Take a step into my office

So, six months in and there's not really been much said about what we do. There's been a few pics of some nice places in Cambodia, the odd commentary on some issues facing the people here and a brief discourse on beer. But since so many people raised funds and donated money for us to come to Cambodia, I feel that I should at least give you a hint as to what I'm doing.

Come on in to my office. That's a mango tree you can see the trunk of by the way. 

NGO Education Partnership (NEP) is the association body for educational NGOs working in Cambodia. Their two primary goals are to represent the sector in policy discussions with government and to support NGOs by providing training, supporting cooperation and sharing information and best practice.

My role is to build the capacity of NEP to be successful in these goals, and specifically in terms of advocacy and fundraising ability. The key bit in that sentence is "build capacity". To help NEP achieve success, I'm not meant to lead people, direct work, or even do anything by myself in isolation. I'm meant to use my skills to make the people of NEP create that success themselves.

Me and Rithy, CEO of NEP. Constantly amazes me about how much he knows about things like Thatcher, Princess Diana, Falklands War, and English comics of course (see previous blog).

Mostly, I do this by sitting down with staff and working with them on their tasks and how to plan, implement and evaluate their work on these tasks. And because I am not meant to simply tell them what to do but actually to help them work out what to do for themselves, I basically ask a lot of questions. You know how 8 years olds go through phases of replying to every answer with "why?", well I'm kind of employing the same tactic.

I ask question after question to push them to think about what they are doing, why they are doing it and whether it will help them achieve what they want to. The one thing I try not to do is offer my opinion, which must be infuriating. It's also pretty hard for me!

Imagine having every question answered by a question, and then a guy who is meant to be there because is he knowledgeable about a subject refusing to give his opinion. I think it may be because they cannot reach up to my face that has saved me from a punch in the face. Even I want to punch me sometimes.

The room where it all happens - my desk in the far right corner, and Rithy's desk on the left. I broke one of the blue plastic chairs in my first month. Never learnt not to swing on chairs. 

However, the staff at NEP show a real willingness to work with me and in doing things this way, which I hope will mean that after 2 years they will not need another me, nor think that they do.

At our fundraising quiz/goodbye party, one of Claire's friends (mine too but you know what I mean) called Alasdair (not you Kipper) and I were chatting about the low enrolment rate in secondary school (35%) and that it would be a great achievement if after 2 years I had helped push that up a bit. But now, I'm realising that the real measure of success will be if it's the Cambodian staff of NEP who are pushing that up for years to come after I've gone home.

Every Friday at 4:30pm - party time! All the staff eat together with two different people each week responsible for choosing and buying the food. I'm going to hunt a haggis for them soon. 

I will leave Claire to explain how she's getting on as a newly found health expert who moonlights as a MC for Embassy receptions.
Take care
Gordon

Cambodian comedy

I'm sitting at my desk typing away when my boss steps out of the bathroom in our room and says "Mr Bean. He's from England, right?" Slightly hesitant of where this was going and what had happened in the toilet, I replied that yes Mr Bean was from England.

"Aaah, so you have two famous comedians in Cambodia."

This did not give me a clue as to what had happened in the loo to prompt this conversation, but now I was trying to guess who the heck might be the other famous English comedian in Cambodia. Michael McIntyre sells more DVDs than people in China but I didn't think it was him. Billy Connolly's accent would definitely have barred him from being understood, so I wondered whether it was somebody like John Cleese, given the international following of Monty Python.

"Charlie Chaplin. He very popular here. I think even funnier than Mr Bean. Oooh, very clever, smart things."

Sitting back in wonder, I agreed that yes Charlie Chaplin is very funny and clever. One thing bothered me though. My boss's English is amazing but he was talking about Chaplin in the present tense. It could be that Chaplin is still alive in Cambodia and I wasn't going to kill him.

I should have guessed it would have been Chaplin as I had seen a TV in a restaurant with a Chaplin film on, and having seen Cambodian comics on TV, they definitely favour physical comedy. So while England has given Cambodia Chaplin and Bean (and yes, my boss, Rithy, was the first to tell me about Mr Bean in the Olympic opening ceremony - as well James Bond and the Queen), their favoured American comedians are......Tom and Jerry.

