Ratanakiri

This post was meant to follow in swift succession of the Mondulkiri blog however, as ever, life got in the way so it's taken far longer than usual...

After Mondulkiri (for me) it was off to another northern province, Ratanakiri.

We went to visit Anna (blog here), another volunteer who joined VSO Cambodia the same time as us. She's in Ratanakiri (RTK) working as a Community Development Adviser. We teamed up with two other volunteers who started the same time as us to have a mini reunion in a very lovely part of Cambodge. Travel in Cambodia mostly goes through Phnom Penh so the two other vols, Andy (blog here) and Ellen (blog here but it's in Dutch so you may find it kinda difficult to understand), who live in the north-west of the country had a 6-10 hour journey down to Phnom Penh and then another 6-8 hour journey up to Ratanakiri in the north-east. Anyway...

I got to the capital, Banlung, a few days before the others so I headed out with Anna on a trip to visit a school director. The school was about 45 minutes away by moto and my transport for the day was kindly provided by Anna's volunteer assistant (a volunteer's Khmer sidekick who translates not just the language but everything that goes on that we don't understand) Narin.

After the school we stopped for a ubiquitous iced coffee with condensed milk - delicious, although I can barely manage half as the caffeine gives me heart palpitations - and Narin asked what we were going to do now. We both presumed we'd be heading back to Banlung but then Narin suggested that we go and visit another crater lake...

One of the main attractions in Banlung is the beautiful crater lake, Yeak Lom. Anna and I had gone there the night I arrived for a quick cool-down dip and I was definitely happy to see another one. 45 minutes later we arrived here:

Narin and Anna beside the lake

Sadly with no swimmers we couldn't go in - and, as the top pic shows, the deck was also broken so we couldn't even sit and dangle our feet in. We did however have a swarm of bees (they must have been killer bees the noise they were making) fly over the trees above our heads. Anna and I were both for bolting but Narin very calmly just told us to stay still. He explained we were fine in the trees as they wouldn't fly down to us - but it's a problem when people are working in the field. Scary!

On the journey we passed kilometres upon kilometres of rubber plantations. While I know they're not good for the environment, and many people have lost their homes because land as been cleared to make way for them, there's still something that appeals to me about the long straight lines of them with their little cups to catch the rubber and their winding lines where the bark has been cut.

That afternoon we went to a football match, part of a big sports weekend that Anna's work, the Education Office, was hosting. Neither of us are particular footie fans but it was another great chance to experience something new.

As this is going to turn into another epic blog I'm going to do this half of the trip, before the others arrived and then do another when the rest of the gang got here. Here are some more photos...

Narin popped by the next morning, got some jackfruit out the tree and cut it all up for us!

He then was passing later in the afternoon after picking up a chicken coop.
I guess he knew we'd get a kick out of it being on the back of a moto so he dropped in again.

and the only picture I took of Anna's beautiful house - complete with
coconut, jackfruit, durian, mango, avocado etc trees in the garden

Just as I took this picture the minibus arrived to drop off Gordon, Ellen and Andy - but that's for part two...

Life's a balance between cheap beer and prison

There have been so many things that I have wanted to write about Cambodia since I have arrived: disgusting income inequality; corruption; mass forced evictions; and unjust imprisonment. However, I put off writing about these things until people had the chance to understand where Cambodia is in terms of development, which was the whole point of this blog I wrote recently.

Plus, Cambodia is also about the kindness and friendliness of our Khmer colleagues and others, the wonder of swimming in waterfalls and volcanic lakes, the mad mass dance aerobic type thing that happens every morning and evening all over the city and of course the cheap price of a beer. But some Khmer people have more than the price of beer to worry about.

There are two English language newspapers in Cambodia, The Cambodia Daily and the Phnom Penh Post, and I quickly began to read about the issues I've highlighted above. Don't get too excited about Cambodia having a free press, the Khmer language newspapers do not quite cover the same stories or in the same fashion. When reading the first such story, I thought that I must write about what is happening, but I quickly realised that there was no rush - there would be plenty of stories to write about.

However, there are three stories that seem to encapsulate the struggles facing people in Cambodia: the murder/manslaughter of anti-logging campaigner Chut Wutty; the shooting of three garment factory workers  by the Bavet town Governor at a strike protest; and the imprisonment of 13 women who had built a wooden shack where the homes used to be after being forced from their land for property development. Their stories will be told in the next few blogs.

