Trade Unions and NGOs

The Phnom Penh Post reports that the Kingdom (Cambodia to you) has passed its first laws on trade unions. It seems that big manufacturing is a new thing to Cambodia, but I might be wrong about that. I think garment manufacturing is the main big industry.

The aim of the law is to set out the restrictions on the rights of workers to organise. Unions have to register and receive certification from the Labour Ministry, on top of this they have to provide all financial reports. The legislation also outlaws "illegal strikes". According to Rong Chung, the union leader (don't ask me what that means) "the freedom of the unions will be ended". There was a wave of strikes in September based on the garment industry which centered on the call for higher wages.

This is all very strange because I had not noticed that Cambodia had problems with workers earning too much or having too many rights.

Here is a pie graph of the distribution of international NGOs in Cambodia.

Now for the poke with a sharp stick
Meanwhile, the Non-government Organisations (NGOs) are everywhere. The internet tells me that there are over 200 international NGOs and then hundreds more local NGOs. There are do-gooder westerners (yes, including me) running around providing every manner of social welfare. You just can't move without bumping into another charity, or organisation when working in Cambodia. I do not know if it is the world's most aid dependant country, but there is a huge international wave of religious or soft core social welfare organisations.

Meanwhile, the Cambodian government officials line their pockets. The Ministers for Education own private universities and schools, the top health administrators own clinics and hospitals, the graft and corruption starts at the top and goes all the way to the bottom. At the bottom you have people paying medics to treat dying children but the medics are employed to treat them anyway. You have people paying teachers for private coaching in order to pass the test, but the teachers are paid to teach them anyway. Often the low level teachers and medics are on a beneath subsistence wage, so they have to make a living somehow.

Few NGOs want to support radical causes or workers' rights, even at the most basic level. It is not as nice as saving orphans. There is a certain apolitical naivety amongst the NGOs, and only the party poopers bring a hard core political discussion to the dinner table. All good people, doing their little bit in woeful circumstances; so asking the hard questions is no fun.

I have been happy with my voluntourism. To be honest, I have had a great time, seen and done things that I would never have experienced. (That is about it though I think.) Others think differently about it; so be it, pass the bread.

Here I must say that I am greatly indebted to Su B from Battambang. We had the pleasure of really challenging conversation and more than a few good laughs. Just when I thought I could not make sense of anything much, she literally walked past my window at the teachers' college and later helped me at least confirm some deducations and questions.

The error of my ways

It is our last day and we are ready to come home.

I have gone back through the blog and tried to fix up the typos, spelling mistakes and punctuation errors. I know some of you have been horrified to find errors. Well, my policy is "Publish and Be Damned" it is only a blog. Of course, I would like to get it right, but some days I only have limited time and access. I decided a while ago not to let it stop me. I thought about writing a draft, checking it, then publishing later, but that would create a delay. I like to get it down and out while it is still fresh. Lots of people have said they feel they are on the trip with me. I love that, even if it is only a little bit true. If I stopped and refined too much, I would simply write less.

When I get paranoid about it, I remind myself of the maxims of communication: "audience and purpose". My audience is my family and friends, my purpose is to create a record, to share it all with you, to entertain, to try to capture a few salient observations, to give a slice of life.

In Khmer: I put my hands together in prayer in front of my face, then lower my hands to my chin, bowing my head as the hands descend. This is the Cambodian greeting for hello, good bye, thank you, sorry, regards and more.

In English (Australian idiom): Build a bridge.

Banana flower salad

You have all been waiting for it, I have been holding out. "But what about the food?", you ask. The overarching comment is that in three weeks, eating out for breakfast, lunch and tea, we have hardly put a foot wrong. If you want a point of comparison, go to your atlas. It is less spicy and diverse that Thai food and more simple than Vietnamese food. It is very mild, most dishes have a little sugar, sometimes more than a little, even the peanuts that come with beer have sugar on the top.

At a Khmer style street cafe you will get a main course for $1 - $2.
At a more western style place, you will pay $4-6. (Rip off)

Breakfast: It is just not a Cambodian thing in the way that we know it. Nor do they do breakfast pho like the Vietnamese, but we had some wonderful omelettes. Our advice: eat some fruit and juice, then maybe an egg or a French style baguette.

Snacks: At the school we were given a Cambodian snack every day. All good. Little trays of noodles with pickled vegetables, little parcels of rice wrapped in banana leaves, and special Battambang sticky rice.
Rice paper rolls and spring rolls are much like the Vietnamese style.
In Battambang the preferred snack is sun-dried spiced snails. They looked a bit of a worry and the television was reporting that many children were getting sick from them.
Little grilled song birds, probably just sparrows were also a popular snack. Next time I come I will try them, I promise.

