10,000 Days

Hun Sen, the Prime Minister of Cambodia has been in power for 10,000 days, and is in the top 10 longest running political leaders in the world. He was a commander for the Khmer Rouge regime and has been part of the government since 1979, when the Khmer Rouge regime was toppled, although given the number of former Khmer Rouge party members that are politicians it could be questioned how defeated it is. 

Last week Cambodia had elections, and whilst I’d been aware since arriving here that it was unlikely that these elections would be particularly fair I wasn’t quite prepared for the scale of it. When I was working at the hospital this morning I started talking to one of the other people that work there, originally about learning English, which is how a lot of my conversations seem to start here! He began telling me about how learning English or French had been banned when he was growing up so his spoken English wasn’t as good as anyone who knew or taught either of these languages was killed. In fact, as he kept talking ‘killed’ was a word that seemed to feature far too often, especially as he talked about more and more recent things. We got around to talking about Hun Sen and his ‘friendships’ with Vietnam and China and the massive amount of corruption in Cambodia. On every level in the government there is corruption, from trying to get your child into school, to getting Cambodian citizenship, to voting. 

This last topic was very interesting, but as we talked about it I had a sinking feeling. It was far worse than I had ever possibly thought and so far from the way politics are at home. I found myself angry at the system and for once actually wanting to do something political, not because of the politics but because of the injustice of the whole system. The top 3 ways he suggested of your vote for the opposition party going astray were:

1.       

When you are registered in your village to vote, if you are known to support the opposition party the head of the village (who is commonly given rice, oil and money from the CPP) can ‘accidentally’ mis-spell your name so that when you go to vote you are not allowed to as your name is incorrectly written.

2.      It is suggested to you that if you don’t vote for the CPP (Cambodian People’s Party) then you will struggle to find a job, make money or live. There is also the slightly less subtle threat of physical violence, and Cambodia has recent history of large numbers of opposition party members being killed. The leader of the opposition party is currently exiled from Cambodia on a prison sentence of 10 years for peaceful protest.

3.      Your vote will go ‘missing’ from the ballot box (he suggested that the people policing the voting station could throw it into the river, which is probably not a bad way to dispose of it given the quantities of water in Cambodia).

One of the other problems is the lack of education especially in the provinces as to how a political system works; when they’ve never known anything different they don’t think much of being given some rice in exchange for a fingerprint on a piece of paper.

Corruption in the Cambodian government was a whole other can of worms. The killing of Chut Wutty, one of the top environmentalists in Cambodia in April could likely be traced back to Hun Sen, and the recent minor protests over forced evictions from homes have led to sudden arrests and prison sentences being quickly given in court. The case of 13 women who were forcefully evicted from their homes as the land had been sold off to a Chinese company and then peacefully protested in Phnom Penh has recently been in the news, to the embarrassment of the government. When their case went to court it was at 5am so that no-one was able to attend or cause a fuss and all the streets around the courthouse were closed off. 

The results of the election were that out of 1633 commune chief positions, the CPP were awarded 1600, and the Sam Rainsy Party and Human Rights parties got 22 and 18 each. Sounds like an equal balance really.

As I started writing this, Flo and I were talking about Hun Sen and she cited the road improvements and schools as an indicator that Hun Sen was actually at least partly good. I viewed this rather as his token work towards Cambodia so that he could trade and make alliances internationally without being able to be branded a leader whom no country could associate with. As the person said this morning, Hun Sen has the military, the police, Sorya company, all the land in Cambodia and all the natural resources in his fist, and at the moment there is not much anyone else can do. Anger is growing at him and the political situation but I think it will take a while before he is overthrown, because as Flo put it ‘he isn’t a good leader, but he is good at being a dictator’.

Sunday 3rd June 2012

3rd June 2012

We’ve been having a bit of a health drive at the moment as we have started PSHE classes and during the hot season several of the kids had infections which would be better to prevent. This started off with the wildly fun mass nit combing sessions of which we had 2 in the first and second week and once a week since. The first time we did it was so horrible and there were so many nits being displaced (unfortunately not dead despite the use of nit shampoo) that I ended up getting nits from helping! I was combing Sreymom’s hair and the nit comb was practically obsolete because there were so many that it was just as easy to pull them out with your fingers. I tried to refrain for fear of looking like a monkey, although I definitely wasn’t about to pop them into my mouth! They seem to have some kind of giant breed of nit here, most of them were half a centrimetre long and I’m sure I never got ones that big when I was younger!

