Bloody Tourists!

tourist: noun
a person who travels for pleasure (that's us that is!)



We arrived at the Day Inn Angkor Hotel absolutely covered in browny-orangey dust following our eventful journey from Phnom Srok. But, not more than 1/2 hour later, we were clean and successfully disguised as rich tourists!

I didn't realise how much I was in need of a proper holiday and I have absolutely revelled in the novelty of the anonymity of being just another Western guest at the hotel in Siem Reap. It was a beautiful hotel; perfect actually and Ruth's treat which made it even better! We happily grazed on the complimentary breakfast each morning, treating the buffet a little more like an 'all-you-can-eat' opportunity! While I have been reacquainted with my hair-straighteners, we have also made the most of the air-con room and hot shower as well as the wonderful swimming pool in the garden surroundings! Lush!

We enjoyed 5 days of relaxed sight-seeing, doing what tourists do best and all just 2 hours drive from my dusty hot village. It continually amazed us that this very developed city was even in the same country as Phnom Srok!

As well as visiting the infamous temples of Angkor, we took part in other touristy activities including a night of traditional Apsara dancing at the theatre, shopping at the very tourist-friendly night-market and succumbing to a $30 (oops!) advertised sunset boat trip on the Tonle Sap which became a complete disappointment. Granted, we got to see the amazing floating village of Chong Kneas, but we learnt the hard way that money can't buy a sunset (see picture below!) and that what's described as a 2-course meal isn't always what we would recognise as a 2-course meal! In fact, we didn't do too well with sunsets or sunrise at all while in Siam Reap. We hiked up Phnom Bakheng (very steep hill with temple on the top), following a trillion (approximately) other tourists with the same, less than original idea, got a great view but another cloudy sunset!

We also got up at a ridiculously early hour the following morning to witness an equally disappointing sunrise over Angkor Wat! We amused ourselves taking photos for a while and managed to get back to the hotel before breakfast finished! Result! There are lots more photos on Facebook and even more on disk (oh imagine the slide show I could give on my return to England...).

The temples of Angkor Wat were breathtaking. We had a day ticket and a friendly tuk-tuk driver and got round to see all the main ones. Being Khmer New Year meant that we joined hundreds of Khmers at the temples' busiest time of year which made for an excellent atmosphere. The photos really don't do it (or me) much justice. The fact that they were all built between the 9th and 14th century, are all so well preserved and many hidden amongst forest just as explorers would've discovered them really was awe-inspiring. Some of the temple ruins would even make exceptionally iconic film sets for the right script!

As well as being a tourist for a while and spending some quality time with my ghd's, it is a great treat being with my big sister! Not only has she brought me some new underwear, she also packed very lightly so that she could fit in my wish list of things I'd left behind. I have a 'new' pile of clothes from the bags I left behind (although 2 white tops now have a delightful raspberry ripple effect after being washed with a pair of new pink pants - doh!), some gifts from family (THANK YOU!!!) and without saying a word, she acts as constant reassurance that I have in fact developed something resembling a tan! - oh, and did I mention my hair-straighteners?

Baby Ducks!

Another Maton in Phnom Srok! Ruth and I made it to Phnom Srok after a quick but emotional pit stop in Sisaphon (my lil' brother had a baby girl so I found out I'd become an auntie again, I spoke to my mum for the first time since Christmas, also spoke to the new 'dad' himself and my big sister arrived, practically all on the same day!).

We spent a very hot 3 days and 4 nights in my home. That was plenty for Ruth and I think she was impressed by how well adjusted I am to constantly dripping with sweat, needing to take 4 showers a day, having to sleep through more noise than an 18-30s campsite could produce at the height of season, not to mention the seemingly endless (and often quite annoying!) misunderstandings with my landlady and family!

I was so fantastic to see her in my little bit of world- not only because of the new M&S underwear she had brought me! We filled many an hour chatting, catching up and discussing the delights of Phnom Srok. I, of course, took her to all the best places in the village and we were generously invited to dinner by various colleagues of mine!

We also managed to invite ourselves on a tour of the district's silk sericulture and witnessed the whole production line of traditional Khmer silk, from growing mulberry bushes (which silk worms are a tad partial to), breeding silk worms, spinning the bright yellow silk, dying it with natural dyes and then weaving it into the final beautiful silk products! It was amazing!

A lazy day by the lake was enjoyed too and we slept in hammocks, ate Bok Lahong and swam with the locals!

