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

Nearly one year down….

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

It is not raining very much in Phnom Penh during this rainy season, but the other provinces are reporting gully-washers. Before I left on part of my annual leave, there had been some heavy storms, mainly in ht afternoon. I like the rainy season and it gives me a great excuse to either sit inside and read, or duck into an open front bar for a delicious icy-cold Anchor draft beer. One bar in particular has adopted this strategy of having ice cold mugs available for every draft. It is the Revolution bar on Street 51 near Norodom Sihaunouk Blvd. Alex is the owner and is of British ancestry. He is married to a Khmei girl and they have just celebrated the birth of their first child. Alex was fortunate to have gotten married before the ban on foreigners marrying Cambodian nationals. I would tell you more about this rather Draconian measure, but I ( and most of the Cambodians I know) really do not know much more than that it was a proclamation and no one seems ot know much else.

Today I received an invitation to attend the Queen’s Birthday bash on 19 June 2008. Required dress is “lounge suit”. I had visions of the leisure suits of the 70’s and after asking my British mates, it seems that this is just a regular suit. Several of the volunteers do not own suits, but they at least have a dress shirt and a tie. I, of course , will attend resplendent in one of my new suits that I had had made earlier this year. In my elegant finery, I will be able to find out why I and my other loud volunteer companion have not heard any more of our invitations to join the British embassy choir. If you recall I think I had predicted an omission of follow up after sobriety set in last December. Whatever, I still think they need my booming voice, off-key renditions of Rudolf the Red-nose, and serious appreciation of the copious amounts of free booze that the Brits lavish on guests at their functions. Maybe I am misreading the generosity of the Brits in deference to the well-developed drinking abilities of the VSO volunteers.

On a similar note, I have also received an invitation to attend the Fourth of July hootenanny at he American Embassy on July 6th, a Sunday. It looks like a family affair with the “7th fleet navy band entertaining the mob, Circus/acrobat performances, Kids’ activities – face-painting, balloon animals, bubbles and playground, Dunking booth, eating contests, food vendors and more!” Admission is (or was – up to May 31st) $3. After June 1st the price of entertainment went up to $5. So far I have not decided exactly what I want to do with my Sunday afternoon from 3 to 7:00 PM, but I am tempted to go and see what the other Americans look like.

Another word on the Queen’s birthday. I am very pleased with the thought of the queens, Cambodian and British, having birthdays otherwise I would be restricted to only 10 to 15 days of holiday a year. This way I can hoist one or two in honor of the fair queens and solemnly chant “Long Live the Queen” and may she have more birthdays every year. Actually the British Queen does have at least two. So, there you go, sports fans, we asked and they delivered.

Work is moving along very well. I don’t think I am doing very much in terms of actual work output, but I am still asked to write speeches for the “suits” and correct and draft reports on conferences and workshops. I am being given more and more allowance to “edit” these reports to include references to areas I believe are important and that somehow get overlooked. In the early days I would include some references to gender iniquities and would be informed that while these were important our focus was on children with disabilities, (read deaf, blind and crippled). I concurred and rewrote when informed but I am noticing much more of my stuff getting through now. Whereas before only some phrases like “So far, so good” tickled their linguistic funny bones, now they are commenting on women’s roles in provincial and central government positions., minority education receiving more attention, and “reaching the unreached”. It also helps that UNICEF, UNESCO, and the World Bank are getting a little more pushy in these matters as well.

I have written a proposal and it was accepted to have myself and another fellow from the Special Education Office and another volunteer and his counterpart from the Disability Action Council go on monitoring and evaluation trip to six of the 24 provinces. These will be short trips, probably a week or a week and a half per pair of provinces, but it will give me a chance to see actual schools and ask questions about inclusive education. The only serious problems with this proposed traveling is getting periods of time where four of us have convenient calendars (or “diaries” as the Brits say) to spend together. If worse comes to worse I will just go with my counterpart or maybe the guy from DAC.

In July, my colleagues are going back to Vietnam, this time to Da nang, to give a report on children with Disabilities or Inclusive Education. I am responsible for developing the Power Point presentation for this although VSO could not fund my attendance. Budget cuts are becoming more the norm than the exception. Even if I cannot go, I am flattered to have a big role in the presentation.

