Building Bridges

Unlike the previous day’s spontaneous, on-the-spot, thumb sucking, today’s meeting was a little more planned for. One of the priorities of the DOE here is to create a model school in the district which meets as many of the Child-Friendly Schools criteria as possible. I think my colleagues understand more about investing time, energy and money into a few schools initially in order for the district to have at least one model of what a Child-Friendly School should look and be like. Rather that than spreading the time, energy and money to more schools but with less impact. Quality, not quantity! One at a time, it is hoped that other schools will follow the examples set by the model schools and the first school identified in Phnom Srok, for now, is Chey Oudom Primary School. Luckily for me it couldn’t be much closer to my house or to the office which is great as I often bump into the director and teachers around the village and amazingly I recognise at least one child in every single class! It is such a wonderful feeling to know some of the children at this school. Some I know from just hanging around the shop on the ground floor of the house and others from the English class. I recognise some as being the really poor children who hang around the wedding parties in the hope of collecting a few cans for their parents to make some money from. When there is a mutual recognition (well, as the only barang in the village, it would be difficult to mistake me for someone else) there is something quite fantastic about seeing their little faces light up and smile at me.

I’m really keen to get stuck into this school and help with displays, classroom layout, management, teaching and so on. I’m keen to help pick up all the rubbish making the grounds look like a dump and I’m even keen to teach some demonstration lessons (with a bit of translation help, obviously!). But, one-step at a time! On Soroth’s last day working with me in Phnom Srok we visited the school for a morning meeting. I am consciously, but not comfortably, turning a blind eye to the fact that when a meeting happens like this, the children are usually sent home from school with no teaching or learning taking place at all. (I know, I know, this is all wrong and completely goes against the examples I am trying to set, but for now I can’t see an alternative.) The meeting was to act as a preparation and planning meeting for how the DOE and VSO would support the staff, students and community to improve their school in line with the Child Friendly Criteria. Many of the staff had the ETL training back in April and also visited the Child-Friendly Schools in Monkul Borei district in May, all of which has already had a visible impact on the quality of the learning environment, teaching techniques and the value given to display and using teaching aids. Great stuff! So, leafing through my VSO book of Participatory Approaches, Soroth and I chose and implemented the Bridge Model as the most appropriate to the aims of the meeting and, using a Guided Visualisation helped participants imagine what they wanted their school to be like in the future. It felt a bit ambitious to say the least but, thanks to Soroth, we managed to pull it off. Two community members as well as four Grade 6 students joined the staff of the school in writing statements about what Chey Oudom was like now. Soroth then asked everyone to close their eyes and imagine the school in the future. He did the Guided Visualisation brilliantly and I was so pleased with how the participants took to it! We then created a bridge of ideas and activities which would get us from how the school was now to how we wanted to be. The pillars of the bridge were then identified, the three key factors affecting the success of the activities: Budget management, Community involvement and Teaching.

From that, the staff made a list of how they wanted VSO and the DOE to support them in making the first steps over the ‘bridge’. The list was more or less what I expected and did indeed include VSO (read ‘me’) providing demonstration lessons (bring it on!). It was great to get such involvement from all the different stakeholders in this school and it also felt great that they were telling the DOE and me (rather than the other way round) what they needed support with. It was a successful (although the proof will be in the pudding!) and interesting meeting but sadly Soroth’s last day. Next week, the plan is to spend every day at Chey Oudom, give some immediate feedback, do some practical activities, ‘show’ rather than ‘tell’ and generally get to know everyone better. I’m not quite sure yet whether I’ll be doing that alone or with a brand new VA who hasn’t materialised yet... Watch this space!

Sucking My Thumb

After the less than successful VA interviews in Sisaphon on Monday I returned to Phnom Srok by truck in the evening.

Tuesday morning I attended a follow up meeting for the Study Tour conducted last month. It went really well and I'm hoping that this group of teachers and school directors are really dedicated to implementing some changes in their schools. After the meeting, Soroth and I thought we had the afternoon to prepare for another meeting the following day so we relaxed a little. Little did we know Mr Sophan had other plans, which quite frankly I'm getting used to and have decided to accept the fact that I probably work best under a little bit of pressure anyway.