Main courses
Amok is the national dish. It is a mildly spiced coconut curry. My favourite was served in a scooped out green coconut. It was rich and luxurious.
Lok lak is a very popular disk. It is a meat dish with some noodles and most important of all a runny fried egg on the top.
Soups: Tom Kar is lovely but my favourite was the preserved lime and chicken soup. It was magical and restorative.
Salads: The rule of thumb for the safe traveller is to avoid the salads, but that would be missing out. We had green mango salad and banana flower salad. Both of these were just lovely, and so far we are still standing.

French Food
We had one reasonable but quite expensive meal.
We had one terrible, expensive meal.

Drinks
Gen is transported back to her childhood in Goa, every time they serve her a green coconut. They take off the top, she drinks the juice, then scoops out the young soft coconut flesh. She is back home in India.
Wine: They sell it, it is terribly expensive so we have not bothered.
Beer: At 50cents for a pot of Angkor beer, we have been spoilt.
Cocktails: The perfect mojito for $1. A bottle of Havana Club rum for $8. It is as cheap as it gets, we have not missed the opportunity.
Water: Unless you want to grow a colony of amoeba in your gut; water has to be bottled, always bottled even when you clean your teeth. Those who live here and have the means filter it, then boil it. (Apparently there is a whole group of Ivanhoe Grammar students in Cambodia at the moment who have all be infected with amoebic dysentery.)

Cooking school
We did it, it was fun. I could have got the recipes from the internet, and done just as well, but we did it as a group, had an interesting guy teaching us. We declared it "another great day in Cambodia".

Stirring up the Froth

Once upon a time
A long time ago, the world was made of milk. The gods and the demons were fighting about who would get the elixir of life. They fought for a thousand years to no avail. Then they decided to work together and use a snake as a rope to stir up the milk to become froth. After another thousand years they stirred up a lot of milk froth and out of it the celestial dancers known as apsaras emerged smiling and dancing. They were all very pleased.

And then
Now, Cambodia is made of red dust. The poor working people and the corrupt leaders are fighting. They have been fighting for a long time. Working together has not been successful at all because the corrupt rich folks insist on driving around in their late model cars with no number plates. They are using the tuk-tuk drivers to stir up a lot of red dust and out of it one completely allergic hay-fever ridden westerner known as Greta has emerged sneezing and coughing. They are all very disappointed.

We have moved from our indulgent hotel, to a really lovely hotel. It is brand, spanking new and the manager did his training at the Sofitel. They are keen for business, so it is ridiculously cheap; for westerners that is.

Back to the late model cars without number plates
They belong to the corrupt government officials. They drive around and do what they like. This includes running people over, knocking people off their motor bikes, and plenty worse than that. When they knock someone off their bike they simply drive away. No stopping to check for a pulse here. This was told to me, then on the last day in Battambang, I was standing outside The Asia Hotel chatting to some Finnish tourists and it happened. Luckily, the injured person lived to keep his mouth shut about the tale. The thing to remember in this story is that whole families including tiny babies carried in slings travel on motor bikes. I hate to think what happens when they get knocked off.

I thought I was used to the sight of families on motor bikes until I saw a man riding a motor bike with one hand, his other hand wrapped around a tiny baby maybe 3 - 4 months old sitting in front of him. Watch out for the black late model cars I thought. But what choices does he have?

Shortage and abundance

Here is your homework. Sort the following list into two groups. One list should be the things that Cambodia has a shortage of, the other the things that Cambodia has an abundance of.

• Limbs both real and prosthetic
• plastic bags
• tuk-tuks
• female tuk-tuk drivers
• loud speakers
• plastic bananas
• water
• clean water
• meaningful work
• hammocks
• corruption
• late model black Toyota Lexus cars with no number plates
• moisturiser without a "whitening" agent
• signs on the road advertising the Cambodian People's Party
• imitation Louis Vuitton handbags
• Korean owned conglomerate businesses
• mental illness

There is an explanation for each of these, some of the ideas you can work out for yourself, others are quite sinister.

Today was a trip out to the enormous lake in the middle of Cambodia, known as Tongle Sap, through terribly poor villages, up a river and out to the lake to visit the floating village. I loved the boat houses with duck and geese farms, the floating basketball court and the floating battery recharging shop. The floating school looked nice and the floating Catholic Churches were a curious inclusion. Best of all was the floating pig farm and the floating crematoria. I could not make it up if I tried.

The Khmer Lexicon

I will teach you some Khmer language and culture. The literal translations are below.
Breakfast = Eat Rice Morning
Lunch = Eat Rice Sun Above
Dinner = Eat Rice Sunset
Kitchen = Rice Cook House

You get the idea. It is all about the rice. The poverty is in the language.
Our friend Barbara has decided to go with this idea and add to the lexis. She has not lucked out in the hotel department as Gen and I have. Her mattress is hard, her pillow is flat and her towel is threadbare. Here is Barb's contribution to the Khmer/English dictionary.
Towel = Strain Rice Device

We are staying at Le Meridian and have been forced to take a suite, even though we booked a twin. I guess I will just have to put up with it. Gen's husband gave us his hotel loyalty points and we have been upgraded. How I will thank him, I do not know. Perhaps I will arrange for some apsaras to come and dance for him, one showing her teeth. I feel as though I have been upgraded to another planet. We had our first night away from all street noise, and are both much restored. Later there will be photographs to prove that for a few days at least, I lived the life.

