Birthday fun at the Olympic Stadium

Sam and Gilly are two volunteers who are based in Kratie. They are the couple who've inspired our competition to see who can visit the most provinces (Gordon is currently in the lead after his work trip to Siem Reap).

A few weekend's ago it was Sam's birthday and and we were invited to the celebrations here in the big smoke! It started with drinks and snacks at the VSO office (ok, that was actually to welcome the new volunteers who had just arrived but it couldn't have been timed better), then headed out for dinner on the Friday (pics of the fantastic ectoplasm cake plus Sam's take on his birthday weekend here). Saturday afternoon Sam and Gilly were off to the Olympic Stadium and invited us to join them for some fun at the pool.

Gordon is a massive fan of the Stadium and has been wanting to swim there for ages. We went a few weeks ago after work, finally determined to take a dip. Sadly the pool was closed. We did get a chance to see the Cambodian Olympic team in training. There were just swimming laps so it wasn't particularly inspiring to watch however there were two guys there who must be potential (or previous?) Paralympians. One had no legs and one had half of one leg. And they were the fastest in the pool! Now that was inspiring.

Anyway, this was the day for swimming. But first we decided to watch Sam throw himself off the 10 metre diving board and take some pics. And then I took some more pics. Rather a lot more. I'd forgotten how much fun my DSLR is (thanks dad) and took one or two more than necessary thanks to the joy of burst mode!

Sam at the top of the 10m diving board

cowabunga!

You have to look pretty closely to find Sam in this photo. Fluke capture!
(I know this doesn't fit on the page but I had to make it big enough that you could see it)

There were loads of young Khmer guys jumping off the 10m board so I ended up taking quite a lot of pictures of them too...

Some of the jumps were jaw-dropping and squeal inducing (on my part, not theirs). After spending so much time taking photos I only ended up swimming for a short time - and 50 metre pools are knackering so after three lengths I was happily done (I haven't been swimming properly since I came here - that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!)

The swimming pool - where there wasn't much swimming action from Gordon or I

Slightly later in the evening - after swimming - with the sun starting to set

There were some young kids in the pool who decided they wanted their photo taken too

not quite as impressive

After the pool we went to watch the sunset in the main part of the Stadium

Samean and Gilly

aerobics... 

 aerobics...

and more aerobics! Plus lots of people walking or running along the steps/seats
 (the swimming pool is just behind this bit)

our next subjects muscling in on the photo action early

We met some more photogenic kids who we persuaded to have their photos taken...

And as the sun set over the Stadium we headed off our separate ways... Sam and Gilly for birthday steaks and Gordon and I for fantastic pizza with Ken and Samean. Happy days. 

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.

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.