Cambodian Cool

They call me Cool, Mr Cool

'Fashion' in the UK when I left was revolving around the Hackney Hipster look, which can be summarised as spending time, effort and money to look like a prat.  The video at the bottom of this post is an amusing summary of this trend and those who practice it - probably made by the very same type of people it seeks to mock.

When examining a change in your life it is often worth considering the push and pull factors that led to it happening.  Simply, these are the things that pushed you away from some previous way of life, but also those things about the new life which pulled you towards it.  While there weren't many push factors making me want to leave the UK, escaping the increasingly extreme and ubiquitous styles emerging from Broadway Market was certainly among them.

In light of this I was very happy to meet this guy today, rocking some styles that contrast pleasantly with Hackney's finest.  Please admire the co-ordination of tie and hat ribbon, also the sharp jacket and painted on goatee.  Pretty cool, eh?  When I asked if I could take a photo he nodded nonchalantly as though this was an all too familiar request and struck up this pose without any prompting.  What a dude!

(PS. Dan also reminded me of these similarly cool characters from the Congo, here and here.)

No facial hair, no problem...

Another popular style here which would put those in E8 to shame is the 'pyjama lady' look.  This consists of women of all ages donning two-piece pyjama suits in some very funky and childish patterns.  Those who are a little more adventurous can be found in outfits themed around cartoon characters, a bit like those that I used to get from C&A or BHS when I was about five or six years old.  This is a seriously popular form of day wear here and I have a small wager that Gilly will be bringing at least one pair home after the two years are up...

Pyjama Party!

And that video for those who didn't know that being a d**khead's cool...

A little update

We've quickly got back into the routine of Kampong Cham which, while it is quite comforting, is starting to get a little tedious. We wake up early every day and head off to our language classes. The classes are really good and I'm enjoying practising what we learn every day in the market or rice shops. People are generally very accomodating of our faltering K'mai but we do get a lot of laughs (though people tend to generally laugh at us a lot so it's hard to tell why they're laughing...).

Our classroom.

Our afternoons are spent 'resting' which generally takes the form of sleeping (in Sam's case) or reading and then my language group meets for tea and practise to help us remember what we've learned that morning. Sometimes if we have the energy or it's not raining (which it has done every day this week) we may venture out for some exploring.

However, we have had a few distractions to add some excitement to our week. Me, Sam and Paul cycled round a couple of villages in Kampong Cham along the river and saw some lovely colourful pagodas.

We went inside to wander round and saw lots of monks in white chanting inside the Wat.

This month we have witnessed our first Cambodian festival, P'Chum Ben, which is an extremely important Buddhist festival, unique to Cambodia. It is a time for people to remember their ancestors, particularly the ones who are in hell, (where apparently they are starving) who are allowed back to Earth for 15 days. During the 15 days people visit their families and the pagodas, taking food for their ancestors via the monks as well as spooning rice into bowls. Taking food for your ancestors means that you will have taken care of them and they won't 'bother' you during the year.

The bowls and plates for collecting offerings of rice and money to the ancestors.

People praying to Buddha.

On the 15th day which was last Friday, we were invited with Dara, our language teacher, to eat in the pagoda with the monks. We had a massive spread of curries, noodles, fruit, and a never ending pot of rice. The monks were very generous and welcoming and it was lovely to be made part of this special day. P'Chum Ben is also a time when the poor can come to the pagodas and get food so we all felt a little guilty being there and perhaps, although hopefully not, taking food away from those who really need it.

As if there wasn't already more than enough food to feed an army, the head monk insisted on bringing us more and more food and making us take fruit home!

We had Saturday and Sunday off this weekend and celebrated with a boat trip up the Mekong River.

There were lots of interesting sights to see along the way including children swimming, people fishing and lots of people washing their cows. Every few minutes we were greeted with shouts of 'hello' and lots of excited children waving as they jumped into the water.

We visited an island that holds 280 people but every year it gets covered by water during the rainy season and the villagers have to be moved to the mainland for 2-3 months. Then we headed off to another Wat on a hilltop which had a few hundred stairs to climb to get to the top.

The view from the top...
Dave, David, Gideon, our guide, Ingran and Paul

Me and Sam enjoying some quiet time together.

Cambodian Signwriting

There is some great signage and signwriting in Cambodia, see a little write up here.