Recently I was introduced to a meeting of Quakers when I visited the U.K. I was thoroughly intrigued by these incredible people and was reminded of my early Druid roots by my Aunt Rosemary, who is a reincarnated Druid Priestess herself. The tolerance of Quakers for almost any belief is fantastic. I read a letter from a “friend” who had basically stopped believing in God but still found the spirituality of the Quakers strengthening and supportive. I don’t mean to antagonize my Christian or Muslim brothers and sisters out there, but this is a revolutionary style of religion. When I think of all of the slaughter and harm and hatred of religious factions over the centuries, I have to believe that the institution and belief systems of these people holds some merit. I intend to investigate this more thoroughly. It is amazing to me that while I have heard of the Quakers since I was a child this was the first time I had actually met any of them. The services I attended were services of silence. No one talks unless they have something to say, and too much talking is discouraged. After the service the Friends meet and have a social hour. More to come.

That is it for now, my faithful and supportive gang. I find it hard to believe that I am in my twelfth month of service. I have learned a lot and hope that I have provided some support to the efforts of these proud and tough peoples. Phnom Penh continues to enjoy a developing prosperity while at the same time, inflation and world affairs continue to march on. I check my home page on yahoo.com for news of the Sox (incredible) and the Cubs (simply unbelievable). I see that Chicago has finally emerged from the winter of discontent it had.

The King’s Birthday and Ploughing Day

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

Whew! I finally became aware of my serious lack of communication and in an effort to regain some of the trust and confidence you have in me to regale you with both fact and fiction, I will try to regain my former writing output. While my writing has been described as a physical ailment akin to Montezuma’s revenge or some other form of uncontrollable output, it does allow me to share my views and gain some feedback from all or any of you. I think my lapse is probably due to a set of conditions known more formally as “routine daily occurrences” or simply not necessarily of a nature to be described as “interesting”. I shouldn’t make those decisions myself since it is my task to report and yours to criticize. I leave it to your judgments as to whether there is any merit in what I report.

I am gaining a huge collection of DVDs and music. I have a favorite little shop where I get my stuff. Although it is more expensive I have more confidence in them and if I ever have any trouble I can always take it back. The cost as I say is more, $1.50 a DVD or CD as opposed to $1 and over time it all adds up. I am rewatching some of my favorite movies I saw before I left for Cambodia like “You Kill me” with Ben Kingsley and some older ones like “Raging Bull”. The music is thoroughly eclectic and covers all of the genres because I have no specific taste (or competence). I just keep adding to my collection.

Work is fine. We are in the month devoted to holidays. The King’s birthday is this week and that alone accounts for three days off. I am not sure if it is the father king or the prince guy. I think it is the father. The Queen gets one day off. At the end of this week is “Ploughing Day” which as you can guess is an agrarian festival observation and gives us time to reflect on the nature of crops. Khmer New Year was in April and that was another three days off whereas International New Year is only one day off. Chinese New Year’s in February was another three days off. In the event you are thinking, “Does this guy ever work?”, I do, but too not often in these months. I am allowed 20 days annual leave a year plus the national holidays, which is about another 20 days. I am saving most of them for when the kids come over but occasionally I get anxious about a whole four or five day work week and so I might take a few days to seek refreshment and relaxation.

Religious observations. I have noticed a decidedly formal procedure to the Khmer or Buddhist religious observances both here in Phnom Penh and in the provinces. Almost every home and every business has a small or large shrine or altar with joss sticks or fragrance sticks for burning in front of them. Often these are supplemented by some foodstuffs or tea. The construction of these altars or shrines varies greatly. Some are very primitive and consist basically of a small shelter enclosing a vigil light and some incense sticks. Then they can range to a large wall hanging made of pictures and offerings. They can be plain or festooned with lights. One I saw literally looked like a Las Vegas one-arm bandit with flashing lights and pictures. Stalls or stands specialize in the construction of these religious artifacts and on some roads there are whole areas given over to these altars.

The Chicago White Sox are in First Place according to the Internet and the temperature in Phnom Penh is 93°` but it feels like 108° or so says the weather chart on my.Yahoo.com. I am pleased about the White Sox and agree completely with the weather summary. It is bloody hot or “k’dao nah” in Khmer. The rainy season has almost officially started (end of May) but almost daily around 3:00 or 4:00 PM we get a downpour. The streets fill up and I take off my shoes and put them in my basket. Then I pedal joyously through the rain with my raincoat flapping madly in the wind, spraying water in the direction of the motos who are spraying water at me, and arrive home in a very excited condition knowing I have reached the level of the other Khmei who seem to enjoy whatever Mother Nature sends to them.