The PSHE classes are very interesting, not least because Khy (the group home manager) ‘translates’ to Khmer for us so that she can explain more than we would be able to. This often means that things get rather contorted along the way and our carefully made lesson plans go out of the window very often! Flo and I alternate who is in charge of planning each week and the week before last was Flo’s turn and the topic was Puberty. This is probably embarrassing enough for kids to have to talk about and I sat in the back of the class in fits of giggles as Flo asked Khy to explain various changes the children could expect. Khy struck upon this rather questionably good idea of using some of the older children as examples of changes that happen during puberty. Perhaps not an altogether bad plan when she is saying look at the fact that Chan Thoeun (one of the oldest boys) is broader, has more muscles and is more hairy than the younger boys, but it gets mortally embarrassing when she is talking about erections! 

It was my turn this week and the topic was Sex Ed. I quickly had to get over any embarrassment I had when I was planning it and then discussing the plans with the group home manager. What started off as a horribly embarrassing discussion about the lesson quickly became a very interesting discussion about different approaches to relationships in Cambodia and Britain and in particular social stigmas. One of the more shocking things she told me was that if on their wedding night a man discovers that the woman he has just married isn’t a virgin he can and usually will divorce her in the morning. It was so foreign to me the idea that a man can just order his wife around and the huge stigmas that she talked about, whilst still present to some small level in Britain are practically non existant in comparison to some of the things she said would be believed in Cambodia. Such as the idea of going for a walk alone with a boy- oh how scandalous!

Soon after my last blog we had a very, very long trip across Phnom Penh to the Jesuit Service ear clinic and to take Sothy to Krousar Thmey to investigate whether they could take him on at the school. It took almost 2 hours to get all the way across town and we got stuck in big potholes more than once, the ill kept roads in the north of the city meaning that our poor tuk tuk was falling apart by the time we got there! I was sitting at the back with one of the caregivers opposite me and one of the kids on my lap so that we could all fit it, desperately trying to stop the rear doors flying open! The trip to Krousar Thmey was a huge waste of time; we didn’t spend more than 10 minutes there and just got told to come back 2 weeks later so that a specialist could see him to gauge the extent of his blindness and deafness. Suspecting that it wouldn’t amount to anything we duly did as we were told and ended up being told that he was in fact deafblind (in case we hadn’t worked that out!) and that they couldn’t/wouldn’t give him one on one teaching as he would require because they felt their resources cold be better used. It was rather frustrating but now that we know for certain that he can’t go there it allows us to look for other options. 

We have been very busy at the moment with lots of things needing done, including community studies, behavior reports for each of the children and a mural painting project I was in charge of which is now almost finished. There is now one of the outside walls with 54 handprints on it that tell testament of the great adventures it was to paint- from Flo having to sit for a day inhaling petrol fumes as she helped them scrub the paint off, to the big smear of blue paint from when one boy tried to rush and ended up sliding across the wall. My community study is currently a (very slow) work in progress on my experience of health and illness in Cambodia. I’m really enjoying doing it and I’ve learnt so much researching it (which is suppose is why they make you do it) but I’m concerned that I won’t have it finished in time and we seem to have more to do with each day that passes. I still can’t believe that I have less than 2 months left at Magna.

Today is the day of the Cambodian elections which were pretty well summed up by Flo asking when I thought the results would be announced and I replied that I thought they could have announced them yesterday, the day before the ‘voting’ took place. There have been a lot of ‘political’ activities taking place at the moment, most of which would be forbidden in British politics for not having anything to do with politics and much more to do with popularity and creating an atmosphere. Loudspeakers have been a common sight around the streets in recent days and have propaganda continually blaring out so that it’s hard to even think about anything else and the word ‘brainwashing’ would be more applicable than ‘informing’. On Friday when cycling to the office for the OVC Meeting I went past a rally for the Cambodian People’s Party with thousands of people attending and 2 things struck me- first that there was lots of karaoke, flags and dancing, but no one actually talking about politics, and secondly that in the entire crowd I couldn’t see a single woman. At least there is some form of election though and accountability however dubious. 

We’ll just have to wait and see what the results are and in the meantime start preparing for Hun Sen’s next 10,000 days.

