With these Rocher you're really spoiling us!

Gordon pipped me to the post a bit with his earlier blog about his job here - I'd been planning one about what I've been up to work wise for the past few weeks. Great minds think alike (and before you ask, no, we don't discuss what goes up on the blog. And, yes, it would make sense if we did.) However mine is still not going to tell you a lot about what I do - mine's more post-work socialising with my colleagues.

Here's a picture of my desk (the messy one on the left) - these are the only pictures I've taken of the VSO office as I've been more likely to take pictures of one of the many fun things we've done as a team.

and the view further into the office upstairs

And this is the upstairs bit outside at the office.
The white marks you can see against the green roof are giant raindrops

I'm really lucky to work with such a great bunch of people. I really feel at home in the team and every week that goes past I feel like I get a bit closer to another team member.

Karaoke
A few months ago Sokchea was leaving the VSO finance team. For her leaving party she decided we should go and do karaoke. Karaoke here normally involves men singing, young girls in short skirts serving beer and then possibly some paid-for sex afterwards. There are quite a few karaoke bars near the VSO office - small shack style affairs where the singing ranges from painful to downright appalling (partly to do with the Cambodian fondness for having everything amped to the max). However, for this night out we were off to the Rock! A giant, fancy and more expensive KTV (karaoke bar).

Now, let me confess. I wasn't really looking forward to this. I love karaoke in the UK but I can't read Khmer and, at that time, I couldn't recognise any Khmer songs. Also, I wasn't sure how sleazy it was going to be. Gordon was just recovering from his bout of dengue fever so I invited him along, secretly planning that he was our ticket out of there should we need to scarper early.

Our own private room, complete with scarily empty dance floor 

the singing begins! That's Sokchea in the blue. And looking at the camera is Sochea. Yup, their names are that similar - and they both work in the finance office! Confused me for a while...

Needless to say, we shouldn't have worried. While there were beer girls in our private room it didn't feel sleazy. And it was one of the best nights out we'd had in a long time. The choice of songs was impressive, both in Khmer and English. After the first few songs Vantha, the Country Director, got up on the dance floor and that was everyone on it for the rest of the night.

a picture of the dancing - even better is the video of it below!

Olympics
Another fun work outing was for our Olympic PDD (personal development day, that's actually only ever half a day).

Gordon and I had been following the Olympics as best we could. Sadly, our local  Chinese TV station had a penchant for ladies football, ping pong and basketball with the occasional glimpse of synchronised swimming. We did have luck the night that good old Andy hammered Federer - the TV was showing the match and, with that on mute and the commentary on the BBC through the internet, we had our own little Olympic atmosphere in the flat. To feel a little more involved I'd organised a sweepie in the office which basically gave me freedom to chat about the Olympics at every break, to anyone who would listen. Then Dawn, our programme support manager, had the bright idea to do a team building PDD in honour of the Olympics. And so we decided to take part in that famous Olympic sport - ten pin bowling.

the office gang (minus a few who had to leave early)

Hardly anyone in the office had been bowling before. Therefore I was quietly confident that I at least wouldn't humiliate myself. How wrong could I be...

Nearly everyone picked it up within the first few throws of the ball and were soon getting strikes galore. I hit NOTHING in my first few attempts. Ah well. There's nothing like a little humiliation to bond a team together.

l-r Chamroeun, Kamonn, Reth and me.
Reth won silver in the individual competition while our team also came in second

Ambassadors, royalty and a Scottish MC
I do actually do some work in the office. I recently took a break from my day job, writing up the research looking at the motivation of health workers in Cambodia, when I was asked to organise the launch of our new country strategy.

It's amazing how late everything is organised here. The first I heard about the launch event was two weeks before - when I was asked to organise it. That was everything: deciding who to invite, finding all their contact details, designing and printing the invitation, finding a venue, planning training on networking etc. We were holding this event jointly with the British Embassy so we also had to coordinate with them, checking wording of invitations, backdrops (see the blue thing in the pic below).

My partner in crime for all this was Pisit, our office manager, who's an absolute star. The only slightly scary thing was that his wife was pregnant and due to pop any day. The day of the event was actually her due date. I was only partly joking when I repeatedly told him that he had to tell her to cross her legs.

Me and Pisit

Somehow, with only ten days notice, we managed to get 40+ guests to come along including ambassadors, government ministers, country representatives from some of the big development agencies, a guy from Coca Cola, and a Princess!

the uber glam and super friendly Princess Soma Norodom

I was asked the day before if I would MC the event - here's me in action. And before anyone asks yes, I did speak slowly. Yes, really slowly. And I had lots of compliments on my MC skills (it still makes me think that I should have been rapping whenever I hear or write MC)

The only disappointment of the evening was that, with more Ambassadors there than you could shake a stick at, there wasn't a Ferrero Rocher in sight. Ah the hardships of life in the Penh.