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.  

The People you meet along the way – Part 1

Charity work does not seem to be about the work or the end result but more about the people you meet along the way.

I’ve now been here long enough that a lot of people around town know or recognise me. There are so many people that I meet on a daily basis, whether it be in a professional or personal setting but most of them I will never know anything about.

I’ve been really lucky to meet an Australian couple that are also involved in the project I’m working on and run their own charity in Australia called Helping Cambodian Children Abroad (http://hccacharity.asn.au/1701.html). Their arrival, for me, has been a complete breath of fresh air. I don’t know if it’s just the antipodean way of communicating but it’s just been really easy and I don’t have to get rid of all of my accent or speak in half sentences just to be understood.

They have been coming here for over 4 years and have kindly taken me under their wing and introduced me to other projects they are working on and the people running them. They introduced me to a Malaysian woman the other day who runs a food programme called Touch a Life (www.touchalife.org.my/).

Every week she and her main volunteer, who is a Khmer guy, along with a bunch of volunteers, cook meals at her house for 160+ on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays but on Saturdays cook 360+ meals and delivers them and medical aid to people in some of the poorest parts in and around Siem Reap. I use the term ‘around’ quite loosely as they are actually still within the city.  

She’s been running the same programme in Malaysia for a few years now and saw a greater need in Cambodia so set up a programme here too.

The Khmer guy she works with originally went out to some of the remote areas on the outskirts of the city and found all of these poverty stricken families, interviewed them to find out the need in the community and now provides food to the most needy based on these assessments. Unfortunately, like all projects, they can’t catch everyone but do an amazing job with what little resources they do have.

On Saturday I went to see the project and as soon as I got through the door I was put to work. It was basic cooking, the first I’ve done in 3mths apart from a cooking class I did with my mum. We made omelettes (I have to confess my omelettes were not up to scratch) and rice with a traditional Cambodian soup. All using vegetables and spices I’ve never heard of let alone seen or used. We spent the next 6 hours cooking and packing 361 meals.

I’m not a fan of the old “Poor me. Look at the poor children” approach. You get it here on a daily basis and become quite hardened to it. There is no doubt people are poor and hungry and Westerners feel guilty about their perceived wealth and give money based upon that. But I personally believe that the long term issues that comes from this approach means people are not encouraged to create a culture which empowers people to provide for themselves and eventually step away from charity all together. I always find it a wee bit concerning when people are so dependent on handouts as they never seem to look forward, plan for their own future and take responsibility for their own environment. The response from a lot of people that think and behave like this is “Why bother cos the westerners will come and give us aid.” This I find is a very frustrating approach as I work very hard and would expect anyone that wants support to do exactly the same.

The woman running the show is definitely my kind of woman. I got there and was told what I needed to do, when it needed to be done by and what was expected of me. We had a job to do and she didn’t care how we got there as long as we got there. She not once spoke about the charity without me asking a direct question. She never played the guilt card. There was/is a job to be done and she just gets on with it and lets the experience speak for itself. Any it most certainly did.

When we were nearing the end of the cooking section 2 Danish guys turned up. They’ve been involved in the project for the past 8mths and have supplied a jeep for the project to use. Having seen the deliveries made by jeep I have no idea how they originally made the delivers on the back of motorbikes. These guys are also assisting with basic medical care.

What I think amazed me the most was that all of the people involved were providing medicines and petrol out of their own pocket as well as volunteering their time.

The villages we went to are on a road I travel down everyday to get to and from work and are between the two mains roads to Angkor Wat – The main reason everyone comes to Siem Reap but you would never know that these people were there. I felt like I’d stepped into a new world and felt quite guilty when I realised I’d driven past these villages every day for the past 3 months and not known. There were all of these people just 100ms back from the roadside that no one even knows about and receive no benefit from the tourists visiting their own backyard.

As we went around there were people everywhere with a different story. One woman had two kids by rape, a lot of the kids had aids, 10 year olds were left at home to look after their younger siblings while their parents worked, one partially blind and retarded boy made money by carrying water for people from the well, a woman who was in her 90s was disabled by a landmine and was left in a crouching position for the rest of her life but every single one of them was waiting for us to arrive with a wee bit of food and conversation with a huge grin on their face. No one adopted the poor me attitude.  