I am now living in a new place, which is smaller than my old place but far more elegant. I have a 24-hour security guard, an exercise room that I do not use very much, a laundry room with three machines and a dryer that my cleaning lady uses quite efficiently. This regimen of living in a third world country sacrificing for the greater good and all of that “Yatta Yatta Yatta” is getting me down. Seriously though, while I certainly have many advantages materially and it seems that there are many holidays in the monthly calendar, I am contributing something although I still am not quite sure exactly how much or what good it is. I will try to reflect further on this and give you a performance rating in the future. In the meanwhile I have to go and plan my upcoming holiday to honor the King.

Love and kisses to all of you. I remain your distant representative for world peace and love, Richard.

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.

The Tonle Sap, the Tonle Bassac, and the Tonle Mekong

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

Things seem to have settled down quite a bit here in Fun City otherwise known as Phnom Penh. I have written my reports to all of the relevant agencies; VSO (with adequate expense accounting for myself and the other fellow from the SEO), the higher ups in the chain (deputy directors and the like), a report to all of the provincial governors and their subordinates, and now I am waiting for the translations into Khmer.

I have joined a health club, actually two of them. I joined the first, which was connected to the Hotel Cambodiana, which is one of the most posh hotels in Phnom Penh, but I was not entirely happy with the facilities. The parking was far from the hotel entrance, the walk through the lobby was somewhat intimidating, and the shower and locker room facilities left a little bit to be desired. I cancelled my membership and asked that my fee be credited back to the visa card. This will be an interesting test.

The second club I joined is one hotel to the south of the Hotel Cambodiana, the Emerald Gardens. It does not have the quality of equipment, and is more expensive by a few dollars, but I can park my bike (“Kong” in Khmer) closer. It is smaller but more intimate. The pool is right outside of the locker room, which is a nice advantage.

Both hotels have restaurants and bars, but the Hotel Cambodiana is more expensive (relatively speaking). The Emerald Gardens has a gambling room, which has two games, blackjack and roulette, so I am told. I am the world’s worst gambler since I hate to lose and I always lose.

Next week is the famous “Water Festival” in Cambodia. This has ancient roots and is grounded in religious symbolism. In Phnom Penh we have three major rivers that converge; The Tonle Sap, the Tonle Bassac, and the very mighty Tonle Mekong which flows from Lao down through Cambodia and into the Mekong Delta of Vietnam fame. It is truly huge and magnificent and dwarfs the Old Man River, the Mississippi. The key element during this three-day holiday is the great Dragon Boat races, which are held on the Mekong just opposite the riverfront of Phnom Penh. This is the scenic area of the city where the tourists and wealthier ex-pats land hang out. VSO usually enters a Dragon Boat except for last year. That may have been a result of their finishing fifth in a two-boat race. Fifth!? Yes, fifth, evidently boats from two other heats of boat races lapped them. This year we want to at least finish second or no worse than third. There are fifty of us who will be rowing our hearts out, not for the glory of VSO, but to beat the crap out of the Khmei who seem to have grown up with the event and take great joy in pounding the Barang (foreigners) into the mud which borders the river. We will be distinguished by our yellow and orange life jackets, which is another source of great humor to the Khmei who seem to think if you fall in the water, you deserve to drown.

I have purchased some general art works for my apartment. They were a “steal” in the markets of Ho Chi Minh City and after a week I have yet to hang one of them. This will be the major task of the coming weekend. I have the screws and anchors for the concrete walls and just need the correct discerning eye for the proper effect. This may turn into a major project. I should invite some of my colleagues over for gin and tonics and support.

Well, that is it for another short spell from your wandering pilgrim who is settling in and enjoying life more. The time is flying by. Take care and be humble. God knows we all have many opportunities to be so.