So how do Claire and I fit into this situation? Well, we don't. We live in a different situation. Our life can consist of art exhibitions, yoga, and mini (v mini) street parties for royal jubilees. It can also consist of street food, the local markets and cheap long distance buses. The difference is our freedom to have both. 

Could we put ourselves in a different situation? Could we be beside Chut Wutty, the striking garment workers and the imprisoned women? To an extent but not if we wanted to continue doing the work we came here to do as VSO volunteers. It would be hard to convince the Government that VSO is here to work with them to build capacity when you are viewed as supporting the opposition. And this is a country where the popular and elected PM is not afraid of saying they will "make the opposition dead".

There is an online network of mainly ex-pats living in Phnom Penh. One member recently replied to another, who had recently experienced low level corruption, finishing with this advice; "We enjoy the cheap cost of living but complain about the ways of Cambodia that make that possible." Our challenge is to lead an undeniably privileged life built on cheap living, our duties as volunteers and the work of VSO, whilst making sure we do not complain about the ways of Cambodia when they happen to us, but work to improve them because they are happening to others. 

Gordon

Provincial happenings

Apologies for the recent blog hiatus. May turned into a rather busy, and slightly strange, month for us both. On the 1st of May I started my new job as a Communications Adviser for VSO Cambodia. It's a six month volunteer placement similar to Gordon's. It's been great so far and I'm really enjoying working in the office. More about that later though. Week two of May I was off to the provinces (then Gordon and I went to another province, Ratanakiri, for the King's birthday holiday. Then we finally moved into our apartment and on the same day Gordon got ill. We discovered he had dengue fever, he spent a week in hospital on a drip and the last week has been spent with him recovering and us trying to unpack and settle into our house. More about all of that later...)

So. Week two of May I was off to the provinces! Whereas in the UK we have counties and shires, here in Cambodia we have the provinces. We live in Phnom Penh province, and so far we've visited Kampong Cham (where we did language training) and Kep (where we went for the Khmer New Year holiday) provinces. Sam, another volunteer, was telling us how him and his wife Gilly (their blog here) are having a competition to see who can visit all the provinces first. This sounded like a great plan to me, especially when I heard I'd be going to Mondulkiri so I'd be one up on Gordon!

Mondulkiri is in the highlands of the northeast and is known to be leafy, cool and beautiful. And I was heading up there during avocado season. Bonus. I was off to see how some of the other volunteers lived, where they worked and do some investigating into communications between them and the country office (where my placement is based).

Midwifery Adviser Dominique, fondly known as Domi, was our host for the four days we were there. My other travelling companions were Clare and Ulises - Ulises is taking over from Clare as senior programme manager of health - and Reth and Sokunthea, the secure livelihoods programme team (read more about programme areas here.)

Mondulkiri (MDK) is about 370km from Phnom Penh. The road has been upgraded and paved quite recently and the journey now takes about 7 hours (things happen a lot slower on the roads here). In the VSO pick-up though, we made it in 6 hours. Which still felt a little like an eternity in the heat (even with air-con) and bumpy roads.

Sen Monorom high street - MDK's capital

The next day we were off out to one of the villages to see Domi hold a hygiene workshop. The village was about 45 minutes about by moto along bumpy, muddy dirt tracks. This was my first real trip on a moto if you don't count scooting around Phnom Penh's roads for 10-15 minutes.

the gang, after crossing a big muddy hole

Mondulkiri has lots of indigenous tribes with the majority being Phnong or Bunong, who are forest dwellers. Our remote Phnong village has only recently had the road upgraded (that picture above shows the upgraded road) - it used to take 2-3 hours to do the same journey. The improved road means that the village is under even more of a threat from new logging and, like many of the indigenous tribes, their land may be taken. Land rights are a huge issue in Cambodia - not my area of specialty so not one I will attempt to discuss here.

