Week 21: From CLC!

24/02/09

Last weekend we were back on the bus along the bumpy road to Phnom Penh in the hope that the 5-year scholarships wouldn’t be postponed again during the journey. Fortunately they hadn’t been so we spent our Sunday invigilating and marking the English and Khmer tests at the Cambodian Dump Children Centre. Everything went smoothly despite the absence of the infamously unreliable Sokha, the Cambodian scholarship coordinator, who called me when we got to CDCC to say he was too busy to come and passed on all his messages to the other staff via me on a very crackly phone line. Talking to some of the students and reading their statements, we saw how eager they were to get the scholarship but it was hard to imagine any of them in Singapore!

We had to go through quite a lot of hassle getting back to Chamcar Bei on Monday again and ended up having to get off the bus and being transported to another bus company by moto. Weaving through Phnom Penh traffic - Tom carrying a package of very heavy weaving looms – was an intense experience. However, we got to the second bus and, once we got on (having bought the last two seats at the very back), we got talking to some very nice Norwegian people which made the trip go by faster.

Back at CLC on Tuesday, we finished off the topic of food and started on the topic of the body. At the moment I’m really enjoying teaching the youngest students (6-12 years old) which is, to be honest, a bit of a change from how I felt about them when we first arrived. It’s been a long time coming but I think I finally remember almost all of their names – greatly helped by handing out their folders to them every day. I still teach the older kids (10-14 years old) on Wednesday and Thursday morning but that class seems to have grown recently and now it’s not unusual to have at least 30 students which makes it very difficult to control the class.

On Wednesday afternoon I had a meeting with the CVTC students because some of the ladies still weren’t sure which of the two groups they were supposed to be in and I wanted to check that the class time was ok with them as they were always late. Srey, the BAB Livelihoods coordinator, was supposed to come to translate but she didn’t show up. However, I somehow managed to get my point across and got some useful feedback in Khmer which I was quite proud of.

We also had a long meeting with Savoeurn on Friday to discuss how and when to start using some new textbooks – Cutting Edge – at CLC and with the CVTC ladies. It seems that after 10th March our schedules will be very different as our Youth Team students and the teachers will be taught together from 1-2pm instead of teaching them at 10am. Also, I will be teaching the two groups of CVTC ladies 5 times a week – one group from 12-1pm and one group from 4-5pm. However, our CLC student classes will remain the same. Tom and I both think that introducing Cutting Edge will be a great improvement to the education at CLC where they are currently either relying on our teaching or on other irrelevant and unchallenging text books. Savoeurn’s original plan was to start teaching with Cutting Edge in April but we’re leaving then so we decided to start earlier so Tom and I would be able to help to sort out any problems.

Back at the Red House we’ve had some fun evenings playing Monopoly and watching Erin and Sara paint the inside of their Little Red House across the pond. However, this weekend it’s pretty quiet because everyone has gone to Phnom Penh. Paa taught me how to cook rice in a pot the other day so I’ve been practicing that and Tom managed to cook some pretty tasty pork with honey. We’re both wondering whether we should have chosen self-catered rather than catered accommodation at university in September!

The CVTC shop was officially opened on Tuesday with a very (very) small ceremony which involved Sara wafting some incense sticks. Tom and I hope we get the chance to buy a few things there before the marathoners and cyclists come and buy it all up next weekend during the annual Kep marathon! Speaking of the marathon, I’d better go because Tom is about to go and measure the distance from the CVTC to CLC using a pedometer and I’m going to pick him up next to CLC at the market to buy some food for dinner!

- Joss

P.S. Because the office has moved to CLC now I am writing this blog from CLC! Amazing!

Week 20: Office in Chamcar Bei

14/02/09

As you know there was no internet at the office during our last weekend in Kep. Unfortunately this meant we had to spend an afternoon using the WiFi at Kep Lodge and lounging by their pool. How horrible.

