Off She Went With a Trumpety Trump

Trump Trump Trump!

I left mum on Koh Chang, island of elephants, on Friday and she headed on to Singapore as I returned to Phnom Penh. But not before we had enjoyed what Koh Chang had to offer and we finished the holiday off in style with elephant riding, snorkelling and swimming in waterfalls.

I don’t think I have ever spent 2 whole weeks alone with my mother, having grown up with 3 other siblings, and certainly not shared a bedroom with her for quite some time! Our roles were also reversed for most of the holiday. She still woke up before me but I found myself nagging her to hurry up when getting ready to go out, something she must remember doing during my teenage years. I was also constantly thinking about whether she was comfortable or not, had everything she needed, knew where the nearest toilet was and was having a good time, all of which made me feel more like a parent than a child! She held the purse strings though and I was definitely the child when the opportunity to shop presented itself: “Mum, can I have one of those?”

The two weeks were a real treat for us both, it great to have my mum all to myself and the holiday was rounded off nicely in Koh Chang which was more of a holiday for me than tour guiding round Phnom Srok and Phnom Penh. Mum felt that she was getting 3 holidays in 1: a city break; a country retreat and a beach holiday and was also looking forward to a few days in Singapore on the way home.

We exhausted ourselves with sharing new experiences together. Riding an elephant was one. The elephants ambled through jungle, countryside and a rubber plantation, until they reached a fresh water pool where e all donned our swim suits and joined our elephants for a swim! Mum was even persuaded to climb onto an elephant in the water which was hilarious! She was left on the (very tame) elephant for quite some time with no one directing the animal while I snapped photographs and dodged the occasional fresh elephant turd floating past me. We were amazed at how well trained the animals were, their size and also the fact that despite their size they moved so gently and silently.

From creatures great, to creatures small, the following day was spent snorkelling in the sea surrounding some of the neighbouring Thai islands. It was a beautiful day and we saw countless numbers of different species of fish and coral under the waves. The water was crystal clear and it was just like peering down into another universe, there was so much going on! At times we were swimming face to face with fish all around us, close enough to touch, if quick enough! And other times we just floated still on the surface of the water watching the hive of activity below and around us. I was relieved we didn’t see anything the same size as the elephants below the waves. It was amazing to observe so much sea-traffic! Despite my camera claiming to be waterproof I decided not to put it to the test on this occasion so only the memories remain of the incredible sea life we saw. Again, mum had a blast, her snorkelling lesson paid off and I think it was even worth the painfully sunburnt backs of legs she endured for the 2 days afterwards.

Fishing with Mother

Like most of my visitors, mum absolutely loved Phnom Srok! We arrived extremely tired in the late afternoon and fell straight into bed after I had rejected invitations of joining a colleague’s party nearby. We ate a very traditional Khmer dinner when we woke up, prepared by my landlady’s family which was delicious, and as mum went back to bed I joined the party as my conscience reminded me that however tired you might be it is very rude in Khmer culture to turn down an invitation and switch your phone off! Oops!