What wat?

We have recovered from our culture shock and started to enjoy ourselves. Our friends leave tomorrow morning so we spent the day with them going to the temples. To be precise, we spent the day going to the world's biggest temple city complex. These people just did not know when to stop with the temples. I will finish this entry when I can get WIFI. Right now I am on the Kindle.

Hurrah for free WiFi!

"Angkor" means "city", "Wat" means "temple", "Thom" means "big". The adjective comes after the noun. So, we went to Angkor Wat, (City Temple) and the Angkor Thom, (Big Temple). We also went to the Terrace of the Leper King, the Terrace of the Elephants and Bayon. (So far the tip of the iceberg.)

They mixed Hinduism and Buddhism together and came up with their own blend. The whole 40 square kilometre complex of temples is built to honour gods, animals, workers and more especially young, topless women performing a sexually arousing and elegant dance. (To my reckoning this is not terribly different to some aspects of western culture today, but only when the girls have had a few drinks). The apsara, (dancing girls) and all very nubile and fertile, they each have a slightly different pose or hairstyle, or posture. (They all have the same breasts though.) They are frozen in time, smiling for the king in bas relief carving. Some of them, but only the special ones, are showing their teeth. I tried to have a beauty pageant and pick my favourite but after walking about five steps I passed about a thousand of them and I could not concentrate any more. Now, I can't do the maths, but I want someone to calculate how many apsara there are here. In 5 steps I passed inestimable thousands x 40 square kilometres = Ta Prohm knows how many.

On top of this there are young Cambodian women wearing a few litres of makeup and half a kilo of fake eyelashes and hair extensions, and metres of highly beaded polyester. They spend their time standing around the temples asking for a dollar to have their photograph taken with a tourists. (These modern apsaras do not show their breasts.) Then, there are the bars with apsara shows in the evening. I might report on that later, but then again, I might not.

Processing

Today we were so busy that I have not had time to sit and write. We started at 6pm and it is now 9.30pm. We are busy, but that is not the problem, there is just so much to process. I run all my ideas past my Cambodian darling friend Colap. She helps me process what I am seeing. She is shoulder height with a little voice and a demure manner. But don't be deceived. She is a giant. She is faster than I am and believe it or not, way more asinine. Her gentle manner and small stature is a cover for a powerhouse of a human being. The last thing I did in Battambang was stand in her hotel room and listen to her rave and lecture about all sorts of things.

We are now in Siem Reap suffering from culture shock. One man in our group warned us, but it is far worse than I imagined. I feel very much like I did when we flew from Havana to Cancun. Yuk! Siem Reap is a tourist Mecca. There are hundreds of 5 star hotels lined up on the airport road, lights, shops, Irish pubs, Indian cafes, spruikers standing on the street showing you menus, and every tourist in the world is walking the streets, "Pub Street" to be specific. We are in sensory overload and cannot think for input.

"Kidnapped" by Greta Jean Carusoson

I got kidnapped!
The white slave trade is alive and well it seems. A trap was laid, I was lured in, I was kidnapped and drugged by a large gang of Cambodians. I talked my way out of it.
Okay, you know me well enough to know that while my initial claim is not a lie, it is not the real picture.
A trap was laid: A brand new service station opened up next to my hotel AND it has a cappuccino machine.
I was lured in: There was no one at the cashier's desk, and no one to be seen, but a great deal of noise coming from out the back.
I was kidnapped: All the friends, family and associates of the owner of the petrol station were having a party. They were sitting on bamboo mats on the concrete floor of the car wash out the back. Food and drink was spread out, everyone was happy. As soon as they saw me with my Diet Coke and 70 cents in hand they surrounded me. A special place on the ground was made for me, a place was cleared and food was served. I was gently but firmly guided to my spot and told I was their special guest. They would be terribly offended if I did not eat and drink. Most spoke really good English. A whole bunch of them work at the ANZ bank. The were all bright, educated, funny, sophisticated and charming.
and drugged: They insisted that I drink a beer.
I talked my way out of it: We laughed and joked, the young women made fun of the young men, we played guessing games. They they told me all sorts of interesting things about their lives, Cambodia and what they think of current issues. They seemed much more switched on than the teachers I am working with. They probably earn four times as much as well. Teachers get such low wages that they just cannot attract many clever people into the profession. I was not allowed to go til the party was over. It was the best experience of kidnapping that I have ever had.
Now for the explanation. In Cambodia, it is really important to try to get a white foreigner to come to a party. You do not have to know them, you just want them to come. This is true of weddings and funerals especially, but also of all parties. So, I was the first white foreigner who staggered in and my presence raised the status of the event. (Usually it is the other way around.)