Richard

A flipped computer, language training, and gender equity

I am finally updating this note while spending a leisurely afternoon in the Freebird Bar which is a wifi and American type bar. I am drinking gin and tonics and while the internet is free I am rapidly going into chronic debt drinking and eating the spring roll appetizers at the final calculation of probably $6 or $7 dollars. God, life can be so tough!I am very sorry about the delay in updates, but I have been going through a series of adjustments due to the loss of my computer. Not the actual loss, but an “oweee” inflicted by a maid during my workshop in Kampong Chnam. I thought I was being clever by sliding my computer under a pillow to keep it out of sight but when the maid came in to clean the room I am sure she just grabbed the sheets and flipped them. Of course my computer got flipped as well and that night when I returned I could not get it to power up. I tried and tried but nothing.

Later in the week I returned to Phnom Penh and went to a computer store to see what they would tell. I was not hopeful, as a matter of fact I was pleased that I had as much backed up as I did since in previous episodes I had lost everything. The fellow at the store was helpful but he said it would possibly be better to go to another store on the riverfront since it was a Mac. I did, and to make this long story a little shorter, they worked on it, sent it to Singapore and this weekend it was returned to me safe and sound.

The purpose of this long discourse is not to burden you with the routines of computer repair but to emphasize the psychological impact of losing what has come to be a very important part of my life. My music is here, my financial accounting is here, and all of my thoughts and correspondence is here. Granted this time I had a backup but even still, I was a loss without my laptop. I was actually depressed. I am aware that it may only have been the trigger for other issues but since I am not in psychoanalysis yet, I am not sure what those other issues are yet. My distance from home and loved ones, a strange and challenging country, and a ton of other factors could all play a part but I was focused on my computer. So now, all is better if not perfect, and I am a happy pilgrim again.

This week I begin language training. This is a serious point in my stay in Cambodia and hopefully it will allow me to become more effective in my daily work. I have some phrases and vocabulary that I depend on a great deal but I would surely like to converse with people even at a low functional level. I don’t think I have a very good aptitude for languages. I did enjoy Latin in high school, Spanish in college and personal efforts at learning more Spanish since school. Tagalog was a disaster since I basically blew it off after learning that everyone spoke English in the Philippines and while they said they would help me with Tagalog they always keep speaking English. So, now I am in a country that basically has been exposed to their own native language, Khmer, but also Vietnamese, Thai, Russian, and now English. The nationals know that the one constant is Khmer and if they are going to be understood, the barang (foreigners) are going to have to speak Khmer.

I have been involved in several workshops during my short tenure in Cambodia. I have been a observer in Kampong Speu for Accelerated learning, a semi-involved observer in Kampong Chnam for Accelerated learning again, and last week, a participant in the reviewing the Child Friendly School Policy in Sihanoukville, where I had had my annual conference for VSO two weeks before. This last one was my most active participation since I arrived and while I was pushing for more involvement of children with disabilities, particularly physical disabilities, I seemed to have received a reputation for advocating for gender equity. In one small working group, I had mentioned the need to focus on the recruitment for more girls in the school population, especially disabled girls. I also mentioned that the focus could not just be limited to girls in school but also on women in the teaching and administrative ranks, hopefully women with disabilities. There has recently been a letter from MOEYS (Ministry on Education, Youth and Sports) stating that it was no longer permissible to deny women with disabilities teaching jobs because of their disabilities. But time moves slowly in Asia and in a Buddhist culture everything is explored at depth and repeatedly, even government communiqués. During a summary session where all of the discussions of the small groups were collected, Mr. Richard was mentioned at least twice as advocating gender equity and most people nodded wisely at this radical idea. The fact that it is a key component of the UNICEF and World Bank programs in education did not seem to diminish its wisdom.

That is it for now. I am happy to back in the communication links with all of you and hopefully my future notes will be a little more interesting. For the time being I remain your loyal and loving far eastern companion.

