End of the year :(

I have had such an enjoyable past month, we didn't do so many lessons towards the end as we wanted to have fun with the children so did lots of activities, playing and trips instead. We went on a trip to a Thai produce fair (the children wanted to go, I don't really understand why) we took the older children to watch a session in the court in which the Khmer Rouge leaders are on trial, and we went on another trip to a water park. I did also do some proper work including a PSHE session on jobs, future aspirations and budgeting which I was quite proud of and I hope will do something to help alleviate their fear of dying young. I have also been working with Khy the group home manager on organising the summer school for the children. We have planned sewing, cooking, dancing, sports and arts and crafts sessions for the children. We came up with the idea of 'employing' the two older boys in the group home to run the sports sessions to give them a bit of work experience, so I have been helping them create a budget and lesson plans.

Hollie and Debbie have started work with Sothy which is going very well. Sothy seems happier and is less annoying as he is less bored, I have found myself feeling much more affectionate to him recently. Debbie has been working on the sign for banana and mango with Sothy and the caregivers together, as well as working on the strained relationship between Sothy and one of the caregivers. Hollie has been working on the signs for sit go and jump. He hasn't got it yet but but just the activity and the sense of communication is proving very beneficial.

I have had a really good time socially recently as I had a couple of school friends travelling through Cambodia, so it was really nice to see them and I went on a weekend trip to Kampot with a group of expats from Phnom Penh which was a lot of fun. Kampot is in the country side a little inland which is very pretty especially by the river as we were, it produces some delicious pepper which we enjoyed on tasty seafood.

Time to leave the orphanage finally arrived last week, it was very sad but I didn't get emotional I expect I will be more so once I am home, and Rosie arrived for a week of work experience which provided a lovely distraction. We held a leaving party on Thursday which was great fun. The day began with some surprise short dramas put on by the children as a leaving present. I was so touched by the effort they had put in to practice and make some impressive outfits, all without us finding out, which I don't know how they managed. We spent the morning playing party games in teams using face paints and other party regalia. We finished of the morning with little party bag presents for the winning team and sweets for everyone else. We were then treated to the pleasure of a few hours of Khmer karaoke by the children, it was horrible they can't sing at all and the music is rubbish. In the afternoon we made spaghetti and tomato sauce for the orphanage, I've never seen so much spaghetti and sauce! and a lot of it went down my front. The children and caregivers enjoyed it but not as much as you would expect, I assume they found it a bit full flavored compared to the food they are used to. Of course they all had rice as well as they are not full until they have done.

We were given some sweet jewelery as a present from the caregivers and we gave them a chocolate cake we had made in Phnom Penh and thought it would be fun for them to try. The children also gave us some sweet notes and cards but we had a bit of a nightmare with presents. The children wanted to give us a present but don't really have any money so started giving us all their possessions, we were given little plastic toys, toy bags, mangy socks old teddies you name it basically a bunch of rubbish that we didn't want but the children valued really highly,and then there was a bit of a snowball effect as the children didn't want to be forgotten. We were really touched as they were giving us their little treasures. So we had the challenge of giving it back without hurting their feelings. I think we managed.  I hate goodbyes so I felt sick and nervous about the final good bye but it was ok we were waved off and now I have begun my month of travelling around Laos and Vietnam with my friend Caroline and sister Rosie.

This is my last blog so Thank you very very much to everyone who has helped me fund this year it has been the most amazing experience which I think I have benefited so much from. I'm a bit scared about leaving and how I'm going to feel about being back home but I'm looking forward to university and hope to be back to visit someday. Anyone thinking of visiting Cambodia or doing a gap year with project trust, do it!

Exciting news

We have had some of the best news of the year this week. The woman we met at the swimming pool has contacted us as she and another want to do some work with Sothy. The arrangement we have agreed on couldn't be more perfect. The woman called Debbie is American and has experience with working with deaf blind children. She will come to the orphanage two to three times a week to work with the staff on how to communicate and help Sothy, she will be in Cambodia indefinitely, so I hope will form quite an attachment with Sothy and become a long term mentor. There is also a university student who is taking a year long break in Cambodia who is looking for volunteer work.She is deaf herself and is willing to volunteer full time doing activities and teaching Sothy sign language (through touch). Amazing that we managed to bump into Debbie! I was very worried for Sothy and his future prospects but I think Debbie and Holly  will be able to make a big difference to his quality of life. I am very very happy for Sothy.

