Happy Merry Christma and Chol Chnam Tmei!

Christmas felt even more irrelevant this year than last year! Unlike the UK there is no build up to the festive season here in Cambodia: no buying presents, no sending cards, no Christmas parties, no “jingle bells” in all the shops you walk into since September, no school play and no de-icing the car windscreen before work! It is hot, dusty and work as usual! It’s been really refreshing to be in a different culture and climate for over a year now and observing the festival times and celebrations in Cambodia has been wonderful and has also made me appreciate my own culture more in terms of what is important, what actually means something and what is just inherited from traditions from the past.

Christmas Eve was spent motoring down to Onno in Bavel district with Corine as the sun was setting and falling asleep in front of Lord of the Rings with a gin and tonic! Perfect! Christmas morning four of us then motored on to Phnom Preuk, 2 ½ hours through beautiful Cambodian countryside, over very dusty and pot holed roads to arrive at John and Chris’ festive home! It had a very familiar family Christmassy feel to it and our hosts made sure we ate very well! A relaxed Christmas of mixed western culture and interesting sharing of traditions. Us Brits explained to the Dutch what a Christmas cracker was (although their origin remains a mystery to us all – that’s the crackers not the Dutch!) and the token American provided egg-nog for us all! I developed a very British head cold in true ‘end-of-term’ style which sent me to bed after a couple of games of Werewolf and after a family breakfast on Boxing Day we took to the dust ridden streets once more and the 4 hour journey back to Sisaphon!

Of course I missed the Maton touch on the whole thing but Ruth assured me that even though all the siblings were together with mum this year (minus me of course), everyone in Harrow would be having an utterly boring time without me! She reminded me how anti-climatic Christmas always was and that she would send photos to prove it! When I spoke to a good friend about my sisters’ promises I was told that, ‘Love’ is definitely letting someone you care about who is half way round the bloody planet volunteering in a tropical, corrupted 3rd world nation for 2 years know that they didn’t miss an unforgettable family Christmas together! I think my sister must love me a lot! But that wasn’t the end of Christmas! I enjoyed opening several parcels from the UK and another huge Christmassy dinner (this time with a streak of Australian festive tradition) in Poipet with Elise and some new friends!

And as if that wasn’t enough, the new year was seen in from Pam’s garden in Sisaphon with many friends from the province and beyond. A hat themed party (I wonder whose idea that was...!), fireworks, champagne, dancing, karaoke, sparklers, random improvised representational modern dance routines and vegetable curry! I had stupidly volunteered to be responsible for the music on the which meant we got a good portion of Abba hits but because of my distinctly lacking ability to forward plan and make up some playlists also meant that I was juggling 4 ipods all night! It was great fun and felt really good to have a proper dance in between setting the next song up. I’ve made no resolutions for the new year although 2009 will require some decisions to be made about the next chapter of life post-VSO! Still 10 months to think about that yet and lots to do in the mean time!

Happy New Year x

Mahob Anglais

That means English Food.

I have been endlessly spoilt by my Khmer friends, colleagues and at times perfect strangers, feeding me delicious Khmer food during the last 14 months. Actually, not all of it has been that delicious and I have sometimes found myself making excuses for not gobbling down bowls full of cow intestines, or knawing on chicken’s feet, or swallowing fish egg sacks, or eating fermented fish paste (Khmer cheese!) not to mention the MSG induced semi-comas I have occasionally found myself in! So I thought it was about time I got my own back, erm, I mean returned the favour to a few choice friends in Phnom Srok with a taste of good traditional English homecooking!

Set Menu:

Appetizer: Bread with a choice of meat pate or Marmite topping
Starter: Tomato Soup
Main Course: Shepherd’s Pie with boiled vegetables
Pudding: Trifle

Drinks: Orange Squash, Red Wine

The preparations were fun! I spent a small fortune in a western supermarket in Siam Reap on some necessities such as baked beans, gravy and orange squash! And I finally got to be head chef in my own kitchen! I got to dictate how the vegetables were chopped (there’s more than one way to chop an onion you know!). The menu sounded a lot grander (and English!) than it turned out and I was limited by the fresh food choices available to me in Phnom Srok! On the day there was no bread to be found in the district so the Crisp Breads from Siam Reap (rather more French than English) had to do, the pate was Dutch and the beef was sold out so the shepherd’s pie was made with pork which my beautiful friend Daney was happy to mince! I also found myself without a potato masher, or in fact potatoes, so again the shopping trip to Siam Reap proved to be useful as I had had the foresight to pick up some Smash equivalent while I was there!