Domi was doing a hand-washing workshop and then showing how to make oral rehydration solution. It was a really lovely morning, sitting in the grounds of the school, which is opposite the health centre, and seeing how the community responded.

the local nurse (standing) translates from Khmer to Phnong.
The lady on the left, with the krama wrapped round her head,
turned up smoking a home made, rolled in a leaf, cone shaped cigar.
It's  amazing what you can do with a leaf!

the school - the library is through the left door

watching how to make the rehydration solution

Domi and Tak, her volunteer assistant who translates for her

A little girl peed on the tarpaulin while Domi was talking about the importance of washing your hands. The mum went off into the forest to get a leaf, came back and made a scoop out of the leaf to get rid of the pee. Genius. She then mopped up the leftovers with her scarf and hung it out to dry... I wanted to point out that now was a perfect moment for both hand, and clothes, washing but I obviously kept my mouth shut. I saw another mum using leaves like toilet paper on her little boy. The forest really does provide everything.

Before this turns into the longest blog post yet, I'll leave you with some more lovely shots of MDK

road tripping

a tree laden with avocados

we went to a coffee plantation for lunch and then took a wee stroll

view of the "sea forest" - so named as the colours at sunset make
the forest look like the sea

sunset at the sea forest

sunset over Sen Monorom

I come from the future

Since the poll returned joint winners for what the next blog should be (1 vote each), I'm writing about something totally different. But rather like Series 2 of The Wire, it may not be the best, but if you want to understand everything that follows than you have to read it.

Before departing, I was explaining to a friend, Liane, what I was going to do - assist an educational charity with campaigning and advocacy. Then she asked a basic but rather meaningful question - why do they need you to do that? I scratched my head and hummed a little. Now I have an answer - it's to do with breaking the space-time continuum and travelling faster than the speed of light.

A while ago, I attended a seminar given by a guy called Matt Ridley (Zoe, I've still got your book!) who has written brilliant books about genetics, was the Chairman of Northern Rock when it went bust (kind of the UK's Lehman Brothers) and then wrote a book advising that all countries will become wealthy given time and avoidance of North Korea like policies. As countries join the development conveyor belt, a series of good things happen that lead to more good things happening that leads to us all having a good time. Woo hoo!

It's just a matter of time before we're all rich

We've made it!

Ridley is really saying that the explanation for different countries having different levels of wealth is because they are at different stages in their political development. The UK has had political stability, democracy and commerce for centuries. Cambodia would count this in years, months and days. Einstein may have thought that time and space cannot be separated but actually some countries sharing the same space are in different time periods.

For Cambodia, which has had about 15 years of peace after decades of war and centuries of colonisation, is it just like being in the US after their War of Independence in 1783, or more like 1865 and their civil war? Maybe Cambodia is like the UK in 1745, when the Jacobite rebels were finally defeated and the UK found political stability.

When we wonder why some countries cannot just sort themselves out and stop being poor, we should think about what our countries were like when they were at the same stage as Cambodia is now. A few men ruled, corruption was common, power came from wealth and force, rule of law was absent, the streets were dirty, the masses were uneducated and irrational beliefs were common.

But this does not mean that Cambodia has to wait 200 years to become a functioning, developed society. Although Cambodia may be at a different time to the developed world, they do share the same space, which means that people of the future (from the developed world) can travel to Cambodia and share with them the learning and skills that are common in the future. In this way, Cambodia can travel faster through time and catch up with the developed world quicker than they otherwise would.

Don't worry, it's Claire that is driving

Cambodia and Cambodians have not had the chance to reap the knowledge or learn the skills that we have accumulated over centuries. That is why I'm here. I come from the future to share what has taken us centuries to learn.

Gordon

PS, because this blog is maybe stretching credibility a little and a bit 'off-beat' I've added a couple of random videos to entertain you. The first is us out for a cycle through tobacco fields near Kompong Cham.

And the second is a tribute to the start of the rainy season which was this week. But since Claire has the camera away with her in Mondulkiri, we're making do with a rain storm when we were walking through the national park in Kep.

A trip to Kep-sur-mer

Cambodia used to be a French colony but since so many people died during the 1970s, there aren't that many old people left who lived under French rule (ended in 1956). So now, French is only spoken by a few and whilst there may be slightly more French people here than would otherwise be, Cambodia does not feel French in any way. Except in Kep.

Fishing boats and seafront restaurants in Kep

We went to Kep for the New Year and it's a lovely small town on the coast and is also where people go from to the virtually uninhabited Rabbit Island for an idyllic escape. It also is a tri-lingual place with quite a few French people living there, and English being the conversant language for all non-French tourists.

As some of you may remember, I used to be completely fluent in French but alas when faced with the choice of speaking to the French husband or Khmer wife who owned the restaurant, it seems that we now find it easier to speak Khmer. Testament to our Khmer teacher, but doesn't say much for our combined 6 years of French at school.