For Project Trust we have to do a community study. I am doing mine based on the trial of the Leaders of the Khmer rouge regime. I have been having some interesting conversations with various people about the trial and Beth and I went to visit the court. I found the visit to the court surprisingly interesting and enjoyable. The court is made up of a mixture of international and Khmer people which means that french English and Khmer are all being spoken at the same time. Everyone wears a headset tuned into a channel so 3 languages are flying around the court which I am pretty sure was causing some problems, but I was very impressed with the system. The session I watched was the giving of evidence by a man that had run various communes, he had clearly spent years justifying what he had done to himself and was desperately trying to convince the court he had treated those in his commune well. This man will never go on trial though so I don't think the court were very interested. Through talking to Cambodians I have discovered that the interest in the trial is very low and suppressed further by the fear of talking about politics.It does seem that putting so few people on trial especially as they are so old is slightly futile, but the main thing I learned at the court was that it doesn't matter what the convictions are, the trial is very important for extracting information on the regime. I think it is so important that the Khmer people are educated on what happened during the regime and the trial is discovering lots of useful material. The court (I expect the UN section) is keen to increase awareness of the trial amongst the Khmer so offer group visits to the court with costs covered, we are really hoping to be able to arrange a visit with some of the older children before we leave in a month. The court is on a break until the 16th of July though so it will be tricky.

We took all the children to a small water park last week which they loved. We stayed all day and had the whole park to ourselves which was nice. It was much less stressful than you would imagine as the swimming pools were like giant paddling pools so not too deep. The children only left the water for lunch in an 8 hr day! A few of them have consequently had sore blistered noses and to their great indignation they all turned black and have extreme tan lines.

Thats all the main events of the past couple of weeks. Other news is that we have finally got a delivery of money from unicef so we have been working on budgets which I find very boring. We have now got a routine for when the children will recieve new clothes which will be good but sadly we won't be here for the first installment. Beth and I are finding it rather sad at the moment, as there are quite a few things we are discussing and initiating which we won't be here to follow through with or see the results, it will be nice for the next volunteers to arrive to some intersting activities though.

Elections, difficult children and sex

So the disciplinary method for Sothy was an utter failure, he found it to be far too entertaining trying to remove the strappings from his wrists and was very successful, the punishment was a game to Sothy. His behavior has improved a little, I'm not really sure why, it may be due to a little increased attention, I've been doing my best to improve my patience and be more affectionate with him. We took Vichet, an older boy who is brilliant with Sothy, swimming last week and he was a great help. Hopefully Sothy was just going through a rare bad patch before. We have had no more success either with organizations that could help Sothy. He needs one on one care which is too costly. We have a couple of other organization/people to contact but we're not very hopeful, we are beginning to consider sending him to Thailand. We didn't seriously consider sending him to Europe but we have been told that the only European country that will allow those carrying the HIV virus in is Greece!
Another 'child' I have had difficulty with is 18 year old Sok lin. We had a very bad lesson where she was being incredibly grumpy and I was having to be the strong teacher. It was horrible she doesn't see us as equals, but I am very aware of our small age difference so it make disciplining her hard. She was being very unresponsive in the lesson and refusing to help others that were having difficulties. I made her move to the front which she did very reluctantly and we had quite a struggle over, she was arsy for the rest of the lesson and I caught her mocking me which wasn't very nice. I spoke to her after the lesson after another struggle and she had an excuse of course so I did the you should talk to someone about your problems speel, I was so nervous about that chat. She was much better the next lesson though so hopefully it will be alright now. The whole thing made me feel bad for giving my teachers a hard time, I never really considered that they had feelings, they do! mocking hurts!
I've also realized that I couldn't ever be a full time English teacher as I don't understand the English language myself.