Whilst in Kompong Cham when we first arrived the night receptionist and his mates used to settle down and watch a good Tom and Jerry cartoon. Fair enough I thought, he might not be that educated and TV might be a bit rubbish at this time of night. However, I was surprised to see my boss (who has two degrees and travelled internationally) watching it on the internet in the office one day, having a right good chuckle to himself.

In keeping with how this blog started, here is a picture of a sign in my toilet at the hotel I was staying in last week. It might give us a clue as to what had happened in the toilet to prompt this little exchange.

The signs says - please do not stand on the toilet. In English of course, although most folk who can read English are probably not the same ones who might be tempted to stand on a toilet. 

Gordon

Also, in another blog, I wrote about a family in a poor neighbourhood who were devoted to teaching their kids English. Well, Claire found the picture (voyeurism I know...) that we took of the scene. You can see it on this blog posting:

Six months? Already?!

For our six month anniversary in Cambodia, Gordon and I thought we would do something completely unprecedented. A joint blog. 

Controversial we know and likely to lead to arguments but we're going to give it a shot. 

Things we have learned so far:  

Road lessons

The majority of drivers (read, every single one I've come across so far) have never heard of that great mantra 'mirror, signal, manoeuvre'. Not for them checking before taking off, pulling out or overtaking. No no. Just go for it and trust the person behind you has reactions like lightning. We know a volunteer who's working at the National Road Safety Department (or similar - it always raises a look of disbelief when she says it. I don't think anyone believes it exists) and I think, if there was one thing that I would introduce if I was there it would be 'mirror, signal, manoeuvre'. I'm not saying it would solve all problems but it might foster a more caring, thoughtful and considerate driving population, save some lives/injuries therefore meaning people can still work, earn money, eat and therefore live longer and happier lives. Just saying!

(I, Claire, am genuinely thinking about patenting ‘mirror, signal, maneouvre’. Watch this space)

on your marks, get set...

Thankfully, the roadkill we see are mostly rats, which get squashed with alarming (or reassuring) frequency. Given that in the UK we’re never meant to be more than three feet from a rat (or whatever the statistic is), one can only assume that British rats have more road sense than Cambodian ones. Said squashed rats then lie squashed completely flat on the road for days and days and days (identified by grey, ratty looking fur (pun intended) with a long, thick tail sticking out). Sadly, the same is also true when it's a little black and white kitten...

However, after six months here, cycling in the traffic of Phnom Penh, we've also realised that, somehow, it just works. Cycling the wrong way down streets against the flow of traffic, dodging round cars and tuk tuks to sneak through small gaps, pushing your way through gridlock at a crossroads - somehow it all moves along (eventually). Now we’re not saying it's not chaos - sadly we’re sure it's a case of 'when' one of us has a bike accident, not 'if' we have one - but it does just sort it itself out with very little intervention. It's a marvel really. Part of this is an almost complete lack of road rage. Part of it is that rules do exist. They mostly go - the bigger you are the more important you are. And, if you have no licence plates, your car beats any old beaten up bigger lorry or truck, even although said lorry or truck could squash you. Other useful rules are, trust no one, believe that everyone is out to get you and have eyes in the back, side and top of your head (honestly, traffic comes at ALL angles here).

The lingo

The translation for thief is gangster. We were warned the other night to watch our bicycles, and especially our bicycle helmets, as there are gangsters here (in the park with all the families!). However, we've also learned a surprising amount about our own language. It seems that Cambodians know English grammar better than we do leading to some embarrassing moments when a pleading Cambodian asks us to explain some tense we've never heard of. 

Hotter than the kitchen when you open the oven

A Ugandan volunteer who arrived with us really struggled with the heat and an Ethiopian guy we know here says the heat is unbearable in Cambodia. We're Scottish. We stand no chance. It is actually possible to sweat more than we thought possible, including from your eyelids.

