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

Week 23

Our luxurious new room

Beds!

Pao (translation-chubby)

Sothy and Sayha

Nary and Srey leap

Srey mom

We’ve been living in GH2, now the group home, for two weeks, its lovely but quite a change from GH1. Mostly due to our 5am starts. The young children are all up at 5 ready to be showered and fed so we, rather bleary eyed help with this. The children all have nits which seem to be thriving at the moment. The caregivers don’t really see it as a problem but the expats do, so we have been trying to encourage hair to be tied up and we are trying to get hold of knit combs. Most mornings I spend my time brushing and tying up hair.  Another big change is the lack of water and electricity, for a huge majority of the time we don’t have one or the other and sometimes we don’t have either. We have been told that although this is because we are further outside of the city now, it is also the case that as peak tourism season ends, as it is doing now, water and power cuts become more frequent.  Almost every mid day recently when there is no electricity to feed the fan I decide I can’t hack it and I’m getting the next plane home to lovely cold England, I change my mind pretty quickly though.

Since being in the new group home we have discovered lots of nicknames of the younger children. The most entertaining being Dannet’s nickname, pi roy ha (250). Apparently his mother was told by their relatives that magna had payed the family $250 when they took him in. The children seem to respond much better to their nicknames, apparently when Dannet and Somnang (Che leang- big eyes) went to school the teacher though there was something wrong with them as they didn’t know their own names. Bun Sathya had a bit of a sad week this week as his father died. We were slightly surprised when he came back from a family visit with his head shaved and wearing a black ribbon, the symbols of mourning (I didn’t hesitate to show my disgust at the new hair cut, ignorant of its meaning) as the files say both his parents are dead, but apparently magna suspects a few of the children’s relatives have lied about parents being alive.

We have had a couple of trips out recently. The first was with a couple of the older children to a promotional thai trade fair, at Key’s suggestion. It seemed a very strange place to take the kids as there was just a large amount of stuff that the children didn’t have the money to buy. But they really enjoyed it and when we got back all the children that hadn’t gone were asking to. I think they just like getting out of the orphanage.  We managed to make it fun, by trying all the free tasters we could find. The Children couldn’t believe they were allowed to try food without paying and were extremely reluctant at first but they got into it by the end. We had a trip to a large and extremely impressive playground with the younger half of the children. They loved it! I really enjoyed myself as well. We had a mid morning snack of bread bananas and a big dollop of condensed milk (very popular in Cambodia) which was really tasty before using the last of or energy in the playground. The children were clearly exhausted as they spent the very noisy, bumpy tuk tuk journey home fast asleep, whilst I and the ma watched in great amusement as they fell off their seats.

We have had the rather exciting job of preparing for the wedding recently. An ex magna teacher took us to buy material and then to the tailor who took our measurements so she could create our outfits. We were rather shocked by how much it was going to cost us, but apparently we are paying no more than the Cambodians do, and I am pleased about where the money is going after seeing the tailor’s house. We picked up the outfits today after making a few adjustments and I am very impressed It is a work of art and must have taken great skill.  I’m not sure I really like my outfit though; Cambodian traditional dress isn’t really my style.

Week 21

Bedroom at GH1

My favourite orphanage meal

We've had quite an eventful couple of weeks. We had a visit from our project trust desk officer, it was really strange having people from back home in the orphanage but it was lovely having the visit especially as they bought us two tasty dinners and brought us chocolate magazines and newspapers. I've never enjoyed reading a newspaper so much, it's so nice to be back in the know, there is a Cambodian  newspaper in English but  it's not the same.

We also had a couple of visits from huge swarms of flying ants that seemed to hatch into our room. The swarm was so big their wings banging together made me think it was raining and you could hardly see through them. It was disgusting and when they finally flew off we were left with a thin layer of dead ones covering the room.

This week we had a visit from a Slovakian donor. Everyone was slightly stressed about it and the morning had a strong feel of a a school open morning. We were all rushing around trying to look and make the children look as busy as possible and stopping them doing the various strange things children do e.g. I caught one of the older! children drinking from the bucket of water used to flush the squat toilet!