"Hope for Children Centre"
There is a wonderful orphanage in Battambang. It is called the "Hope for Children Centre". It is secure, neat, tidy, clean, well organised, and above board. They have great teachers and a brilliant 26 year old female Cambodian woman running the place. It has the best library in the city and a great variety of toys. They take kids with aids, disabilities, and TB. (Apparently other orphanages in Battambang do not and possibly cannot do this.) But there are a couple of problems. First, it is entirely funded by Australia through AusAid. Second, there are impoverished, desperate children everywhere, and the centre had a limited number of beds. The organisation is well known, so they get a great many donations (which they need) meanwhile other desperate children get very little or nothing. It is a model organisation, but unsustainable and not reproducible.

Here are the bits that you might not want to think about.
The centre is so well resourced and well run, that desperate people may be tempted to drop their children off at the centre. It may well be in the child's best interest to just leave it at the centre whether there are parents or not. The director said that she was trying to set up a program where children could stay in their village, with their community, perhaps cared for by a relative. The are trying to find a way to support extended families who are trying to take care of desperately poor, abandoned or orphaned children. In a terrible way, the center is so well, that you can understand people wanting their children to go there. There is some concern that the very success of the centre means that abandoning a child could turn into a good idea. The staff were certainly aware of the problem and were really thinking about how they proceed.

There is talk that there are organisations that "rescue" children when they would be much better to resource and support the families. There are terrible stories of abuse and neglect, so the impulse to run in and grab a child can be strong. Unfortunately, this leaves the perpetrator and the problem behind in the village. Possibly at times, there is no other way, but when you think about Australia's history of "rescuing/stealing" children and the arguments put forward you can imagine some of the complexities.

There is now such a thing as "orphanage tourism". Lots of people like me come to Cambodia and go on tours dropping off gifts. Unfortunately, they all go to the same orphanages; and there are organised groups of tourists doing the rounds, but always of the same orphanages.

Flip the Coin

Our little slice
The Cambodians we are working with, who hopefully will run the program next year are a mixed bunch. One jumps into new things quickly and is keen to try new ideas, another needs a bit of a push, the third has gone elsewhere; who knows where. We are mentoring them, they are implementing. Every day they pick up an idea and try it the next day. Invariably, their implementation is better than ours, but they do need us for the ideas. We are stuck on the question of whether any of this makes any difference, whether it is passed on, whether we are just building a culture of dependence. It is fingers crossed.

Cambodia has a few national talents. It seems everyone in Cambodia can do these three things: memorising, drawing and singing. These are not things that the are a little bit good at. These are talents far beyond what you would think humanly possible. They give word perfect oral presentations without notes, they recall all the details of every text ( they do not necessarily process the meaning, but they have it word perfect) and the most gorgeous illustrations I have ever seen. Not some Cambodians: ALL Cambodians.

Cambodian poetry is ALWAYS sung or chanted standing up, sometimes as a chorus. Gen and I have been encouraging them. It is the most beautiful thing. Some songs are stirring, most are soothing. I fall into a rapture when they do it. We keep asking for more.

The flip side
In a rural school, the teacher might not show up or might come late. same for the kids. Can you blame them? There are no resources, no pens, paper or floor, sometimes no walls, certainly very few if any books, only a little chalk and an old blackboard, perhaps desks, no electricity, no outside source of knowledge except some families might have a television or radio, almost no support, hole in the ground for a toilet, no art materials, no parents who are literate; just teachers who are as broke and poor as the students. Few people from charity groups go out to the rural schools because it is just so hard, and the rural schools do not want people coming to gawk unless they are going to help.

Just when you thought things could not get worse, we were told today about the conditions of the hospitals. Burned babies left screaming and untreated because no one could pay the doctor, women dying in childbirth is common, the conditions are just so sad.

What a pity!

There are many reasons not to go to school.

• You are sick in the stomach due to chronic infection caused by dirty water.
• You simply cannot get there; the person who usually dinks you on their bike has not ridden by to pick you up.
• The family income of $35 per month has run out.
• You have your period and there is one toilet for girls and one for boys in a school of 700 students.
• You are too hungry.
• You do not have any pens or paper, so there is no point.
• You are the only person available to look after the young children and babies of the extended family.
• You are bruised from the bashing and sexual abuse that you are subject to.
• You have to stay home to help with the rice harvest or you and your family will not eat.

What a pity you are the teacher!

Don't comfort yourself by thinking that I made up any of those reasons above. Every one of the reasons is based on a real incident, and, sorry folks, none of this in uncommon. Of course there are other stories, better stories. I have told some of them and I will tell more of them. But you can't just pick the things that you want to know.

Granted, the comforts of my hotel are obscene and the obscenity is compounded by the fact that I am in one of the world's poorest countries. My rationale is that I just can't function for three weeks without a comfortable bed and the secure knowledge that I will not fall down the stairs. Today in the late afternoon, a whole heap of us absolutely hit the wall of exhaustion. We were reeling with tiredness, and pretty useless to anyone. The pity is that many Cambodians will experience exhaustion; few Cambodians will ever know a soft pillow.

