Fourth of July message

Dear Family, Friends and other remarkable folks inhabiting Mother Earth,

As I mentioned in a communiqué to my super cousin, Rose Nash, life is settling down into a more basic routine that is still kept exciting by the increase of certain behaviors, usually later at night.  These activities are holdups, which seem to be focused on the six to eight square blocks where I reside and call home.  It is in the heart of NGO land and it has to be admitted in the echoes of the late, great Willie Sutton when asked why he robbed banks, –  it is where the money is.  Theft and holdups are nothing really new in Phnom Penh but the use of a gun is rather unique.  Most of the time robberies are basically committed by the young kids who come flying by on their gaudy colored motos, and grab handbags and tear away laughing.  I just don’t understand this need to have a brightly colored motorcycle with two and sometimes three guys sitting on it.  I always thought the idea of a good stickup artist was invisibility and stealth.  Maybe they are cops and are just tired of the drab government uniform they have to wear when they commit their felonious assaults on the citizenry, locals and foreigners.

So, anyway, the news of importance about this new rash of robberies is that sometimes the robbers are waving guns at the victims.  This is very unusual but in Phnom Penh there are many explanations.  The big one, but not the best one to me, is that with the elections ready for late July, the young’ens are just getting their piece of the pie early.  Many people seem to believe that instead of being poor kids or poor provincial folks who have come to the big city in search of quick wealth, it is actually the sons of the big gun politicians who feel or are supported in the view that they are above the law. There might something to this thought because they do own the big streets after 10 or 11 at night as they race around town on their big motorcycles or high priced cars.

Another view, which I seem to lean toward is that with the inflationary spiral is going up like a thermometer on a hot day, ends just are not meeting like they used to.  The gun issue is often shrugged off by the older citizens as nothing new.  Back in the late 80’s and 90’s everybody owned guns, some owned lots of guns, and some owned truly formidable firepower like machine guns or AK 47s.   With peace or civilization or big time donor groups coming into the scene the guns were evidently buried or exchanged for new and enhanced toys.  Now they are coming out again.

I find that I tend to tuck my tail down a little earlier than I used to and am watching more bootlegged DVDs and listening to more pirated CDs than before.  Maybe it just depends on your choice or illegality as what to what turns you on.

Work is still fun and currently we are waiting for some of this huge largess that the World bank tells us is going into the pipeline any day.  I do hear that some of it – maybe a massive amount of it, is already in the pipeline but is going to contractors to build new schools.  Some more is going to the Teacher Training Department, which is our big rival for handouts and largess. I am scheduled to do a training session for them in the next month or so, because my Filipina friend has been tasked with the job of developing a training module on special education.  They really don’t have one now but they are expected to come up with one.  I don’t feel any conflict with this request I am going to bring along my friends from the Special Education Office to support my song and dance show.  I think it will work.  In some future newsletter I will elaborate on the tensions of having one high powered ministry official’s wife working for one department while our lowly department happened to marry for love, or poverty or whatever.

On the issue of work topics, we are engaged in a consortium run by World Bank in which we plan to do some nation wide mapping for children with disabilities.  The goal will be to identify essentially how many children in the nation have disabilities. The unique feature of this survey will be to determine how many children exist both in and out of school.  This latter factor is key to future programming since by 2015 under the Education for All agreement many nations signed, we are supposed to be serving all children wit a basic education of nine years.  The initial comment, which could easily be the motto for everything World Bank does, was “No data, no problem.”  While most of the volunteers all know intuitively about the world-class issues facing education in Cambodia and we can all cite many personal observations of examples that defy reasonable interpretation of a sincere system, nobody can really produce a set of data that everybody agrees on.

World Bank has been complaining about this for quite a while and for a finance governing institution this must have driven them crazy.  Anyway now we will possibly move on this.