Ruth has not been shy at sampling the local delicacies either (you can tell she's a Maton!). As well as eating not one but two whole duck foetuses on her bus journey up the country (apparently she switched into denial and they were actually quite tasty - I refuse to comment further!) she also downed a boiled silk worm during our silk tour of the district.

Ruth lived in Cambodia 10 years ago when she worked for a Christian NGO just outside Phnom Penh. She says that Phnom Penh is unrecognisable and she loved experiencing 'village life' in Phnom Srok (despite the heat and noise!) as it was so different from her own experience a decade ago. Her highlights were:

• drinking coffee in the breakfast restaurants each morning. The sweet caffeine taste is a small but necessary reminder of the civilization we are more used to.







• spending a lazy day at the lake. Beautiful scenery, fresh fish to eat and friendly food stall owners (even if some do stare a little too much to be polite!).







• meeting the many children I have befriended through visiting the English class down the road. We didn't get to a lesson as the teacher has been in Phnom Penh and everyone's busy preparing for Khmer New Year but we did bump into most of them around the village who all greeted us with "Hello Anna!"and tried to practice their English on us.


• meeting Mr Sophan, who first presented himself drunk and shirtless on our first evening in the district (I personally think he was almost as excited as I was to meet my big sister!). Ruth saw many different sides to him in many different situations over her few days visit, creating a picture of the man who has become my Khmer counterpart here, someone I hold in high regard and who, despite the obvious language differences, I have found some connection with! I think she liked him too!
  

However, as well as experiencing the highs of village life, Ruth also experienced the lows. She suffers the same skin type as me, burning quickly in the sun and attracting mosquitoes like bees to honey. At the last count, she was furiously rubbing Tiger Balm into more than 12 bites on her bum which understandably caused her some discomfort! Added to this was her inability to sleep through village heat and noise (a skill I am developing).

As well as finding it hard to get to sleep while Khmer kareoke was blasted down her eardrums, she was quite perturbed by the early morning alarm, starting with the dogs howling at 5am, followed by the cockerels cock-a-doodle-doing, then hundreds of sparrows sitting in the tree outside following suit with loud chirping, then plinky-plonky-monk-music from the local pagoda and to top it all off, a Khmer male voice chanting down a microphone. In the UK it would be enough to serve at least an ASBO or 2! On the last morning, kareoke, plinky-plonky-monk-music and a man with a microphone could all be heard at the same time, same loud volume from different directions. Torture in stereo! Looking on the bright side, it did mean that Ruth got to see some beautiful sunrises from my roof though!

I think it's safe to say we were both ready and relieved to leave Phnom Srok when the time came, although our adventures were far from over as we hopped on the back of a pick-up truck to take us to the main road. We got absolutely covered in dust on the 20 minute journey and shared the experience with a convict, arrested in Phnom Srok and on his way to Sisaphon! We successfully met our taxi to take us the rest of the journey to Siam Reap where an air-conditioned dust-free bedroom and swimming pool awaits us! Can't wait!

Effective Teaching and Learning

Phnom Srok’s first VSO sponsored event took place over 6 days in the form of ETL training. The training was produced by UNICEF and the Ministry of Education (MoEYS) as part of the government’s aim (in line with the millennium goal) to provide all children with an inclusive quality basic education. It really is very valuable training, explaining child-centred, effective teaching methodology through a participatory approach, including sessions on ‘how children learn’, ‘ learning games’ and ‘creating a rich learning environment’. The training even uses Bloom’s taxonomy of questioning simplified into 3 main types of question that teachers should ask, memory, understanding and critical thinking, which is a far cry from the ‘chalk n talk’, ‘I say, you do’ mentality. The training has been conducted in Khmer by Khmer trainers in a classroom in Phnom Srok High School which we have shared with 2 families of nesting sparrows. We had just over 30 participants, a mix of teachers, school directors and cluster heads. My involvement was minimal really – logistics and finance (in other words I confirmed the dates with the trainers and held the purse strings!) although I did have to give another speech at the opening ceremony.

What I have found fascinating is that the government cannot afford to provide this basic training for its own teachers in the provinces. However they seem to be able to afford to send all school teachers to Sihanoukville for a holiday just before the elections! Hmmmm – interesting priorities!

Anyway, the training was not without interruption; some welcome and some not! And I have experienced a plethora of emotions over the last 8 days or so!