So, at 10.30am I discovered that there would be a DOE (District Office of Education) staff meeting that same afternoon and Mr Sophan wanted me to tell the staff about working rules of the office, work hours, being transparent (i.e. not corrupt!), committed to work, etc, etc. He had a list of items that I think he basically wanted to tell the staff off about! My first thought was "well, there goes my carefully planned preparation time for tomorrow's meeting...!"). My second thought was "THIS REALLY ISN'T MY BAG!" There was no way I was going to lecture his staff abut their work ethics. No way! But I have learnt that "no way" is not something that is terribly well understood here!

So, I sucked something out of my thumb with absolutely no idea whether it would work or bring about Mr Sophan's desired results but which I hoped would get me out of this particular tight spot: I suggested a role play!

The staff got into two groups, one with the task of acting a scene from the 'best' DOE ever (they were expected to use their imaginations for this!), the other acting a scene from the 'worst' DOE ever. It took a little explaining and funnily enough all the participants wanted to act as the 'worst' DOE. What followed was one of the funniest afternoons I've ever spent in Cambodia so far!

The 'worst' DOE were very convincing (a little too convincing perhaps?!): they acted drunk, half dressed, late for work, uninterested and uncommitted to their jobs. The director of Phnom Srok DOE acted brilliantly; fag hanging out of his mouth, slumped in a chair and showing little respect for his colleagues. The 'best' DOE had a much harder job as they really couldn't decide what the 'best' DOE would be like. In the end, they acted a 'meeting' scene whereby the director greeted everyone, all the staff arrived on time and then the meeting proceeded with the director doing all the talking and the rest furiously scribbling notes and not speaking a word. 'Best' DOE? Hmmm, typical DOE perhaps. Anyway, as is often the case, I probably learnt as much if not more from the exercise as they did as it really helped inform me of their understanding and awareness of what looks 'good' and what looks 'bad'.
When the acted meeting started getting a bit boring (like most meetings here, it went on a bit!) I decided to scroll through my phone to see which of the actors phone numbers I had as we have an ongoing battle of getting people to turn their phones off during meetings and I was feeling a bit cheeky. Usually the Khmers take the phone call, even if they are mid-way through chairing a meeting. Either that or they stick their head under the table to answer their phones. The participant playing the director and leading the meeting at the 'best DOE' had evidently not thought to switch off his phone so was a little embarrassed and certainly surprised when I called him from the audience! It caused a lot of laughter as I tried to speak to him down the phone in Khmer and he tried hard to stay in character. Following the hilarious role-plays, I tried to highlight the link between acting and reality and made the point that it was much easier to be a poor performing DOE than a really good one as the actors had found out themselves. The staff then created a list of work ethics which a 'good' DOE should have and low and behold it matched Mr Sophan's original list of 'tell offs'. Phew! I was really relieved to have managed to get Mr Sophan's desired results without actually having to speak a word about how staff should follow rules, come to work on time and so on. Just like teaching kids, its preferable for your students to reach the answer themselves through facilitation rather than be told. After all, they are much more likely to remember what they have learnt if they had fun getting to the answer or result themselves. This idea is often a little lost on the teachers I've tried to talk to about how their students learn but perhaps after a few more role plays we'll be getting closer.

Don't get me wrong, the DOE I work in is far from being the 'worst' DOE ever and after the role-plays and list making the staff rated their DOE on a 1-10 scale along with the imaginary DOEs. They gave themselves a 7 which I would probably agree with. Time will tell whether the role plays will've made any bit of difference, or satisfy the proverbial bee in Mr Sophan's bonnet but at least we had fun!

Three in a row

Parties are rather like the buses on Fulham Palace Road: when you're desperate for one to come along there's nothing in sight and just as you're about to give up all hope, 3 come along at the same time.

Thursday night, her Royal Majesty Queen Elizabeth II turned 21 again so the British Embassy threw a bit of a bash at the Intercontinental Hotel in Phnom Penh. All the volunteers received fancy embossed invitations and were expected to ditch the flip flops for the Lounge Suit dress code. And what a party! Fish 'n' chips, roast beef with horseradish, union jacks, the national anthem, the Olympics promotional video playing in the background, the royal crest and ice sculptures of some of London's landmarks. I've never thought of myself as the least bit patriotic nor one to feel much in the way of national pride but the sight of so much red, white and blue and the sound of so many British accents in one room made me feel quite sentimental!