In the last two weeks Beth and I have done PSHE sessions on puberty and sex ed. We felt very brave tackling such taboo topics, I kept finding myself coloring up. Bethany had an interesting chat with Key about sex in Cambodia during which she found out; it is ok for men to sleep around but definitely not for women, women should be virgins on their wedding night and if they don't bleed the husband can easily justify divorcing her the next morning, Engagements are very short on average lasting between 2 weeks and a month, Women are expected to have sex whenever their husband demands it, it is not a problem that families all share the same bed children are simply sent out to play, it is not uncommon for women to have surgery on their vaginas to try and prevent their husbands accusing them of sleeping around before the marriage. Girls and boys can't walk alone without being thought badly of, families like to have a lot of control  over dates and romances.

We have taken the children on a couple of walks to the riverside this week, the riverside seems to be where the khmer socialise. The streets are lined with little food stalls and a couple of sets of big speakers are set up on the pavement which people dance in front of. It was really nice taking the children, its strange seeing the children outside of the orphanage they behave quite differently and its lovely being their source of security, it made me realize quite how much I have grown to love them.

It's election weekend at the moment and although there is little doubt over who will win, campaigners are out in force. This article though sad is really interesting. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/01/opinion/10000-days-of-hun-sen.html?_r=3&smid=fb-share. Campaigning here is quite different to back home, it seems that we campaign using information where as in Cambodia they campaign with a party atmosphere. For the last couple of days trucks of people covered in flags and banners have been driving up and down the streets blasting music and persuasive messages into every corner of Phnom Penh. On Friday there was huge gatherings of people trucks, food stalls and speakers in Phnom Penh, there was an amazing atmosphere. It feels quite brain washy but it seems a lot of people fall for it. The campaigning is pretty much solely in support of the Cambodian people's party and I am very aware of how corrupt it all is but it is really hard not to be affected by the hype, the tactics work! I left feeling jubilant. A couple of examples of corruption that I have heard is, people being offered bags of rice in return for votes, and my language teachers whole family were deprived of votes last election as they turned up to find someone had voted for them!

Khmer New Year

It’s so hot at the moment! We are currently in the middle of the hot season and I’m feelin’ it. Any activity we do tends to be in the morning or the evening at the moment, lunch breaks are longer as even walking to the classroom  makes me all sweaty, actually I’m a bit sweaty even  sat down in front of a fan . I wasn’t able to sleep due to the heat but I have now moved  my mattress onto the roof terrace which makes a huge amount of difference,  it’s actually a little cool up there by 11o’clock. Thankfully it’s not just me, the Khmer are suffering too, the children are all sleeping on the tiled floor and the majority of my conversations with the group home manager orientate around how hot we are.

We celebrated Khmer New Year for three days starting on the 13^th of April. A couple of the children who have relatives went to stay with them for the weekend which they were very excited about, they returned with presents for the group home, Bethany and I were inundated with mangos. During the long weekend we celebrated with water and talcum powder fights, treat foods, a trip to the pagoda and lots of traditional New Year games. My favorite was a game involving two teams, a big bucket of water and two water containers one for each team. The water containers were placed at the opposite end of the playground to the water bucket and it was race to see which team could fill their container with water first. They had to carry the water in their mouths. It was hilarious especially when the very young children joined in Sayha finally made it across the playground to find he couldn’t reach up to the container, his usual response to anything is to make a huge noise but with a mouthful of water he was stuck not knowing what to do it was very funny.

I almost opted out of the trip to the pagoda in favor of a morning under the hose, but I’m glad I went, it was interesting. The Buddhist stuff is rather strange they didn't really stop moving other than to be chanted at by a monk for about 2 minutes. The rest of the time at the pagoda was spent; washing statues, giving cooked rice, giving uncooked rice, burying money in rice burying money in sand, and wafting incense sticks. It didn’t seem that they did any religious thinking or praying or worshiping as I thought most religions do.