The actual meal was a fantastic experience! It was really interesting to see how my Khmer friends reacted to a different culinary experience, using different cutlery, eating in a different order, having a whole meal served on your own plate rather than sharing from dishes in the centre of the table, and so on. The crispbreads went down a treat, the Dutch pate was a hit and naturally some loved the Marmite while some hated it! The soup course was very funny! I wolfed my soup down from the bowl while everyone else politely sipped one spoonful and then left the rest aside. “Oh no!” I thought... “They hate the soup!” I dished out mashed potato and the minced pork and veg mixture (Shepherd’s Pie, my eye!) and observed as they began to eat the soup with the main meal! It was amazing and very amusing to see such familiar food being eaten in such a Khmer style! The boiled vegetables (cauliflower) were looked at very suspiciously, politely tasted and then blatantly ignored and as I followed suit I realised that vegetables here are served in or with other foods and always with a sauce of some sort! I had to agree, they tasted awful! The pork mixture was a hit which I was really pleased about although some of my guests insisted on pouring (yes, literally pouring) salt over it which I chose not to take any offence at! And then came the trifle! Wow! Although everyone was full of mashed potato, the trifle didn’t last long at all!

The meal was enjoyed with a few bottles of red wine (French!) and basking in the apparent success of my first dinner party in Phnom Srok I explained how I am much better at cooking Italian food to which confession I was promptly asked to prove it! So, not one to turn down a challenge I have offered to cook an Italian dinner for all the staff at the District Office of Education next month! Oops! Watch this space!

Encouragement vs Boredom

It’s been a strange few weeks in Phnom Srok lately. The weather has suddenly turned a few noticeable degrees cooler and I’m taking two blankets to bed most nights and usually left longing for some socks and a cardi most mornings. It is harvesting time also which means most of my colleagues at the DOE are somewhat distracted by the fact that their fields of rice need cutting. In fact the whole district is busy with harvesting. Those that don’t own fields are busy working in their neighbours fields and it’s the main reason for the half empty classrooms I’ve visited recently as so many children need to work as well or look after their younger siblings while their parents work.

I tried my hand in one of Mr Sophan’s fields and managed to cut my little finger on a scythe and make a complete hash of my flooded patch of field. It looks so easy and there must be some system to it but it just wasn’t my day! I got sunburnt and bored! Tough work! I was much more successful at bagging the dried rice after threshing. I actually enjoyed this: partly because I had turned up to an empty office so was glad of having something remotely useful to do; partly because the late afternoon is such a beautiful time to be outside in the Cambodian countryside and party because it was highly amusing to observe passing Khmers almost falling off their bikes in shock at the sight of a female barang doing manual labour!

Encouragement has been found in the cluster core schools I have visited this month – thank God! I have been so pleased, motivated, overwhelmed and even proud of the developments I’ve witnessed in all the schools I’ve been to since the ETL training and Resources workshops of the last few months. Instead of walking into sad, bare classrooms I walk into classrooms with children’s work on display, learning posters hanging from string, clean water available for students to wash their hands, lessons being carried out without textbook dependency, children enjoying games as a learning activity. What has almost moved me to tears has been the school and cluster directors falling over themselves to show me around their school, motivated teachers who look proud rather than scared to death of the thought of us peering into their classrooms, and very happy children!

Sound perfect? Ha ha – well it’s not, it’s all still a long way off the inclusive child-friendly objectives the World Bank are dreaming of but it’s such an enormous and positive step in the right direction! To my relief the cluster schools who were given materials last month have actually used them and, more to the point, have shared them with and encouraged their satellite schools to do the same! Amazing! The newly acquired office laminator has never been so busy!

So, fuelled with very positive feelings about the progress Phnom Srok schools are making and desperate to spend some VSO money, we have made lots of exciting plans for the next few months and the infamous emotional rollercoaster is on the upward climb. Life is fantastic once more and I realise that even in the most boring of times there is never a dull moment.