Reflections:

My stint at LSCW is now over. No longer am I one of the temporary volunteers who are opting to try something different and hoping to be useful; I have risen to the rank of expat, a resident of Phnom Penh. Apparently this is a step-up the social ladder.

Much of my time over the last 7 months has been spent fluctuating between observation and reflection. Yet I am still having difficulty processing the impact I have had on my corner of Cambodia or its impact on me.

Lack of time has meant that I have not been able to send my reasonably regular postcards into the ether. So I have not mentioned my trip to the commercial sex worker villages in Thailand, my weekend away on Kep and Rabbit Island, my invitation to jump aboard a moto with a friendly Khmer guy and his gun, or my dinner with a nobel peace prize winner.

Let's get me out of the way first. I do not think I have changed, this whole experience has simply confirmed what I knew about myself and offered a clarity about my personality traits, both good and bad which is comforting. Oh apart from one thing, I am now relatively comfortable on the back of a moto.

Cambodia itself is too hot, too unhealthy, too poor, too unbearably sad and too full of nasty stripy legged insects. However, it is also unique, full of people who's pasts are blighted and who's futures are so uncertain, yet who remain upbeat in the face of more daily challenges than most people could ever imagine confronting.

At times Phnom Penh feels full of people who rant. They rant about poverty, about how best to deal with beggars, or whether the NGOS and UN should just leave. I can sympathise with this latter view. Having worked for an exclusively Khmer NGO, I absolutely support its value, but I am less certain about the value of a non-Khmer NGO where handsome salaries are paid and perks which way out-strip any need you could have, when their Khmer counterparts are just making ends meet.

Then again, if the natural human disposition is not to downgrade your life, then perhaps the only real way to offer help and entice western aid is to offer first-world dwellers a lifestyle which will allow them to tolerate this difficult environment. After all, Cambodians, typically peaceful, honest and good, resort to acid attacks in the face of their own individual adversity.

I think it's in France that if you watch someone drown you have committed an offence by virtue of your lack of action. How does this apply to developing countries? Is it right to just watch, analyse and do nothing, or better to sacrifice your own comfortable existence to offer some meagre support. Should we just leave the Cambodians to their own devices, or more positively phrased, trust them to be able to resolve their own troubles and sustain their own existence in a way that is in sync with an Asian as opposed to a first-world/western mindset? Is it all doom and gloom?

Unusually I haven't reached a decision about any of these questions. There are so many perspectives and theories to consider which even if absorbed now, would probably need to be reviewed tomorrow, because Cambodia is a changing country. What is certain however is that in the midst of the poverty there is a wealth of hugely interesting people both local and global trying to make the best of things...and in doing so having a lot of fun in a city where the laws stretch like elastic and the door to the city is constantly revolving letting voyeurs, tourists, entrepreneurs and aid workers in and out.

I am now on facebook and regularly upload my pictures for consumption by those interested in Cambodia or me. Take a look if you are bored or interested in coming to the Penh.

24 November 2009 - Views from the river

With the rainy season now behind us and Bon Om Thong archived to the memory banks, it was time to take to the water again this time on a second boat trip. I don't do too many things more than once but I did make an exception on this occasion.

Becky, one of our newer volunteers, and housemates, works for an organisation that upskills girls who have somehow managed to claw themselves out of abusive circumstances, whilst juggling a smile, adolescence (hard at the best of times), and a poor or non-existent extended family. Any adjective I might chose to describe them seems a bit cliched, as words like "amazing" and "fantastic" are bandied around like the f-word and images of graphic war-zone scenes - they used to have impact but now have been dulled by the frequency of their use.

These girls are inspiring in terms of their resolve and strength and yet again I am reminded of just how lucky we are.

So I really should just get a grip when I sprain my toe. I thwacked it against a piece of Cambodian concrete, Cambodian because it was sitting, for no reason apparent to me, in the middle of my path, waiting to be walked into by an unsuspecting barang (it had to be, Cambodians don't walk). The freedom of wearing flip flops unfortunately carries with it the perils of stepping on something you shouldn't. So, I now have a purple toe that won't bend. Nara one of my tuk-tuk drivers recommended amputation at the knee. This is Cambodian humour. Thank you Nara, for the laugh, it was much much cheaper than SOS.

I have regarded sunset on the river as the Cambodian version of the Loch Ness Monster, an imaginary creature that tourists look for but fail to capture on film. So it came as a pleasant surprise to be on the river when the sky morphed from the bland to the more spectacular.