1st May 2012

Just before I started to write this I did what I usually do which is to look back on my diary for the time I am writing the blog entry for to remind myself of what has happened (maybe it’s only because I am so bad at doing it regularly that I need to do that?). It was rather telling that since my last update I’ve written almost a whole notebook worth of diary entries- oops! I had a great morning today and so I’ve finally got around to writing this blog after a long time of trying to but never really having enough time or energy.

The main event since my last update is of course that my family has been to visit, arriving 2 weeks after I wrote my last blog. Flo’s parents got here the week before so for a few days when she was in Siem Reap with them I had our room to myself which was very strange. Part of it was over the weekend and it was very novel to be able to go wherever I wanted whenever I wanted without having to be considerate of anyone else. There was one very strange event over that weekend though when I went into a coffee shop and the entire place stopped talking and turned to look at the white girl that had come in the door. I don’t think I had my dress tucked into my pants or anything particularly shocking like that it was just because I am young, white and female. I’m used to that kind of thing at the market (especially Takhmao Market), walking around with people staring at me and calling to me, but I’ve never had it happen in a coffee shop before! It’s one thing that I certainly won’t miss when I come home, the almost scary levels of attention we attract simply because we are white.

Those few days without Flo totally exhausted me because (perhaps rather stupidly) I tried to complete the whole volunteers’ timetable single handedly. I combined my classes with hers and taught them all together and did her evening classes or activities myself. When my family (minus Mum sadly, but hopefully she can make it here later in the year with both knees functioning!) got there on the Friday I was more than ready for a break!

I had expected it to be very strange having them here in “my” country where I had been without them for 6 months, but it wasn’t as weird as I had anticipated, probably because on the whole we were doing very different things to what I would be doing normally. When they arrived I went to meet them at the airport with fresh mango/pineapple sticks that I’d bought on the way (“all this for only a dollar?! That’s so cheap!”) and was amused in the taxi on the way back to the centre of Phnom Penh by all of the “strange” things that they were pointing out. Hannah was gazing open mouthed out of the window at a moto with father, mother and baby all perched on it and pointed this out to me, who was confused as to what was novel about that! In Cambodia you can fit however many people you want on a moto, it just depends on how fast you want to go- I went on one once with 4 adults and it wasn’t exactly whizzing along. Safety is obviously a concern too (don’t panic Mum!) but they thing about having more people on it is that you’ll be going so slowly that if you do have an accident all that happens is you fall off the moto into a big pile on the floor! Much less dangerous than motos with one person on which go a lot faster and can cause a lot more damage in a collision. There is a bizarre law in Cambodia that the driver of a moto must wear a helmet but a passenger is not obliged to which seems like an odd decision to make in my opinion- I definitely wear a helmet when I am a passenger! I even think sometimes I should wear it on tuktuks and other forms of transport too!

I spent the weekend in Phnom Penh with my family showing them around and then worked Monday and Tuesday at the Group Home. One of the highlights was an amazing boat trip on the Mekong/Tonle Sap rivers (they meet in Phnom Penh) to the floating villages, especially with Jess’s comments. Hannah stood up and walked to the other side of the boat so that me, her and Jess were all on the same side and the boat tipped maybe a couple of degrees. Jessica panicked and insisted that Hannah “sit down, it’s going to capsize!” Hannah and Dad were all for my suggestion of running across the deck to see what it took for it to ACTUALLY capsize, but for some reason Jess didn’t think this was a great idea. Later on me did run aground too, so maybe her safety concerns weren’t entirely unfounded.

All three of them came to see Magna on Monday morning and it was odd to see them in my Cambodia-home with all the kids. The kids didn’t let themselves down on cuteness, despite becoming kleptomanical about sunglasses, and Hannah and Jess in particular spent a lot of time saying “aww, (s)he’s so cute!!” which I couldn’t help but agree with! I’d told the caregivers that they were coming to visit and they had made a special lunch for them of sweet and sour stir fry which was amazingly delicious, I don’t think I’ve ever had something so western at the GH. They even went so far as to use real chicken meat in it (rather than bone), but they also gave us a bowl of the fish soup that is more representative of the normal food we get, just so that they didn’t think that was what I normally ate. After we had finished lunch Seyha and Somnang were messing around at the table when they should have been sleeping so I took them back to the house, picking up Seyha and carrying him on my back. Being as helpful as most 3 year olds are he grabbed the back of my skirt and lifted it right up so that everyone could view my pants, and I could do nothing as I had both hands occupied with carrying him! Of course, my sisters thought that this was hilarious, and his cheeky grin ensured that he didn’t get into any trouble.