Digesting the information

If you happen to be in Battambang, and you are trying to visit me at the Stung Sanke Hotel, I may not be in my room, then, you can should look for me by the pool. Genevieve's various ailments of middle age go unnoticed and unremarked upon Australia. Likewise, the things that ail me are entirely pedestrian when in the comfort of my own home. But in a third world country, everything gets hard.

Walking: uneven roads, few footpaths make tripping a problem
Shopping: the stifling heat and lack of oxygen at the markets makes concentration on the exchange rate impossible
Breathing: the heat, the humidity and most of all the dust make this a challenge
The stairs: one cafe has ladders on a slight incline, it is a nightmare all the time
Sleeping: the chanting/music starts at about 4 am (I think we are near a crematorium)
Resting: Asian mattresses are not for those who have even slight arthritis or osteoporosis
Crossing the street: the advice is walk straight across do not stop or zig zag, let the traffic go around you
Ordering food: On the menu today "Khmer Soup" was listed four times. The Khmer writing for each one was different, so clearly they were different soups, but there was only one English translation. Fun huh?'
The digestive system: well, you probably don't want to know. Suffice to say that hardly a conversation in our group goes by without the internal machinations of the body being raised as a topic for discussion.

Of course, all these things are part of the fun and we are all loving the place, it is just that we are pretty determined that things should not end in tears.

I am teaching, but are they learning?

Our class of teachers is coming alive and our Cambodian teacher/leaders are really useful. We are putting them to the test, and they are doing very well. It is possible that they have learned one or two useful things.

I am teaching, they are learning!

If you come to Battambang in the future, you will find a great statue erected in my honour. This will surely happen because of the great contribution I have made to this country. With the wonderful assistance of my new Cambodian pal Colap, we have managed to teach a Cambodian cafe owner how to make iced coffee. I supplied the recipe, Colap translated and explained. The cafe owner sent staff running to buy the ingredients. I bet you think this sounds easy but think again.

"Expresso" has little meaning so it had to be "strong coffee"
"Vanilla" has no translation so it had to be "white" or "plain" ice cream

"Milk" means that strange powdered stuff they give you in hotels to add to your tea, so it had to be clear that it was "fresh milk" (which turned out to be UHT milk.)

"Ice" means shaved ice, so it had to be "ice cubes"

The type of glass was an issue, the straw AND long teaspoon were brought.

The communication of proportions was hilarious, we got stuck here until Colap started asking me for percentages.

So, 25% strong sweet coffee, 50% fresh milk, 25% plain ice-cream and a few ice-cubes, served in a tall glass with a straw and a long teaspoon. The end result was a very big tray with each of the items laid out. The little buddy cup of ice-cream was especially cute. I showed him how to put it together and hey presto.

Only later did I discover that Colap had done all the translating and instructing without ever having had or even seen an iced coffee. She declared it her new favourite drink. The cafe owner says that he will put it on the menu.

Climbing Cambodia

We are still in Battambang, but if you want to drop by for a drink, we have moved hotels. We are now staying at the Stung Sangke Hotel which is good because both Genevieve and I have been stung. Me on the foot, and Gen on the face by some nasty little insect. The bite hurts and swells a little, then seems to sort itself out. Perhaps tomorrow we will wake with great sores, but for now we are fine.

We now have a pool, a gym and most important of all an elevator. The exercise of ascending five flights of stairs at the last hotel was doing us good, but the stairs were uneven and winding. The hand rail simply did not work as a means of support and many of us had taken to coming down one step at a time. I am certain that the image of a bunch of middle aged women carrying all sorts of bags and boxes containing teaching materials up and down the stairs made a great image. Indeed our mission of providing entertainment for the locals has well and truly been fulfilled. Most of us had taken to coming down very slowly, one step at a time. We look really stupid but all of us fear coming down the stairs the fast way.

Today was a big trip out to a small ruin from ancient times, a visit to Cambodia's first and only winery, and a visit to see a few bats. The temple ruins were lovely once you reached the top of the mountain. There are hundreds of steps. Tiny Cambodian people make a living by walking along with you and fanning you as you walk. Genevieve was most ably assisted by a girl who claimed to be nine but looked like she was 5. She fanned, carried the water bottle and then, to top it all off massaged Genevieve's legs each time she stopped to catch her breath. She was like a miniature sherpa. There was little more the poor girl could do short of giving Gen a piggy back. I dismissed all offers of assistance because they just made me nervous.

The wine was absolutely awful, sort of like honey made from petrochemicals mixed with cordial and a few grapes. I suppose you have to start somewhere with a new industry, but this was just terrible. The bats might have been interesting if you have not seen bats before. The people living in dust and piles of rubbish upset me, but that is Cambodia, I suppose. Lunch was overpriced, less than ordinary French food. Dinner was underpriced Cambodian chicken and lemon sour soup. The company of the group is wonderful and we seem to spend a good deal of time belly laughing.

