His story

After nearly a year in Cambodia and after reading numerous books and visiting Toul Sleng Prison and the Killing Fields at Choueng Ek, I am still struggling to understand what the people of this country have had to endure in their recent history.

In a bid to try and understand the psyche of the people here a little better, or just plain morbid curiosity, whenever I get an appropriate opportunity I ask the people I meet about their experiences during the Khmer Rouge regime. It often happens to be school directors who show me the bullet holes in their school buildings or tell me of how the school grounds were once a battle field or hospital or a prison or how landmines once littered the playground. I have also been told the stories from a teacher who remembers being 10 years old and helping to dig the earth from what has now become the beautiful Tropieng Tmar reservoir. He remembers seeing people killed on the very spot we stood at the time. He said that many people became ill from working such long hours under the sun and not having enough to eat or drink but the Khmer Rouge refused to believe they were unwell. Another director told me how he watched the Khmer Rouge cut the liver from someone’s back while they were still alive, to cook and eat. The tales are all told as if they happened yesterday with smiling faces this nation is famous for.

I have been aware that Mr Sophan has a story to tell and although always promising to tell it he has not until now. One quiet afternoon in the office this week I reminded him of his promise and got the short version of his story at last. He has promised more and admitted to filling 4 books with writing about is life at that time.

Mr Sophan grew up in Phnom Srok district and went to High School in Sisaphon as no high schools existed in Phnom Srok back then. He didn’t complete his Grade 9 exams as he signed up, at 16 years old, to Lon Nol’s government army. He went to fight in Preah Veng province, fighting in many battles and killing many men. However, the Khmer Rouge army was strong at that time and he was captured and imprisoned in the countryside. He was one of 800 in the prison and one of only 60 to survive it. He worked hard, did what he was told and kept quiet and was only close to being killed when he started teaching the alphabet in the prison and the Khmer Rouge accused him of being well educated. After negotiating with the cook for some food, he escaped the prison.

He lived in the forest in a resistance force with about 30 others for a while, fighting against the Khmer Rouge. After the liberation of the country he headed back to Phnom Srok. His father was dead. The Vietnamese ‘liberators’ helped set up commune and village leaders which Mr Sophan put himself forward for but was turned down due to his strong involvement with the army.

It is only a small sliver of his story and I’m itching to know more, my head buzzing with questions to fill the gaps, find out what he witnessed, what he did, how he felt at the time. After telling me this, through a translator, he asked me what I thought of him; his character and attitude. I was almost speechless and told him that I had never met a man like him before.

Quack

Being squashed into the back or front of a taxi has become quite common place now. I used to buy ‘two’ seats (which equals ‘one seat’ where I come from!) but since fares have increased (fuel prices have increased by about a third since I’ve been here) I’ve become decidedly less fussy about who I share my personal space with when travelling long distances. 8 is the number of adults I have shared a taxi with on my last few trips out of town. On route to Battambang Pam, Suzy, Corine and I bundled into the backseat, taking it in turns to sit forward and back to compensate for our Western-sized hips! At the beginning of the journey it was not too bad. We all felt quite comfy, snug even. However, after the first half hour I realised I couldn’t feel my left leg from the knee down and had no way of changing the fact.

Travelling back to Sisaphon a few days later I shared the front passenger seat of the taxi with Corine while the driver shared his seat and the gear stick with his wife! The Wife was thrilled most of the journey to be sharing such close proximity with a ‘barang’ and proceeded to stroke my arm, pull my arm hairs and stare at my nose a little too intently and a little too closely for my liking as well! I was helpless! Trapped! Caught between an overconfident Khmer lady and a petite (thankfully!) Corine and trying very hard not to squish the latter into the side of the door or stick my elbow into the former. If we had’ve had an accident, I think we would’ve been too wedged in to do ourselves much damage. We’re in Cambodia, who needs an airbag, or a seatbelt for that matter!? We engaged in some conversation with our fellow passengers and without realising how, the conversation soon turned to a fun game of ‘Guess the Animal’ whereby Corine and I made very realistic animal noise impressions for our new Khmer friends to identify (in Khmer of course!). Perhaps because we felt like animals packed in on their last trip to the market, I honestly can’t remember how it came up. It was a really funny game until we noticed that frogs in the Western world make a completely different noise to frogs in Cambodia. Everyone in the car was completely flummoxed by our frog impressions, which wasn’t helped by the fact that we couldn’t remember what the Khmer word for ‘frog’ was! This problem caused much merriment to Corine and I but caused the Khmer passengers to completely lose interest in us. They became completely engaged in a conversation and despite my very loud duck noises we spent the rest of the journey being completely ignored. It must’ve been quite some conversation to outdo my ‘quack’ and the occasional dig in the ribs from my wandering elbow!