Friday night, Sandra (volunteer based in Mondulkiri) caught up with me by turning 29 and starting with happy hour cocktails at the FCC we merrily danced the night away. It was great to hear some proper DJ-ing and familiar 'Western' music. We seriously bopped til we dropped!

The third party was Saturday night in Battambang on my way home, by which time I was pretty much all partied out! It was fun though and the hosts had organised some Khmers from the circus school in Battambang to perform which was excellent to see.

So, returning to Sisaphon on Sunday, I was very tired (I think I'm getting old!) but it had been just what I needed. The previous few weeks in Phnom Srok have been a bit tough. My fantastic VA (Volunteer Assistant) resigned so was working out his final weeks, the evening English classes have become too much so I'm feeling a bit like a pathetic failure, and a young man decided to completely lose his grip on reality and was subsequently tied up outside my house and bundled in a taxi to Battambang psychiatric hospital.

Also, very sadly, Mr Sophan's father-in-law died suddenly so all work plans were scrapped as Soroth and I attended the immediate 2 day funeral which followed. I found the funeral fascinating to say the least and observed many differences to the 3 year funeral I described in 'Good Grief'. The speed at which the whole of the neighbouring community pitched in was astounding: the women turned up and cooked continuously for 2 days so that all the guests would have something to eat, while the men put together the wooden coffin and cut out fancy shapes from shiny paper to decorate it with. Soroth was great at explaining all the different parts of the rituals and customs of the ceremony as we watched and it was great to have a running commentary.

Photos of Embassy party will follow...

The Visitors

I know what you’re thinking: you’re thinking why has she named this entry after the final, and probably most melancholic album ever produced by Abba. Does this entry have anything to do with the best pop band of all time? Does this entry have anything to do with the greatest thing to come out of Sweden for the past 30 years (other than Lina Gardek)? Well, no. This entry is so titled because this week Phnom Srok was treated to not 1, not 2, but 9 visitors from afar.

My friends and fellow colleagues Jon and Chris brought their translators and 5 members of their DOE (District Office of Education) to visit me and mine. It was a bit like a study tour, an exchange visit in order (well, in theory!) for our DOE colleagues to learn from each other about the work that they do and how they work with their VSO volunteers. I count myself very lucky that I have such a fantastic DOE colleague to work with, and we really do work WITH each other. We meet regularly, share work plans, speak the same language (metaphorically) and have the same goals and ideas for the development of the district. And, my DOE do not seem to be on the ‘take’, trying to sponge every penny they can out of VSO in order to fill their pockets. Ok, I still get frustrated at the communication problems, the last minute changes of plan, the slower than slow progress, days when without warning I am the only living soul who bothers to turn up at the office, and so the list goes on, but I don’t seem to have half the problems that some other volunteers face in more challenging districts.

The ‘Arrival’ (another excellent Abba album by the way) was on Thursday and we swiftly ushered the visitors to Tropieng Tmar reservoir for a very Khmer lunch. It was like a holiday for the visiting DOE and it was fantastic to have some barang company in my little corner of the world. I also think my DOE were very pleased and proud to be hosting. After a relaxed lunch I persuaded Mr Sophan that we had time to show our visitors the traditional silk weaving which is gradually putting Phnom Srok on the map. The Khmer Rouge regime all but destroyed this traditional art during their reign of terror over the country but with a bit of help from Pass (a French NGO) Phnom Srok has become one of the only places in Cambodia to have resurrected the sericulture. The visitors got to see how the silk worms were fed on mulberry leaves, the silk spun and dyed with natural dyes and the silk woven on huge looms. Jon even succumbed to peer pressure from the rest of the men in our group and bought his wife a beautiful scarf at a bargain price thanks to me! Well, I’m practically a local so I expect local prices!