Well wishes

So many thoughts and so many impressions, particularly as I walk down the street or do something a little differently from what I did a few hours ago. I find myself comparing my experiences to arriving in the Philippines five years ago. At that time I was much more intimidated by a new culture and by people whom I knew to be friendly but were so clearly different from me and what I had known that I was not sure how I would survive let alone succeed. One major difference between then and now was that the Peace Corps was nursing me along as slowly as possible and giving me plenty of time to make little mistakes and learn from them. The VSO on the other hand has dropped me into the stew and I think I am supposed to know the culture, the politics, the yin and yang of survival in a foreign land. Hmmm? I don’t. Simple to say, but in reality I bless the two years I had in the Philippines because that introduced me to Asia which is a major part of what I am experiencing at the moment. I am still surprised by the traffic and the incredibly sanguine reactions from everyone concerned. I still feel a little paranoid about people staring at me, but in this response I am probably reality based. People do stare in Asia, at objects and people who are unusual. I am an old white guy who still likes to walk in a world where only poor people walk. I still am a little surprised when I turn abruptly and some little kid is just standing there staring at me with a puzzled look on his face. I check my fly and my nose for any boogers, but no, it is me he or she is looking at. It was the same in the Philippines.I moved into my new apartment today. Once again a major difference from five years ago when the Peace Corps had lined me up with a host family, and I began my training immediately in language and culture. Here I was responsible for finding my own flat, negotiating most of the terms, and then going to the markets to furnish what didn’t come with the flat like dishes, pots and pans, some sheets and other linens, groceries, some lamps to light up the dark areas of the flat. At the time of this writing I have purchased some of those things but not all. Tomorrow and Saturday will be the major excursions into the market place.

In these little notes from the front I am not sure if I should tell you more about public life or history or just some more of my daily screw ups. I have plenty of the latter but one of the beauties of being in my age group is that I am often forgiven most anything. The fact that I am still sitting up and drawing breath is a marvel unto itself. But to be fair, I am constantly aware of those of you out there who do truly have longevity at bay and are enjoying life so well. Henrietta and Aunt Ann jump to my mind. Or, I will continue to just throw in whatever I happen to be thinking about at the moment and like the Chinese meals that are in such abundance here because of their low cost, you will get a lot of flavors and tastes. Use your chopsticks to stir it around and pull out what looks or feels good. Throw the rest on the floor like the Cambodian airborne guys I see in the restaurants here. I am sure that the one main necessary in a life full of poverty and hardship is having a military that one can be proud of. Or even having one you’re not very proud of.

Well, that is it for the time being. I am going to make my bed and read a little before I retire in my brand new flat. Life is very good for your little wandering pilgrim as I hope very earnestly it is for you.

Kampong Speu

I am currently in Kampong Speu just to the west of Phnom Penh. I am literally a pilgrim without the benefit of language skills.We arrived here on Sunday to attend a three-day workshop on accelerated curriculum, for which I presume I have some responsibility since the Special education office is hosting this workshop along with the Provincial office of education.

Anyway back to my interesting dilemma, I am here in a strange town, don’t know the language and I find myself at a restaurant with my four compadres, and eight other guys whose English is as good as my Khmer. We are all drinking, me beer, them some wine that is the national treasure of Cambodia and is guaranteed to make you strong physically and mentally. It says so on the label. We are eating very well and I am making do with my chopsticks. The fish is fabulous and the twenty or so other dishes are also good. I don’t think there was any dessert unless you count the Chinese dessert (toothpicks).

For the sophisticated sensibilities of my friends who take an active interest in what I do and don’t do, I will skip the marriage vows and the karaoke struggles afterward except to say that while I don’t sing, I don’t get married in a blink either.

Today was the first day of the conference and to say that I was lost is to heap praise upon my navigational skills. Evidently workshops and conferences are not held in English or Swedish or even Norwegian no matter who sponsors them. I was introduced and from that point on I didn’t understand a word. Another Caucasian (European) came in about ten minutes after the beginning and I was introduced to him. His name was Serge and he had spent some time (5 or 6 years) in Cambodia as well as in Viet Nam and he currently resides in Madagascar with his wife and family. He is French and as luck would have it one of my companions from the Special Ed office speaks fluent French and Cambodian but no English. This guy speaks English and French. So between the three-way hook up, I was able to make quite a bit of sense of the morning and afternoon session. He is leaving in the morning and I am on my own. Even worse, my brother and bosom companion who loves me like his father and who speaks a modicum of English is leaving in the morning for Phnom Penh. I am desolate. From here is anyone’s guess.

Rainy season

It is pouring rain as I write – not an uncommon experience in Cambodia during these six months of wet weather. It is expected to last for about an hour or two and during that time, the streets in Phnom Penh will be flooded for the most part. Some streets will have water up to an adult person’s knees. When the rain stops however, the streets empty and very soon all is back to normal. Phnom Penh does not seem to get as much water or rain as the other provinces do. The various mountain ranges account for that. There are two of them closeby: the Elephant mountain range in the far southwest and the Cardomon mountain range in the west just above the Elephant range. Each of these two ranges protects Phnom Penh during the rainy season to some degree. In the dry season – the other six months –it is just basically hot everywhere.Tomorrow morning I leave for my first trip out to the provinces. I will take a bus to Kampong Speu, which is the next province over from Phnom Penh. I am traveling with another fellow from my department. His English is not very good and my Khmer is non-existent except for numbers, Good morning, afternoon and evening which is different from what they use, and a few other minor words. This should be a great adventure, three days speaking in numbers and salutations.