Part of the Family

In the report, written by the big cheese from VSO Programme Office in Phnom Penh, to review my placement after 4 months, he commented that ‘Anna is like one of the family’ when referring to my relationship with the landlady’s family. I accommodate the top floor of a guesthouse, well, a landing space and in theory 4 bedrooms, a balcony and a roof. The floor below is still used as a guesthouse and is very rarely inhabited by random visitors to Phnom Srok. It’s empty rooms are swept daily by two young girls while 3 days a week my floor is cleaned by one of the landlady’s daughters. We didn’t see eye to eye in the early days but we now enjoy a more distant relationship whereby when I go to work, she cleans. It works perfectly and I find it much more comfortable than her coming in any day and any time she likes!

When I read the report I remember wondering how on earth the big cheese had come to this conclusion. Which ‘part of the family’ did he think I was? I am still treated a bit like a queen by some members who shoo the kids out the way when I come to sit down or get the dirty rag out to ‘clean’ the dirty table top for me to sit at. Some family members literally chase the kids away if they dare some near me which is a bit of a shame. I sometimes wonder are they trying to protect me from their noise and mischief or them from me? Would that make me some very important Great Aunt?

I am smiled at lots, generally given the time of day and helped out with my bags when using one of the sons’ taxis to get to Sisaphon at the weekend. This is a very convenient arrangement for me however there is not a discount in sight. I once arranged the taxi at the beginning of the week and checked with Bong not to forget to pick me up to which I was given the reply ‘I don’t forget money!’ Hmmm, which part of the family is that then? The rich parent?

I often have dinner cooked by the landlady in the evening. It’s pot luck what is served up and it ranges from plain hard boiled duck eggs and fried fish to gorgeous green curry, all with rice of course. The landlady, bless her heart, has stopped charging me for the dinners, despite my initial protestations. It was about a dollar a dinner (50p) which was a bargain, saved me a trip to the market and a challenging independent cooking marathon which usually resulted in me throwing out more than I ate. I make sure that I buy her some fruit or something as a gesture of thanks. Now, what family member might that make me? The poor, younger sibling who can’t/won’t cook?

And I always eat alone out the front of the shop below my humble abode. Just once have I been invited into the house to eat with the family. What’s that all about? What family member does that make me? The dog?

I don’t think I will ever become like a family member. I am treated very well (particularly if it involves me giving them money for something!) but most of the time I am generally ignored. In this respect, perhaps I am just like a family member. In some ways I feel just like the 8 month old baby: totally clueless as to what is going on around me, depending on tone of voice or very slow speech to understand what is being said to me but always willing to smile back at a friendly face!

Eye to eye!

It’s been pretty quiet and slow going for the last few weeks. Teachers have collected the text books from the children, the syllabus has finished so there’s not a lot to do in schools, many teachers and directors are being trained to work at the polling stations for the upcoming national elections (27th July). On top of all that I am still without a translator and the schools will officially close at the end of July anyway for 2 months school holiday.

For this reason, as well as general lethargy brought upon by a cocktail of inactivity and heat, my body has become bored. So bored in fact that it has started misbehaving! My right eye decided to become unattractively swollen, red and painful over the course of a few days and I honestly think it was simply due to boredom. My body has been so bored it has started thinking of ways to make life more interesting!

It’s funny what goes through your head in a place like this when the threat of illness raises its ugly head though. I think I have a fairly high tolerance for pain and discomfort but all the time I am quietly calculating how many hours it might take me to get to hospital in Phnom Penh or Siem Reap or whether in fact it would be quicker and probably a better bet medically to get to Bangkok, and oh, where is my passport? And I wonder how long it would take me to go blind if I left this untreated?

In the end, it took me about 2 hours to get to a pretty good hospital in another district where another VSO volunteer Tricia, works in the Health sector. There I was shown to see a very competent Khmer eye specialist who gave me some ointment for the bad eye after a few painless tests. What a relief! While there though we encountered a slight moral dilemma. It was similar to an imaginary one given to us during our pre-departure training in Birmingham to encourage us to think about this type of situation we might find ourselves in. What do you do if you come to a hospital with a potentially serious problem (ok, the eye really wasn’t that serious but bare with me) and you are seen by the doctor immediately despite the fact that there is a queue of locals waiting their turn, each with their own potentially serious problem for the doctor to see? It’s funny to observe how I am treated here due to the colour of my skin. Well, I walked straight past the queue of locals and asked the doctor if I was jumping the queue. Thankfully, I wasn’t and the seated line of patients were all waiting for dilation. Phew! The Director of the hospital still refused to take my money for the ointment though which was a little frustrating to say the least.