They spent 2 days doing touristy things around Phnom Penh and then I met up with them again on Tuesday afternoon, ready to go to Siem Reap on Wednesday. I spent a week travelling with them in total, visiting Siem Reap and Battambang and it was nice to be a tourist in Cambodia for a bit, especially as I wasn’t paying for it myself! One day in Siem Reap we visited the temples of Angkor which was amazing, if rather hot. My favourite was probably Ta Prohm (or ‘the jungly one’ as Flo refers to it) which I went to see with Dad, but Bayon (‘the one with the faces’) rated highly too.

A recurring theme of our travels was my horror that we should pay ‘westerner price’ for things- ‘you spent a dollar on a coconut?! That’s so much!!’- and it took me a while to get out of my mindset of walking away from a deal if I knew they shouldn’t be charging me that much. I would barter for things in Khmer because I could get a cheaper price, and then the others would check how much it was. At one point quite early on we were taking a short tuktuk ride to the riverfront from Central Market and the tuktuks around us wanted 1000 riel more than what I would deem a reasonable price. I was ready to walk away, until Hannah asked me how much money difference that was in pounds and I was forced to admit that it was about 16p and they all got in the tuktuk. I gave it up a bit more towards the end of their time here, but I’ve gone back to it, because I know what a fair price is for each journey and if I pay over that then it pushes costs up for everyone who uses motos and tuktuks because then they refuse to take what used to be a good price as they know that someone else will pay higher.

On Wednesday I came back to the GH while they went to Kep (on the coast) and saw them again on Thursday evening and Friday, before having to wave goodbye to them after lunch. I cried (predictably) and they laughed at me (also predictably) and Dad came back to the GH with me to help me with my things and to pick up some things that I wanted him to take back to Britain with him. I definitely didn’t cry anywhere near as much as I did when I said goodbye to them in September, but as they can all confirm that isn’t saying much!

The weekend they left was Khmer New Year (yes, we have 3 ‘new’ years here) so we had some fun celebrations at the group home, including a game a bit like piñata but with clay pots and a hilarious race where they had to carry water in their mouths to fill up a jar at the other end of the yard. Some of them just couldn’t keep themselves from laughing and spraying it everywhere- one of the benefits of living in a hot country really! We also had a water fight and a talcum powder fight in one day (although not at the same time, which happened to coincide with me washing my hair. As soon as I came to see what the noise was about outside I was pelted with talcum powder and did my best to get my own back; I can’t say that I have any problem throwing talcum powder at ‘innocent’ children when they have just done exactly the same to me!

Since then I have had a fairly normal few weeks, with not much out of the ordinary to comment on. I did self portraits with the children in my art class using the new paintbrushes Mum got and which they did surprisingly well at. Well, all apart from Vicheka (“Vicheka, that isn’t a picture of you, that’s a picture of a cat!”) but I have to say that his picture was at least a recognizable thing, and that has to be a start.

I have had a lot of new tasks to do at the moment and have been kept very busy with them, including some wall painting that should be done at some point in the near future (it’s been part done for over a week now!) if I find some time in my hectic schedule. I’ve just made a huge chart for focusing on hygiene too, as some of the children aren’t too good at showering/washing their hair/brushing their teeth and it would be nice if they did. It would smell a lot less definitely!

It feels like I have hardly any time left now, the year has suddenly caught up with me- at the weekend we had had 2/3 of our time here, which is scary. Also scary is the fact that the budget (which we started in December and received last week) for the group home won’t be done again during our time here, the next time it’s done will be by the next 2 volunteers. We’ve started our post report for them and putting together an info pack on all the things it would have been nice to know at the beginning, which feels odd to think of, I can’t imagine leaving yet!

This week I also got the news of Soph and Dave’s new arrival, Evie Rose Lyons, which I was very excited about. My phone went off in the middle of church with Mum calling me to tell me (she then texted the news when I couldn’t answer) and I was so pleased I told some random people sitting near me at church. Once we got past the lost-in-translation bit (“your friend is in hospital? Why are you so happy about that?) they said congratulations but looked a bit confused as to why I was telling them! I’m looking forward to some cuddles with Evie when I get back and will just have to cuddle the GH kids in the meantime. As I typed that last sentence Seyha (the youngest kid in the GH) sneakily broke into the office but it was to steal the trike rather than to give me a cuddle, and he’s now wailing about the fact that I told him it wasn’t his turn- not exactly a cute baby any more, although I’ll bet Evie does a fair bit of wailing too!