So with a pink and orange set, some of the Khmer girls performed their aspara dancing on the top deck to the sounds of booming house music, whilst others took multiple pictures with their mobile phones.

The trip also showed us the new houses of many of those evicted from Phnom Penh's development land which has been seized in a sort of unorthodox compulsory purchase order way, forcing them to relocate. Their new abodes are a series of huts which just about cover their need for shelter. Perched incongruously behind them is a blue church and looking to our right as we drove up Riverside to Chow and Metro (Cambodia is after all a bar culture!), I got a new slant on the city's architecture: the yellow and gold classic Khmer architecture overlaid with something possibly international or new-style Khmer. The juxtaposition of all of these styles makes Cambodia very much a work in progress.

20 November 2009 - Real Cambodia

Cambodia has 23 provinces, one of which is Prey Veng, lying to the East of Phnom Penh. It is one of the three poorest provinces in Cambodia. Desi and Alison (one of the newest volunteers and an occupational therapist by profession) are now working there for VI. Coincidentally, I am involved in a monitoring and evaluation project which took me there last week.

I am very glad of the opportunity to see what some people refer to as "real Cambodia", a Cambodia which remains largely untouched by the rest of the globe, and that lets the globe in only by virtue of its access to CNN and the Internet. It differentiates itself from Phnom Penh by its dialect, by its lack of tuk tuks and by its lack of any significant western influence other than rudimentary technology. The moto drivers drive a little faster (there is virtually no traffic), the roads are a little dustier and the geckos a fraction the size of their city cousins. Horses and traps are not a rare site and give the place a feeling that it is somehow existing in another century.

Nonetheless, the people are as friendly as ever, serving up the 1000th plate of fried rice with a sugary drink and a toothy grin.

Where PP is full of cosmopolitan distraction, Prey Veng offers relative tranquility and space for thought, and opportunity for you to get creative with all your free time, and there's lots of that. Desi has taken to running, a little incongruously and to the amusement of the locals around the roads of the town. Alison on the other hand has taken to getting things done that she didn't when she was in PP getting her arm easily twisted into a socialising opportunity! Both are consuming rice by the field full. Both are doing very worthwhile and unique work, dealing with many Cambodia-specific problems.

In PP, you count how many people you can see slotted, wedged and shoehorned onto the back of a moto, in the back of a lorry, in a tuk tuk or in the boot of a Camry. In PV, you count how many passengers manage to climb into one of the many taxis taking you there. My van held 20. Beat that Desi!!

Bunthon (my Khmer colleague) and I went to PV for two days, to interview two clients, two commune counsel chiefs and two NGOS, with a view to gaining an overview as to how LSCW and its lawyers are perceived in terms of competency and to see whether LSCW has sufficient exposure to ensure that victims of domestic violence, rape, trafficking and labor exploitation are aware that they can be helped.

Meeting the victims of these crimes brings you uncomfortably close to too many Cambodian women's reality. With the potent and dangerous cocktail of alcohol and poverty to blame, amongst other things, there is a very high incidence of domestic violence in PV. It is the key reason for divorce proceedings. Sometimes mediation is the only way forward due to lack of evidence and justice seems only to be visible on a distant hill. It is not hard to understand how alcohol might offer a temporary relief from what is a very harsh reality.

With this as the backdrop for LSCW's work, I need not say more about the significance of its providing free legal services to these women. In this case "free'" can be interpreted literally. It means that all the transportation fees are covered, that legal representation is covered and that the individual lawyer will dip his or her hand into his/her own pocket to make sure that the women are fed throughout their court ordeal.

Rape is not a frequent occurrence in Prey Veng. Child rape less so still. Of course this is good news, but especially so when you hear that even the authorities are not educated as to the laws they are supposedly implementing. So even if the laws theoretically have teeth, in terms of their application, there is a frighteningly long way to go.

All of this just emphasises the strength and bravery of these women who even when meeting you forget themselves and their situation for long enough to ask you where you are from, to tell you that you speak Khmer very clearly and that you are pretty. Social graces for sure, but nonetheless remarkable.

So with a renewed perspective, that perhaps the loss of my credit card isn't worth panicking about, the three Phnom Penhers (not sure what you call us PP dwellers) took motos to Ba Prom for the morning. Desi forewarned me that the roads were a bit bumpy. Scoffing, I reminded him that I have done several lengthy moto trips and that my body is well braced. With that, I proceeded to eat my words as I bunny-hopped my way to my next pagoda. More colourful and raw than Oudong (former royal capital), Ba Prom boasts great views and, predictably, less barang.