It was also a long weekend as there was a public holiday on Monday, so we took the opportunity to go on a little excursion to the Kampong Trach caves which I visited last year with Leron when half of them were flooded. This trip Joss came instead and we were able to go much further into the caves since they are much drier at this time of year. The teenage girl who collects the tickets at the entrance and shows you around the caves for a small fee was surprised to see me again despite the fact I had promised to return in the dry season. It's probably not surprising really since the only foreigners you usually get in Kampong Trach are only stopping off for a few hours. This time she seemed to believe we were actually living in Chamcar Bei. Anyway, the caves and the surrounding cliffs were just as beautiful as last time. Our guide also showed us the far side of the caves where tourists don't usually bother going and the damage that has been done by local building contractors shamelessly quarrying the sides of the cliffs. Apparently the caves are now "protected" but in Cambodia that doesn't mean that much since the caves don't bring in that much money. (Photo below is of the "Dragon's Throat")

After we visited the caves we went to the Kampong Trach market which is supposed to be bigger and better than the one in Chamcar Bei. Paa wasn't cooking for us that evening as it was a weekend so we planned to get our groceries while we were there. However, when we got to the market we found the sellers to be strangely unfriendly; this coupled with the stiffling heat and, for me, the inherant problems with shopping in a market where the ceiling is about 6ft from the ground at best, meant that we just bought a few vegetables and went back to Chamcar Bei to buy the rest. When we arrived at the Chamcar Bei market there was such a strong contrast. Everybody knew us and stopped to say hello, it's open-air and and so everything consequently seems a lot fresher. The experience reminded us that now that the office is at CLC we don't need to leave Chamcar Bei for anything :)

Cooking for ourselves was pretty successful; I fried some pork with a bit of honey and Joss stirfried some GIANT carrots. Cooking in our kitchen is a little stressful since there are inherantly a lot of ants on the floor at any given time so you have to either endure the pain or jog on the spot while you cook.

The office was supposed to be packed into two overlaiden flatbeds, the first of which was supposed to leave in the early morning and then arrive some time before lunch. It reached CLC at around one and by that point it was clear that no amount of clever packing would avoid making three trips. The last truck arrived at about five and most of Wednesday was spent unpacking everything veeerrryyy slowly much to the annoyance of Sara the project manager. The organization went downhill even faster because Savoeurn's wife, Lakna, went into labour a week early and they had to rush to PP, although we were later told Savoeurn had been letting everybody else do all the work anyway. Now we have a functioning office right next to our classrooms at CLC, and all the staff staying next to the Coconut Project at the CVTC with us which is nice. There are lots more friendly faces around! Of equal importance to having our friend Sok live at CVTC is a special someone he brings with him. You may have seen her pictures last year if you were following our blog. She is undoubtedly the cutest cat in the world... LUCKY!!!

Sadly we had some really bad news for the youth team this week. The UWC scholarships that they have worked so hard to apply and prepare for are now an impossiblility as the age specifications were quite suddenly given to us. The upper and lower age limits were much smaller than we had been told to expect and so all the applicants from Chamcar Bei and the Kep area were either too old or too young. We had thought that the UWC movement was quite flexible regarding the upper age of applicants. It is now beyond appeal as there are over a hundred applicants that are within the required age group and many have already been turned away because they are not within the age bracket. The youth team students were extremely mature about it and did not let it get them down. They showed up for class the next day brimming with motivation as usual.

We had a very productive Friday this week! In the morning we taught Chakrya, a girl from the youth team who is a really excellent student but who can rarely attend our classes as the conflict with her unbelievably busy schedule! This week she watched Joss and I teaching a class and playing an educational game at the end. She was intrigued and asked if we could show her how to do it so she could play it with her students in the evening classes taught by the youth team. So on Friday morning we taught Chakrya a few games we use regularly and some other teaching methods we have learnt. This class could be a real breakthrough as Chakrya speaks very good English and has agreed to held us explain some of these games to the teachers. We also visited Kampot to observe a class at a school there for the hearing impared. The reason for this was that a parent from UWCSEA has been sponsoring one of the students there who is from Chamcar Bei and has received no information on his progress so we were asked to write a report. The school was really impressive and seemed very well run. The student in question was nothing short of inspiring. He is attending a school that is too far away for him to live with his family and he is not only doing well academically but seems to be flourishing in general. He seems to have a great relationship with his fellow students and his teachers and is clearly a very happy person. He is really making the most of the opportunities he has been given. We gave him a ride home in our tuk-tuk so he could see his family over the weekend and during the whole journey he tried to communicate with us and teach us sign which seemed to be relatively successful. I feel like he got his points across anyway.