Viva Las Poipet!

Poipet is the biggest and busiest border town crossing with Thailand. It’s a couple of hours bumpy journey from Phnom Srok and now home to Elise, another VSO volunteer. It is the place where the gap between rich and poor couldn’t be starker. The quality of the roads is so poor that the slightest bit of rain turns them into swamps. There is filth and rubbish everywhere, always being scrupulously picked through by scruffy looking, bare-footed children in rags hoping to find something they can make a few hundred Riel from. All day, poor Khmers, adults and children alike, pull wooden carts across the border and back again, transporting food and goods to sell in the markets. Landmine victims with missing limbs cycle their carts with their arms, children play with syringes and cigarette butts in the dirt and women sniff glue from plastic bags on the street. It’s really depressing stuff and sadly helps form negative first impression of Cambodia for many tourists passing through to Angkor Wat.

On the flipside, it is a town of immense wealth riddled with huge shiny and often grotesque looking Casinos and hotels. As far as I know these are all Thai owned as gabbling is illegal in Thailand so the wealthy Thais skip across the border in order to satisfy their needs to part with copious amounts of money. Khmers aren’t allowed in, unless they work there of course, or have been hired for the night! Corine and I have passed through Poipet a couple of times on trips to Thailand, not wishing to stay longer than we had to and despite our efforts, unsuccessfully trying to dodge the scam buses to Siem Reap.

So Elise lives somewhere between these two worlds, each as depressing as the other but both offering fascinating insights into lives different from ours. Again, on paper our job descriptions are practically identical but in reality very different issues face us both. Phnom Srok is a very poor district but there are still smiling faces whereas Poipet has intoxicated smiles and lifeless faces barely willing to make eye contact. But I have confidence that Elise will find some genuine smiles amongst the rubbish and mud! I joined her for a really fun weekend and had a great time enjoying her company and the contents of her fridge, meeting some of her colleagues and visiting some of Poipet’s highlights. We did visit a Casino which was very surreal as it was like stepping into a different world; slot machines, roulette and poker tables surrounded by pizza restaurants, duty free and clothes shops. We enjoyed a huge swimming pool to ourselves on Saturday afternoon... what a crazy world!

A Week Without

“A Week Without What?” I hear you cry. A week without a translator. With Soroth gone – now working for ICS in Oddar Meanchey – and the disastrous and fruitless interviews behind me, I was absolutely determined not to let the obvious language difficulties deter me from the work I had planned. After all there are many VSO volunteers across the globe working without a translator. In fact, VSO Cambodia are currently reviewing the system in place here for the education volunteers who have intense language training AND a full time Volunteer Assistant.

The plan for the week had been to work quite intensely at one targeted school with the idea, eventually, to use it as a model Child-Friendly school for the rest of the district. I worked there for 3 days with the help of Daney, a young colleague from the DOE. With her 8 words of English and my 9 ½ words of Khmer, I think we managed alright. Daney has worked with Soroth and me a lot so her understanding of Child Friendly Schools has increased amazingly. She also used to be a teacher herself so feels comfortable in the school setting; talking to students and teachers which is surprisingly unlike some members of the DOE.

Luckily, the work was more about ‘showing’ rather than ‘telling’ so the lacking language wasn’t a huge deal. By the end of the 3 days we had managed to persuade all the teachers to rearrange their desks into groups and organise their posters into subject areas lower down on the walls so that the children can actually see them and use them.

We also managed to involve the students by meeting them at the flagpole one morning, identifying members of the student council and getting everyone to help litter pick. We had a lot of fun doing this and the children seemed to love the fact that a crazy barang women was walking round with a plastic bag chanting “Put the rubbish in the bin!” in Khmer! However, the success was short lived. Despite Daney’s fine explanation and questioning about the school grounds and why we should keep it clean and litter free, by lunch time it was dismally covered in litter again; plastic bags, straws and wrappings. But, it’s a problem nation wide. The knee-jerk reaction of Khmers is to drop it on the floor when it’s finished with, whatever ‘it’ is, which is why there is so much rubbish in this country – everywhere. Like trees drop their leaves where they’re not needed anymore, so the Khmers (I am generalising somewhat) drop everything and anything where they stand, or out the window. I guess in years before food from the market would be bought wrapped in banana leaves, or similar, which would naturally decompose and not make the environment quite so ugly. I was kidding myself to think that one morning picking litter was going to change that. It’ll take much more than that but it’s a start at least!