As I sat at the bottom of the steps leading to the pagoda, having burnt my feet at the top, I wondered what was going through the Khmer man next to us's mind as he was swinging away in his hammock, when his exposure to the rest of the world is an occasional trip to PP and the rest of the time will be virtual exposure via the internet and CNN. I am assuming this is the case and think it is a relatively safe assumption. He's possibly wondering what I was looking at!

That day CNN told me that Barack Obama was embarking on the first day of his tour of South East Asia and had touched down in Japan. I remember this as he referred to human trafficking in his opening speech.

Refreshed by coconut juice courtesy of Desi and Alison's Khmer colleague, I arrived back in PV town from where I took yet another moto back to the ferry, so that I could return to PP, a very different reality, with Wats of its own (see pics attached: Wat Phnom).

20 November 2009 - A lake (as opposed to a river), a temple and a baby boy

Sethy took me out to Tonle Bati and Ta Prohm. 35km south of Phnom Penh they make for a scenic getaway and give you a taste of what Angkor Wat might be like in the flesh - the temple was built in the 12th century in the style of Angkor Wat. It is much smaller. It would be so much easier to cycle round.

The temple’s main focus was and still is fertility, and a statue of the Hindu fertility goddess Preah Noreay is still adorned with flowers presented by women hoping to become mothers.

As a relevant tangent, congratulations to one of our tuk-tuk drivers and his wife, who have just had their second child, a little boy.

This entry is all about the picture telling the proverbial 1000 words, either that or I'm feeling a bit lazy.

15 October 2009 - Departures

Caroline has now flown out of Phnom Penh direction Bangkok, where the tuk tuks go just a little faster and the skyline is a little more starbound. I could have gone with her had I taken one man up on his most generous offer of a trip to Bangkok. Sat in Corner 33 one evening, I was approached by a very large man by the name of Jean (pronounced not in the French way but in the woman's name way - sorry can't find phonetic keyboard). Usually I get asked if I am Australian (not entirely sure why) but this evening I must have been looking particularly European as Jean took me for a Parisienne.

Well zout alors! I didn't really have to get Jean to cut to the chase as frankly he asked me whether I spoke French (not bad as a conversation starter) then proceeded me to tell me about how he was opening garment factories in Phnom Penh and Bangkok, and that he hoped I would visit him in Bangkok. Having been to Bangkok (that and I'd known Jean all of two seconds), I dismissed the offer out of hand, and sidled off from the PC to a soft chair as far away from jolly Jean as I could get.

I have recently attended a conference on the impact of the global financial crisis on Cambodia. The garment trade has been particularly badly hit forcing the girls usefully employed to seek alternative means of feeding their families. Incongruously, Cambodia, according to research (admittedley of a small focus group) has been hit worse in this sector than its other South East Asian neighbours. The conference did not reach a conclusion as to why this is or at least was (at the time of the conference).

Jean was last seen leaving Corner 33 in hot pursuit of a Khmer girl.

Kathy left the Outreach House yesterday, a little earlier than expected. From the little I knew of her, she was (and of course, still is!) a very very smart, focussed, witty American woman with a great blog and a penchant for Raffles and doritos, and a not so curious dislike of tarantulas. You see I told you she was smart. So, Kathy, wherever you are now, I wish you very many more happy adventures. Virtual farewells are so much easier.

So, now what we have is a Kathy-shaped hole in the left wing of the house, and what amounts to a spare room. Grab it while you can newbies (to be introduced).

15 October 2009 - Aesthetics and frolics

As I mentioned before, there are certain items of clothing which are typically Khmer. You can buy a plain pastel coloured rain mac or something a little bit more decorative. Similarly, you can wear daytime pyjamas in a very fetching orange or lime green, scattered with pictures of flowers or teddy bears, or perhaps a pair of fake Abercrombie & Fitch shorts. Trouble with the latter is that if the offending article is found on you when you travel abroad, you may very well be taxed three times the price of what an original item would have cost - i.e if you paid 6$ but they would have cost, had they not been fake, 65$, you end up paying 6$ + $195 in tax - not really the point - (so I am told by a reliable source - friend Caroline, surveyor and magistrate).

That's not to say that Khmer people wear only rain macs and pyjamas, it's just that these are three particular themes. What many people do is create their own wardrobe by getting copies of barang clothes made up either in the markets or outlets.