Interruption 1: One school director asked me at the beginning of the training if he could bring 2 more participants from his school that were really keen to learn from the training. He assured me that they would not expect to be paid (participants receive money for their transport costs and food when they attend training outside their normal work) but he put me in a very difficult position! I tried to explain, with lots of smiling, that every teacher in the district wanted to attend the training and that to say yes to him would be unfair on all the rest. He seemed to understand, but brought 1 extra participant anyway! It was quite annoying but actually became the least of my worries!

Interruption 2: The prime minister himself, Mr Hun Sen, decided to officially open the new university in Banteay Meanchey on day 4 of the training which meant a 2 day delay in the middle of the originally planned 6 days as every education staff member in the province was invited to attend. There doesn’t seem to be any concept of forward planning!

Interruption No.3: Two of the four trainers from the Provincial Office of Education were summoned to attend some other training in Phnom Penh in the middle of ETL. And why does no-one forward plan in this country?!?! Oh, the air was certainly blue that day! Thankfully we managed to find two more trainers who could take over otherwise half the ETL training would’ve been postponed until goodness knows when! (or never!). Infuriating!! What was so frustrating was that I seemed to be the only person bothered by this catastrophic turn of events. However, with hindsight I know the trainers were also really disappointed not to be able to finish the training but Khmers are much better at hiding their feelings. While I stomped my feet (well, as much as I could in flip flops!), muttered swear words and moaned and whinged about MoEYS (while instructing Soroth not to translate!) and despaired down the phone to the Provincial Facilitator, the Khmer trainers remained perfectly calm with no more than a slightly furrowed brow betraying their true feelings!

Interruption No. 4: A welcome interruption! A phone call from my big brother all the way in UK and the extra special treat of speaking to my nieces! Aaaahhhhh! I’ve been spoilt a few times this week with phone calls from home!! Thanks everyone!!

Interruption No. 5: Another unexpected but welcome one, breakfast with a ‘real’ barang! Enfant du Mekong is another NGO working in the province and one of their volunteers was passing through Phnom Srok and happened to have my phone number! I escaped the training for an hour for a quick breakfast meeting and he ended up staying for a party in the evening where he completely upstaged me on the dance floor (but I’m the only barang in the village!), absolutely shamed my Khmer with his fluent language ability and instantly won over my colleagues and friends! Soroth thought he had found his kindred spirit and did not stop going on about how great he was! (Humph! Note to self: must dust off my Khmer books and get studying!)

Interruption No. 6: I have been looking forward to this interruption since I got here in September... On Tuesday afternoon (during the last day of ETL) I will travel to Sisaphon and sit at the bus station with my tail wagging, waiting for my sister to arrive!! I can’t wait!!

Fun and Games

Monday 31st March

Like most other weeks, this week started on Monday. As a general rule, I’ve never been a huge fan of Mondays or mornings and this particular Monday morning was no exception. My translator was not at work until 9am so I spent the first hour and a half trying to understand what my Deputy Director was saying (in Khmer) about a meeting with school directors planned for the afternoon and what I wanted to say in this meeting. Not being 100% sure of what was being said, and becoming more and more frustrated, I waited until Soroth arrived and sure enough I had unfortunately pretty much understood the gist quite accurately. So I had a few hours to prepare something to present to about 40 male School Directors that afternoon...!

I’m not sure whether it’s safe to admit, but personally I think that I work best under some pressure. After a small rant and rave (to myself of course!) about the lack of forward planning, being given no preparation time, being given no meeting agenda etc etc, I began to have an idea. I mean, what would any primary school teacher do with a class of children in the same situation? Well, depending on my mood at the time, I’d either play a game (educational of course!) or give a dictation (to keep them quiet and kill some time!). I quickly decided that the latter idea would be a lot less fun and a lot more problematic given the language barrier, so opted for an educational game. Luckily for me I had got hold of some planning beforehand and noticed that student-centred methodology was on the list of things to implement in 2008 (just like that!), so at least the focus of the game could be in some way related to the district priorities... blah blah blah!


And oh what fun we had! We played a team game whereby a sentence was read out in Khmer and each team had to decide whether it was student-centred or teacher-centred. (For example, ‘students copy the lesson from the board or a textbook’, ‘ students make up their own stories’, ‘the teacher stand/sits at the front of the class’, ‘the teacher circulates the classroom, helping students’). They wrote their answer with a reason onto a post-it note and stuck it on what they thought was the correct side of the board. There were prizes, of course, and the most chaotic part of the game was sorting all these men into equal sized teams! It was just like playing a team game with a bunch of Year 5s at home! I don’t mean to patronize my Khmer colleagues, but the similarities were uncanny! They copied each other, tried to stop their opponents being faster to the board by holding onto each others trousers and talked over each other incessantly! I even started giving bonus points to the teams who got their answers to the board the quickest and the team who listened the best to the other teams as well as giving minus points to any team who hadn’t switched off their mobile phones!