The women all dressed up in their Khmer outfits and heels, I was told to go and put on something more ‘beautiful’ when I tried to leave in a t shirt and shorts. I get the feeling it was a chance for the women to show themselves off.
The children’s Khmer outfits were much nicer in my opinion than the women’s. I would much prefer to own one of those if I was allowed, which I wouldn't be, I expect the tailor would refuse to make it.
 The skirt was floatier and thinner and instead of being straight with a flap they were just gathered all the way round at the waist band. Some skirts went to the ankle an some stopped just below the knee.  The tops were cotton without any of that ugly sparkly sequined netting, they were just plain cotton with a cut out flower pattern in the material and nice neat sleeves no puffs or frills. So much nicer I think the women should ditch their outfits and wear what the children wear.

I’ve just had a really good weekend. I joined a group of 8 going cycling, and had a really good time. I was apprehensive about the heat but I’m turning into jelly and I’ve heard it’s a good thing to do. We cycled 60km in the countryside which was hot and dusty but it was beautiful and I saw a very impressive kingfisher. At one point we had to squeeze ourselves and bikes into a couple of small khmer canoes to cross a river which was fun.

Week 30

It’s been a bit of a roller coaster month starting terribly and ending very well. We had a week and a bit of exhaustion and illness. We were both vomiting and diarrhea which was horrible horrible horrible when we didn’t have any running water apart from in the middle of the night. I then got depressed and homesick and things and decided I hate khmer food. So that was a definite low of the year. But theeeeen …MUM AND DAD ARRIVED!

We spent 2 weeks split between Siem Reip, Phnom Penh and at the seaside in Kep. It was bliss, I felt like a princess in all the posh hotels, and I did my best to make the most of Mum and Dad’s visit by only stopping talking to sleep.  We ate delicious seafood drank lots of cocktails visited Angkor Wat, swam, chatted, visited the orphanage did a bit of shopping and they payed for it all :) Mum took me to the supermarket and we bought all the basic ingredients for cooking so now I can cook which will be great as my deep dislike for Khmer food especially orphanage food doesn’t seem to have worn off.

We have started PSHE sessions and English classes with the old teenagers. I was really scared about them both. I have enjoyed them though especially the English classes as they speak reasonable English so we are not just learning vocabulary and we can have a laugh. At school the children are encouraged against questioning so we have been trying to incorporate an aspect of debate to the classes, for example Bethany has created a set of laws for a fantasy country and I have been discussing strikes.

Rachana is back to school! She has been for two weeks now, I’m pretty sure I was more excited about her first day than she was.

Half way!

We had the wedding last week it was really interesting and quite enjoyable. We began our wedding preparations arriving at the salon at 10 30. We both had our hair crimped, curled, sprayed, pinned and everything else you can possibly do to hair. Then we had our makeup applied, we had our eyebrows razored into shape (we now have horrible stubbly eyebrows) we were caked in various powders, lip liner and gloss, eyeliner, eye shadow , false eyelashes and eyebrow  pencil and it was then fixed with what appeared to be hairspray. I walked out almost 3 hours later feeling like a transvestite, but was told I looked beautiful by everyone in the orphanage, I wasn’t fooled.

The wedding itself, as they all do, took place in marquee’s draped with neon yellow and pink silk and netting, pretty hideous yes, went pretty well with my complexion actually. The marquees were filled with approximately eighty five tables of ten people! pretty huge. They are able to afford this as everyone gives money as a wedding gift. My table was made of  the khmer Magna staff, including the 2 pas (not the female mas) from the group home, one of the accountants, and lots of teachers that no longer work for Magna. Being British, one of the strangest things I found about the wedding was the lack of small talk there were frequent silences around all the tables during the dinner which were not considered a problem at all. I was also shocked when half of our table left the wedding after just 45 minutes; they had eaten their fill and were ready to leave! I considered this extremely rude but no one else was bothered and it seemed common place to behave this way. The women must have spent about five times longer getting ready and traveling to the wedding than actually being there.

 We spent the majority of the late afternoon/evening eating, the food was very tasty, you could almost say we had 4 courses. Various meat platters for the first course, raw crab and fish salad and deep fried tasty things for second course, seafood soup, a large fish with ginger, fried rice and steamed rice for the third course. And pudding was a peanut paste that tasted a tiny bit like peanut butter in the shape of an upturned bowl with glace plums, we all dug in with little spoons. We drank Pepsi, soda water, Ankgor beer and whisky.