Kratie Top Ten

Last week was placement week where all of our group dispersed across the country to check our their future home towns.  Gilly has written an account of ours and there are others from Paul, Ingran, John and Andre & Leandra (this last one in Dutch but with photos).  Rather than repeat what Gilly has said I thought I'd try to offer up my top 10 of Kratie Town, which it might be interesting to compare to my top 10 after we've been living there for two years.  Here goes, in no particular order (to quote X-Factor's Dermot O'Leary)...

1.  Riverside location.  As with Kampong Cham the town is set on the East bank of the enormous Mekong River.  This not only means that fish is the order of the day but that we get all the benefits of living close to the open water.  Above is a typical scene and below is what happens at about 5.45pm when the sun descends behind the West bank.  Nice!

2. 'Tuk Crow-Lock'.  My language training now allows me to order one of these from the many riverside 'cafes' serving up noodles and egg from about 11am each day.  This is the standard accompanying drink and one of the best discoveries to date.  It's a fruit shake made of pineapple, mango, darian, dragon fruit, condensed milk and crushed ice.  In the heat of the day, or while watching the sunset, there is nothing better to refresh yourself than one of these ice cold, vitamin packed little beauties.  The price?  2,500 riel, approximately 50p, which is actually quite expensive here!


3.  'Ban Chow'.  Sticking with the Food & Drink theme you can't go wrong with one of these for lunch.  It's served up for 1,500 riel (less than 50p!) by a lovely lady on a stall near the market.  It is actually a Vietnamese dish and consists of a bed of green leaves and sliced cucumber covered with a thin pancake folded and stuffed with meat and vegetables.  This is then covered with ground peanuts before the whole bowl is drizzled with a lemon/lime and water dressing.  It makes for a very flavoursome and light lunch and is worth every riel.


4.  The Hospital.  Abi, who is 6 months into her own VSO placement, took us around the hospital where she is working to develop existing and student nurses.  This wasn't a highlight in the same sense as the first three but more of a shock and reality check on what we're doing here.  Parts of the place reminded me of scenes from a war film with dirty wards, dogs wandering around and some beds (virtually none with mattresses) located in the yard - apparently because patients who want to spit can't do so inside and also because some believe it is cleaner outside, which in some cases could be true.

It is hard to believe that such a disparity between what we are used to in the UK and what I have seen here can possibly exist, but it does.  It has really brought home to me the severity of the situation in this country and reinforced the need for the work that we and the 100 or so VSO volunteers are doing.  We can only hope to scratch the surface, if that, and, without more radical changes at a global level, I can only see change happening at a snails pace.


5.  Cinema Club.  It was great to meet the other volunteers and they were very kind in inviting us to things, including the Kratie premier of Sex & The City 2.  This consisted of heading round to Abi's house on Wednesday night where a white sheet was mounted to one wall and a projector set up for the screening.  The choice of film wasn't entirely up my street but it was a fun evening and a great taste of the Kratie social scene.  I also indulged in a couple of cans of Black Panther, the local 8% stout which will surely become a familiar taste for the next two years.

6.  Volleyball.  Those who know my lilac coloured polo shirt will also know that it was my prize for being one of the winning team in the 2003 Xmas day volleyball tournament in Haadlad Resort on Koh Pangyang in Thailand.  Well, the good news is that volleyball is the most played sport in Cambodia, the top 'spectator' sport being English premier league football on TV.  I quickly located a regular game among the staff at CRDT via their VSO volunteer and it was great to break into a real sweat and begin the gradual redevelopment of my serve and spike from seven years ago.  Expect prizes to follow...



7.  Our house.  One of the purposes of the placement week was to find a house to live in and we were surprised by the types of places we were being shown - all considerably bigger then our flat in London and typically with three bedrooms.  We had whittled our choice down to two properties when we heard of one more that we could look at.  It is close to the centre of town, has three bedrooms, a veranda, a shower (something of a luxury!) and a lovely main living area.  A photo of the outside is below, we have the top floor and our landlady lives underneath.  We can't wait to move in!

8.  Our landlady.  Having haggled her down to the VSO budget of $150 from her initial asking price of $180 per month we wondered if we might have scuppered our chances of befriending the landlady, who had an outwardly stern demeanour about her.  The following exchange, via an interpretor, changed all that:

Gilly: Please can you ask her if we will have privacy in the house and that she will knock if she wants to visit.  (This might seem an odd request but is listed in the VSO guidance notes on renting a house because Cambodians have a very communal way of living and it is common for landlords to walk in as and when they feel like it, often to the surprise of VSO volunteers.)