It was fantastic fun and gave me quite an insight into their understanding of student centred teaching methodology. I was pleasantly surprised by how accurate their answers were and how well thought out their reasons were. They were fiercely competitive but also really good at working together and discussing their ideas. I think that part of the problem is that they are not given these kinds of opportunities very often. More often than not, meetings that I have experienced have been much like the lessons I have observed: one person speaks from the front of the room and everyone else writes down every word spoken. There is little opportunity for discussion, sharing ideas, disagreeing with one another without losing face. You are told, and so you do! You never question why? Or how could this be better?
So, I’m hoping they all had fun, experienced a participatory approach to meetings, were introduced to inclusive loop training as well as clarifying the differences between student centred and teacher centred learning, know which one benefits the children most and why and have an active training tool and game which they can all take back to play again with their own school staff in order to cascade knowledge and understanding. Yeah... and who am I kidding! One step at a time!

Grand Prix

Being a volunteer and earning not much more than £150 per month does occasionally carry the odd perk. For example, some people with money and advantage sometimes take pity on the likes of me and this is exactly what happened this month.

Pam and her husband Tim are both Volunteer Professionals and Tim is lucky enough to have been born into the same family as his incredibly generous big brother John. For some reason Corine and I found ourselves invited to join almost the whole family at John’s apartment in Kuala Lumpur and accompany them with complimentary tickets to watch the Malaysian Grand Prix! Not being one to look a gift horse in the mouth (although sometimes poor Corine struggles!) and even though we could barely name more than one current Formula 1 driver, we leapt at the chance of this once in a lifetime trip.

Honestly, this is the most flattering photo I have of Uncle Pam and Auntie Tim...

I found myself dredging up all sorts of racing car information that I didn’t know I possessed (well, I impressed Corine once or twice anyway!) and wasn’t sure if my small but surprising amount of knowledge was due to watching Days of Thunder umpteen times, being taken to watch banger cars with Dad when I was younger (its practically a poor man’s F1 you know!) or from being forced to watch hours of Formula 1 on a Sunday afternoon with Daniel during his F1 obsession years in the early 90s, despite my pleads to turn over the channel to the Eastenders omnibus of even the Little House on the Prarie. I learnt more too and surprised myself at how interesting I found it all.

Kuala Lumpur is fantastic. It is a small but perfectly formed city, so very clean and smart compared to anywhere in Cambodia and with all the delights of any developed country’s capital city: air-conditioned shopping malls, restaurants, bars and Marks and Spencers. There were down pours of rain on Saturday during our well-planned ‘walking round the city’ day and glorious sunshine on Race day. It might sound a bit weird, but I really enjoyed having a break from the poverty of Cambodia. KL is a hugely multi-cultural city with renowned food choices which we sampled as much as we could although I ate a lot of Western food I’d been missing as well! Mmmmmm - a sausage sandwich...Swamping the occasional historical colonial house here are many tall buildings in the city (something I’m not so used to now) so I ooh-ed and aah-ed at the Petronas Towers, climbed the Menara Tower and took lots of photos!!

The Menara Tower...

And the view from the top...Nightview of the Petronas Towers from our comfortable seats at Sky Bar...

Karaoke is quite huge in South-East Asia. Cambodians will never miss the opportunity of singing tunelessly down a passing microphone and much crooning can be heard from Karaoke bars which pop up all over the place. Malaysia seems no different in its love of singing lyrics over slightly dodgy if not nausea inducing music videos. John took the lot of us to a Karaoke rabbit warren below a multi-storey car park on Saturday night. I think it was Corine’s vision of hell. I though it was a perfect idea and I’m thinking of bringing the idea back to London, if it’s not there already. We were shown into our own sound-proofed room with a computerised song selection screen, our own en-suite toilet and a waiter! We proceeded to thoroughly enjoy desecrating numerous all-time favourite tunes at extremely loud volumes although Tim’s high pitched Bee Gees style of singing Michael Jackson’s Beat It was the last straw!