We had a relaxing day on Thursday motoing around the district and I took mum to see Phnom Srok’s main attractions; Tropieng Tmar reservoir and the traditional silk weaving houses. We took the long way to the lake so mum could enjoy the scenery of bright green rice fields and wooden houses and get a grand view of the reservoir. We enjoyed lunch and some time out in the little bamboo shacks near the restaurants and visited silk weavers on the way back home where we were easily persuaded to buy some! Mum was continually bombarded with new experiences and she commented on how exhausting but stimulating and exciting it was to constantly see, hear, do, smell and taste everything which was different to anything from home. Sitting on the floor to eat was challenging as the day was topped off by a dinner invitation from Daney and her family where we were treated to even more delicious Khmer home cooking and mum got to meet some more of my friends and colleagues. She even made some Scotch pancakes to share some traditional English baking!
I had been waiting for Friday for months! Mr Chamroeurn (the accountant from my DOE and owner of the breakfast restaurant I frequent), had been promising for what feels like an age, to teach me how to fish with a large net. I have seen men and boys at various times throwing this huge circular net weighted with metal rings which looked like a bicycle chain, into water to catch fish. The net is held in such a way and thrown in such a way that it opens to its biggest circle before dropping into the water (if you do it right!) and with any luck when it’s pulled back out it is full of small fish. Watching the whole performance beggars the question whether all the effort is worth such a small looking catch? I learnt however, that these small fish can be immediately fried whole to provide a tasty snack or they are used to make a Khmer favourite; prohok. In English, prohok gets called Khmer cheese but this is not because it contains any dairy products! Oh no! It is called cheese because it smells like cheese. It is really fermented fish. This is one dish my Western taste buds have still not been able to adjust to; in fact it makes me want to heave so I avoid prohok at all costs. It was fun catching the fish though!
Mr Chamroeurn is quiet a quiet and very well mannered man at my work place. I have been reminding him of his promise to teach me to fish for months and he always told me that November was the best time. So what better time in November than during mum’s visit! He has a gentle face and was an exceptionally patient and understanding teacher of his two clueless barang fishing students. There were many people out fishing, some because it provides a free meal and some just for fun. The Boat Race and Water Festival marks the end of the rainy season and the beginning of fishing season in Cambodia and as water poured out of weir from the reservoir many men and children used nets to catch hundreds of small fish.

It was a complicated preparation of the net, folding, holding, gripping and separating and using both hands to do different things. Mr Chamroeurn spoke to us in Khmer, we spoke back in English, there were lots of smiles, more than lots of failed or pathetic attempts, but eventually lots of caught fish! The lovely thing was that Daney joined us for a lesson as well as some of the kids from the village who had come along with their parents. We entertained them no end and they encouraged us with giving us their opinions on our efforts, sometimes “Very good” and sometimes “Not good!”.
In the evening we joined Mr Sophan and his wife for fresh fruit ice cream, an evening snack enjoyed in the village and Mr Sophan introduced mum to some other guests at the table as ‘mdai kaun Khnom’ which roughly translates as the ‘mother of my child’. Mum found this highly amusing and Mr Sophan explained that I am his adopted English daughter. He called mum Bong Srei (older sister) so we all immediately became members of the same family, and he repeatedly commented on my mother’s good health particularly at her ripe old age of 61! It felt like we had been eating all day as when we returned to the house we were presented with pork from the pig we had watched being killed that morning. I don’t think I would’ve had the stomach to watch 6 months ago but I’m hardening to country living and thought I should see what happens (especially after being woken up at Corine’s house in Sisaphon in the early hours by the squealing of dying swine at the abattoir next door!). It was vivid and gruesome by the way and yes, I did take some photographs but have refrained from posting them on the blog due to the graphic images – not for the squeamish!

Parental Guidance

It was great to meet mum at Phnom Penh airport and share her very first experiences of Cambodia in a white knuckle tuk tuk ride to our guesthouse. Just over a year ago I arrived at the very same airport at around the same time of day and experienced all the same ‘firsts’ as she. We chatted for the most of the hour long journey through the city’s rush hour traffic, coughing through the fumes and other various smells of the city, gasping and squeezing our eyes shut when it looked like a collision was likely or the gap the tuk tuk driver had chosen to drive through looked too small. We both reflected on how much I was now accustomed to things in the bustling city and we planned a rough itinerary over a traditional Khmer dinner and I managed to catch up with the family through photos and videoed messages.

I tour guided mum round the colourfully claustrophobic Russian Market (Psar Toul Tom Poung) which she loved and where we bought silk and goodies, the spacious art-deco Central Market (Psar Tmei) where she bought some inexpensive Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses! And we also managed to fit in some of my favourite little cafes where we dined on very un-Khmer muesli breakfasts and slabs of cake! Yum!