Since I arrived I noticed that there were so many kids with reddish hair and bloated tummies, like you see on the TV. I’ve since learnt that the reddish hair, that we all find so cute, is a sign of malnourishment and the bloated bellies, in this area, is simple worms. Things that could so easily be treated if people knew that these people were there.

There were 4 of us in the jeep and we needed to make the last stop. I was told the jeep had to do it as the motorbikes wouldn’t get through due to the rain. We drove around the corner and I soon learnt why the jeep was needed!! The water was so high, covered as far as I could see and it started coming in the jeep and up the exhaust pipe, my side started filling up with smoke and we stopped moving. One of the other guys and I jump out of the jeep, in knee high water, to give the jeep a bit of a push. We just got behind the jeep, my hands don’t even touch the back, the driver puts his foot down, the cloud of black smoke triples in size, blows straight in my face and off they go leaving the two of us standing there in the water thinking “Oh crap we’ve gotta wade through this and we have no idea what’s in here” (the water is a thick brown). To top it off there are no toilets in the village. I’ll leave that one to your imagination as it’s too much for me to think about.

The jeep stopped 200m ahead of us when it got to higher ground and as we walked towards the jeep it speed off again through the next field of water leaving us to walk even further. As we walked through the village a group of about 40 middle aged men were meeting at one house. They had watched the whole event unfold and were in fits of laughter, so was I, when we waded past. Then suddenly the guy that was with me starts screaming and shouting that he had something in his shoe. You can only imagine my reaction and the group of men when a leaf floated to the surface.  

Little did I realise I would be knee deep in water in the centre of the city when the banks for the Siem Reap river broke a few days later.

I most certainly earned my 30 pence pint at the end of the day I can tell you!

Ok so being realistic here, in no way is one two course meal a week going to prevent these people from starving but that’s not really what the project is about. By simply turning up every week these people know that they have not been forgotten. That people care enough to turn up every week to deliver food, medical supplies and a wee bit of conversation. By providing these simple things these people are able to move forward and do their jobs and engage with people.

I suppose the only thing I can compare it to at home is the programmes you see where there is an elderly person who’s all on their own in their house and no one comes to visit. These people are the same. They too just want someone to recognise that they are there.

The whole experience was humbling to say the least. I’ve told Touch a Life that they can have my spare time until I leave Cambodia.

I’d love to say that the people who run Touch a Life and Helping Cambodian Children Abroad are amazing. They’re not. They are ordinary, everyday people doing ordinary, everyday things. They are just living their lives and following through on the things that so many people say they want to do and be. 

Kids playing in the streets a few days ago after the Siem Reap river broke its banks 

A few new pics

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Cultural Sensitivity

I’m the first to admit I don’t get it here sometimes. As I’ve mentioned in pervious posts the whole status and savings face thing doesn’t make much sense to me. I suppose no matter what country I live in it doesn’t make much sense to me.

Here it’s all about not what you have but what you are perceived to have. Whether it’s the clothes you wear, the words you use or how you interact with other people, everything is judged. Teachers here are incredibly respected members of the community.  That’s largely due to the poverty, history, that you are helping future generations and communities as a whole. So there are some pretty strict rules as to how you are meant to behave in order to keep up appearances.

One of the main things for me and for other volunteers that are coming over is what you wear. I must remain covered while at work and while in the community. Shoulders right down to my knees need to be covered. No nail polish. No make up and of course, no sexy clothing. Not that I think I own any and if I do I didn’t bring it. All things us women in the west use to make ourselves stand out and be noticed or pretty ourselves is a bit of a No No. Initially, I thought that was because I was working on a Pagoda site but now I’ve learnt that it’s just generally because I’m a teacher. They wanted me to wear a certain style of clothing when I first arrived and I fought it big time. The reason was because it wasn’t me. I’m happy to cover but I needed to do it in my own way instead of someone trying to make me Cambodian. I think there has to be a balance between getting western volunteers to become Cambodian and allowing the Cambodians to see that things are done differently in different cultures and what we find acceptable and unacceptable. I think a balance can be found while respecting each others cultures and personalities. So I remain covered but in a slightly different fashion I suppose.