Mr Sophan had prepared a presentation in the afternoon which went down very well and we divided into groups for question and answer sessions in our own languages. It was fantastic to share experiences with Chis and Jon and even better as they got to see all that I was talking about. We have the same job remit but despite the identical placement objectives, our work lives seem quite different in many ways.

I had a house full for the night and on Friday we journeyed out to a school who were conducting a meeting with their community in order to raise money for a wall for the front of their school. I have given up trying to point out that there are more important things to spend money on than a blinking wall. To these folk, a school wall IS very important and I have resigned myself to the very positive fact that at least this school has a really good relationship with their community.

The meeting was really positive and was great to be a part of and also great for the visitors to experience. I had the impression that communities in my district didn’t value education and their local schools that much. Communities seem to pile money they don’t seem to have into their local pagodas which are huge, ornate and well kept buildings, while the local schools still have bullet holes in the roofs which let in rain water, are vandalised by the village teenagers and generally left in a state of disrepair: far from being stimulating learning environments. I am happy to admit that my initial impression of a distinct lack of community involvement was most definitely wrong. Phew! I was very pleased to see such a large turn out of community members, both male and female and all with great ideas of how to raise money for the school and showing great commitment to put dates in the diary and come up with a joint plan. Great stuff! Maybe after the wall they’ll think about raising funds to repair the school buildings themselves, or to kit out the classrooms with resources, materials, teaching aids, learning games and the like. I live in hope!

The visitors left feeling happy and full of ideas, and even gave me a lift into Sisaphon for my weekend retreat! It was a great visit and I’m hoping to reciprocate the gesture and get out visiting other volunteers in their placements rather than a bar! A great learning experience for all. Whenever we volunteers get together, our work dominates conversation topics and we all seem to be doing much the same work. However, until you see someone in action in the context of the work they talk about it’s really difficult to actually know what each other is doing. It was wonderful to have visitors and have a good catch up with Chris and Jon ... check out their blog: http://www.chrisandjonincambodia.blogspot.com/

Srei Saart

Srei Saart translates into English as ‘beautiful girl’. When I first met Mr Sophan’s wife I thought she was really beautiful with a youthful and very kind face. Many Khmer women of her age have lost a few teeth and/or developed a stony, weathered expression after years of child bearing and rearing, labouring in the sun and generally working hard for their husbands and families. Mr Sophan’s wife has done all those things and more during her 55 years of life but I thought she glowed! So, with my limited Khmer, the best words I could find at the time to describe her were ‘Srei Saart’. This of course caused much hilarity from everyone within earshot, including Mr Sophan himself, as it is a term reserved for much younger unmarried girls. However the name has stuck and he has even taken to use it himself.

Khmer culture dictates no physical contact between husband and wife in public and their roles are also quite clearly defined by the culture. This can make married couples appear quite distant from one another and, with arranged or semi-arranged marriages being the norm, this is quite often the case. Mr Sophan and Srei Saart seem different from the norm, as I have observed it, but this may also be due to the fact that I have developed such a close relationship with them. Often, within 10 minutes of getting back to Phnom Srok after a weekend in town I receive a phone call from him asking me to dinner and to share a few beers!

One morning last week Mr Sophan told me he was going to meet his Srei Saart in the rice fields as it is the right time of year to sow rice seed. Not one to miss an opportunity, I asked if I could come along to help! Slightly bemused, my offer of help was accepted and we hopped on our motos at the hottest time of the day and trekked out to the fields. It was a fantastic thing to experience and really raised my awareness of how dependant all the families in Phnom Srok are on the rice harvest. We met other families and workers out on the fields and I had no translator with me but did my best to understand what needed to be done.

Tractors ploughed the fields, turning over the soil, men and women alike walked up and down in rows with rice seed in a basket on the hip and threw the seed onto the soil. It is a much more complicated process than I had ever imagined, I mean how many ways can you throw rice seed on the ground? I was shown the correct way! And was laughed at (but in a supportive way) as I did a few lengths of the field. I got the impression I was being humoured slightly when the basket of seed was promptly taken from me after my second length and a Khmer took over. I think they found it a bit off the wall that a barang wanted to help sow their rice! I believe the tractors turn the soil again so to bury the seed and a better rice yield comes from transplanting the rice once it has grown a foot or so. I think I still have a few things to learn!