"Another great day in Cambodia"

Around town
Our new pal Judy finishes everyday by with the declaration that we have just enjoyed "Another great day in Cambodia." We have not had a bad meal or a negative encounter. Cambodia is yet to get on top of the tourist thing, so there are few people hassling for money, no one following you or pawing at you to sell you something, people give you the correct change and tell you when you have offered them too much money, the streets are safe, the town is quiet. The price of an unrefined tourist economy is that it is hard to get a coffee and the expectation is that we have three hours for lunch, this means mind-bendingly slow service.

If you came to Battambang as a tourist, I imagine that you would be here for a day or two and then leave feeling that it has little to offer. Because we have a mission, we are really happy here. A few things about Battambang that I will not take on are: the piles of raw meat sitting on slabs at the market in the heat of the day, the numerous stalls selling roasted song birds and the fact that women mainly ride side-saddle when they are passengers on a motor bike.

Around the teachers' college
Our three trainees, who hopefully will do our job next year, are just swell. The scally-wag has proved himself a talented orator and natural communicator. We are giving them ideas for the lessons, they are delivering much of the content. We then sum up the teaching idea and they discuss how it could be implemented. This means that the damage from the long list of possible mistakes that we could make is minimised. And, yes, for the smart alecs out there, we have ticked off the full list of possible errors. (See back to January 4.) What our Cambodian teacher trainers are doing is letting us know what mistake we are making when. Adjusting on the spot is hard, usually I think that we just shift to a different mistake, but I think we are getting there.

Everything is NOT okay. Do not do this in Cambodia.


The unknown unknowns. Today I made a mistake that was not even on the list of possible mistakes. I said that one person had done good work and made the hand gesture for okay. It quickly became apparent that this hand gesture does not mean "okay" in Cambodia. In fact, it has quite another connotation. I over-acted great horror and embarrassment when I realised and apologised profusely. Possibly, by the end of the progam, I will have some idea what I am doing. That, of course remains to be seen. One of the lovely ladies, Sue, who has been coming here for more than four years says that she feels that she has less idea every year. The known unknowns.

Here are a few random facts about literacy teaching in Cambodia.

• Our class of experienced teachers worked all morning on one very short text about koalas taken from the grade 3 NAPLAN test. They thought it was appropriate for Year 7.
• They do not know what a paragraph is. The idea of paragraphs is not introduced at all til Year 11/12. The teachers in our class are middle years, so this is beyond them. (Still they have asked for us to explain this new idea more at a later date.)
• Weirdly and inexplicably, they are very good at oral presentations, even though they have NEVER done one or seen one as it is not part of the Cambodian curriculum.
• They can generate a lot of facts about Cambodia, but know precious little about the world.
• There is one book for each year level. But there is often only a teacher copy of the book and no copies for students.
• The teachers do not prepare materials for teaching, they open the book, do the task, deliver the questions and correct errors.

We have much to process. I am really pleased to be absorbed in this.

Shaken not stirred

The Bamboo Railway
Wow, a train made out of bamboo!. It is true. Sounds exciting huh? And, you can all see it coming I am sure, there is a catch. The bamboo railway is not so much a train as a motorised bamboo platform on wheels. Now, some of you will remember the advertisements in the 1970s for weight loss vibration machines. A person stood on the machine and attached the belt around the "problem areas" and the fat was shaken loose. Well, the train experience was about the same as I imagine that to be, with the added pleasure of little thistles whipping you every few metres and the comfort of sitting on broken bamboo slats. Just to make sure the experience is complete, there are great jumps where one piece of track ends and the next starts. So every few metres there is a sharp bone-shaking jolt. Some people were air-bound. Never have I been so happy for my rear-end padding. Genevieve worried that some of her fillings would be shaken loose, others were slightly awakened by the shaking in their nether regions.

The bamboo train takes 11 hours to get from Battambang to Phnom Penh. This is just slightly longer than the amount of time it would take if you walked. Here is the curious thing: people take their motor bikes on the bamboo train. Now, if I had a motor bike and I wanted to get from Phnom Penh to Battambang, I would put on my helmet and spend three hours on the road. There has to be a reason for the carting of one very efficient and cheap means of transport on a very slow and uncomfortable means of transport, I just don't know what it is.

Curiouser and curiouser, the bamboo train track is a single line and the real train, known by the Fat Controller (who in Cambodia is actually probably pretty slim) as "The Big Train" also uses the same line. The Big Train takes 24 hours to do the same trip, hence the popularity of the bamboo train, I suppose. Here is the problem: when one bamboo train meets another coming in the opposite direction, or when it meets The Big Train, they cannot pass. Here is the solution: the platform of the bamboo train is simply lifted up by the driver and the passengers, and the wheels are removed from the tracks. The train is disassembled then re-assembled. This happened.