Hopefully next time I do this it won’t be quite such a long gap between updates as it was this time (although I’m not promising anything!). Hope you are all well and less hot than I am at the moment!

20th March 2012

Very soon after my last blog we had the leaving party for Phearun, the other teacher at Magna. Before we arrived in Cambodia there was a tutoring centre with 4 teachers but this closed and they moved into the group home classrooms and downsized to only 2 teachers, which is how it was when we started. Around Christmas the teacher for the younger children was fired, and we were told that it was because they were now all old enough to be attending school for half the day so she didn't have much work to do. We took over her job as well as ours, so that we were providing activities for the half of the children who weren't at school in the morning or afternoon (children in Cambodia only go to school for half a day all the way through their education, either morning or afternoon and it swaps round each month). Phearun was teaching the older children whilst we were looking after the younger ones and mostly doing Khmer or Maths with them which was very useful as it's hard for us to teach things like that with a language barrier- not impossible, just better for him to do it. Phearun decided to leave due to 'career opportunities' and I can see why- he went from the head teacher in a small tutoring centre, to being the ONLY Khmer teacher, not exactly a step up. It's a shame for the children though, they were all very attached to him as he's been working for Magna for 5 years and spends lots of time with them.

We had a barbeque in the evening to celebrate and they loved that; any excuse for a party (so long as we can get it on the budget!). He was a bit late arriving so the kids all ate before sitting out the front of the house and using the chairs and tables from the classroom. The adults ate later when he arrived and had a big table with all the BBQ stuff on it, which was so tasty, probably the best meal I've had at Magna! They had a whole fish they'd cooked and lots of beef skewers and other tasty things it was so good. All washed down with Cambodian wine or coca cola, or as quite a few of the caregivers had, both! Bit of an odd combination perhaps but apparently the wine was disgusting so maybe it helped to disguise the taste. The glasses were the normal ones we use and look a bit like beer mugs and the overall effect wasn't quite delicate appreciation of the subtle flavours of wine! Whereas in the UK when we were celebrating something we would say 'cheers' once at the beginning, in Asia in general it seems that you say 'cheers' every time you want to have a drink and if someone says 'cheers' to you (or 'cheul moie' as it is in Khmer) then it would be rude not to reply and drink. It sounds like the rules to some drinking game rather than just common etiquette! Even if you get through several glasses it's not too much alcohol though, because of all the coke/ice that's been added. We had a really 'late night' that night and didn't get to bed until almost 9.30- which believe me is late if you're getting up at 5 and looking after 47 children all day!

Our next event was the 3^rd of March- nothing particularly special about that day other than that it was exactly half way through our time in Cambodia. We had a little bit of a celebration the 2 of us for that and went out for lunch to an amazing Italian restaurant that Bernie (our country rep) had taken us to when Kate (our desk officer) and John had come to visit. By our Cambodian standards it was expensive, but by western standards ridiculously cheap, especially given how good the food was- it was like being in a fancy Italian restaurant back home. I had a very tasty risotto, then pears cooked in red wine with mascarpone (mmm!!) and Flo had calzone, pulling the usual trick of ordering something with gluten in so that I couldn't pinch any of it! It's strange to think now that I have less time left than I've had already, especially as there are so many things to look forward to that it doesn't seem like long at all. My Dad and 2 sisters are coming out to visit soon, followed by my Mum later in the year and possibly another friend, we have a holiday planned to Mondulkiri province and we have the month travelling at the end, and I'm pretty sure the time will fly by. It doesn't even feel like I've been here 6 months yet (although as of last week I had) because I'm always so busy and probably also because of the wonders of skype. It's so good to be able to talk to people back home especially when things are happening (like seemingly my whole family injuring themselves on a near daily basis!)- it must have been such a different experience being on a gap year where a telephone call was an expensive treat  or where you just didn't have any contact with anyone outside your local community for the year. I can see benefits of both and I'm glad that I don't get too much internet access because I think that it would distract me from enjoying myself while I'm here. I could have more than I do but I've chosen not to- what's the point in going to a completely new and interesting place if all I do is think about home? Having said that, contact from home is lovely and I love being able to communicate with people- I just want some stories to tell you when I get back home too!