A sense of the past

On a more serious note, the people talk about the Khmer Rouge time with surprising frankness and honesty. They generally smile when they talk - emotions are not really shown here. We’re never sure if they smile so as to show that they're ok talking about it, or to reassure the people that they're telling that it's ok. It's very humbling hearing these stories.

Plus, you then realise that it wasn't 1975-79 that Cambodia was in turmoil but that throughout the whole 1980s people were living in refugee camps amidst civil war. And the 90s saw tanks on the streets. But I think the really surprising thing is that the Prime Minister was relatively high up in the Khmer Rouge as were other people who are now in senior positions and that the Khmer Rouge still had a lot of support even after its fall.

Heart attack on a plate (Come on, you didn’t think we could get through a blog without talking about food at some point, did you?)

Being Scottish, we thought we were the masters at deep frying. Not so. The range of deep fried goods here are amazing, regularly bananas (see below) or bread-type goodies.

What is that? UMO

Unidentified Meat Object. Claire’s favourite descriptor for all the random foodstuffs that are cooked on most street corners. On a brighter note, the question of ‘what the heck is that’ often pertains to fruit. There are fruits here that we have never seen or heard of. Amazing stuff. And bananas – who knew that there were so many ways to cook bananas?!

And there you have it. No great insights but more a collection of thoughts that don’t quite warrant a blog unto themselves.

Gordon on his dengue fever visit to hospital, trusty drip at his side

Neither of us can quite believe that six months has passed so quickly. We’re having a great time (if you ignore the dengue episode and even that is really just another story for the re-telling) and are sure our year anniversary blog will be upon us before we know it. Thanks for sticking with us on this folks!

gooood morning Viet Naaaammmm

As it looks like the division of blog-writing labour has been split to Gordon commenting on the social and political aspects of our time here in Cambodia while I tell you about "stuff wot we've done", it would appear that it's my turn again. And this time it's our trip to Vietnam.

We went to visit Gordon's friend Annalise and her wife Nadine. Gordon used to work with Annalise in London and it was her decision, approximately three or so years ago, to volunteer that inspired Gordon to make the same decision. Many will now know the story that, until Gordon mentioned to me that he'd like to do something similar, he swears he had no idea that I had been saying (to anyone that asked. For years!) that about the only thing career wise that I was sure I wanted to do was volunteer with VSO.

My mum did VSO in the 70s in Papua New Guinea. While it wasn’t something she spoke about a lot, it definitely sparked something in me. Mostly itchy feet and a desire to see the world, but also wanting to not just travel, but to live and work somewhere and “make a difference”. So, after five years with Gordon seemingly having no clue about this (I still swear he must have known) I was very excited to meet Annalise to thank her in person for his inspiration!

We hopped on the bus in Phnom Penh at some early hour in the morning and, slightly surprisingly, actually departed almost on time. We were in our favourite seats on the coach, numbers 15 and 16, and looking forward to the six hour journey. And then the air con kicked in.

While I appreciate the cooling of the bus (we once had to do three hours on a bus here with broken air con. The driver sat with the door open as we sped our way down the road with me convinced something, or someone, was going to fall out at any point. It didn’t make a lot of difference and we arrived hot, sweaty and rather bedraggled anyway) this was chilling to the point of ridiculousness. After putting on another t-shirt, and then borrowing yet another of Gordon’s, and then wrapping my pashmina/scarf round my head to try and stop the freezing air blasting it, I finally made some feeble “I’m cold” gesture to our lovely conductor. He promptly swept the curtain from the window and tucked it up into the overhead compartment, effectively blocking the cold air from the ducts. Genius!

An added bonus to the journey that we weren’t aware of came just outside Phnom Penh when we stopped at the river. It took a few moments after getting off the bus to realise that we weren't standing on land, but had actually driven straight on to the ferry. It's a flat, drive on, drive off affair where there are no barriers to stop you falling off the front or the back. We did our best Kate and Leo impression and stood at the very front of the ferry as we made the short hop across, wind blowing in our hair.

our bus, on the boat

Fried crickets for sale on the boat. No, we didn't partake.