Cambodian culture is very generous towards beggars, street children, the homeless etc. I was surprised to see a large amount of street children wondering around the tables, when everyone around the table had finished eating the children would descend on the tables pouring all the leftover food into plastic bags to take away. They also collected empty cans which they could sell on for just under 2p each.

There was no unity amongst the guests over dinner. People arrived, started eating and finished eating at very different times. The bride and groom in the first of four outfits wondered around the tables greeting everyone during dinner. When enough people had finished a band and dancing started. Guests were invited to have photos with the bride and groom in their second outfit, which we did and then we were introduced to a new table of people. They were fun and drank a lot, they kept filling up my glass and every 10 seconds someone would shout ‘jol mouy’ and we would all have to clink glasses and drink, it seemed everyone was so busy clinking that no one was really able to talk. Later in the evening the bride and groom in their third outfit a white suit with red lapels and tie, and a white ruffled dress, cut a wedding cake (a new tradition adopted from the west). I asked for a piece of the cake, quickly discovering why no one was eating it, it tasted like a bathroom sponge covered in cheap squirty cream.

The rest of the night was dancing for most of the guests and stood in front of a fan for me. I was sweltering and incredibly uncomfortable for the majority of the night. I felt a bit bad as we were most definitely the centre of attention and were in high demand on the dance floor. Being one of very few ‘barangs’ outside of Phnom Penh and being the only non khmer at the wedding made me feel like Beyonce walking into my school dinner hall. It was strange, I have no doubt we received more attention than the bride and groom, I don’t think they minded though, in fact I think we improved their street cred by being there. However I had an extremely embarrassing moment when attention was focused solely on the bride and groom cutting the cake, I tripped over a wire causing the flood light directed on the couple to turn off. When it was turned back on everyone had taken a big step away from me just to make sure no one was in any doubt that I was the guilty attention seeker.  I quickly moved back to my spot behind the fan.

We have had some good experience in cross culture diplomacy recently. Everyone seems to have different reasons for the lack of money getting through. We have been trying to work out the actual reasons and hopefully improve the situation, it would be such an achievement if we managed but it will be hard work and will take a long time.  It would also be a big achievement if we managed to improve the speed at which things that need doing get done, but that’s not going to happen. We are currently waiting for our water problems to be sorted out, the house has spend the past week with about 4 hours of running water, not great when Beth and I have diarrhea and vomiting. I feel we are getting a proper gap year experience.

This week we have introduced bed wetting charts, if the children on the chart have a ‘dry week’ or make an improvement they get a small present (‘present’ in khmer is the same as in French). When the children found out they decided that they all wanted a bed wetting chart. When I say bed wetting however I mean floor wetting, none of the children are sleeping in their brand new beds, I think because they are so used to the floor and they say they are too hot in their beds. We have also started doing a little bit of geography and with the children and taught them to do Sudoku. They don’t study geography at school so this week I stuck up a big map of Cambodia and they drew their own, even the little children joined in, though Rachana’s bore more resemblance to a dog than a country. Sudoku was a great hit they love it, Nary who is seven was rattling through six square Sudoku’s I was very impressed with her. Bun Choc was doing really well so I gave him a difficult Sudoku out of a news paper which I was amazed to see him finish within 5 minutes, I thought I had found a child protégé, it turned out I had forgotten that you need 1 to 9 along the lines as well as in the squares.

We took the older children on a trip to a roller blading rink, they were so excited asking about it for a week before and they are still asking if they can go again. They were extremely wary and cautious at first but got into pretty quickly everyone left bruised and exhausted. Whilst we were there we gave them the equivalent of 25cents each to spend in the arcade and a 25cent ice cream each.  The highlight of the trip for me was watching them use an escalator for the first time it was hilarious they couldn’t get their balance and thought they were going to get sucked in at the top, they were all grabbing onto the arms of strangers, some of the strangers were clearly very unsettled by this. One group of 6 girls ended up in a pile at the bottom of the escalator, which was potentially quite dangerous but I was in stitches. 

Seng Ying

Sok Vy

Change of address

Magna, Children at risk.
House 3, Street 75
Sangkat sras Chork,
Khan Daun Penh
Phnom Penh