Kep is famous for its crab market and fresh seafood, although it's a bit pricey. A main meal generally costs between $1.50 and $4 dollars depending on where you eat. But here, the shrimp is $5 and crab $7. Expensive considering there's not exactly any transportation costs.

Crabs for sale at the market

There are two strange things about the people who fish the crabs. Firstly, they are virtually all women and secondly they are fully clothed when they go into the sea to collect their baskets and nets. Although, most Khmer adults go into the sea fully clothed because it is the fashion here to be as pale as possible. They actually even use whitening in skin products such as sun tan lotion.

Who needs swimming trunks?

Kep also has some rather brave, inquisitive gibbons that came down and fed off the scraps of the holiday makers. One came right up to us, maybe only three feet away, but rather than take a picture, we jumped away from something a tenth of our size. These gibbons were also less timid than the monkeys in the national park for whom we stopped for aaaages to look for in trees. Unsuccessfully.

Not a totem pole but a road sign

So after hiking through the national park in mid to high 30s heat, what should you do next? Yep, get some rather powerful cocktails for $2 and look out at the sunset over the Gulf of Thailand. I'm not sure what our excuse was every other night mind you.

The sailing club where we had our cocktails and the national park behind it

We were actually at the sailing club for New Year and as we had our own little countdown we wondered what would happen as the clock struck 7:11. The only Khmer people there were staff mind you so we weren't expecting much. But there was actually nothing at all. There was no congratulations amongst the staff or semblance of celebration and when we asked Khmer people back at the hotel, they said there wasn't any kind of partying for New Year other than food and drink with family.   

Sunset over the Gulf of Thailand - so warm that even Claire swam in it

This is probably not much use for our readers outside of Cambodia, but if you go to Kep, do stay in The Boat House. Gorgeous little hotel close to the beach, crab market and national park. A little haven. And for the rest of you, do tell us via the poll or comments below what you would like to read more about, or if there any burning questions about Cambodia. 

Gordon

A New Year brings monks with gadgets

At 7:10pm on Friday 13th April, the clock ticked over to 7:11pm and the new year of 2556 was welcomed in Cambodia. 


Khmer New Year is a big deal, kind of like our Christmas. Everybody heads back to their family "homeland" and there are three or four days of celebrations. But before all of that, it's time to call in the monks for a blessing.


Before new year, it is traditional for monks to bless the office and staff. Claire was first to experience this and she came home with tales of fruit and sweets bouncing of the heads of the kneeled, bowed staff after being thrown as part of the blessing. The fruit is literally called rich and is meant to bestow wealth and the sweets represent sweetness of life.

Stole this from Google Images because we were far too respectful to take pics

So during the blessing in my office, I was sitting head bowed in a horribly awkward position comforted only at the prospect of fruit and sweets. Except it was water droplets that soon hit my head. I looked up to the ceiling only to realise that it was the monks flicking the water at us, quickly followed by flower buds.


I sat respectfully bowed and motionless with cramp setting in, whilst all around me staff were answering their mobile phones and throwing flower buds over other staff or in the gap down the back of people's trousers as they bent forward. I had become used to Khmer people answering their mobile phone no matter where they are when it rings, but I was shocked by what I saw next.


As one monk was chanting and blessing us, the other one was sitting beside him chatting on his mobile phone. Yep, not all monks are the propertyless, wizened old men that we mythologise. 

Some monks just chilling

In fact, rather than attainment of monk-hood being the result of lifelong study and sacrifice, any male of any age can just walk into a pagoda, shave their head, don some robes and hey presto you're a monk. And if you get a bit bored, you just change your clothes, walk out the pagoda and that's the end of your monk-hood. Until you maybe want to become a monk again.

I was asking him if that was the same robe Obi Wan Kenobi had

Some families send their sons to the pagoda to get educated; others go for shelter and food; and we've been told others go to avoid a jail sentence. The idea of not owning property is quaint and observed by some but others have laptops and motos etc, whilst the illusion of monks being pure was shattered on day 3 here when I saw one having a fag. Worse, vulnerable women who have gone to a pagoda for shelter have subsequently become pregnant. How this was achieved when monks are not allowed to touch women is particularly impressive. 


Despite this reality, monks still enjoy the highest reverence here. There is a special word to greet them and even the King (or God-King as he officially is) must bow down to the youngest monk. Restaurants give them free food and shops give them money. 