This note will focus on one of the stranger sights I have ever witnessed. When I first arrived in PP (Phnom Penh), Liz Webber my program officer mentioned that I might be interested in going to the Olympic Stadium around 5:00 sometime. That was as much as she shared in the suggestion because she didn’t want to say too much. Based on this cryptic description I was very interested but it took some two weeks before I could get over there. When I arrived it looked like any other big stadium with the exception that there were a lot of people around, most of whom were playing soccer (football) on the dirt outside of the building. There were vendors in several different places and I made my way into the stadium after buying a coke for $1.

Have I mentioned how American dollars are used for everything here? The Riel is the Cambodian currency and is worth $1 = 4000 riel. It is used for everything that is cheap or under a dollar. When the price gets above a dollar U.S. currency is used. The entire country operates on this system.

Anyway, back to the stadium. Once inside I was immediately impressed by the size. It is truly an Olympic sized stadium and the scoreboard looks as though it could be used for American football games with lighting and labeling for downs, lines that the ball is on, etc. The notable image is however, the number of people inside. There must have been at least a thousand, most of whom were on the top stand of the seats. The space up there is much wider than the seating area, 12 to 15 feet. I was seated on one side of the stadium looking across at the main sections. It was simply continuous action as there were different groups all engaged in dancing. It appeared as though there were twenty different “dancercise” classes going on with huge speakers separating the groups. In addition to all of these people engaged in dancing there were hundreds more just walking around the infield or on the steps of the stadium. Several had their dogs with them and the dogs would just trot along with their owners. I also saw several mothers who had their small children with them and it felt like a family park.

I finally made my way over to the other side and went up to the top. Here there were more vendors and in one area, which was like a central receiving or entrance/exit place of the building, there were Tae Kwan Do classes. These kickboxing classes covered all ages and were very impressive. Training seemed to consist of matches with the referee also serving as an instructor. He would occasionally stop the action and show one or both contestants how something should be done. Finally I had absorbed all I could for the time and left. I definitely will return but I don’t think I will enroll in any of the classes. I don’t think they have memberships; it looks as though one just shows up and joins in.

I hope those of you who are looking for more cultural and sophisticated descriptions will be patient with me. Right now I don’t believe I know enough about the sect of Buddhism they practice here to describe it. I also have not seen enough of the Wats (temples) to describe them or explain them in any detail. I plan on saving them for a future note.

It is not all paradise

What follows is another in the series of notes that can be construed as my efforts to make some sense of what is essentially a lot of contradictions. The fact that the same contradictions exist in our own culture only serves to remind me how much alike we are the world over and that we need to travel or experience other peoples and cultures to understand our own better. I will try to share with you some of the observations I have made of the curious, the impressive and the not so admirable. In this particular note I will share some of the horrific as well with the caution that it will not be a standard of my notes. The only reason I am including it inthis one is because it is such an integral part of this countries recent history. The rest of the note will be the traditional travelogue without pictures or film (until later in my sojourn) and will definitely be more upbeat.Yesterday, on “Bastille Day” I thought it would be appropriate to visit Toul Sleng, the former high school that was transformed into a torture center and detention jail by the Khmer Rouge during the years1976 to 1979. During that time somewhere around 12000to 15000 Cambodians were processed and about 15 to 17survived. I don’t know how. It was designed and operated to be an arm of the angkar (organization),which was what the Khmer Rouge called itself. There was no other name used, no individuals named, no other formal government listed. Pol Pot was not mentioned until later but he ran the whole show with the assistance of a few others. His wife was been described as having gone insane but not him, but I can’t believe that anyone who feared “enemies” as much he did, was anything less than totally crazy. And I mean that in the most clinical of terms.