Landlady: Of course, they will be the only ones to have a key and I will knock if I ever need to access the house.

Excellent, just the response we were looking for.  There was then a brief, slightly awkward pause before the landlady said something in Khmer to the interpretor.  This was relayed as follows:


Interpretor:  She wants to ask you if she is allowed to knock when she has cooked some snacks that she wants to share with you?

Gilly (slightly reeling from this extremely kind gesture following what amounted to our request to be left alone): Of course, of course, we'll also bring her some snacks when we receive them from England.

I'm looking forward to these snacks and also practising my Khmer on the landlady and her family.


9.  Cambodian recruitment.  Surprisingly I have already done a days paid work teaching English/English Culture at the only university in Kratie, UME.  Getting hired was a bizarre experience.  On Wednesday morning, while Gilly was busy conducting proper competency-based interviews with five candidates for her volunteer assistant role, I decided to take a walk around and see what places might be able to offer me work.  One of these was the university and they seemed very happy when I walked in offering my services as a teacher, either of English or any other subject they thought I might be suitable for.

They told me to email my CV which I didn't do straight away because we were quite busy on that Wednesday afternoon and all day Thursday.  On Friday morning I updated my CV, wrote a covering letter and downloaded this and two written references onto a memory stick.  I took this round to the university where I was almost reprimanded by the chap I'd met on Wednesday for not emailing him.  He quickly downloaded my documents onto his computer and I was then ushered into the director's office where I was given my working hours, rate of pay and told that my first two classes were on Saturday, i.e. the very next day (7.30-10.30am and 1.30-4.30pm).  All this without actually opening the documents I'd prepared or anything resembling an interview beyond me saying that I had a masters degree and a year's teaching experience.

The lessons went well, I got paid in cash ($42 for the day) and when I return later this month I'll be sure to be wearing proper shoes and my own tie - I got issued with a very dodgy one and they found it inconceivable that I had showed up for work without this essential piece of kit!


10.  Cucumber.  On our last night we were invited to the leaving party of Claire who has spent the last two years working with CRDT, an NGO focussed on promoting sustainable livelihoods among rural communities in a number of the provinces near to Kratie.  There was food and drink laid on, some crazy dancing, lots of 'cheers' and also a couple of games, of which one particularly caught the imagination.  It was called Cucumber and hopefully this little drawing will help bring the following description to life...

The a, b, c of Cucumber.

a.  All contestants (we had four) affix a length of wire to a cucumber and tie this around their waists so that the cucumber is hanging between their legs just above ground level.

b.  Place a lime just in front of each cucumber and, a little further away (c.2m), place two straws about 15cm apart to form a 'goal' for each contestant.

c.  Count down from five and let the race begin.  The race consists of nudging your lime with your big swinging cucumber (no hands allowed) in order to send it rolling through your goal.

Fascinating stuff and great entertainment for all those watching.  The prize was a bunch of bananas and I'm going to get into training so that I can take part in any future contests!


So, all in all, Kratie was great.  There is so much more to tell but right now it's back to the language training in Kampong Cham before we head back for good on 24th October.  With three bedrooms we'll certainly be able to take visitors and we should also be able to get internet in the house.

Lay High! (See ya! in Khmer)

Photos from Kampong Cham

Wat Nakor (temple) which is supposed to have been built in the Angkor era.
The inside of the Wat which was beauitful and peaceful.

This is a look out tower built by the French sometime between 1865 and 1953 in order to watch the river traffic on the Mekong.

Me and Paul decided to climb it the other day and these are the stairs to the top.

I have to admit I was terrified but Dave and Ingran had climbed it the day before and after wimping out during the long cycle ride I felt I had to prove myself.

View from the top was lovely though.

This is where we get our waffles for breakfast.

Amazing what you can fit on a bike!

Street food (noodles) under the bridge.

Our Placement Week in Kratie

Celebrating our arrival in Kratie with beers by the river

We arrived in Kratie in time to see one of the most beautiful sunsets ever. A Cambodian we met in Phnom Penh who was from Kratie (pronounced Kraw-cheh) mentioned that Kratie has the best sunsets in the world. At first I thought he was biased, but on reflection and having now been to Kratie, I think he could be right.