The ferry at the other side waiting to cross

We got off the bus and, rather miraculously, managed to find Annalise in a cafe without getting lost (our Cambodian mobiles didn't work in Vietnam).  A spot of lunch followed by a walk through Saigon, stopping to buy some impressive tarpaulin like ponchos when the rain started, and a short trip on the expat bus out to Annalise and Nadine's place was afternoon one.

Just like Cambodia - but with hats! And these hats were everywhere.

That night we went out for bia hoi. Translated as "fresh beer" it's brewed daily and is super cheap. At 10,000 dong a litre, and with 22,000 dong to the dollar, it was certainly not breaking the bank! We had a great time there as an old soldier came over and chatted to us and then tried to set up Annalise with his, rather embarrassed, son.

Next day we went on a tour of Saigon, wandering through the market, looking at the Reunification Palace before swinging by Notre Dame to the Post Office.

food stalls at Ben Thanh market

another stall

Coconut seller, with one of the great hats. Interesting fact, coconuts in Phnom Penh are sold from
wheelbarrow  type carts and are not cut into the same shape as they are in Saigon. Ladies carrying two
baskets like these in PP are usually selling noodle soup.

Reunification Palace

street scene

Notre Dame

Gordon, Annalise and the Post Office

personal grooming outside the Post Office

How much would you love to phone home in one of these? Inside the Post Office

Cannae beat a map!

The rather beautiful Post Office

We went to the Ho Chi Minh museum in the afternoon. It was basically a LOT of photographs, mostly with captions in Vietnamese, so we didn't learn a huge amount. But it was raining, and it was indoors, so it was a winner!

the Saigon River, from the museum

Crowds outside the Reunification Palace in 1975

Ho Chi Minh museum 

Next day was Monday and Nadine and Annalise had to work, so we set off ourselves (managing to get the local bus, for a grand total of about 35 pence each) into town to meet our tour bus to take us to the Cu Chi tunnels.

On the way we stopped off at a lacquer factory - captive tourists and all that! It was actually great to see them making all the lacquer pictures and to see the processes it goes through. And to learn that they use lots of crushed eggshell.

Our guide to the tunnels was a young guy (red t-shirt a few pics below) and he was great at explaining and showing everything. It was a really interesting trip. (I'm sure I would have found it even more interesting had I managed to stayed awake for his chat about the war on the minibus to the tunnels...)

Another guide shows where all the tunnels were round Saigon.

Gordon slithering down one of the hatches. Claustrophobia ahoy!

A hidden trap. The ground would go from under you and you'd land on the spikes underneath. 

Gordon with half a tank

Our guide helping sell the bullets for going to fire the guns . We decided not to pay to shoot any
 but I did jump when I heard them go off. Guns are really loud!

Part of the tour let us climb down into the tunnels and "walk" along a 100m stretch. Even although it was lit for us it was still pretty dark, and very hot. And really hard work. We both came out with thighs that felt like we'd climbed a mountain.

It's hard to believe people lived in the tunnels. There's too much to explain about what we learned here but it's a must do if you visit Saigon.

In the tunnels - that have been heightened and widened for foreigners...

A model of the tunnels - they worked on three layers. A real feat of engineering.

We got dropped off at the War Remnants Museum after the tunnels. It was a pretty grim reminder of the  horrors of war. And another time that I was glad not to be an American. They're really not a fan of Americans in Vietnam, and they're not shy about showing it. Outside the museum is lots of old planes, tanks and helicopters and inside are hundreds and hundreds of photographs of the war and its aftermath, in particular showing the affects of Agent Orange.

All too soon it was our last day and Annalise and Nadine packed us back off to Phnom Penh complete with a suitcase full of swag from their house (they leave Saigon in August after two years there) - pillows, wine glasses, knives, a vase - you name it, we swiped it. Thanks guys!

We had a few hours in the city before our bus was due so we wandered round taking it all in a little more.

I think every park should have a sign banning teasing animals.

See the tall building on the right with the bit sticking out of it? That bit is a helipad and it's on a hotel. It's never used, as only the military are allowed to fly helicopters. Most pointless 'bit' ever built?

