No more 50 shades of grey; kill the Lexus

I want to take a key and score the whole side of a Lexus. And not just one; I want to scratch all of them. This is what Cambodia has done to me.

You don't want to be shy about it do you?

Usually, I have an ability to see shades of grey in everything; something I inwardly dislike about myself sometimes. Rather than this being a result of deep consideration, I fear it is a coward's way of avoiding saying what I believe. 

There are friends who seem to know what is right or wrong - they can see the black and white clearly despite the shades of grey. I'm sometimes jealous of them for this although I know that it can mean that you are quick to judge or unable to ever change your mind.

In Cambodia, I have found myself losing the grey and seeing the black. Black Lexus cars.

I don't want to be racist - I want to do the same to white Lexus (plural - Lexi?)  too.

One of the first things I noticed in Cambodia was that there were three types of vehicles that people owned: bicycles, motos and huge 4x4 cars. There were very few small or medium sized cars. If you had enough money for a car, then you had enough money for a massively expensive one.

These cars symbolise the grabbing of a country's wealth by a small minority of people. All of the gem stones have been mined, the forests cleared and the land sold and the most visible sign of benefit from all of this are the huge 4x4 cars owned by a few. I see a Lexus and I am repulsed.

Before Toyota Lexus sue me, I feel the same about Range Rovers which are becoming the new desire as Lexi (plural Lexus...) are too ubiquitous now. 

In the UK, I did not care if a person had a huge, expensive car. I was not impressed, neither was I repulsed. But in Cambodia, I find that I am. This could be a little righteous indignation (I'm here to help your country folk and you're wasting money on a flash car), but I think it comes from knowing that some people's wealth has come at the cost of others.

I'm not talking about an unequal spreading of wealth, but people getting rich because others have lost their land, their farm or their forest where they collect food. The fact that they can't even drive the damn things seems to make it even worse! But, unsurprisingly, I have found some grey that means I can avoid taking my key to the sides of Lexus.

I would much rather do what this kid is doing - just with better aim

If your whole family of grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins etc numbered 20 in 1975 and only 2 in 1979, what would you do to protect your family? You would feel that you have a debt to your ancestors and a responsibility to those who are left to keep the family safe. You could quite easily feel that you would do everything you could to make sure that you had enough wealth and power to protect your family or send them away if civil war erupted again. And I guess that means having a Lexus.

Gordon

Key to Cambodian development? Google.

By the end of this blog, I bet 6 beers you that you will be able to read and write Khmer script.

This is the Khmer alphabet and the sounds of each letter.

VSO is all about sustainable development. Volunteers are meant to go to a developing country, share their skills and build the capacity of people living there, so that when the volunteer leaves, the volunteer is no longer needed anyway. Teach a man to fish rather than give him a fish type philosophy.

When I first arrived, one of the first things to hit me was that the NGO I work at (NEP) could not produce reports in English to a high enough standard for big, international organisations like UNICEF and the World Bank to respect them. Avid fans of this blog may remember a post about how important English is in Cambodia.

My winning 'sustainable' idea is to arrange for a pool of volunteers based anywhere in the world who could do some serious editing to reports. This could be ex-VSO volunteers, UN volunteers or even just folk who want to do a little good.

I shared this idea with somebody else who was a bit sceptical of it as it was not aimed directly at up-skilling Cambodians here and the ongoing need for volunteers was unsustainable. Her suggestion was intensive training for one or two key members of staff. The flaw is of course that when the staff leave, the NGO is back at square one.

After being pushed, I declared that the only truly sustainable way possible within the near future would be to get Google to have Khmer-English translation available on Google Translate.

Now Google Translate is obviously not perfect but I had already thought that if people could translate things into Khmer, then a whole world of knowledge could be opened up. One of the things that I have realised is that you cannot expect people to become knowledgeable when they cannot read the books or websites that hold the knowledge. As an English speaker, every book in the world is translated into my language. For Khmer speakers, there has probably been a handful. English is king on the internet too.

I began to think how I could get to Google, and then one of my friends began working for them. It was surely a sign. But a bigger one was an article a few months ago that said Google would include Khmer in it's Google Translate service  in 2013. Then on April 18th 2013, I sent this message to a colleague: ខ្ញុំស្រឡាញ់ Google.

You too can now understand what my message said. Simply copy and paste the message that I sent into Google Translate choosing Khmer into English.

Expect the next blog to be written in Khmer...