Pretty good, huh?

We had a busy week filled with meetings and interviews, house hunting and socialising with the other volunteers. I visited the POE (Provincial Office of Education) and met with the Director and then introduced myself to the various office staff there about 25 times in my very limited K'mai. They all seemed quite happy, though sometimes somewhat confused, by my attempts and I think I may already have set up some language lessons with the HR department who want to learn English (and I want to learn K'mai!). No one in any of the offices speak English so I'm going to need to suddenly start excelerating with my K'mai.

I'm feeling a lot more excited about starting work now but still a bit nervous as I'm not exactly sure where to start but, as mine is a new placement, I don't think anyone knows exactly what they want me to be doing so I'm not feeling too much pressure at the moment. I am missing having a class though. I would have been back in school for a month already and I'm missing having contact with the kids. Hopefully I'll get to start visiting some schools soon.

I will be based in the POE but I'll also be working with 2 districts: Kratie Krong and Chlong. We visited both of these district offices (DOE) during the week and the staff seem excited to be working with me so that's encouraging. Chlong is about 34km outside of the town so I'll be driving there on my moto when I get it. We went by tuk tuk and the scenery was beautiful - lots of villages, rice fields and rivers.

Sunset on a rainy day!

From what I've been reading and from the meetings with the DOEs, teachers have a really hard time here. They earn about $40 a month, which isn't enough to live on and their pay is often late. This means that they are not always very motivated as they have to supplement their income in other ways. They are often late to work as they are in the rice fields or helping to open up family shops. Another reason cited for their lack of motivation is corruption within the education system and schools in particular (e.g. headteachers).

On the Friday morning I was invited to the opening ceremony of one of the schools in the district which was quite exciting. It started at 7.45am and lasted until about 9.30am. All the staff from the POE and DOE were there and the Governor of Kratie so it was really good to show my support right from the beginning. There was some traditional dancing which was very colourful and lovely to see. And the speeches were relatively short by Cambodian standards. (Janet in a province in the north said her school opening ceremony lasted about 4 or 5 hours!!!)

The students from all the schools in the province attended the opening ceremony as well as retired teachers and other important people. They said the total number of attendees was 5,000.

I spent all of Wednesday interviewing for a Volunteer Assistant (VA) with 2 other health volunteers. There were 5 applicants and we appointed Chhay who is already working part time with Abigail (a health volunteer who's been in Kratie for 6 months) so now he will be full time and working with both of us. It was great to meet other volunteers living in Kratie and when we arrive in October there will be us, Abi (Health), Quennie (also Health) and Godfrey who we haven't met yet. Then in November more VSO volunteers arrive, also in Health.

We really loved Kratie and can't wait to go back and settle in properly.

Tea (and coffee)

My obsession with tea (tai) continues in Cambodia although I'm having to learn to live without my Earl Grey and my massive mug. There are some bonuses to tea in Cambodia: there are different varieties of tea and sometimes it's free!!!

Free iced tea in the local 'haang bai' (rice shop)

Delicious lemon and lime iced tea from the haang kafe (coffee shop) near our language school where we spend our break times every morning.

Free Cambodian tea (sadly in very small glasses although you shouldn't complain about free tea...)

And when you just can't handle not having milk in your tea any longer, there's the not-so-local resturant down the road for a good old English cup of cha! (it is a charity run by buddhist monks to help street children in Kampong Cham get off the streets so I think it's only fair to support it)

PS. A note on coffee (from Sam)
While there's no such thing as a free coffee, the standard of what you get for $0.50 varies considerably from a large mug of nescafe gold blend to a small cafetiere with fresh milk.
One of the perils of ordering coffee is that the words for 'with milk' and 'on ice' are very similar so my first experience was a large iced coffee with milk (condensed, so no need to add sugar!).
The phrase that pays is 'Ca-Fe, Tuk Dos-Koh', literally coffee with water of cow's breast, mmmm!

Sambodia

"It'll be an amazing experience" was a line I heard a lot just before making my way to join Gilly in Cambodia.  That hasn't been the half of it with every day so far filled with multiple events and stories, so here are some highlights from the journey and first few days...