Mr Magoo and Fearless Fly
My friends are expecting me to report on the latest stupid thing that I did. Since there was an audience of three and they will corroborate, I shall get in first and confess. For the second time in a week, I have dived into a swimming pool with my glasses on. This time instead of a nice little hotel pool, it was a 25 metre public swimming pool, and it was deep. The pool had dark blue tiles, it was late and getting dark. Twenty minutes of duck diving and searching the bottom of the pool and my glasses were back on my face. So, it seems I am indeed a slow learner.

The devil is in the detail

Happy Birthday to Charles from 27 assorted Cambodian teachers, Genevieve, and one mother who is sorry not to be going out to dinner with you.

Education Cambodian style
Below is a list of the principles of Cambodian education, as far as I can tell, based on at least two days experience.

• The better the student the more details they remember. The more details they remember the better the student.
• All questions should be answered in as much detail as possible all the time.
• There is no such thing as synthesising information and discussing the idea, because the information itself is the important thing.
• Penmanship is a matter of national pride.
• The reasons/motivations/or connections between the actions are not important, what is important is the order of the events.
• Everything needs to be a process. A three step process is good. All lesson plans have five steps.

So, they understand things like "Think, Pair, Share" or "read, discuss, write" etc. They cope really well when we enumerate our pedagogy in some sort of systematic way. When we refer back to whatever system we have taught earlier they like it. They like it even more when we revise what we have learnt in terms of the system we just made up. We are learning.

Today, three young Cambodian teachers joined us to work as teacher trainers. We were told that they are Cambodia's best and brightest. One was a bit laid back, they other two were brilliant. We showed them our plan, they understood the worksheets and, in one very brief conversation could see the concepts we were trying to teach. They jumped up and helped. They wrote on the board in Khmer while we were teaching, they helped the translator, they gave us useful feedback. After about an hour, we just handed over to one of them. Not only did he take over our idea, he did it better than we would have. He had the students laughing, reading, writing, talking doing real productive group work, sticking their writing up around the room. It was as if we had slipped into an educational paradise where all the theory works. I had crossed into another dimension; some sort of fantasy teacher training film perhaps.

Off to University
We had lunch with our translator, then went and taught his ESL class at university. His students were bright, funny, open and interesting. They all asked us questions. Here are a few.
1. What sports do Australians like?
2. When is the Australian government going to do something to stop racism?
3. What sort of jobs do people do after university?
4. How did the Australian economy fare in the GFC?
5. What do you think of Battambang?
6. What is your opinion of the Cambodian democracy?

We answered carefully, sometimes just by giving observations. Step lightly, think quickly. (By the way, if any one has an answer to question 2, let me know.)

Same, Same ...but Different

Same,
The opening ceremony was speeches by important people saying important things. The hundreds of Cambodian teachers and us few Aussies had the same look on our face. It spelt "endurance". I have little idea what was literally said because it was in Khmer, but I could write the script because it was a universal language.

Same,
In our class (which was supposed have 20 students and blew up to 27), one middle aged man sat in the front, told all within earshot how important he was, what position he held, who he was in charge of etc. He then proceeded to answer all questions in English even though at least half the people in the room have no English and the class was meant to be conducted in Khmer. He misunderstood every question that we asked, but nevertheless answered at great length. When we asked about how they teach writing, he told us a never-ending story about Cambodian New Year. It involved a very long conversation between two eagles. He was absolutely determined to tell the whole story replete with actions.

Now, for any of you who think that I might be the tough nut and Genevieve the sweet-heart; please note: it was Gen who cut him off. She very politely told him that we only wanted a short answers and our focus was on teaching, not on displaying the knowledge that we may have. Like everywhere in the world, the whole class broke into the sort of slightly submerged laughter that students exhibit when a real show off has been put in his place.

Same,
The teachers, who, like all teachers everywhere when put in the position of being students, behaved a little bit like Year 9s. They took phone calls (this includes the translator), they asked to get out early, they talked among themselves every time they had a chance, they laughed at how stupid I was, and walked out to do go the toilet at will.

...But Different
The whole time the opening ceremony was on, there was Mr Whippy ice-cream truck sound: tinny music being blared out of a loud speaker. Then the whole time we were teaching, we were subject to a recorded speech on a loop accompanied by drumming coming in from the road, where a bunch of teachers' college students stood collecting money for the building of a pagoda.

The students do not read and cannot afford newspapers, books are for the rich, only one student has a computer, three have an email, two have a Facebook. Teaching text is pretty hard when you a have not got text. Some of them have learned English from Australian television and radio. This, it seems is the easiest and cheapest way to learn English.

Out of Phnom Penh

The bus ride out of Phnom Penh to Battambang served as a an educational orientation to Cambodia. We saw thousands of "houses" made of a sheet of corrugated iron, some hessian bags, and some palm fronds. There are small shopfront businesses everywhere. Foundries, mechanics, all sorts of manufacturing, clothing, ornate shrines and lots of food and drink. I have not seen any of the big industrial sites that I saw in Vietnam. Perhaps the giant shoe factories are not to be found in Cambodia.

