me, I’ve managed to start a business here - The Leah Frazer Donation Dump.

Donated clothing, meds and food

With me being the only one staying and working for a project that covers a lot of remote villages I have been inundated with donations of clothing, medication and food to be given to those most in need.

I was given a mountain of clothing which I separated out and gave about half a rubbish bag full to each of the teachers mothers, on the basis that they distribute to those in their village who need it the most.

One of the women was so grateful she turned up at the school the next day with 5 watermelons and a chilly bin/cooler box/eskie (I’m catering for all nationalities here) full of some white gooey stuff that looked like jellyfish. There was so much of this white gooey stuff and I knew I wouldn’t be able to eat it all myself so I thought “Well I might as well share it round and if it’s seafood then they won’t be able to tell if I don’t eat it”. So I handed it out to the kids, anyone else who was around and tried some myself. It turns out that the jellyfish looking thing is palm fruit, a rare delicacy here that people have to climb the palm trees, with no machines, to get.  Oh crap!! I’ve just handed this stuff out to anyone that wanted it. No wonder the kids loved me that day!

Most volunteers travel with a medical kid and have no need for it and/or can’t fit it in their bags when they return home. So everyone gave me their spare medication as well.

Alys, a volunteer I met here who’s been working for a women’s rights NGO, and I decided that the best place to donate the huge amount of medication was The Angkor Hospital for Children, a charity run by Friends without a Border  (www.angkorhospital.org). Angkor Hospital for Children is an extremely busy hospital that provides free healthcare to those children and families that need it the most and trains young Cambodians to become doctors and nurses. I’ve never seen such a busy hospital. The triage area is overflowing most days and families travel from very remote areas to be treated. Most children are on deaths door with easily treatable illnesses.

We turned up with this a huge bag of various medication which was accepted with open arms by the hospital. In a country where an estimate 60-80% of medication is fake they will take as much western medication as they can get their hands on. 

Alys, who unlike me was in perfect health, decided that she was going to give blood as well. We found out that just over a 1000 people had donated blood in 2010. 811 donations came from foreigners. With a population of 15 million I find that amazing. I have no idea how this place manages to function.

The night the volunteers from The Safe Foundation left their schools they were all given a send off by their teachers and students. Everyone was so grateful for their help and they wanted to show their gratitude in a way that they knew how, so they gave whatever they could. The volunteers were given pictures the children had drawn, bracelets, bananas and nom - rice cooked with palm sugar and pork or banana wrapped in a banana leaf.

There was so much food that during the 45min tuktuk ride back to our house we couldn’t put our feet on the floor. The only small problem was that with a total of 5 villages donating food and the volunteers getting on a plane a few days later, they couldn’t eat it all or take it with them what could we do but waste it? We decided to take it to the hospital and donate it to the kids and their families.  So off we go to the hospital with my handbag (well it’s actually the size of a nappy bag – you’d think I had 20 kids) bursting full of nom and bananas.

The doctors were amazed that we turned up to simply donate food to the patients and their families. We were directed to the unit where children and their families were being cared for before they were about to be discharged. Mothers and fathers were lying on the beds with their kids taking care of them as there are not enough doctors and there are also no seats for the parents.

We walked around with the doctor while he explained to the parents that the food was for them and their children. Most of them were in complete disbelief that we were just donating food and we had to explain that it was ok to take the food and that it was for the parents as well as their sick children. We figured they needed as much energy as the children for the long trip back to their villages.

Now to just figure out how I can make money out of this little business I’ve created?!

There is an organisation here called Ibis (http://www.wildlifefriendly.org/ibis-rice) that provides rice to families who cannot provide for themselves.  They also help farmers who live and work in wildlife protected areas, who have heavy restrictions on their farming, build relationships and produce rice to niche wildlife friendly markets.

You can buy bags of Ibis rice and they will donate it to families who need it the most. Alys decided that she would do this as a gift for her friends back home in the UK. It’s a bit like the Oxfam buy a cow or a goat for a community but is more immediate and I suppose less sustainable on that side rather than the manufacturing side. A good project nonetheless.

Alys jumped on the back of a motorbike, the standard form of transport here, with the project co-ordinator and travelled 10mins away from the centre of Siem Reap, the main tourist city in Cambodia. There she stopped at two homes. As she approached the homes she could see that the area was quite flooded but having worked with remote villages for the past 8 weeks didn’t think what she was going to experience was any worse than what she’s already seen. The first family were very poor and the children very malnourished with big bellies and whispy reddish hair but the second one was to come as a wee bit more of a shock.

The second family where she was donating brown rice instead of white, as it’s more nutritious, consisted of a father and his children. The mother and one of his other children had died of dengue fever a few weeks earlier. He was faced with raising these small children on his own and with no income. Times had been really tough over the past few weeks and he needed to make a very difficult decision. How do you provide for the remaining children? So he made the awful decision to sell his daughter to what he believes is a clothing factory in Phnom Pehn. Unlikey. He’s not heard from his daughter since she left. Welcome to the real Cambodia!

This week at work has been very different.

There was a group of families that arrived at the Pagoda site where I work (I think they were the equivalent of gypsies) and set up a festival for about 5 days.

There were loads of kids but unlike most of the kids here they didn’t come near me. I couldn’t figure it out as most of the kids want to come up and find out who you are but thought they would come and talk to me when they saw me playing and interacting with the other kids.

The next day I was sitting outside the classroom and these kids came and sat next to me. I had the bottom half of my legs exposed and my arms. The next thing one of the girls starts grabbing my legs and squeezes them. She kept laughing and slapping my legs gently. Then she started grabbing my bingos (yeah I admit it I have bingos). I asked one of the teachers why the kids were so fascinated by my legs and arms and he said that I was the first white person they had ever seen.

One of the boys soon realised that if you slap my arms hard enough they go red. Oh the delight on his face as he slapped me over and over again.

To top it all off I had my camera with me and I gave it to the kids to play with. They ran around watching each other through the screen. I had to show them how to use the button on the top so that they could take photos. Thank god I invested in a smash proof camera.

For the rest of the day these kids were stuck to my side pointing at me then themselves saying “Black. White. Black. White” and "Barang Barang" (French person)

That had to be the best experience so far.

The kids who'd never seen a white person before testing out my camera

As I’m sitting here in my lovely wee local café I’ve watched 5 teenage boys walk past sniffing glue. Ahhhh the realities of Cambodia.