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.

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!