Apart from thoroughly enjoying constantly ribbing Tim throughout the whole weekend (well, don’t dish up what you can’t take!) this was my favourite joke of the weekend... Ferrari took a decision for the British GP to hire a couple of Scousers as pit crew members when they found out they could remove all 4 wheels in under 0.8 seconds. But to Jean Todt’s dismay, after 1.5 seconds, the car was resprayed and sold to McLaren... I think part of the reason I liked this joke so much could’ve been because I understood it! I learnt all the gossip and back-stabbing of last season’s F1, got sunburnt, discovered the wonder of earplugs (the noise was terrific!), and even sneaked onto the track and made it to the pits to see all the F1 cars after the race – did you know there are 150 diagnostic checks carried out after each race?! After dodging the Malaysian guard and getting onto the track, no-one else seemed to mind (we were practically invited into the pits!) so we made the most of snapping photographs of the cars, teams and of course ourselves!!

Oh yeah, and I think the red car won!

She barangs, She barangs!

With a small pang of quilt at my upcoming holiday to Malaysia, I decided to spend a weekend in Phnom Srok instead of making my usual trip to town. I thoroughly enjoyed myself, spent next to no money, learnt lots more about my work colleagues and the complexities of relationships, positions of power and politics. I also spent time with my landlady’s family in an attempt to get them to stop treating me like The Queen and a bit more like one of the family (not that that will ever be 100% successful).

On Saturday I got a shopping list from Ree in Khmer and trotted off to the market. After successfully recognising most of the things on the list and purchasing them I carried it all back to cook with Ree. Surprisingly no stall in the market had any limes (limes are used in loads of dishes and are always readily available, hence the surprise) but after wandering around for a bit saying ‘Where are all the limes? Don’t have limes!‘ in my best Khmer, someone took pity on me and found a yellowish old looking lime for me to take home! Sometimes it really helps to be a barang! Well, I couldn’t go back without one!

My search for a lime also helped distract me from the fact that I was carrying a live fish home in a small plastic bag. I’m not sure exactly at what point the fish lost consciousness but it may’ve been while it was being descaled. Or perhaps pain finally overwhelmed the fish’s small brain when a huge cleaver was used to slice open its stomach and force out its guts and egg sacks! Tasted good though!

The rest of Saturday afternoon was spent sat outside the shop front at the base of the guesthouse where I live. I caught up with world news reading my Guardian Weekly, solved the Sudoku and crosswords while watching my small world go by. It was bliss! As soon as my colleagues discovered I was in Phnom Srok for the weekend I got invited to the village ‘pub’ to drink beer. These opportunities are simply not to be missed. No, I’m not an alcoholic (yet), I mean that it is at these times I get to practise my Khmer, as I am without a translator at weekends, and I actually find out heaps more interesting things than during a normal day’s work. My deputy director is very good (and very patient) at talking to me in Khmer at a snail’s pace so I can understand him and there are always a high school teacher or two around wanting to practise their English. We ended up having a very bilingual conversation with me acting as a translator between teachers talking English and my Khmer-speaking colleagues. I have also prepared them all for the upcoming visit from my bong-srei (big sister!) although they are having difficulty pronouncing ‘Ruth’....

I learnt that there are changes on the horizon which may affect me and my work at the DOE. I discovered interesting political stuff which made me incredibly thankful that I was from England. Imagine having to buy your job? Or having to pay in order to get a promotion? Imagine being in fear of losing your job if your employers ever found out your political stance? Imagine being bought off because of your position and support for the opposition party or having bogus charges brought against you? Imagine how frustrating it must be to really want to help see your own country develop but at every turn you are faced by obstacles put there by your own government! Unbelievable!! And there’s a load more where that came from.

On Sunday I found Phnom Srok’s one and only Christian Church. I was late to the service (nothing new there!) and hoping to slip in the back of the 20-something congregation but no such luck. It is pretty impossible to do anything surreptitiously, much to my disappointment at times like these! So, seated at the front, I listened to the remainder of the service and afterwards was asked to stay and talk with the minister. Happy to oblige, I pulled up a chair and in a mixture of Khmer and English he asked me questions about my friends and family in the UK. After about three sentences it became starkly obvious that far from being interested in my spiritual welfare, he was much more interested in the fact that I had white skin and that by default probably had loads of money, or at least friends and family with loads of money! To cut a long, disappointing story short, he wanted to buy land for the church and a church building. Sometimes it sucks being a barang! I let him down as gently as I could and then headed to the lake for Sunday morning bacon ‘n’ eggs...