Our third big event that week (it was definitely a Big Week) was the rollerblading trips that we'd organized for the teenagers in the group home. We had 12 kids in the morning and 12 in the afternoon, and it sort of reminded me of taking the Brownies ice skating in Winter Wonderland at Christmas, apart from the fact that everyone was dripping with sweat and they were much, much worse at it than the Brownies were at ice skating! At least the Brownies who couldn't do it were mostly the very little ones so you could grab them when they started to topple and at least stop them coming down too hard, the teenagers were mostly about the same size as me or slightly smaller, so when they started to fall I was hard pushed not to get pulled down too. Two huge purple bruises on my knees were testament to me failure at this, and also a reminder of my trying to show off by skating over this ramp thing. It didn't work in the slightest- it was much harder than it looked when other people did it and very different to skating on the flat. Thankfully no one was looking so I got off as quickly as I could and went back to the nice flat area and picking up the many children who had fallen over. Later on when I was sitting with some of the children I suggested that Flo try it which she did and it was hilarious- they say laughter is the best medicine and it certainly works on bruises!

I wasn't sure that the kids would have enjoyed the trip that much, as most of them spent a LOT of time falling over, but last week they came to us and asked if they were to save their pocket money until they each had enough to pay for entry would we take them again? So that's what I'm doing this Sunday, but only for half a day this time- and my bruises from before have only just faded too! I must be mad to have agreed to it.

The next week was much quieter for us, which may have been due to the fact that on Tuesday and Wednesday we both had a horrible stomach bug ("I thought I was going to die it was so painful") and  it continued for most of that week but at a much lower level so that we could still work. One of the worst parts of this was that the water was off for most of that week so we had a very limited supply for washing and flushing the loo- really not what you want when you're emptying your digestive system of its contents. Flo's comment afterwards was 'I never want to have children if the pain is like that'!

That Thursday we had a day off for International Women's Day which helped with the recovery as we didn't have a 5am start and went into Phnom Penh to get a break from the children. Our plan had been to beg the use of an oven off one of our friends and make pasta bake and a joint belated birthday cake for the 2 of us, but unfortunately everyone with an oven was busy, so we had to find something else to do. Hopefully the cake will still get made at some point soon as we have a gluten free cake mix and tub of triple chocolate icing that we would like to eat, but I suspect that it won't be for a while yet because of parents visiting.

Our weekend was very nice too as Katie and Gabby (the only other Cambodian volunteers now that our country group has reduced to 4) had decided to come down from Siem Reap to visit Phnom Penh and see us. The plan had originally been for them to come down as a surprise on Flo's birthday but it wasn't going to work as they couldn't get holiday at the right time and this was the first weekend since then that we could all make. It was such a fun weekend and so nice to be around people who speak good English for a change- interesting as conversation with Flo is, we do end up talking about the same things very often! So that we could be out later than 8.30 we stayed in a guesthouse in the city which was a nice break too- very novel to not be woken up by children shouting outside my window. Plus we had Western food all weekend and cocktails on Saturday evening so very happy tummies by the end of it. On Sunday they came to visit Magna and see the kids who were cute and cuddly as always. It was nice to be able to show off the group home and our room too after all the effort we've put in to make everything look good and homely- it's definitely a lot tidier than my room back home is and more organized too as I just don't have the time to look for things if I can't find them.

Last week after they left was a fairly normal week in terms of the activities we were doing but very busy because we started the evening classes and PSHE that we've been planning. Now our timetable means that on alternate evenings either Flo or I do a class from 6.30 until 7.30 for the 6 oldest children at the group home, who were previously going to extra classes at a school. It can be very hard to find the willpower to do this when all I really want to do is sleep- whoever does the class only has half an hour after it finishes before they need to go to bed. They are fun to do though as the students speak the most English of anyone in the group home so I can do some more advanced work with them- and they understand jokes.

The highlight of this weekend was breakfast on Saturday- I cooked a full cooked breakfast for the 2 of us, including bacon, beans, tomatoes, mushrooms and fried potato and that was REALLY yummy, even if we did have to eat it out of bowls using spoons. I'm pretty sure that by the time I come home I'll just have to eat all my food like a baby using a spoon and a bowl because in all the time I've been here I've hardly used a knife and fork once! We've been cooking some food for ourselves over the past week or so as Flo has gone off the Asian food and if one of us is having nicer food than the stuff they cook I would rather have that too! The main ingredient has been egg plus tomatoes, mushrooms, onions etc in various forms. The caregivers were fascinated by me making omelettes which looked much less impressive as they fell apart just as I was taking them out of the pan and we each ended up with a bowl of (still yummy) egg pieces mixed in with the fillings. Fried rice has also been the order of the day and it's really amazing how much more homely something like that can be when I make it myself in a familiar way with lots of veg in it rather than pieces of meat/bone which is how they do it.

