The other weekend, we packed our bags and headed off to the nearby province of Kampong Cham to meet up with our fellow September 2010 group to celebrate two years in Cambodia (and yet another bank holiday weekend). There are nine of us left, although only seven could make it. It was a great weekend filled with nostalgia and lots of catching up as the others traveled from various parts of the country.
The first night was spent in style at the lovely Smile restaurant which supports the local community to learn cooking and other restaurant management skills
The next day we hired bikes in an attempt to re-live the interesting bike ride from our month spent in Kampong Cham learning Khmer this time two years ago. You can read about that adventurous trip here but this time there were no mishaps.
Wat Nakor which is thought to be as old as the Temples of Angkor in Siem Reap and was also very beautiful.
The inside is particularly stunning with a mix of old and new.
Sam wanted his picture next to this humungous pig but she didn't want to oblige and kept running away.
The whole gang - 2010-2012 survivors!
Two years has gone so incredibly fast and now I find myself in my last month of work. There are so many things I will miss about living and working here but there are also so many things to look forward to in the next stage of our lives. As part of our weekend, we all sat in Kath's air-conditioned room drinking gin and tonics (it was like being at Uni again) and reflected on our time here. We had to share two things we will miss and one thing we won't miss at all! Here they are:
Sam: Will miss: time with me (awwww) and regular daylight hours (i.e. no SAD). Won't miss: mosquitoes and everything that goes with them (DEET, nets, bites etc)
Gilly: Will miss: outdoor living and knowing all the people in the market, on our street, and in Kratie generally! Won't miss: not being able to say what I really think for fear of offending people who are higher up than me (aka EVERYBODY!)
These blog posts are a bit like buses - after only three in July and August combined it's three in less than a week this month. I promise a more fully blown exploration of what I do in my work soon but, in the meantime, you can gain some insight from this 'day in the life' piece. It was 'commissioned' by VSO to encourage others to volunteer with them. I hope it at least partially meets this objective.
PS. Gilly is a bit annoyed that I seem to be claiming more credit for preparing lunch and other domestic tasks than I deserve. To redress this I can confirm that she is currently busy making dinner while I am writing this blog...
Keep reading for videos of more diving board action...
So I've now landed firmly in my mid-30s (34!) so it seemed fitting to celebrate in style. Here in Cambodia that means leaving our sleepy little town of Kratie and heading for the lights and smoke of Phnom Penh.
The first thing we did on arrival in Phnom Penh was to head to Jars of Clay for the first round of the weekend's cake intake. Here I am tucking into a rich chocolate number with some whipped cream.
Photo: Olivia Wynne
Round two came as a surprise after a lovely meal at a restaurant called the Boat House. As this was officially the day before my birthday I was forgiving of them adding the wrong date to the text on the cake. Note the dripping ectoplasm running down the side of this one which was enjoyed by all the friends we had gathered together to celebrate.
After dinner we decanted into the regular VSO drinking den and, at midnight, Wes (see above and below) treated me to shots of whisky. (Somehow Mean also slipped into the photo, cunningly hiding under our armpits.)
That one seemed to hurt me more than Wes.
It was literally "bottom's up" for the second round and, after the pain of the first one, it's all smiles again on my face.
The guard dog sign was spotted by Gilly on the road to Blooms, a posh cake shop that hosted round three of the indulgence. I doubled up on chocolate, one with hazelnut that was particularly delicious.
Here are our cake colleagues for the morning, including Leandra (left) and Dorinda (middle) who also share my birthday week. Olivia (second from left) had selected the venue and it was smiles all round, followed by sustained silence as everyone savoured every mouthful.
Gilly convinced me that I wouldn't get sunburned if we walked from the cake shop to our lunch venue. She was right, although I did spend most of the time dashing from one piece of shade to another. Here we are posing outside one of the external walls of the Royal Palace.
A shandy in hand to take the edge of the previous night's whisky. Continuing the hand-painted signs theme of the weekend we had lunch in Bojangles. This place on the riverfront sells replica signs to support rural signpainters. You can see some examples of these here.
Perhaps the biggest treat of the day was the discovery, after two years in Cambodia, of Phnom Penh's Olympic Stadium and pool. It's a proper 50m pool and looked lovely in the bright sunshine that graced my birthday.