The children, caregivers and Beth and I went to a concert at one of the children's schools this week. According to Soklin the band were superstars!
There were approximately 40 Khmer dancers on the stage. Khmer dancing is very slow walking in a circle twiddling their wrists and hands very elegantly. It seems to me that Khmer dancing is predominantly to show of the women's beautiful hairstyles, makeup and outfits. It was really fun though and I spent my time deciding which hairstyle and outfit I would like because.......we've been invited to a wedding!!!

A couple of the children and I had a rather traumatic experience this week. Cambodian roads are known to be dangerous and you frequently see minor accidents. On the way to Gh2 we drove past a horrible accident, a middle aged woman was literally sprawled in the middle of the road in a small puddle of bright bright red blood. No effort had been made to protect her from view and there was just one policeman guiding the traffic around her, it was horrible it made me feel quite sick. A couple of the kids and I welled up so we had a cuddle. It shut the children up though which was a relief as they had been winding each other up a treat before hand. I am now a strong advocate of helmets!

Last weekend I had a very dodgy tummy. It was horrible, I spent Friday either sitting on the loo or with my head hanging over the loo, I even had to give both a go at one point. And then spent a big chunk of sunday night and Monday sitting on the loo. I brought a massive pack of tummy medicines with me which prove to be  useless against what ever I had.

We've had some very bad news, Phearun, the only teacher left of 4 is leaving. Magna staff seem to have almost halved recently. Phearun has been working here for a long time so is very well bonded with the children, who will be extremely sad to see him go. He is also very good and therefore hard to replace. It's also worrying for Beth and I as we not sure he will be replaced very quickly leaving us solely responsible for the children's education outside of school which we do not have the skills or language for. It is Phearun's brother's wedding which we are going to.

We are still having problems with the budget, we haven't had the educational budget approved since we arrived so no educational materials at the orphanage. A source of much frustration for us and Phearun. I discovered the first two Harry Potter books have been translated into Khmer so I have persuaded dad to pay for them, hopefully if the children enjoy them they can be persuaded to try to read the other in English.

The past two weeks have been dominated by meetings about the move and preparations for the move. The house looks amazing the kids all have colourful bunk beds with colourful sheets and we have decorated the house with posters and pictures by the kids, it has also been furnished and we have created a small library. Im very impressed with how homely it looks now, probably due to the way we have decorated and arranged it, the house has quite a western feel now. The kids haven't managed to move school yet so some of the children are still living in gh1 until next week. After 5 months of waiting Beth and I were not going to wait another week so we moved yesterday. Out new room is luxury, we have separate beds with real mattresses and sheets (though not proper cotton) , a bathroom with a toilet that you don't have to hurl yourself of to decrease the pain of your bum cheek being caught in a crack, more space, a powerful fan. It is absolutely lush. It is amazing what a difference such minor things make. Only problem is the frequent power and water cuts. I had to wash outside under a hose coming from the water butt last night. Takhmao is a really nice place to live, it is more rural and prettier with a nice cheap food Market I'm very happy to be here.

Rachana is doing well her behaviour has improved a little she didn't protest last time she had to sit on the naughty spot and apologised without being asked to, she has also learnt to count to 4 I was very proud of her and gave her a sticker which she then went and showed off along with her new skill to the caregivers. Sothy, I'm still struggling along with, I find it painfully frustrating working with him due his complete incapability, i have much respect for people that have the patience to work with children with severe disabilities full time. I haven't given up on him though!  We are very excited to have met a woman setting up a school for blind and deaf children so hopefully we can get him going to school soon.

Week 19

This week hasn't been quite as exciting as last, we've been getting behavior reports done for the kids. We spoke to key to find out if there is anything we have missed in our reports and we found out some interesting things. For example one of the girls who is ten years old has been wetting the bed about 5 nights out of 7 due to laziness. Apparently she wakes up and the mas wake her up sometimes during the night to use the toilet but puts off getting up and then wets the bed. Key also told that she was ugly! this seemed a bit harsh but I think what she meant was lazy with hygiene e.g. not brushing her hair or washing frequently enough.