Monks getting a free lift

We met a monk in our first week who had survived the Khmer Rouge and walked hundreds of miles to reach Phnom Penh and a pagoda he wanted to join. He spoke passionately about Buddhism and explained its teachings. He was clearly committed and sincere about his beliefs, it just seems that there is the odd one or two that aren't how you imagined them to be.


Happy New Year
Gordon

care packages and finding a house - what more could you want!

Last week I received my first care package from home - so exciting! It only took two weeks to get here (which is quite impressive given the number of packages that we've heard about going missing forever / AWOL for up to six weeks) and arrived just in time for Easter, complete with Cadbury's mini eggs and creme egg splats. I literally could not have been happier.

When I was in Namibia (ten years ago this year!) I was very lucky to receive lots of letters every time I got back to basecamp. I spent a lot of time writing letters when I was there too as, back in the day, email and laptops just weren't the norm. (This was also before digital cameras got affordable too however, I digress...) It's lovely getting letters and I'm only sad the postal system is slow and expensive to send mail through otherwise I'd be sending postcards and airmail letters to everyone!

There were other practical things that I'd asked for too, such as stain removal liquid, some clothes that I thought would be useful to have and rubber gloves (I wasn't sure you'd get them here which is a bit ridiculous, but you never know!) Mum and dad also enclosed birthday cards from my family and some pics from home including some of my newly painted flat. They've been very busy since I left cleaning the flat and repainting everything (or just painting a lot of things given that I never quite got round to painting my bedroom or living room in the six years I was there...) It's looking fantastic (thanks again folks) and my lovely new tenant has moved in and is hopefully going to be very happy there!

and another of me with all my exciting things!

We've been house hunting ourselves here. As I mentioned in an earlier post it may be me being fussy but I just hadn't seen anywhere that felt like home. This is mostly because the apartments are all empty and therefore hard to imagine how they would look homely, generally quite dirty (you'd think sweeping up the dead cockroaches would be the least you'd do if you were trying to rent out your apartment!) and because some of them are just plain not nice. And also because we had seen fellow VSOer Clare's place and then stayed in it for a week while she was on holiday, and I sort of fell in love with it. There were two problems - Clare wasn't leaving until mid-end May and we didn't want to be in our tiny, cheap guesthouse for another six weeks, and Gordon wasn't sure he wanted to be in BKK1, the area the flat is in which is basically expat-land (or Barangville as it's commonly known, Barang being the catch all term for foreigners).

Before we moved to Cambodia we'd chatted quite a lot about how we could integrate into a Khmer community living in a city. Once we came here we kept having these discussions and slowly we've realised that it's just very difficult. We've heard lots of stories of volunteers with similar thoughts but who have just not managed to do it. It's not that Khmer people aren't friendly, far from it, but all I can assume is, they have their own lives and their own friends and they're not particularly fussed to make friends with foreigners. There are obviously exceptions but I've realised that any Khmer friends we make will take time, and where we live actually won't make the difference as the chances are it will be people we meet through work or mutual friends, not through chatting to them in our street.

Anyway, on Saturday, after looking round MORE apartments with a new agent, all of which I'd already seen with another agent, we finally decided that we would take Clare's. So, all going well, we have a house, with some really great (ex-pat) neighbours that we can move into sometime next month. In the meantime, after some panicked hunting, we have moved into the Cheeky Monkey for the meantime. It's like a posh hostel where we have our own room with bathroom and can use the kitchen and living room etc. It's lovely and we've got some good hostel-mates including a Korean girl who is interning at one of the Ministeries, and a French girl, who speaks five languages, and is working at one of the Ministeries and the UN! We really are the poor relations here.

It's Khmer New Year this weekend so we've decided to head to the beach. More of that next time! In the meantime, all this started with talk of a care package. Not that I'm fishing (much) but it is really exciting getting mail here, so if anyone fancies going old school and writing a letter our address is:
Claire and/or Gordon
VSO Cambodia Programme Office
PO Box 912
Phnom Penh
Cambodia

I can't promise I'll be able to post anything back as, bizarrely, sending seems to be even trickier (and way more expensive) than receiving (I think they take the money but don't actually put the stamps on for you...) but you will have our eternal gratitude!

Sua s'dey chinam t'mei! (literally hello year new)