We had a Cooking lesson with Cooking Cambodian (www.cookingcambodian.com ) which was a superb experience. We were picked up from our guesthouse and taken to the Kandal market to buy the food. I’ve been round countless food markets in Cambodia but this experience was unique and wonderful. I saw so many different foods that I haven’t seen before and the amount of food and business going on was wonderful to see. It was also great for mum to witness such a big busy market and see so much fresh food for sale – she loved it! We saw live fish writhing around in a huge metal tray waiting to be bought, decapitated fish heads trying to breath while their large bodies lay motionless beside them, four pig heads adorning a man’s blood covered moto before being dropped off at a stall, pink eggs?, live chickens tied by the feet roosting next to their dead, plucked counterparts and bananas in their thousands! It really was a complete attack on the senses.
The lesson was fantastic and the two of us had a trained chef between us as our teacher. We made Cambodian spring rolls and a peanut sauce as our starter, followed by Fish Amok and then Banana Tapioca pudding. The pounding we had to give the sauce ingredients in the pestle and mortar was like an upper-body aerobics session and we also made cups from banana leaves with cocktail sticks holding the sides together for the fish and sauce to be steamed in. The food was really delicious, the teacher an expert and the recipes relatively simple!

The tour guiding continued to the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda, an obvious tourist site but one I hadn’t visited yet. We didn’t really see much of the palace but the pictures of the Boat Races were interesting. The Silver Pagoda houses priceless bejewelled statues of Buddha amongst other various treasure and is called the Silver Pagoda due to the 5329 silver tiles that cover the floor.

We were also fortunate enough to be in Phnom Penh at the same time as the Water Festival (Bonn Om Tuk), an annual festival marking the Tonle Sap’s change in direction at the end of the rainy season. VSO had their own boat crew again this year of which I was a member so mum joined some other VSO parents in watching the boat of barangs make complete fools of themselves! Again, it was great fun to participate in such a colourful and important festival in the Khmer culture and I’m sure we did better than last year. Hundreds of brightly painted dragon boats race in pairs down the river to the finishing line outside the Royal Palace. In last year’s race the VSO boat managed not only to lose the race it was in but was also overtaken by two races behind, in effect coming 7th in a race of 2! This year I’m sure we were overtaken by fewer boats; the final result is still to be announced!

Phnom Penh was a hive of activity with thousands of people celebrating the four day holiday which followed the celebrations of Independence Day on November 9th. It meant that mum had come at the busiest time but also when the city was at its most colourful and vibrant. Flags were on every street light, food sellers on every street corner, huge balloons strung up and the riverfront packed with revellers. It was an amazing atmosphere to be a part of for a few days. And after those few days we were ready to escape the city for a very different part of Cambodia – Phnom Srok District. Our 7am bus drove mum and I through rice fields, villages and towns giving a very different view of Khmer life. Next stop, Phnom Srok.

Production, part deux

So, the day of the additional one-day workshop came upon me quicker than I expected and it was suddenly time to present the directors and key staff of the 10 other core schools with a workshop which would fill them with excitement, understanding, motivation and the skills needed to turn a pile of stationary materials into wonderful teaching and learning resources.

Daney and Vuthang pretty much ran the show and we spent most of the morning engaged in activities which were hoped to better the participants’ understanding about how children learn and why teaching and learning resources can help the learning process. The afternoon was spent reading the Learning Outcomes of the 4 subjects studied at primary level: Khmer language, mathematics, science and social science. This, again, was the risky bit. There was a lot to read and some of my colleagues wanted to get on with the making part straight away. In fact, I had quite a disagreement with one of my colleagues over this but I really stuck firmly to my guns , trying to explain that participants needed to think about what their children had to learn before they decided how to help them learn it.

It really helped that we held the training at Chey Oudom primary school as they really provided an excellent model . The school is very much in the early stages of development but already has much more child-friendly leaning environments to boast. The participants were quite impressed with the amount on display in the wooden classrooms and also with the amount of learning games and teaching resources the teachers had made. It was great to see the Chey Oudom teachers explaining it all to them (instead of me or Vuthang or Daney). I really showed me that they have a greater sense of pride in their work as well as understanding. Whether the resources and games are all being used in the lessons is another story but this is on my to-do-list to support in the coming months. What is important is that the classrooms are more meaningful centres of learning, the teachers are enjoying creating resources and developing their classrooms and the students are enjoying the results!