Battambang, like Phnom Penh is one dusty city. Roads are being built, housing is under construction, everything is a work in progress. This year, according to those who have been before, Cambodia, for the first time, decided to do Christmas. There were gaudy decorations, lights, fake snow, tinsel, a few Santas etc. Apparently, every year there is some new western thing that Cambodia hooks onto.

The Teachers' College

Our teaching room has a wooden platform at the front for the teacher to stand on. It has gaps in it and I plan on entertaining the class by either falling off it or through it. Tell me which one you think would be the most hilarious and I will do it. There are wooden desks for two students to share, two electric lights (but no power point) a very old blackboard, a teacher's desk at the front and decorations. The decorations are quite lovely. They are polystyrene bricks carefully cut into shapes of images, arrows, Khmer writing etc. They are all painted in the favourite colours of Cambodia which are sunflower yellow, lollypop pink, and fresh mint green. It must take ages to put together. Our translator told us that the students at the teachers' college decorate the room at the beginning of the year. While we were there the students at the teachers' college did yard duty; they cleaned all the grounds, the street out the front, picked up dead leaves and out of the dusty gardens.

Now for the interactive part of the blog

Our translator is a university lecturer in ESL. We have implored him to tell us if he thinks what we are teaching is

a) too hard

b) too easy

c) irrelevant

d) impossible for the teachers to implement

e) impossible for the teachers to understand

Now you can vote and tell us what you think it our most likely first error.

No smart alecs who say "all of the above".

I can't really tell you

Today was the museum and history tour. We started early and pretty soon were struck dumb. I wont say too much, because it is something that you have to really want to know about, and be prepared for.

We went to the one jail and torture centre that is a museum; there were hundreds of them. The torture is explained, there are photographs and artefacts. If you want to know more ask me when I get back.

We also went to the most famous of the hundreds of killing fields. It is a memorial park but still organic. The glass tower, so famous in photographs (one floor of clothes, nine floors of human skulls and seven floors of assorted bones) is here. The acres of land around are mass graves. Thousands of people were killed here in the most brutal and barbaric ways. The ground continually coughs up items of clothing that belonged to the people who were executed. Tiny pairs of shorts that only a toddler could have worn, bits of shoes, shirts and unidentifiable stretches of faded fabric litter the ground. There are too many to pick up. So, every month the guards and guides have a day where they go around and collect all the personal items and bones that the earth has offered up. This includes tiny baby teeth, jaw bones and the rest. We walked on pathways made of human remains covered in a thin scraping of dust. There is more, much more, but in the end we just sat in the shade and had a drink.

The one thing that is apparent is the enduring hostility to Vietnam. The defeat of Pol Pot is often explained without any reference to Vietnam at all. According to our guide, the signs, the books, the official history; the Vietnamese did defeat Pol Pot, but only so they could have Cambodia for themselves. I think our guide through the killing fields said more bad things about Vietnam than he did about the Khmer Rouge. The fear of Vietnamese annexation, which was one of the keys to the success of the KR is still palpable. I tried not to worry about it too much, but it is bugging me. I am really glad that I have read a few books about it and that I have some political history under my belt to help me understand it all.

Today is a group dinner, then we travel to Battambang by mini-bus tomorrow.

Phnom Penh

It is a city rebuilt in a hurry with no money after Pol Pot was defeated. Shabby, dirty, poor. It is a city with just a few multi-storey glass-fronted department stores selling lovely colourful clothes for children. Commercial, clean, shiny. It is a city with women in markets with no real face left after a napalm blast, with beggars missing limbs, with teachers who earn $50 per month. And here we are. Four of us went out for lunch it was under $40 dollars including cocktails, delicious food, lovely place. We thought it was cheap. The driver who took us there could never afford to eat there.

Most of this is just true of the third world. But here are some things about Cambodia that may not be true in lots of other places. We did things to make ourselves understand where we are. We ate a tarantula, big black and hairy and in keeping with my blog: DEEP FRIED. It was crunchy and okay. We ate red tree ants. The were little and semi-dissolved in a sauce.

Then we fed some fish. Now pay attention! After we finished eating animals, we let animals eat us. We paid $3 to put our feet in tanks of Angkor fish. In the first tank, the fish were about the size of two large workman's fingers. In the second tank, they were just little fish in a not so big fish pond. What these fish do is nibble at your feet. They only eat the deep skin, it tickles and your feet come out all soft. Disgusting, hilarious, weird.

The evening was happy hour cocktails at the Foreign Correspondants' Club. This is featured in the film The Killing Fields and is the site where war reporters sat and drank and made up stories about the war rather than going out and seeing any of it. You can't really blame them, I suppose, but it was a pretty woeful thing to do.