The structural model is pretty good but as often the case, there is many a slip between the cup and the lip.  A pilot project will be done in Phnom Penh in which 1000 children will be surveyed. These caregivers of these children will be asked several questions on a variety of issues such as income, and other demographic topics.  Then there will be a ten (or maybe an 11 question including one on behavior) form in which if the caregiver answers any question “Yes” the child will move on to Phase two which includes a complete medical and psychological.  In this phase it will be determined whether the child has a true disability or not.  It is expected that of the original 1000 children surveyed, about 250 will be eligible for Phase two.

Now, in order to determine statistics that includes “out-of-school” children another 4000 children’s caregivers will be surveyed.  In addition to the expected 20 to 25% of eligibles for phrase two, every tenth child will be automatically selected for phase two.

Are you still with me?  These procedures are all statistically sound and will produce, if everything goes right, a big “if” but presumably doable, a set of baseline data.  A large team of community based workers will be needed and a site coordinator and most important, teams of doctors and psychologists.  Now remember this is country that 1. Killed all of its medical personnel if it found any, and 2.  A doctor can buy his or her way through school without ever studying.  So, where do this professional group come from?

The model has been used in Bangladesh and in Ethiopia.  Ethiopia posed many problems similar to Cambodia and help was culled for a source that America doesn’t recognize.  Cuba!  It seems that in Cuba there are so many fairly well trained doctors that they are driving cabs, working as waiters in hotels etc.  The health care system is extraordinary if you can accept Michael Moore’s documentary on health care.  Che Guevara is rumored to have “loaned” thousand of doctors to South American Countries who were in desperate need.  Regardless, that is one source.

As training occurs then these teams can move on to the remainder of the 24 provinces in Cambodia.  I like the notion but already folks are shuddering when then think of the logistics involved.  It will take from two to three months for a province to be surveyed and it is expected that by December 2009 it will be complete.  Granted there will be quite a bit of simultaneous surveying going on but again, it is doable and the results will be the baseline that future efforts can be built on.

Tomorrow finishes up this workshop I have been in and Monday it will back to work in SEO.  I think I will begin writing some plans for implementation for the policy we recently had sent to the ministry and had signed.  That will keep me busy for a while.

In the meanwhile, take a look around you and think about the social programs you have at your beck and call.  The school systems, the clinics, the government supported counseling and drug rehabilitation programs.  Plus the hundreds and possibly thousands of other programs that we rarely ever hear about.  All of this without donor groups unless you call the American taxpayer a donor group.  I do and I think most of us do.  Even in comparison with other developed nations we have a very good system. It can and should be better but it is not bad while we support a defense system that is most expensive in history.  No more lectures for now.

Love you all and hope that all is well with you and yours.  Your clinical observer, Dick

Basic Rules of Education, and skip the eel unless you love it

Dear Friends, Family and other notable companions on this journey through Life.

I feel as though I am running a risk of making these letters more personal than informative and knowing that that is the surest way to lose my reading public, I will attempt to share some observations about life in general or Cambodia if you wish.

Tonight I shared a meal with a Cambodian family which was at the worst, surreal, and at the best, a grand display of Cambodian hospitality. My colleagues from the Special Education Office in PP and I are conducting a workshop in Prea Veng on Accelerated Learning. I am including myself in this description inasmuch as I gave an opening talk yesterday about myself and what we are doing in the Special Education Office and two subsequent brief messages on educational methods and values. Today I commented on the concepts of accelerated learning, (not very much) and shared my views of education in Cambodia as compared to America. I gave them my seven (eight?) basic rules of education, which in summary can be described as;