Speaking of Caroline, she thankfully opted to come and see me by way of a Gap Adventures Tour covering Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia. Two days in PP and then off to Bangkok. Whilst she was here, she went for the day long Frizz cookery course, and joined me for a boat trip on the Mekong. Strike three, twice previously has the trip been planned, and on each occasion the rainy season has asserted itself in an all too torrential way. This time, Me, Caroline, our driver Sopphong and a refreshing breeze drove down the Tonle Sap and round the Mekong. Sopphong, who couldn't help but comment on our English beauty, told us about his life living on the boat, his wage of $30 dollars a month, and the specific place where we should leave a tip so that it is not claimed by his boss. Sopphong told us that he was studying English and proceeded to prove this by producing the detail of his curriculum. I want to buy Sopphong a dictionary, they cost about $5 dollars.

Caroline is another gifted friend. However, you do have to question her rationale over the use of malaria tablets. Caroline and I met in Peru a while back and bonded over the shared experience of altitude sickness in the Andes. In Peru, Caroline was the only person who bought with her boxes full of malarone, to stave off attacks from all the mosquitos trailing us from Lima to Cuzco to Arequipa. Maybe we were so focussed on our altitude sickness that we just didn't see them. Or maybe there just aren't any in Peru. Anyhow the point to this tale (there is one!), is that Caroline arrived in Phnom Penh similarly equipped. She had returned to the lady who had sold her the malarone for the Peruvian highlights trip and yet again been (at the time of writing) wrongly advised! It doesn't come as too much of a surprise that malarone are the most expensive of the anti-malarial drugs on the market (so I believe). Caroline needs to shop around or alternatively, she needs to select holiday destinations for the next decade that cover areas of the globe where malaria is prevalent. Let's gloss over the fact that I had planned with military precision for Caroline to be picked up from PP airport this coming Sunday rather than last Sunday. Oops. What's that about time flying when you are having fun?

You might be wondering why I have called this posting "aesthetics" etc, particularly as my blog, increasingly goes off on a frolic of its own, the title giving nothing away as to content? The reason for this is that a few weeks ago I did a photography course with Nathan Horton, a photographer based in PP and with a very prestigious (in terms of named publications) history. The course involved a morning of theory about the basics of photography and the afternoon saw us take a trip to Kampong Chang and Udong, a few kilometers outside PP. The course was really accessible and if I had to pick one thing of note from the wealth of Nathan's experience that he shared with the group, it would be that if you create a black and white version of your photographs you can more clearly see where your technical expertise needs work. Apparently and on reflection this rings true, the human eye is drawn above all else to the colour combination in a picture and this can in fact distract you from other aspects. On closer inspection or to the eye of a professional, pretty colours won't hold your attention for long.

I have several canvases in my mother's garage in Hertfordshire, which used to hang, colourfully on the walls of my flat in Cambridge before I left for Cambodia. My mother's garage is conveniently located next to the wheely bins. Unfortunately no amount of Nikon equipment can disguise a second-rate shot. However, I am happy to report that the beauty of digital is not lost on me, there is something very gratifying about being able to correct as you go along so that you get something which looks okay in the end, even if you do have to use up an entire memory card to get it.

Nathan also told us about his experience of photography for the Khmer commercial market. Some Khmer people associate wealth and prosperity with white skin. For this reason many skin products in Cambodia have a whitener in them and photographs of Khmer people are taken and extreme post picture editing takes place to give them a palid complexion. You see, beauty is clearly in the eye of the beholder. Must remind my mother to retrieve my canvases from the bins - some of them weren't so bad.

5 October 2009 - Law in Action

Long have been I waiting for the evidence of the existence of the semi-mythical traffic laws in Cambodia. Today, I was lucky as just as I was aboard a moto half way up Monivong, biking against the stream of traffic, when we were pulled over by the police for driving the wrong way up a boulevard. The Police just kept pulling them over to the extent that the pavement was then spilling over onto the boulevard, causing a near traffic hazard in itself!

Part of me was very amused, given that I always drive the wrong way up the Boulevard of a morning and noone has ever questioned it in in fact it is so common place that visitors to PP including myself could be forgiven that it is entirely legal practice.

As time ticked by and I was not sure whether as a passenger I was in any way deemed at fault (in a sort of complicit way) and therefore whether or not I should leave the scene, my imagination set to work and my pursuit of an English speaking Cambodian was quite avid -hoping that inadvertently I had neither done or not done something to warrant a run-in with the law. Very amusing I'm sure, letting me think I might in some way be liable!!! Lots of things are funny on reflection aren't they.

Anyhow, you can possibly forgive my slight paranoia, as there is apparently a law in Cambodia which says that only the driver of the moto need where a helmet. He/she can carry four or five passengers, a child in front two more at the rear bookended by another adult or two, and yet only the driver need where a helmet. I love this law.