If nothing else, being without a translator has helped improve my Khmer language. Suddenly I must understand what’s being said to me or how to explain an idea without turning to someone for an English translation. It’s been fun in a way too as we have to mime what we’re trying to say to each other when vocabulary is insufficient. It has also helped build the capacity of Daney. As a young female working in an office of older men she can often be mistaken for the general dogs body, fetching, carrying and cleaning, but she has an amazing amount of knowledge and a real gift for presenting to a large crowd be it students, teachers or directors. I’m hoping my other colleagues will catch on to her talents. I’m not saying I can do without permanently though and as I wonder how on earth to find and recruit another new VA willing to work in Phnom Srok I am well aware that another few weeks without might prove to be a few weeks too many!

Wild West

I went to visit Onno this week in Bavel district in the province of Battambang. Onno arrived in the same batch as me, way back in September last year, and seems to have a placements most similar to mine. He too is alone in a fairly poor district, an hour from his provincial town. He too is the first volunteer to work in his district, lives in a really nice little Khmer house (unlike mine!) and has managed to build really positive relationships with his willing Khmer colleagues.

I was on my ‘Dream’ for almost 4 hours to reach him from Phnom Srok, where we caught up and planned our few days together. Then, interspersed with visiting the market, meeting friends, watching DVDs and visiting the office, I joined Onno, his VA and DOE colleague as they finished a series of CFS (Child Friendly Schools) Introductory workshops.

It was great to see Onno in his natural habitat and fab to steal some ideas for work to take back to Phnom Srok. He had written the workshop himself, initially presenting it to his DOE, in order to give it at 9 target schools. However, by involving and encouraging his colleagues so well and training up his VA, it is now them running the show rather than Onno which is ideal! As their understanding of CFS increases so the DOE takes on more and more ownership of it. It also means time isn’t wasted going through everything in 2 languages (and Onno is Dutch so presumably has to go through a 3rd language too!).

Corine joined us for a party on Friday night which started as a small get together and ended up a slightly bigger event. Onno’s landlord and lady came bringing a table and chairs, apologising to me about the state of the garden!, some of Onno’s colleagues joined in as well as some Khmer friends from the local moto garage. Fortunately, for Onno the reluctant cook, his friends had friends who worked at one of Bavel’s restaurants so after a quick dash to the market, all the food was brought round ready prepared. Perfect!

On Saturday we all travelled further west to visit Chris and Jon in Phnom Preuk. Now they really live in the Wild West! I was amazed at the change of landscape as we drove into the district. There were no more rice fields here as the land is not flat, instead they grow corn. Many ‘mountains’ (the Khmer ‘mountain’ is more like a hill really) dot the horizon. In fact I nearly fell off my moto in surprise when I had to drop a gear to get up one of said hills. It was really beautiful countryside and so different looking to Phnom Srok. It was nice to be recognised by one of their DOE staff who visited Phnom Srok last month and they even have my photo, amongst others, on the wall to remind them of their trip!

Phnom Preuk is on the Thai border and has only been established recently (i.e. in the last 10 years) and is an interesting mix of residents including ex-Khmer Rouge cadres and displaced families. Again, it was fantastic to see fellow volunteers at home as it makes it so much easier to picture where they are. Weary from the long moto journey, we turned down the offer of a guided tour and instead opted for Pimms on the balcony.

It was a great evening, 5 of us volunteers as well as Chris’ son and his mate from the UK; I felt like we were all part of the family! We ate a delicious Bar-B-Q and spent the evening chatting and playing games. And then, thankfully with not a rain cloud in sight, we travelled back to Bavel for a quick pit stop, on to Battambang where we met Jean for lunch and left Onno to catch a bus to Phnom Penh. Corine and I took the road back to Sisaphon together and except for a near miss involving a young cow; the journey was smooth and fairly enjoyable.

In some ways I can’t believe it has taken us this long to take these longer moto rides to visit friends but I guess we’ve all been busy settling into our placements and gaining confidence. I’m so glad we did it this weekend, just before the big rains are due to start, as now the country seems a little smaller than before and friends feel a little closer.