Gordon

PS, because Google Translate is not perfect, NEP will still need editors for maybe 2 reports a year so not much work at all. I want to trial this before I go in April 2014 as I think it could make a huge difference to shaping education policy in Cambodia. Email me: gordonconochie@yahoo.co.uk if you think you could help.

Cooking Khmer

Christmas 2011, my wonderful sister, smart cookie that she is, gave me a crisp $50 note with the instruction to spend it on a Khmer cooking course she'd found for us to do in Phnom Penh. 16 months later, almost to the day, Gordon and I finally did the course today.

me in Phnom Penh with the same $50 note,
just slightly less crisp as it has been folded up for over a year!

We had a great day, going to the market to buy all the food with our teacher, Sawn, and then making:
- vegetable spring rolls
- fish amok
- banana flower salad
- mango and sticky rice

cooking stations at the ready

It was a great day and I would highly recommend it for anyone visiting, but I'm actually glad that we waited to do it after being in Cambodia for a while (13 months now). It was lovely to chat to our teacher about the food and learn more Khmer names for things knowing what we know now about Cambodia and its food. It's also fun to make Khmer people laugh with some of the Khmer sayings we have learned.

ingredients ready for making the amok 'kroeung' or paste:
lemongrass, kaffir lime, galangal, turmeric, chilli, shallot and garlic in the small basket
dried then chopped into a paste chilli in the small bowl
chilli and kaffir lime leave finely chopped for decoration

the kroeung after being pounded up 

learning to make the banana leaf bowl to hold the amok

finished bowl 

the finished fish amok after being steamed, with extra coconut cream on top

banana flower

Peeling the dark leaves off the flower to
get to the tender yellow leaves inside

I had to add both of these so you can see how much
taller he is than nearly every Khmer person

banana leaf salad

There are two menus to choose from for the cookery course and our final dish of the day was the reason we ended up choosing 'menu 1' - mango and sticky rice.

In the picture above you can see all the parts that go into this dish. Top left is the sticky rice, top middle  is palm sugar caramel (palm sugar, salt, lime and coconut milk) and top right is the palm sugar caramel mixed with freshly grated coconut. On the plates is the mango - Sawn said to make it into whatever design we wanted. I can't remember who started the animal idea but Gordon went with an elephant and I ended up with a crocodile, as my suggested tiger just wasn't looking anything like a tiger!

finished designs - crocodile with clouds and elephant with ???

transport in Cambodia 1 - the moto

A few weeks ago Gordon and I learned to ride a moto. In about 30 minutes. Turns out driving a moto is as easy as everyone says it is - in a straight line and on concrete anyway.

Adam, our teacher, looks on as Gordon manoeuvres round a 'corner'

For some further practice we went out to my colleague Soklaing's house, about 20km from the city. We joined the new volunteers who had recently arrived in country for their moto training. We didn't do the moto training when we arrived as we knew we wouldn't have motos for our placements in Phnom Penh. However, we'd recently thought it would be fun to learn as it would mean we could hire motos when we went to visit some of the provinces.

I forgot to take my camera out with me when we went out on our big 1.5 hour drive that let us practice on different road surfaces and in traffic etc so I don't have many pictures (and obviously I wouldn't have taken my hands off the handlebars when I was driving!!). So here's what I did take. All three of them!

parked up at Soklaing's beautiful house

teacher Adam, Marissa, teacher Peter, host Soklaing, Rolly and Kent
plus the feast that Soklaing's family prepared for us

my trusty steed for the day - a Honda Dream Excess
(I think the Excess means it's a step up from the bog standard Honda Dream)

Motos are definitely the transport option of choice for the majority of Cambodians, and the model of choice is generally the Honda Dream. And it's no wonder - they're indestructible! They're inexpensive to run, will take all grades of fuel, parts are cheap and plentiful and they're a doddle to drive. You only need one hand to drive it, leaving the other free to hold on to a small, often sleeping, child (complete with their IV drip) or whatever other cargo you're transporting that day. It's not uncommon to see four people on a bike. Who needs a car when you have a Dream?

Sadly, I don't have a picture with four people (plus) on the moto. Will try harder.

What's the collective term for motos? A madness of motos? 

Chicken coop needing moved? No problem

Drive through boggy mud (see behind) carrying snacks for 30 plus bucket etc for doing a hand-washing demo?
Easy. Although, obviously, that was a Cambodian driving, not a Barang (foreigner).

Trailer plus cargo plus people? Pile it on!

delivering ice - what a light load this Dream is getting