The following week finished very positively with an official visit from VSO staff from the Programme Office in Phnom Penh trekking up to Phnom Srok to see little old me!. The visit is supposed to take place 3 months into placement in order to review how things are going and check that I’m still sane. (I managed to hide the nervous twitch I’ve developed and I don’t think they noticed the cardboard cut-out characters that have moved into my spare room - sometimes I just need someone to talk to!). Prior to the visit, I reviewed my placement objectives with the DOE staff (after we found out what they were!) which turned out to be a really useful activity. The PO staff seemed quite impressed with how things were going in Phnom Srok, how relationships have developed, how I’m coping in a relatively rural and remote district and what has happened so far. It was quite a relief to hear I was on the right tracks as sometimes it’s hard to see what I’m doing here! I still don’t think I could clearly explain it to anyone!

I also recently met some of my blog readers! I bumped into Perry and Sarah from the UK at the Programme Office in Phnom Penh and after they found out I was Anna, I was quizzed about how I was feeling now, what happened to the dogs and whether I had found a new translator or not! It was so weird to be known so well by complete strangers! Lovely to know that they cared and were reading with such interest (thanks guys!) and I hope that meeting me hasn’t shattered your expectations! Anyway, for anyone else who is interested... yes, I am feeling fabulous again. I have accepted this is life for the next little while and as well as making some kind of difference for the better in this country, I’m going to try and enjoy every opportunity that comes my way!... The 5 puppies have become 3 much bigger puppies (2 were given away to families in Sisaphon) and are well on their way to becoming the same as the rest of the neighbourhood canines – sleepy or playful during the day and aggressive, hungry rulers of the streets at night. The mother dog is a very sorry looking bag of bones though... and yes, I have a new translator, Soroth, who started work this month. He has plenty of experience of working with NGOs in his home province of Oddor Meanchey and his English is very very good!

Pied de terre

Not quite satisfied with my humble rural residence in Phnom Srok, I have recently received the keys to a Pied de Terre in Sisaphon. I probably spend half my time there both for work purposes and as a weekend retreat. As much as I am loving Phnom Srok more and more as it feels increasingly like home, I do need to escape every so often in order to maintain my mental health! I enjoy catching up with using the internet, occasionally watch BBC World News and more occasionally watch a dodgy film from the 80s on HBO. Sisaphon doesn’t have much besides lots of dust but it does allow me to visit more restaurants than would be possible in Phnom Srok, drink gin and tonic and conduct conversations in English at a relatively normal speed. Corine’s placement in Malai didn’t work out as expected so she has moved into a huge house in town and very generously given me a set of keys to come and go as I like – well, until she discovers all my bad habits!

Security
It takes about half an hour to get into the house as there are a multitude of locks and keys to negotiate due to the slightly unusual layout of the abode. This makes one feel super safe although it’s a real pain in the neck if you need the toilet as soon as you get home (which I’ve noticed with annoying frequency!) or if you have locked up to go out only to realise you’ve left something on the kitchen table!

Wildlife
We have discovered that Corine is not the only full time resident at this address. Along with the expected geckos, Corine shares her house with some utterly huge spiders, a rather large and noisy lizard, some cockroaches and a bat! But they’re all very friendly when they’re disturbed by the odd human night wanderer on the way to the loo (I try my hardest to hold it till morning...!)

Neighbours
Corine’s neighbours are really friendly. There are some children who live opposite who always wave and say ‘hello’ over and over again as soon as you’re leaving or arriving at the gate. And next door there is an abattoir. Every evening at around 4 or 5 pm motos turn up with pigs strapped upside down to the back. Sometimes they have leafy branches covering their bare bellies to prevent sunburn! They usually give the odd squeal on arrival. We think they then have their last meal and get penned in for the night... until about 4 in the morning. Then, both Corine and I are awoken by the almighty death squeals of the pigs as they are killed, murdered, slaughtered! I’ve heard the saying ‘squealing like a stuck pig’ and now know exactly what that squeal sounds like. It’s horrible! Some pigs go more quietly than others, some sound like they are gurgling and drowning in their own blood, others sound like they need a few thuds on the head to finish them off, and others really don’t want to go at all. It is enough to turn a healthy meat lover into a strict vegetarian! And do you think there could be some psychological effect of waking up to the distressed squeal of a pig being murdered every morning?

Photos will make it here as soon as I can be bothered!