Ben Thanh market

fruit seller

And possibly my favourite photo from our trip - a fish boat beside a penguin bin.

Shock: Scot admits the power of English

Just after we arrived in Phnom Penh, we were walking through The White Building - concrete blocks of claustrophobic flats crammed together with unlit walkways and ground levels furrows. The White Building is notorious rather than desirable.

Front doors to the flats were often lying open so you could easily see the main living area. Staring out from one flat, placed over the dinner table, was a blackboard. Written at the top was the "Past Perfect Tense" with various English phrases underneath. Scrawled in chalk on the outside of the house's concrete wall were a list of English words and grammatical rules.

A Cambodian home in The While Building complete with a white board full of grammatical rules. I kind of love this picture. Plus, we've got a white board now too!

I could not help but stare. I never saw any of the family but I began to think about what drove the parents to obviously put so much effort into helping their children learning English. What did they think learning English would do for their children? What life would learning English provide? The answers become clear pretty quickly.

Nothing to do with this blog - but you can guess what the next one may be about

The EU recently asked Cambodian charities to apply to a specific fund for Cambodia. All NGOs had to do was read the guidelines and submit an application. Except the guidelines were in rather technical English with no Khmer translation. And the applications all had to be done in English as well.

Just as most donors act similarly to the EU, most research in Cambodia is published in English too, even when done by Cambodians for Cambodian NGOs, meaning only a few Cambodians could even conceivably read it. This is a country where if you are aged over 30, your school years were spent surviving the Khmer Rouge and civil war so education levels are understandably low.

In meetings, native or very fluent English speakers (Dutch, French etc) rapidly go back and forth, whilst many Cambodians are still, in their heads, translating what they want to say from Khmer to English. Soon, the conversation moves on and they miss their chance.

Just another photographic interlude to lighten my oh so serious topic. We used one of these ferries to go to Vietnam. Could stand right at the edge with no barrier.

All of this means that if you don't speak English, then you're not in the game. You don't even get to warm up.
Cambodia is losing people who may have the skills and intelligence to be brilliant in certain jobs/professions but never get the chance to because they don't speak English. If speaking a second language was a prerequisite for your job, would you have got it? Plus, those professionals who do speak English devote all of their time improving their English rather than learning other skills.

If you speak English, you're in demand. It's hitting home how being born in a wee city in Scotland has already given me a step up on the rest of the world.

Ciao / Au revoir / Lea hai
Gordon

Landing in trouble

In late 2003, the Government organised a competition to select the best development plan for Boeng Kak Lake in the Borei Keila area of Phnom Penh. The winning idea, which was ignored, envisioned public parks, a museum, shops and new houses. Instead, a 99 year lease was given to a company owned by a Senator of the ruling party who had a vision of high-rise luxury apartments and lots of cash.

They started filling in the lake with tonnes of sand and evicted thousands of families from the area. Ever since arriving, we have read about the continuous protests of families against their eviction and lack of alternative housing. Many are left with nothing because they do not have land titles, which is hardly surprising given 30 years of civil war and violence. Plus, most tarpaulin shacks don't come with land titles.

During one protest in May, thirteen women were arrested and two days later were tried and sentenced for trying to occupy state land illegally. Larger protests ensued and appeals were launched.

In a bit of a surprise, the appeal court, whilst upholding the conviction of the thirteen women, reduced their sentence from two and a half years to time served. But even good news in this story is superseded by bad - a pregnant woman miscarried after being hit by police during a protest.

You can see how the whole story unfolded here, which also shows a pic of what the lake looks like now - swamped with sand and without much development happening.

Land is the biggest issue in Cambodia. Rights and laws do not matter as much as money, power and force. The poor literally are the dispossessed as they get moved from their homes, farms and forests at gunpoint. A mixture of local, provincial and national government is giving away 99 year leases on millions of hectares, and it's not the affected communities or public purse that are seeing the cash from these sales.

Yesterday saw a campaign launched because of land taken by a sugar company owned by a ruling party Senator (see a pattern emerging?). The sugar ends up in Tate and Lyle bags being sold in Europe. Some things are not so sweet here.

Gordon