dusty roads

The dry season is now well and truly underway - at least in our part of the world. The boat trip to the village this time (our third time) was interesting because there was a metre of sandy-coloured leaves at the bottom of the trees by the riverside. It was amazing to see how much the river had gone down in the three nights that we had been away from the village.

This trip into the villages felt more productive somehow. We had a drawing session with all the children. Getting them to draw themselves was a mission in itself. The youngest children, especially, had no concept of what drawing involved and we had to demonstrate for them over and over again. One little boy - the smiley one from the photos - refused to put crayon to paper, even after he watched me draw him and then try to get him to copy it. It wasn’t until I started again and did the drawing literally shape by shape, stopping each time for him to follow what i did, that finally managed to draw himself. His drawing actually turned out much better than mine! The next day we got the kids to frame their drawings with leaves. It was a bit of a shame because that day there were much less kids in the school, as the rice season is coming to an end and they are needed to help in the fields, but the younger children got so into playing collage with the leaves that we ended up getting everyone’s picture framed anyway. That afternoon Vera and I stuck all of the pictures up on the wall and it was lovely to the kids arrive in the morning and crowd around the drawings, laughing and pointing at theirs.

One little boy in the second grade sat all on his own to make the frame for his picture. everyone else was crowded around another table and I was sat in my hammock, playing my ukelele while they drew. The little boy on his own started imitating the ukelele as i played and making up his own songs to go with it, making the whole class laugh. 10 minutes later they all went  out to play on the school decking and as he played football he kicked the ball and caught his foot on a splinter in the decking. the splinter was about 10cm long and an inch thick at the end and went straight through the bottom of his foot and out of the top. It was such a shock to see the boy that had been the life of the classroom in so much pain and all we could do was give him some aspirin and send him away on a motodop. He didn’t show up to school the next day but we’ve been told he’s fine. And that little drama is nothing in comparison to what Sitha, our project manager, was having to deal with at the same time. He was in another village when he visited a family whose 7 year old daughter was very ill with malaria. he drove the family to the hospital in Bunlung straight away. Upon reaching the hospital, however, they were told that it was closed, at 2pm in the afternoon. The one person there wouldn’t contact the doctors on account of it being their time off. after nearly five hours of waiting they finally got the little girl into a hospital bed and on a drip, but by that time the doctors couldn’t do anything and she died that night. We were told all of this when Sitha picked us up from the village. It sort of exploded out of him and his anger was so desperate and hopeless. It made me think about going to the post office the other day and waiting for an hour because the place didn’t open until two and the postman had decided that day not to turn up until half past. As a postman in a culture that works like that obviously isn’t a huge issue, if a little inefficient. But as a doctor using the same work ethic, the effect can be so terrible that I just don’t see how you would ever be able to work like that. There must be a moment when you realise that the system has foundational floors and I don’t understand why no one has any drive to fix them.

Some more positives though. We’ve now decided to work on a project in the two villages, Rock, where me and Vera are, and Kong Nork where Catherine and Ingvill are. We’re going to make puppet shows in each village, with the older kids making the story and directing and the younger ones making the set, the puppets and acting out the story. If all goes to plan we can then invite the kids from the other school to come and see our respective shows, because the villages are only about 4km apart. It will be very hard work though. Vera and I tried to explain the theory of constructing a story to the older kids on our last trip out and just introducing the idea of characters and context was challenge enough. But we’ll keep trying for the next two weeks before we move to another village.

Being so close to the other girls and their village is really nice. Catherine celebrated her birthday the other day and so Vera and I went to Kong Nork to spend the night and have a meal with them on her birthday-eve. We had our usual veg-and-noodles supper but followed it with makeshift rice pudding, made by overcooking rice and adding our synthetic milk and too much sugar to be healthy, which was definitely one of our better ideas!! We were then all woken up at two in the morning by the cow-bell adorned buffalo that were eating around the hut, and the sound of Catherine’s first action as a nineteen-year-old, angrily chasing them all away!