We had some interesting conversations about why I hadn’t worn a long sleeved top and I explained that I would quite like a tan! This is such an alien concept as all Khmer people want lighter skin and think white skin is absolutely beautiful. As we have tanning creams in the West, here in SE Asia they have whitening creams made by the same brands! (By the way, despite my protestations, I was literally forced to wear a hat and cover my head and neck with the traditional krama – scarf.)
Mr Sophan’s field didn’t get sown that day. I couldn’t see a dark cloud in the sky but all the farmers were standing or sitting around, after we’d had a picnic lunch of rice and fish, looking intently at the sky and muttering something about rain. Apparently it would be disastrous if they planted the rice seed just before it rained. We left Srei Saart and the other farmers at the field and whizzed back to the village on the motos literally being chased by large raindrops. It was a great experience and this week Mr Sophan told me the rice I did help sow has already grown! I quite fancy myself as a farmer! I hope to go back to the fields myself and observe the whole process and if nothing else, to understand more about this major part of everyone’s lives here. Most families in the district are primarily farmers and own at least one small field which is either their entire livelihood or helps to supplement another poorly paid job. All the school directors I have met, and a lot of the teachers, are farmers as well as they simply cannot live on their government salary alone. I am starting to understand more about some of the problems schools face in student (and teacher) attendance during these times as many poorer families need every pair of hands they can find to help in the fields which means many children miss a significant amount of school. Mr Sophan can afford to hire a tractor to turn his field but I have also seen many farmers ploughing with smaller motorised ploughs or cows, which obviously takes a lot more time. The Khmers find it hard to believe that we have no rice fields in the UK but think that our beef must taste better as they have a lot more grass to eat!

Good Grief

In the UK, a typical funeral ceremony is held 1-2 weeks after the death, a wake proceeds the ceremony when family and friends toast the deceased, wonder why they haven’t seen each other since the last family wedding/funeral/christening, inevitably drink too much and after paying their respects to the closest family members of the deceased, leave until the next family wedding/funeral/christening. Here in Cambodia there seems to be a lot more to it. As soon as possible after death, the body is burned and a 2 or 3 day ceremony is held, depending on the wealth of the family. But that’s not the end of it: after 7 days another 2 or 3 day ceremony is held, then again after 100 days and then again after 3 years. Originally I thought this seemed a little excessive, if not expensive, but I’m coming round to the idea that it might be a good way of easing the grieving process, remembering the deceased and their family and it’s a good excuse for a get-together.

I was invited to attend part of the 3 year ceremony for the dead grandfather of one of my colleagues, 24 year old Daney. The whole family turned up from as far away as Phnom Penh and almost the whole village were there as well. I recognised that he must have been quite a popular man, but then again the whole village seem to be related to each other in some way or other.

Monks came to the house where a shrine to Daney’s late grandfather was erected. They chanted a lot of monotone Khmer, none of which I understood, musicians were also present playing traditional ceremonial music and the place was a mass of mainly women dressed in black sampots, white tops, toothless and with shaved heads. I believe these women live at the local pagodas and are widows, many of which have no family hence the pagoda is their home. 'Lay women' was the word translated to describe them. We then ate a lot of food and were slowly organised into a procession line to follow the ‘relic’ of Daney’s grandfather being carried to the local pagoda.

The relic is a small collection of bones which didn’t manage to get burnt when the body was cremated. They are kept in a small urn, in this instance in a glass case. Once at the pagoda the closest family members carried and some followed it around the family stupor 3 times before it was placed inside the stupor with a lot of chanting, prayers, incense and offerings of water and food. Fascinating to watch. Then there was more monk chanting and the family gave more offerings to the orange clad fellows. Then everyone drove back to the house for more food.

It was a sombre occasion in a sense but also a celebration. It really was quite amazing to witness, surrounded by a sea of shaved grey heads, black, white and orange, although I can imagine it would be a real bind if you didn’t much like the deceased! A lot of value is placed upon appeasing the spirits of the dead which isn’t particularly Buddhist as I understand it but rather derives from animist beliefs which were absorbed into the country’s national religion along with a hangover of Hinduism way back when.