Bye bye Blighty

Sadly my usually meticulous preparation feel down at the first hurdle which was checking in at Heathrow.  Having left Lloyds TSB and cut up the card I booked my flight with I was told there was no way I could board the flight without it.  The emotional side of leaving (or not, as seemed to be the case) boiled over and there were tears at the Thai Airways help desk.  (In Cambodia this would amount to me losing face in such a public display of emotion.)

Following counsel from my brother and Gilly I forked out for a brand new ticket, ate a healing fry-up and boarded.  I'm now in the process of trying to claim a refund on the original.  (I think that my initial ordeal in checking in led to them overlooking my bag weighing in at 29kg when the limit should have been 20kg - no hand luggage only for this trip sadly!)

So Saidai Cambodia!

The flight consisted of Karate Kid (Jackie Chan version), Prince of Persia and the new A-Team film, broken by periods of light sleep.  Following a brief stop over in Bangkok I was no sooner on the next plane than it was pulling into Phnom Penh airport with views of the Mekong river.

As with all arrivals in the tropics it was the heat and smells that hit me first and it was great to have a VSO staff member, Soklain, to ease me (at no cost) through my visa and customs process.  After some food, a shower and a cup of tea at the VSO office I was aboard a tuk-tuk and headed to the bus stop for the (supposedly) three hour bus ride to Kampong Cham to meet Gilly.

Seat number 16 on the bus was next to an old boy with a few gold teeth and he seemed chuffed to have a 'barang' (foreigner) coming to sit with him.  This led to my first experience of the Cambodia language, Khmai.  The conversation went something like this:

Old boy: "Anglais?"
Sam: "Oui, vous parlez Francais?"
Old boy: Shake of head, no.

I had read somewhere that some older Cambodians, of which there aren't many, can speak French because it used to be taught in schools.  What I didn't know was that the Cambodian word for English is exactly the same as the French and so he was basically asking me if I was English but in Khmai rather than in French.

This initial impasse didn't stop us communicating and we were soon exchanging signs and smiles which covered topics as diverse as: the Mekong river getting narrower as we headed away from Phnom Penh; the bus going more quickly once it had got through the gridlock caused by the visit of some Indian dignitary to the capital; the good taste of my fruit skittles (interestingly he sucked his rather than chewing so I finished the pack before I could offer him seconds!).

We got to Kampong Cham a little later than planned because of the earlier traffic and there was just enough time to freshen up before a healthy portion of fried rice and fish.  I'm not much of a fish man back home but over here it is part of about half my meals and it's very tasty.  I got a lie-in on my first full day while Gilly was off at her language lessons and then spent the rest of the day taking it easy in the early afternoon heat before hitting up some volleyball in the evening and having a few beers with the other assembled volunteers.

Hit the road [father] Jack

Day two consisted of a 7-hour, 50km, cycle ride in the heat of the day which has been covered extensively (with photos) by Gilly, Paul and John on their blogs.  After this I was completely whacked and very grateful that I was spared any sunburn due to my early morning purchase of a wide brimmed hat in the market ($1) before setting off.

Days three and four have been dominated by language lessons and I now have a private tutor which is helping me to catch up with the rest of the group who have been learning for almost two weeks now.  It's really tough to learn, especially because almost no words bear any resemblance to English or French (ca-fe and carrot are rare examples of easy words).

Between classes yesterday I took a stroll with Gilly and fellow volunteer Dave to pick up a replacement barrel of clean drinking water.  I was taking in the market scene and breathing in the smells when I got the shock of my life.  My right leg had landed on a wobbly man hole cover and landed me up to my thigh into the hole with the swinging cover wedging me in.  Gilly and Dave came to my rescue, managing to remove the boiling hot concrete cover so that I could ease my now heavily grazed leg away from whatever might have been lurking down there ready to pounce on my bloodied limb.  Despite the humidity it has fortunately scabbed up quite nicely and I reckon it'll heal fully within the week.

Today I have the day off from my language tutor so have been catching up on email, the blogs and football results (mixed emotions after a late equaliser at Sunderland but then spanking Spurs on their own patch in the cup).  Gilly will finish class in an hour or so and then we'll get lunch in the market before the 1-3.30pm rest period.  As you can imagine I am loving the early afternoon siesta time and can't wait to move into our house and hang my hammock for just this purpose.  On Sunday we'll get to visit where we'll eventually be living before three more weeks of training ahead of moving there proper.