I definitely found the participants harder work this time, perhaps because they were from a mixture of schools and didn’t know each other so well, so it helped a lot that Pam and Sokphal were there to offer some moral support and take photographs. And they too were really impressed with how Daney and Vuthang worked together like a little team.

Field Trip

Another public holiday befell my busy work life in Phnom Srok last week. I had planned to work it as a normal day but over a few cans with Mr Sophan we decided that it would be a perfect day to visit the rice fields with a picnic. How exciting! I was so looking forward to see the field I helped sow a few months back and thought it would be the perfect opportunity to invite some of my VSO team mates to join me and enjoy a day out in the rice fields.

So, Elise and Pam arrived Tuesday evening and we shared a lovely dinner with Mr Sophan and his wife who told us exactly what he thought of our Khmer-speaking abilities, much to our embarrassment! Well, at least he’s honest! And poor Pam was forced into a promise of speaking Khmer all day at the fields. We joined Daney and Srei Saart at the market the next day to help to buy all the food we needed and then sat relaxing at their house, helped to prepare some food and waited for Soroth to arrive. After roasting peanuts for the sauce for a while, amusing ourselves with the various animals in the vicinity (mainly pigs) and watching fishing rods being fashioned from bamboo we finally took off for the fields on motos with the picnic in tow and it took about an hour to get us and the food and drink to a dry spot near Mr Sophan’s fields.

It was such a beautiful day, sunny but a bit cooler than usual. Our trip took us down a dirt road, a lot of which had been washed away or flooded by the rains which made the journey a lot more interesting and led us to predict which types of worm we might get as a result of wading through the water. We weren’t the only people out that day either, as we passed and chatted to other farmers tending their fields, children swimming and men and women fishing and walking cattle out to the fields. What a busy place.

Our picnic reminded me so much of camping. We had a small gas stove and cooked beef in loads of butter, piled high with veg and then eaten with a deliciously spicy sauce. We attempted fishing with the rods without much luck and watched the locals throwing their huge nets into the water. It was a holiday for us but for many it was life and what ever they caught would be their dinner that day.

The fields were really wonderful: such an absolutely luscious bright green colour and it was so hard to imagine that the same place had looked so dry and barren a few months before. I remembered motoring over the hard, dry soil which was not an easy thing to do nor very comfortable. This time we had to get to the fields by boat because the fields were under water and high with rice. With a few beers inside us our boat rocked along and with so many barangs in the boat we were quite close to the level of the water. It was such a beautiful ride and when everyone stopped talking all you could hear was the very gentle swishing noise of the boat against the rice plants – it was really beautiful. We bailed out water as fast as it entered the boat but eventually the inevitable happened and the boat filled quicker than we could bail. It was very funny and we all managed to step outside the boat before it reached the bottom except for Pam who remained standing! What’s that phrase about never leaving a sinking ship? While we all laughed and guffawed, the professionals amongst us got the boat back to the surface by pushing it backwards and forwards to each other in the water and then rocking it side to side until it was on the surface again. Then with a little more bailing we were all back in! The water was only about knee deep so Elise and I enjoyed walking alongside the boat and even swimming behind it. Imagine that – swimming in a rice field! It was amazing!

We reached the field that I had helped sow a few months back and admired how tall the rice had grown. “Kupoh dauch Anna” (tall, like Anna!) was on everyone’s lips and I started to wonder whether I’d missed my calling in life. I made Mr Sophan promise that I could help harvest the rice, which starts next month and we pushed the boat onwards, back to the picnic site. The funniest thing on the way back was the discovery of fishing nets which had been strung up around a field. My fellow boaters nabbed all the fish on the way past which was highly amusing but somewhat unfair on the people who had gone to the trouble to put the nets out in the first place, I thought! Apparently it’s first come first served!