I have been trying to do some work with Rachana and since giving her a big telling off after which i didn't think she'd talk to me again, and doing some activities with her, hopefully making her feel a bit special, she has been quite sweet and I am becoming very fond of her. I haven't done much educational activities with her however as I need to gather a huge amount of energy and patience for that. I had a bit of a scary experience this week when using the 'supernanny' technique, Bros was kicking up (literally) a huge fuss about being made to sit on a spot on the floor, when suddenly 3 kids came running up to me each holding a separate stick to give me I assumed to use on Bros! I didn't, and he gave in to sitting for 5 minutes.

We've been doing a bit more play therapy type activities with Sothy this week. I find it so hard and slightly frustrating, he is just so incapable of anything really. I tried making a 3D picture with him but he seemed much more interested in stacking paint pots, getting as close to me as possible, giving me hugs, which makes painting pretty hard. It sounds sweet and I feel awful saying it but hugging gets old quickly especially in 30 degree heat!

I have been given a couple of cookery lessons by the mas recently, they have taught me to make sweet chilli sauce, cucumber stir fry and morning glory stir fry. I think it will be really useful for university as the ingredients are cheap, simple and it is very quick to make. It has made me aware of how much garlic and sugar they put in food, it's crazy amounts!

We had a dinner with our project trust officer last night and they are coming to visit our project on Tuesday which is exciting.
I'm off to the local hairdresser to get a $2 dollar hair cut now :)

lots of love

Week 18

Sok Sabaye!
I've been back at work  for just over a week now after having the best New Year ever in Thailand. We spent a week on a Thai island and then a week in North east Thailand at one of the project trust projects.
It was fab holiday but I wasn't in the slightest bit sad to be returning to work.

This week has been very exciting. The orphanage is making many changes at the moment so our week has been filled with preparations and meetings which have been very interesting and slightly exhausting. We are all moving out of the GH1 building and into GH2 which is very exciting but does mean that some caregivers are being laid off. The office is also moving building.
After the move to GH2 the old children ( 16-19) are stopping the extra English lessons that they have in Phnom Penh, and starting extra English lessons with us every week day evening.
With the move we will have a new schedule with increased activities for everyone including the caregivers who we are encouraging to start cookery lessons and trips out of the home with the kids. We were creating the new schedule this week.
The budget has been a bit of a problem, for example at the moment GH1 doesn't have any shampoo or washing powder so we have been trying to plan further ahead. I'm not sure whether this will improve anything, we haven''t received any money for educational materials since being here which is very annoying. The children's pocket money is being reduced at the moment as currently the children have to pay the teachers money for 'extras' which Magna is going to try and avoid.

Rachana a mischievous child who we believe to have learning and behavioral disabilities, was expelled from school this week. It is due mainly to her biting other children which causes extra worry due to her HIV status, but also due to general inability to concentrate and misbehavior. Including snatching other children's and the teachers materials and toys. Beth and I are especially worried as we don't want her to turn into another Sothy (the disabled child) spending her day wondering around the house with nothing to do. So we are going to do more one on one work with her and try to set up a consistent disciplinary plan to improve her behavior so we can get her back to school. We are trying trying to introduce the 'Super nanny' technique to the Group home. This consists of staying sitting under a red dot for 5 mins, explaining why and making her apologies. Currently she is either ignored, shouted at, or locked in a bathroom occasionally with a smack.

We took Sothy and Raksmey (his brother) swimming this week. They and I loved it. When we arrived they hardly got through the door before they had whipped of their clothes, much to my embarrassment. Sothy spent almost the whole time in the water giggling, I tried to teach Raksmey to swim but he found jumping into the pool far more fun. The session didn't last long as they are extremely skinny so were shivering rather violently by the time we got out.

We are already well over a third of the way through the year! Time has gone so quickly but I am now thoroughly settled and have my bearings on the work. I think and hope I am over the majority of my homesickness which is lovely. I am so so happy and would definitely recommend a year away for a gap year :)