So far, so great, just beware the wobbly manhole covers!

Cambodia so far...

This is my very first ever blogging experience and Sam has informed me it should be interesting, short and sharp (apparently he has seen my emails where I waffle too much), so here goes! I've now been in Cambodia for nearly 3 weeks and so much has happened already.

For example, people in Cambodia actually think I'm quite musical!!!

There are 16 of us in total now that Sam has arrived, including 4 accompanying partners. As it is September there are mostly education volunteers but also some health and livlihoods. Here's a picture of one of our many meals together (though we're not all there).

Me, Sam, Paul, Danny, Ingran, Dave, Kath, Jan

On the subject of food, so far Cambodian food is delicious although they do eat rice for every meal. In fact they love rice so much that their word for breakfast/lunch/dinner has 'rice' at the beginning: rice morning/rice noon/rice night! We found a Cambodian delicacy (see picture below) in the Phnom Penh market but so far I've held back! Apparently people started eating anything they could get there hands on during the Khmer Rouge time and the years afterwards and so acquired a liking for fried spiders and insects!

Yum Yum

To welcome Sam to Cambodia, we decided to take him on a long bike round around Kampong Cham province on our day off last Sunday.


We started late due to various faffing around and a small mechanical problem with Sam's bike which ended up taking an hour and a half to fix but only cost $2 so you can't really complain.

We cycled past these amazing floating villages.

We then cycled past rubber plantations, temples, women selling corn on the street, houses on stilts and other Cambodian countryside sights. By this time it was 2pm and we'd been on the go for hours in the boiling sun (we later found out we'd cycled 35 km) and I suddenly felt very faint and had to lie down on the side of the road. Did I mention that we really hadn't prepared for this journey at all and had had very little to eat and not enough water? Also it's so hot here during the mid day heat that everyone 'rests' between 12 and 2pm. Not us though, we were on a mission to see the sights on our day off. We were wearing appropriate head gear, however!

Paul, Me and Dave are wearing traditionl Cambodian scarves called 'krama' while Ingran is sporting a dishcloth all the way from London.

I ended up having to get a tuk tuk back with the other volunteers and abandoned the boys to another 20 km of cyling and island hopping in canoes with their bikes in order to get back to the town. We were all very exhausted and quite sunburnt by the time we got back to the hotel and celebrated our safe return (with only two casualities: me and Paul, who fell off his bike and scraped his knees and hands) with beers by the river.

This outside 'bar' is opposite our hotel and we spend quite a lot of time here in the evenings drinking beer, watching the volleyball games and aerobic sessions and the river traffic.

Gilly Lands

Thanks to everyone who joined us to give Gilly a proper send off last week, there were beers and tears all over.  I've spoken to Gilly a couple of times since she arrived last Thursday and, according to this photo, things have picked off in Phnom Penh just as they finished in London!

Gilly tells me the journey went very smoothly which is reassuring for my turn next week, and she also had an empty seat next to her on the plane.  She's just written a quick note about the experience so far which was cut short because there was no fan beside the computer she was using and it was too hot to write any more...

"...so far am having a great time. Phnom Penh is pretty chilled out as Asian capital cities go and VSO is taking good care of us. We've started our training which is going to be quite intense as there's so much info to learn. I'm quite eager to start language training next week which is going to be a lo more difficult than I thought. So far I've braved the crazy roads on the back of a motorbike and on a bike. You have more space than in London but there are a lot less rules, noone indicates and they often drive up the wrong side so it's easier to turn off - very crazy and apparently the number one cause of injury in Cambodia. I've also been to visit the museum of Genocide which was pretty harrowing."

[Gilly also texted today to say that she had a great haircut for just $4 so anyone planning to visit while we're there should bear this in mind and time it so that you can use the savings to put towards the cost of the flight...]

As for me it feels a little like I'm now just waiting to leave.  This is nice in that I still get to see people and celebrate my birthday but inside I really just want to get started.  My flight is next Thursday and judging by how quickly time has flown since we found out we were going to Cambodia I'm sure I'll be feeling the heat myself in no time.

PS. I've now updated the contact page of this site to give our postal address and skype details for keeping in touch while we're there.  You can also add comments to each entry on this blog if you want to share your message with everyone.