My visit to the prison was made in the late morning on Saturday, July 14th, “Bastille Day” as I mentioned earlier. It was cloudy and looked like rain but thisis the rainy season and it looks like rain every day. I arrived at the front gate and saw two or three beggars, guys with missing limbs and prosthetic devices, holding out their caps and pleading for donations. This is not too common a sight in Phnom Penh or maybe I am just getting more used to it and can ignore it better. I entered the front yard and was impressed by ordinary everything looked. It had been a high school, a big high school built be the French several decades ago. It covered many acres andhad three main large buildings. Each building was three stories and had included 30 to 40 classrooms in each. My figures are approximate. There was a large central courtyard with paths like a campus and benches and some exercise equipment like chin-up bars and low stretching stations for what were probably physical education classes. All of the buildings are white and rather tawdry now since the museum people apparently want to present a less than attractive image and also to save money. It is called a Genocide Museum although these were Cambodians who were killing Cambodians. Maybe it was a suicide effort.

It is definitely a low-keyed operation. A guide was offered but was no doubt, an entrepreneur who is self-employed and not a member of the museum staff. I turned the offer down ad told the ticket seller that I might take one on my next visit but this time I just wanted to look around on my own. There is no system to follow not signs saying “Start here” or Arrows pointing right or left. It is a lot like the traffic on the streets, just go where you want to go. I went one building and read from a brochure I was given when I paid my $2 admission that the Khmer Rouge had cut holes in the walls to allow access from room to room. The first floors were primarily interrogation and torture cells and the upstairs were holding cells. Most of the rooms on the first floor had a single iron bed in them with an ammunition box and some shackles on the bed. I don’t know why the ammunition boxes were so common; maybe they just had a lot of them and they used them for food rations or body waste since there were no toilets or other conveniences. From the first few rooms I wandered about, occasionally there would be a large photo or drawing on the wall. The drawings were child like but showed a prisoner in a stage of torture or confinement. The photographs were badly done and the lighting made the images difficult to see. When you got close or studied it further it would show a person manacled to a bed or the floor with terrible wounds on its body. I have depersonalized the pronouns because in the pictures it is impossible to tell if the body is male or female. Children were not immune from these punishments either.

The focus was to obtain confessions about how the prisoner had conspired with the CIA or the Vietnamese to challenge the government (once again, no names just the leaders). You were guided in your confession by very strict rules:
1. You must answer directly my questions. Do not turn them away.
2. Do not try to hide the facts by making pretexts of this and that. You are strictly prohibited to contest me.
3. Do not be a fool for you are a chap who dares to thwart the revolution.
4. You must immediately answer my questions without wasting time to reflect.
5. Do not tell me either about your immoralities or the revolution.
6. While getting lashes or electrification, you must not cry at all.
7. Do nothing. Sit still and wait for my orders. If there is no order, keep quiet. When I ask you do to do something You must do it right away without protesting.
8. Do not make protests about Kampuchea Krom (an area of Viet Nam where Cambodians had lived) to hide your jaw of traitor.
9. If you do not follow all the above rules, you will get many lashes of electric wire.
10. If you disobey any point of my regulations you shall get either ten lashes or five shocks of electric discharge.

These rules were posted and on large signs in Khmer. For the benefit of visitors, translations in French and English were provided. The entire operation was done with Teutonic efficiency. You would think that the Nazis had trained the guards and administrators. Photographs of every prisoner were taken and a list of the charges made. Clothes were collected and kept in piles. Photographs of the guards, the cadre, were made. Hundreds of these photos were posted in display cases in many of the other cells around the buildings. A display case of the torture weapons was featured. Perhaps the most amazing display was the bones and skulls of the victims.

I think I have given you enough details for this segment of my trip. It was discouraging and disheartening. I never felt any communion with the souls or spirits of the victims and I confess to having confusion about our (America’s) role in all of this. To describe these actions as criminal or bestial doesn’t begin to describe what happened. The pictures are forbidding; all of these prisoners looking straight at the camera, with wide-open eyes. I have no idea what they were seeing or what they were thinking. The pictures are of men, women and children. Young pre-teen children. Many of the guards were children, young pre-teen children.

I will end now, and promise that there will be no more missives like this one. I will tell you about the bumper-car traffic and my vow never to ride a bicycle or drive anything in this city. I will share some thoughts on food and how varied and plentiful and cheap it is. But, I will never go back to this museum and I don’t think I will ever be able to forget the impact it made on me or the questions about basic humanity it raised in me.