The real bonus for me was the diving pool which I'd learned about the night before. I was so excited to see it was for real and it brought back memories of my diving classes in 2006 and also my rock jumping escapades from many holidays in the Gorges d'Heric in France. So it was on with the trunks and in to the pool for some competitive jumping action with the locals, as captured in this short video...(View full screen on Youtube.)
Sadly the real scoreboard (below) was out of action so I had to rely on Gilly, Laura, Claire and Gordon to give unbiased opinions on my efforts.
Opposite the pool is the main stadium which, as the sun starts to set, becomes a heaving (and noisy) hotbed of activity. Lots of Phnom Penh residents congregate for their daily exercise which in many cases consists of a sort of synchronised aerobics. The only way to explain this properly is through the medium of film. Treat yourself...
As night falls here we are relaxing after an fantastic day with friends by the pool. Ken (right) wasn't content with just a swim and also did a few laps of the stadium running track. Gordon (left) was responsible for the BBC-esque commentary of my diving efforts from the first video.
After all the excitement of the day it was time to end it with a delicious steak. Here's Gilly brimming with anticipation at hers, covered in blue cheese sauce and accompanied by a glass of red wine.
All in all I must say one of, if not the, best birthdays ever. Thank you to everyone who made it so good from start to finish.
I've had a piece published on the main VSO blog about a workshop I attended back in June. Keen readers will notice that I'm not in the photo attached. I had left an hour early to make the bus back to Kratie via Phnom Penh. Before I left I had helped with a session at the workshop talking about the experience of my work with CRDT on tourism. More to follow on this in a forthcoming blog post about what on earth I actually do all day here...
I now have less than three months to go before I finish my
placement which makes me feel sad but also excited about the prospects
for the future (that start with four months of travelling to five countries
I've never been to before!). Technically this should be my busiest time
as I now have experience and relationships with the schools but sadly
that will not be the case as the schools close at the end of July for
the long summer holidays. They will open again in October, about three weeks
before I finish. There will also be a big holiday in the middle of
October so that will slow things down as well. It is a frustrating
feeling but things always crop up and there is a lot to do in terms of
handover for the volunteer that will replace me.
A grade 2 lesson: this little boy did no work the whole lesson but stared at me constantly!
As a
result of the imminent holidays and the start of the rainy season, the
last few months have been filled with many ups and downs. People say
that about the life of a volunteer but you don't really fully understand
it till you get here. The highs and lows are pretty extreme compared
to life back home. Since January I've been doing a project with four of my
schools which focuses on child-friendly teaching methods. The project
requires a certain amount of self reflection which does not come easily
to Cambodians so sometimes it has been a struggle. A little bit of rain
means the teachers don't show up to workshops that have been planned for weeks and that makes it hard to stay motivated.
Teachers from grades 1-3 discussing child-friendly teaching methods
And watching example lessons on DVD.....
The teachers then discuss what child-friendly methods they saw in the lessons and how they could adapt these for their own lessons
As
part of the project, we recently started doing peer observations. It
was great to see how much effort the teachers put into planning their lessons and
how different the lessons were from when I first watched them nearly
two years ago. Many of the activities we had discussed during the
project could be seen but used in different contexts. When discussing
the lessons the teachers were much more confident and able to focus on
the learning taking place, not just whether the picture of the King was
on the right wall or not. Some of the teachers even talked about how they
were ensuring the children were being made to 'think', not just copy off
the board. All this reflection, discussion, sharing and exchanging
ideas has hopefully helped the 23 teachers and school directors that
have been working on the Project see how easy it is to make teaching more active and child centred, even with few resources.
Watching a Grade 2 lesson
The lessons on the DVD show classrooms with the tables laid out in groups of six so some of the teachers have started experimenting with group layouts for their classrooms.
Last week I was invited by an education NGO called NEP to attend their
launch of a report about teacher motivation and to talk about my
experiences of working with teachers in Cambodia. They also asked me to
invite a teacher I work with who could share her experience.
The launch went well and my short presentation seemed reasonably well
received. The only minor hiccup of the day was that there had been some
kind of misunderstanding between my translator and the teacher who
attended with me as she had no idea she was meant to give a
presentation! This caused a bit of drama when her name was called over
the loudspeaker to come up and speak in front of 100 people and she kept shaking her head. It all
worked out in the end though and the launch was reported on three TV
channels and three newspapers. Yes, that's right, I made the national
TV again!! My presentation isn't in it but you can see me at minutes:
1.08, 1.24 and 5.35. The launch was in Kmai and English so we're wearing headphones for the translation, in case you were wondering.