1. Be prepared, plan and carry out the plan even if no one checks on you.
2. Be on time and be at school. The children cannot learn without you being there and what you demonstrate to them, they will do.
3. Unless you know of a very good reason why a child would benefit from spending another year in the same grade, promote him or her. There are countless examples of 16, 17 and 18 year-olds being in first and second grade. Usually they have dropped out for a few years, maybe as many as ten or twelve, before returning.
4. Catch a child being successful and show him or her that you are aware of them being clever, smart and talented. It is always true and the child will grow up to write poems and compose songs singing their praises. This is a paraphrase of what the Homewood schools had emphasized about catching a child being good.
5. Include and incorporate the parents. Find out what talents or skills the parents have and bring them into the classroom. Each teacher might even get lucky and teach a parent or two how to read or do math. At the very least it will be another pair of hands.
6. Incorporate everything into your lessons. Math and Khmer are critical, but science and social studies are also vital. For example, you do not want to repeat some history, especially in Cambodia. I thought this was a little edgy but I seem to have gotten away with it. Use recess and life at home to use math and listening and writing skills daily. Even if you have to scrawl something in the dirt. UNICEF will get you more materials if you show that you will do something with them.
7. Keep your classes lively and above all active. Never allow more than 15 or 20 minutes to pass without a new activity, preferably something involving movement. With 50+ students in a class, this requires good planning
8. Try to never teach 50+ students unless it is a lesson that will work best being taught to a whole group. But never let it last so long that the kids get tired of you. See the previous rule. Break the class into groups and rotate the groups often. Ten groups of five are easier and better than one group of 50. Control the groups and insure that the four or five children (or ten or twelve) with special needs are always in a group with someone who can support them or help them. Check on them often and when something is not working change it. This will be as hard as good lesson planning, but will get easier over time and will in fact allow you to get to know your students better. Use the parents to get adequate information.

I was surprised that the rules went over as well as they did but then again I generally tend to underestimate the power of teachers to take simple concepts and make golden rules of them.

Education is a different system in Cambodia and it is struggling to make a go of it. The ministry of education is almost entirely dependent on donor aid to survive and the impact of certain NGOs like Krousar Thmey (“New Family” in Khmei) training teachers, and teaching blind and deaf children is awesome. The Helen Keller Foundation is also here but their work is mainly in the areas of nutrition so as to prevent blindness. Catholic relief services are a valued agency and of course, “Concern”, an Irish organization, is doing its bit as well.

Ten or twelve years ago, the United Nations at a series of international meetings adopted a concept of Child Friendly Schools. At first glance this seems like such as obvious choice of philosophy that it beggars any argument. However the simple basis of the scheme was to stop hitting and punishing kids routinely. Also show some of the kids work on the walls. A big move forward was to include kids in the exchange between teacher and student. Before it had been mainly the teacher telling and the kids listening (?).

The concept grew to include gender awareness, community mapping to find out where the kids were who should be in school and inclusive education or “Reaching the Unreached”. They are now talking about building schools with ramps for more than just driving your moto up into the classroom or under the overhang. Teachers are beginning to plant gardens and promotion and retention rates as well as statistics on how many girls are enrolled are being kept. The retention rates which were at one time near 30 or 40 %, and that is just for the kids who were in school, are dropping to 12 or 15%. Teachers charging for snacks, extra tutoring, uniforms, and other sundry items which often spelled the difference between a family being able to afford to send their child to school or not, is slowly eroding. The ban (that’s right, a ban!) on hiring women teachers with disabilities is not a law yet, but it is moving in that direction.

I continue to study and try to understand the Khmer people. It is a slow and difficult process and I think I understand it is a task that would require far more social science training than I have had and many more years than I am willing to give to the task. However, in order to make sense of my world I need to look for clues as to why groups act as they do and at the same time try not to either be judgmental or casual in making allowances for traits I find curious or outright negative. That said, I should end this portion of the letter now because I realize that I will fail in all of these efforts and at the risk of being deemed a racist or bigot, I will share some thoughts.