Off to PP now for the five year scholarships - allegedly.

Byeeeeeee!

Week 19: All work and no play makes Chamcar Bei a dull place!

This morning we left the village in a tuk-tuk with Erin and headed for the office in Kep for the last time. Our main reason for coming – internet access – was pretty pointless because, as usual, the internet is broken. This will probably mean a trip to one of the guest houses later to use theirs. Nevertheless, when the office moves to the village on Tuesday we’ll have internet more often than we’ve had so far. There’s been quite a lot of excitement around CLC this week as the new office space is being prepared. It turns out that sliding down the mound of sand put down outside the building is a much better use for it than mixing it with cement for resurfacing the floor. I’m not sure how anyone working there will be able to concentrate with all the kids going insane at break time!

This week we planned to teach colours and shapes although, since we had a full week of teaching we assumed we’d probably be starting the next topic by the end of the week. The students obviously had other plans in mind. Sometimes at break time the kids like to take us by the arms, or any other limb they can grab, and lead us to the big tree by the gate to play games. On Monday we were a little confused when the procession led us past the tree, out of the school gates and left towards the reservoir. “Teacher, can you swim?” Next thing we knew, our two classes of kids were ripping off their shirts and shorts and jumping off the pier into the water. So much for colours and shapes but never mind – everyone was loving it. Of course word got round to the kids in Tom’s afternoon class who couldn’t miss out on the fun so they had their turn on Wednesday.

We brought the 100 plastic folders (bought in Phnom Penh over the weekend) to CLC on Tuesday and handed them out to the students who were very happy to receive them. Of course they all wanted to take them home but we explained to them that we’d give them to them when the school year is finished. It would have been better if we’d got round to buying them earlier but better late than never.

The Community Vocational Skills Centre English classes that I’ve been teaching have been a bit hectic this week. It’s supposed to be a class specifically for the CVTC producers but this week the majority of the students are the next generation of friends of last year’s “Coconut Project” class. I think they must be the sons of the farmers in the area and unfortunately they tend to be very rowdy and I reckon they only come so they can have a laugh at each other which is very off-putting for the CVTC ladies. Hopefully next week Theary can help to explain to them that if they want to learn English they should go to CLC.

On Monday evening we’d been invited by Phirom, one of our Youth Team friends, to his sister’s birthday party. We didn’t know his sister, let alone how old she was going to be and so we were quite surprised when we got there and found that there were over 200 people at his 9-year old sister’s birthday party. We saw quite a few of our Youth Team and BAB friends and met Phirom’s family. I think that by the end of the evening his dad had really taken a liking to us, to the extent that he insisted we should share a glass of rice wine with him and, as translated by Phirom, offered that we were welcome to take a bath and change our clothes if we liked. How very kind. Soon after we arrived it became pretty difficult to hear each other talking because the sound system was switched on playing all the latest Khmer hits. Throughout the evening the food on the table was continuously refilled – Tom and I imagined Phirom’s mum stirring the most enormous cauldron of pork stew in the kitchen because there was so much of it – and every time Phirom’s uncle walked past he motioned for us to eat more. The gifts table was absolutely laden by the time all the guests had arrived and was brought to the centre of the party area (set up outside Phirom’s uncle’s house) when it was time to cut the cake. The cake was surrounded by all the gifts on the table which were decorated with fairy lights so it looked like a pile of treasure. The birthday girl stood on a box in front of her cake and had changed into a red Chinese dress and had a huge party hat on. As Tom said, she looked like Mickey Mouse from Fantasia in the broomstick scene. It was incredible how patient she was as she had to stand there for ages while all the guests were ushered around so they were standing in rings around the table with the immediate family (and us) sitting in chairs at the front. With the display, the guests and the microphone finally in place the cake cutting “ritual” began. After many good wishes everyone sang Happy Birthday in Khmer backed up by a strange recording of it on the karaoke machine. Then the immediate family members came up one by one to be fed a spoonful of cake by the birthday girl – although they could only eat it after the uncle/cousin on the microphone had counted to three, which was of course made into a hilarious spiel. After this had been done Tom and I had to wish her well and give her a kiss. When the cake ritual was finally over it was time for the dancing and of course everyone thought it was very funny when Tom and I joined in and tried some Khmer dancing with them.