Following our appearance on national TV we have now appeared in the lifestyle supplement of one of Cambodia's two English language newspapers, the Phnom Penh Post. I didn't actually get interviewed so please hold fire with any piss taking about the quotes in the article. I was a bit sweaty but I think that the 'wet t-shirt' description is taking things a bit far, sounds like some kind of spring break debauchery was taking place when we were just planting some trees!
(Click image below for full size. Online article available here.)
Following this post by Gilly our moment has finally come. This four minute trailer extolling the virtues of Kratie province is currently being broadcast on all of Cambodia's main national TV stations. In fact, we knew it had been completed last week when one of Gilly's colleagues came into her office to say she'd seen Gilly on TV the night before.
The song was specially commissioned for the film and runs through many of the province's tourist attractions. For those who can read Khmer there are synchronised text lyrics for your karaoke pleasure.
I think it's fair to say that we are the stars of the film as we seem to appear more than anyone else. This may be because we responded best to the director's shouts of "happy, happy everyone!". I can't decide on which scene I like best, what's your vote?
In March 2007, our friend Shadie died in a car crash in The Gambia. A charity has been set up in his name and in 2009 I took part in a 10km run to raise money for it. This year, my brother, Grant and Shadie's brother, Kamil took the fundraising to a whole new level. They set themselves the challenge of kayaking down the River Gambia.
On the 7th of April, after 9.5 days of travelling (56 hours 55 minutes of paddle time) they completed the 300 mile journey down the River from the border with Sengal down to Banjul, Gambia's capital. They met some hippos and a few crocodiles along the way (nothing they couldn't handle, though it depends who you talk to!) and raised a wopping 20, 570 pounds for Shadie's charity - ShadieFarage.com. We are unbelievably proud of them and this massive achievement.
Arriving into Banjul (I'm not sure why Grant isn't smiling...)
Their fan club cheering them in
Grant, at the finish line enjoying a hard earned and refreshingly cold Julbrew beer
You can read more about their adventure here and donate to the charity here
On Tuesday, Sam's boss came into his office and asked 'Sam, do you want to be a filmstar?' Sam considered the question and decided yes, then called me to ask the same thing. It turns out the Ministry of Tourism needed some foreigners to be in a promotional video of Kratie, something that should help with the work Sam is doing with CRDTours in this area. I was extremely excited. We set off at 9.30am all ready for action and really should have known better. The first hour was spent waiting by the ferry boat for the crew to arrive and all the family members that would be accompanying us on the trip. And the whole day which we had anticipated would take an hour, ended up taking 6!
We finally set off at 10.30am in what was now pretty unbearably hot weather. There was a lot of sweating going on which will most definitely show up on camara but at least it will look authentic. Come to Cambodia, it's really really hot!!
First we had to walk up to the information office and ask about tours on the island. We were shown a map and then put onto a horse cart that would take us round the island. We had to do about four takes of this before we realised what was expected of us.
All the island locals watching our acting skills
We then did some moving shots with the filmcrew on the back of a moto riding along side the horsecart. This went on for a long time and involved us eating at least two 'kralan' (sticky rice) each while looking very happy about how delicious it was.
This is just before we ate all the sticky rice I'm clutching.
All the family and friends being taken to the homestay house for lunch
Some poor, unsuspecting real tourists had joined us by this point and we all had lunch together at a homestay which was very good. After lunch was an enforced rest on the beds which had been laid out in the homestay. Sam actually got a short nap, consistent with his behaviour on holiday last week, and it was all filmed.
We then set off on our bikes to plant a tree to support eco-tourism.
I found this very exciting as it is the third tree that I've planted (only the second time it's been filmed though).
Here is a photo and a clip of me planting a tree in Tower Hamlets with my Year 1 class.
And here I am in Namibia planting a friendship tree as part of our visit
and now my Cambodian tree
Sam's tree gets two thumbs up
Guarding our trees
Eco Tourism! Cambodia, Kingdom of Wonder!
(we had to do about six takes for this bit as shouting in unison is harder than you think)
It was an unexpectedly fun day and yet another great experience for us to remember our time in Cambodia. The video is supposed to take around 2 weeks to make and then will be aired on all the Cambodian channels. We're going to receive a DVD so will be posting that up as soon as we get it!