Tonight, as I said, I shared a meal with a Cambodian family, the daughter of whom was a student of Saroeun, my friend from the SEO office. Everything was thoroughly Cambodian from the menu to the sitting style to the conversation and assortment of people in the room. I was the only westerner in the room which was large and filled the role of being the living room, dining area and sleeping quarters for at least two or three of the people present. One of them was a female paying guest who is attending our workshop and could only afford to come by renting a room and meals for 8000 to 12000 riels ($2 to $3) a day. What she saves on her per diem of $5 a day she can use to pay for her transportation and if she is really lucky, supplement her income of $30 a month by a few more dollars. The room I mentioned she is renting, is in reality a bamboo mat on the floor but it is not unusual for family members to have the same sleeping arrangements. This same woman had earlier in the day gotten sick and barfed all over the floor and outside the nearest doorway. It was right after my talk about the seven rules of education. I refuse to think I had anything to do with it. Her performance drew at least half of the audience of 40 participants to watch her chuck her groceries. Then they unceremoniously “hauled” her to a table where they applied the ageless cure of “coining”. This is taking a coin and vigorously rubbing the arm or chest to rid the offending humors from the victim. At the same time a few of the women and men were massaging her back and legs and occasionally feeling her forehead. I thought it would be a good idea to hold a mirror to her mouth but she indicated life by moving her shoulder when one of her well-wishers stopped rubbing it.

When she regained consciousness it was decided to take her home or to the place where she was staying. Coincidentally, it was the same place that my four colleagues and I were going to have dinner that night. My friend Saroeun had the only car so we took her and two other women to the house. Saroeun and I stayed downstairs while they made her comfortable, and we chatted with the girl who was going to have the dinner for us. She had also been with us the night before matching all of the Khmei men drink for drink and not only holding her own, but also forcing them to back down. Since I was only drinking beer while they were drinking wine and I did not engage in all of the “Cheers” and “Chee-ups” that precede every drink, I was in great shape to be an observer. I also taught them “slainte” and made sure they understood it was Irish, not English or American.

Anyway, when I asked if maybe the dinner was postponed due to the convalescence of the lady, Saroeun replied that it was on, why would it not be? I mentioned that maybe the lady will die and that might cause a loss of good will in the household. Saroeun didn’t think that would happen so we stayed on to have dinner.

The room held ten of us, including the convalescing lady who at one point groaned painfully but later recovered enough to have a couple of plates of food given to her. I did not include the young boy in the count because he seemed to come and go and not be a constant member of the dinner party. There was a really old guy (86), older than me as many would point out often, who was there but spent most of his time watching me. Of the ten there was only me and two others who spoke English and since all of the conversation was in Khmer, I was generally a reader of body language more than anything.

The dinner was superb. A hot plate that utilized charcoal as a fuel, rice, noodles, and several different dishes. I had a plentiful amount of eel, which I really don’t like because it is too bony (spine-like articulated bones), and regular fish, which I really do like, once I get past the bones. Dessert was mangos and bananas, which were good. I half expected some Lambanoug, which is a palm wine in the Philippines and rather potent, but none came and I was pleased. I finished with a complimentary toothpick, again traditional, and thanked my hostess profusely for making me feel at home. The ailing lady by this time was sitting up and telling us about her sister who married a Canadian and lives in Canada. Her husband is way fatter than I am and her sister is only 45 kilos, about 99 pounds. I didn’t bother to mention that Love is blind.

Now I am back in my $4 a night hotel room. I always get a room by myself wherever I can since I am rich and can afford to pay extra. My per diem is twice as much as the lady at the conference – a whopping $10 a day, which I have to collect receipts for if I wish to get compensated. This computes out at $6 a night for a room and $4 for food. After six days here I will probably be another 10 to $15 over my budget because I bought the drinks the night of the drinking fest. This trip is definitely not life in the fast lane and I will be very happy to get back to my new digs and kick back. I will share more about that later.

In the meanwhile, stay loose and enjoy life and skip the eel unless you really love it. I remain, Paco, the chauffeured Barang in Prea Veng, Cambodia.

P. S. I forgot my camera and am going crazy with all of the missed photo ops.