Back at the Red House we’re about to have a new neighbour – our project manager Sara is hoping to move into the Little Red House across the lily pond when the office moves to Chamcar Bei. She stayed at the Red House with us on Wednesday night and we had a very intense game of Monopoly (which Tom won as usual) and ate Rotterdametjes – Dutch sausages which Sara brought from Holland. It really will be sooo awful to have her living so close by ;)

And now for the most exciting news this week: we had RAAAIIIIINNN!

Week 18: Phnom Penh and back

01/02/2009

Hello! This blog is late because we spent most of the weekend in Phnom Penh, as it turns out, for no reason! We thought we were going to help out with the 5- year scholarships to UWC but, literally as we walked through the door into the office, we bumped into Sineng who told us that he just recieved an email saying the interviews have been postponed again. So we spent a fairly unproductive weekend in P.P. where we posted so many photos to the blog and Facebook that I had no time to write this! (Joss says I forgot but I know better) Go and have a look at our Facebook profiles, think about how slow the internet in the office is and see who you believe!

This week we were teaching 'routines' and recapping 'time and date'. This was a pretty fun subject to teach as we had tasks, such as making individual paper clocks with split pins, which the kids really got into. We also learnt a few more unique Cambodian playground games. One of the favourites involves everybody standing in a circle around a big tree holding hands while one person is blindfolded and spun around inside the circle. The blindfolded person has to grab somebody and, by feeling the person's face, decide who it is. It is of course very easy to figure out when you have grabbed the only person who's knees are at head height so I spent a lot of time blindfolded. Another great game is one where the kids sit in a circle as they would in duck-duck-spider except the person tapping heads has a dish cloth which they subtly hand to one of the people in the circle. The person who has been given the dish cloth is then entitled to whip the person sitting on their right until the victim has completed one lap around the circle and made it back to his or her seat. This game is at its best when the person delivering the dish cloth does so with the utmost discretion and everybody but the victim notices. Thankfully all the older children are very mature and keep these games light-hearted and they never seem to get out of hand! We also played a variation of cat and mouse in which a mouse, Tom, eluded a cat, Joss, much to the enjoyment of the crowd.

I was also bullied into participating in the elastic highjumps that you may have heard about. The kids were very impressed when I hurdled over the first few times. Unfortunately, we then started playing the version where you have to pull the rope down with one foot behind your head and flip over it. I wasn't quite as successfull with this.

Although it's unrelated to our gap year, I also found out this week that I have home-status at the University of Leeds which means I now have nothing to worry about except teaching! It also means the next 3 years of my life are planned out for me! Very strange!

It's a shame I don't have a lot to write about this week, but I happen to know a lot of interesting things will happen next week! (I can see the future) so Joss may have lots of interesting things to write about! Read her blog and find out more.

We also have a message for our frequent follower Denn: Joss is trying very hard to fix Tom and his poor grammar, but it's very hard, and agonizingly slow work! The only thing we can suggest until Joss has finished with her work is that you read alternate weeks so you don't have to suffer through Tom's writing! :)

On a more serious note, I would also like to post these links to information about the violent, forced eviction of Dey Krahom, one of the big slum areas in Phnom Penh - their land has been sold by the government to foreign property developers.

Multimedia show: http://ka-set.info/actualites/k7-media/cambodge-cambodia-dey-krohom-090124.html

More pictures on: http://johnvink.com/news/2009/01/24/thats-it/

Article (from Monday): http://cambodia.ka-set.info/

Khmer (also from Monday): http://khmer.ka-set.info/

Some of these pictures are not easy to look at but it's very important that people know what has happened in Dey Krohom.

Thats it for this week,

Tom Kemeny