We are now in Hoi An, Vietnam, having a compulsory holiday. We had to leave Cambodia because our tourist visas ran out and we couldn’t get our NGO visas without re-entering the country. So we’ve made a five day trip out of the inconvenience. Hoi An is so colourful and full of Western tourists and we’ve found a cheap hotel with a swimming pool outside and what feels like the best burgers I have ever tasted. We are spending our time wandering the markets and wearing clothes that show our shoulders and doing everything that we would be considered culturally insensitive for doing at ‘home’ that isn’t here. The journey here took nearly fifteen hours but now at least we have a little time to breathe. Here are some photos of our holiday:

the stupidly long journey from the border to Hoi An

getting dropped by the bus in the middle of nowhere by a motorway - c'est la vie

Cathy - when a little girl walked along side her, grabbing her hand and smiling

Vietnamese lampshades

our frog - it was swimming in the outdoor pool with us

bamboo bike, made in a workshop of handmade gifts that employs the "differently abled"

the first few weeks in pictures

A stop on the way to Bunlung from Phnom Penh

our house

The view from the house

The Atlantic College Girls - Vera, Catherine, Jess, Ingvill

Our creepy three-legged gecko

Vera and me before our first trip to the village

Our boat trip out to the village for the first time

the joys of hammock-hanging

the un-camera-shy boy and the beetle on a string

he's always smiling

Some of the kids had never been photographed before, and love it!

boys staying behind after our drawing class

down time

COCONUT WATER!!!

In the back of the 4x4 in the sunshine...

...and 10 minutes later in the pouring rain

ants and bigger things: a rant

Three nights in the village of Rock, half an hour’s boat ride from the nearest road, seemed much less torturous than was anticipated. I did have a close encounter with a scorpion for the first time, and the ants were everywhere; I don’t think I’ve ever hated an animal as much as I hate ants now!! But aside from that the trip was comfortable, the hammocks proving to be awkward but not, after some experimentation, uncomfortable, and the instant noodle lunches being a happy reminder of Atlantic College day-room evenings. 

The teaching was more challenging than Vera and I expected. It is difficult to communicate enthusiasm through a translator, especially a high-status, shy, Cambodian man who is not used people being overly-emotional to any degree. Also the presence of a large group of teenage boys who feel and act much cooler than they look to everyone else was a little disconcerting. A bigger issue was that of time-keeping. We had been warned before arriving that the time-keeping of the villagers would be less than perfect. However, what made me angry for the first time since arriving in Cambodia was that at 6:50 am, when we approached the front of the school, there were already children waiting, and by 7:05, at least 60 so-called incapable-timekeepers between around 4 and 15 years old had gathered, but there were no teachers there to teach them. We resorted to playing some simple clapping and imitation games until 7:45 when one of the three expected teachers arrived, but he had no key to unlock the school, so lessons couldn’t start until a key and another teacher were finally found at 9am. By that time the only lesson time Vera and I were meant with the kids that day was over. Chris explained later that the kids live very close to the school, whereas the teachers live much further away. So What? The teachers were late every one of the three mornings that we taught in the school. Part of me feels cheated. It’s not enough to erect a building in a village and call it a school if the basic structure is faulty. But then, I never thought it would be as easy as walking in and playing games and then leaving again, I was just under the impression that the foundations already laid were stronger than they really are.

They have a game, the little boys, and it just so happens to be one of the most disturbing childhood games I have ever encountered. The boys climb trees to find large beetles, which they then tie string to. If they swing the beetles through the air then it causes them to fly, so that the boys can watch and hold them as they fly around their heads. The climax of the game occurs when one boy loses concentration and the beetle makes an escape, with the string trailing through the air behind it. At this point, all of the children rush, squealing, to lean over the balcony of the school, pointing and laughing as the beetle’s ‘owner’ reaches over to recapture the toy, often successfully. This continues until the beetle is too battered or hungry to fly anymore.

In the evenings, before sundown, the kids would return to play with Vera and me. They enjoyed circle games a lot, and, on the second night even sat and clapped and ‘lah’ed along to ‘I’m Yours’ as we attempted to play the ukelele and remember all the words.
Also, frisbee with a bin lid was a huge success and we were both super impressed by the ability of one 6 year old boy who could throw the frisbee with two different techniques and with better accuracy after five minutes than many AC boys had after the whole IB!!

I think the biggest lesson I learned during this first placement was simply how much more the kids already have and know than I naively expected. We were both so happily surprised by the natural ability of many of the children, to sing, to do sports, to learn in general. And, thrilled as I am to be back to the lumpy mattress and bucket-bath that is home, I feel like there is now potential for Vera, me and the children to have so much fun. Even with the ants!