Since the last blog we have moved offices too, so my address has changed. I've put it on facebook but for people who don't have facebook but would like to know it, it is:

Magna Children at Risk NGO

House #3 Eo

Street 75

Sangkat Sras Chork

Khan Daun Penh

Phnom Penh

CAMBODIA

Big Changes

Big, big changes afoot! FINALLY we have moved home and our new room is wonderful. We now each have a normal bed, complete with comfortable mattress, sheets and pillows all of which are a bit of a novelty for us. It's such a good way to have done it- now having stayed somewhere not so nice this new accommodation seems incredibly luxurious even if in comparison to what we would expect at home it's probably not even average. There are downsides to the new group home, most notably the even earlier start of 5am to help shower, dry, dress and feed the younger ones who live here. We've been on this new rising time for over 2 weeks now but it doesn't seem to be getting particularly easy, despite 8pm bedtimes; because we do so much work during the day and are kept so busy we go to bed before some of the older teenagers do which they find hilarious. 

We are helped along in not wanting to stay up by the very frequent power and water cuts, which occasionally coincide. The problem is generally not the lack of light but more the lack of fans to waft the hot air around, and we all roast until the power comes back on in a few hours. The water isn't such a problem- in each bathroom there is a big container of water with a scoop floating on it, so even without a supply we can get by without any coming out of the taps. Apparently there should be some system by which the water tanks get filled when the mains is working and then supply the rest of the house when its cut, but as with many things it's not quite functioning how it should at the moment and only supplies the outside kitchen area. I felt very uncivilized squatting outside pouring a bucket over my head, but in a choice of being hot and dignified or cool and looking a bit silly the second option wins every time. 

We're coming into the hot season at the moment and you can definitely feel it, the added bonus of which is a nice tan- it would be a bit embarrassing to be paler than my family when they come to visit at the end of March! All wounds take so much longer to heal in the heat which has caused a bit of trouble recently when combined with my inability to resist scratching bites. I ended up with an infection on my leg, but a course of antibiotics soon cleared that up. Honestly, antibiotics are amazing; I don't know what I'd do without them! I suppose it would be better to just not get ill/injured, but I've tried that and it seemed I couldn't manage that.

Valentine's Day came on the 14^th just as it would in Britain and was distinctly unexciting- I did get one card but it was from Flo, not some secret Romeo! The poem inside was very good though:

Mangoes grow in Cambodia, lychees grow here too,

But it takes a place like Edinburgh to grow a peach like you!

I made valentine's cards with the kids in the art and craft club that I run which they seemed to enjoy but was a bit more challenging due to a big lack of glue and scissors, meaning that most of them spent quite a while waiting for someone else to finish. They were cute when they finished them though.

At the end of that week came Flo's birthday which I'd been preparing for in not much secrecy. It's hard to surprise someone when you live with them and are around them almost 24 hours a day. Thankfully she went to the 'meeting' at the office (we're supposed to have a meeting every Friday morning with other Magna staff, but so far it's always been cancelled when we get there) and then spent the afternoon in Phnom Penh so I had plenty of time to wrap up some presents for her and create a masterpiece of a birthday card. It was actually a lot of fun preparing things, and nice to have some time separate for a change- I'm not sure I'll ever be in 

another living situation quite like this again.

Flo got to pick what to do for her birthday treat and chose gym followed by a buffet at a nice restaurant. We went to the cinema in the afternoon of her birthday to see Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol which was surprisingly good despite neither of us particularly wanting to see it. The meal in the evening was delicious too, with loads of different things to choose from. We both particularly appreciated the salad bar which was so tasty and difficult for us to get usually.