I suppose my biggest thing about this status thing is how you are treated. You are treated a different way because of what job you do. It’s nice that everyone respects you but I want to be respected for me, because I’m a good, honest person. Not because I speak English and am a teacher.

I’m by no means saying that we don’t treat people differently because of their jobs. I couldn’t count the amount of times people have mistaken me for being stupid because I’m a PA. I suppose here though it’s more in your face and I’m on the other end of it. Also, if someone treats me like I’m stupid at home I can just ensure that everything takes a tiny wee bit longer than it needs to. (Yes I'm aware this blog is doing nothing for my CV!!)

I received some feedback this week which I suppose I didn’t take that easily. I was told that because I laugh and play with the children they do not respect me. That was a really bitter pill for me to swallow. I have very different beliefs about playing and laughing with the children. Anyone who spends 5mins with me knows that I laugh a hell of a lot. If I’m not laughing then generally something is wrong. It’s how I get through things. If I can laugh or make a joke about something it makes it a bit easier, especially when dealing with some really tough stuff. So this criticism was really tough for me.

I’m now at a bit of a loss and don’t know what to do. What things do you take on and what things do you not compromise on. For me to not laugh and play with the kids I’d kind of wonder why I’d be here. It doesn’t make much sense to me. It doesn’t allow me to have any connection with the kids, to understand them. Laughter and play for some of these children is the only language I have.

So as much as I need to be culturally sensitive I think I need to be met halfway. It’s just as important for them to understand how we communicate.

I suppose you could look at it in a different way. I think the kids actually do have a huge amount of respect for me. It’s just different to how they expect to be respected. I want the children to be comfortable enough to laugh and play with me.

I’ve had this situation for the last few weeks where the kids bring me things all the time. Pictures, key rings, pens. You name it. I’ve got it. I have no idea where the kids get this stuff from but they come in everyday and want to give me things. I have a mountain of pictures the kids have drawn. I’m not sure how I’m going to get any of these home. That to me is the kids being respectful, liking me being here and forming a bond.  I have a very different bond than the teachers do but that’s me all over.  I’ve even got one group of kids that like giving me stuff so much that they give me stuff out of the rubbish bin. These things get stashed in my handbag and I……deal……with them when I get home. 

Another part of holding it together and the status thing is you can’t ever get aggressive, you can’t ever behave like you don’t know something or admit that you don’t get it. That’s difficult.  Because quite often I throw my hands and say “I don’t get it. I don’t understand” but they don’t do it. I assume this doesn’t provide me with much respect from the adults but I want to learn, ask questions and I’m only 26. I don’t want to be arrogant enough to behave like I know everything cos I most certainly don’t.  

I was told today that you should never ask someone of the opposite sex, who appears to be around my age, how old they are. It’s rude in Cambodian. What I find most interesting is that EVERYONE wants to know my age and there is no shame in asking me. However, I was told if a single male asked me my age it would mean that he loved me and wanted to marry me. Phew ha!! That must mean I’ve received a lot of proposals and made a lot. If only love and relationships were that easy at home!!

As a man and a woman here you’re not allowed to touch at all. No one told me that when I got here. I suppose it’s cos they have not seen other ways of doing things so they didn’t think to tell me things like that. I obviously come from a good kiwi family and have older brothers. So rough and tumble is quite normal. I have a lot of guy mates and smack them around. I suppose it’s my way of showing that I like having them around. So I’ve done the same with all of the teachers, who are male. Smacked them round a bit, laughed at them, joked with them but little did I know that these things were all seen as sexual advances.

Yeah. I think I’m just constantly going to be getting into trouble here.

ps: Apologies that the links I provided for photos have not been working. I'm not sure what's happened but fingers crossed these ones work.

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