In these past weeks we've had a couple of visits from the children's sponsors and each time it as been slightly bizarre but nice. Both times in the hour before they arrived everyone ran around like headless chickens trying to make things look good and stop the children doing the kind of things they do. The youngest boy has a tendency to take off his trousers so we made sure we kept on eye on him so that they didn't get greeted by a half naked child! There were no major disasters though and it all went smoothly. The kids love having people come visit because they get so many cuddles and definitely adored the second group of visitors who brought them all sweets. They have been doing very well in terms of treats recently because the hotel where we take Sothy (the deaf-blind child) swimming has been collecting bits and pieces for us so twice we've returned with big bags of toys. A 'big bag' doesn't go far between 50 children but still, they enjoy it.

Last week we took 24 of the younger children to a big play park in Phnom Penh for the morning. The whole expedition was very exciting for them- before we left we had all the older kids trying to persuade us that they were actually 'tuik' (small) enough to go on the trip, but we assured them that they would get to go on a different trip for older children. We took a snack with us which was probably not the healthiest thing ever, but it was delicious- baguettes filled with banana and condensed milk! They had them halfway through the morning when they were flagging a bit after all the hard work of playing so intently. The play area was amazing- the area it covered was really big and the equipment was all really cool unique stuff. I'd say it was definitely one of the best I've ever been to; I only wish I was small enough to use it properly! I had to 'help' the kids play on some of it for which it was essential that I have a go on the roundabout and seesaw (both very cool) with them. I have some very cute pictures of the day as they were all having such a good time. The real testament to their enjoyment was the fact that every single child fell asleep on the tuk-tuk ride home, occasionally falling off the benches or onto each other, much to our amusement.

On Friday I had another excuse for a trip to Raffles for Happy 'Hour' cocktails as Andrea Wigglesworth from St Mungo's was visiting Phnom Penh for YWAM work. It was so nice to see her and be able to chat about Scotland for a little while as well as compare travelling stories of illnesses and fun. They had been doing some work in some of the very difficult situations that are unfortunately all too common in Cambodia, and we had experienced similar things so it was good to be able to talk about. There are elections coming up which is totally different to how an election would take place in Britain. Bribes are commonplace and the lack of education is truly appalling. If a teacher encourages students to think for themselves and challenge the way things are at the moment (not in a revolutionist way, just saying perhaps we shouldn't vote the same people back in) then they will lose their government provided job and their family won't be able to afford food. As it is they're expecting to work for 2 years after they qualify without any pay. This is only one of the many things that I wish were different in Cambodia, but we do what we can and hope that other people are doing the same. Westerners have a certain amount of freedom from the government- at least, their jobs aren't provided by them so they have no fear of not being able to buy food, and most have a foreign embassy to help them out should something go terribly wrong.

On Sunday we had an event that we've been looking forward to since we knew about it- our first Khmer Wedding! The morning was spent getting ready- having our hair and make-up done in 'Cambodian style' which would roughly translate into English as 'very OTT'! It was fun though and felt a bit like going to a fancy dress party, something I am always pleased to do! It was the wedding of the other Magna teacher's brother, who I've never met and I still don't know the name of, but this didn't seem to matter. Weddings here are definitely not a private or small affair- everyone who has even a vague connection is invited, and people have weddings as big as they can afford. In this case that meant that there were 85 tables, each of which sat 10 and some were used more than once! If we were surprised by the scale it certainly wasn't the only thing we were going to be surprised by. Having been driven the 2 hours to the location of the reception we met some of the other staff from Magna and all sat down to the delicious wedding food. 45 minutes later, having nicely polished off the food, the majority of the staff announced that they didn't want to stay any longer, got up and left! After spending so long getting ready and getting there it seemed crazy and to our British minds distinctly rude, but it seemed that whilst perhaps it wasn't what the wedding hosts want you to do, they didn't mind. We stayed however- having had these Cambodian wedding outfits made as we'd been told we must we weren't about to waste it by only staying such a short time.

After piles and piles of food we sat around for a bit and chatted before dancing in the evening- altogether a very fun event. People were amazed to see westerners there and we attracted many stares but after you got past the fact that that was how it would be, the wedding was a success for me. I think due to the difference in design of our outfits my outfit was a lot cooler and more comfortable than Flo's so I was freer to have a good time- poor Flo was boiling away in hers for the whole night!

A couple of days ago the last of the older children moved into the group home and today is supposed to be Phearun's (the Cambodian teacher at the group home) last day of work after he resigned at the beginning of Febuary. We are currently in the process of getting a new teacher and sorted out all the minor domestic tasks in the group home, but very soon I hope that it will all settle down a little bit and I might have no news for a while!