The Cow

Sorry there are no photos, Thavy took them but her phone is dead right now

As promised in the previous drinking session, my host uncle came for dinner on Sunday, along with a friend from a health NGO, who also spoke fluent English. They arrived when we were in the process of cooking dinner; for the second night in a row I have to add, we cooked chips and omelettes for the family the night before, which was ages in the making, and devoured in minutes, along with a full bottle of ketchup.

Anyway, dinner this night was Thavy’s creation, which as ever was a very Chinese styled dish, a pak- choi and beef stir fry, her mum’s preferred kind of cooking. Turns out our uncle wasn’t actually eating with us, but only came to stare and comment while we cooked…

He was saving his appetite to eat the cow which died today, in a mysterious manner. Other than the cow not being killed by humans it was difficult to get an actual reason – first it died of medicine, which didn’t make sense, then after some phone assisted translation, it died of poison.

We were then invited to come and drink and join in with eating the cow, and he left, leaving out key details and his friend behind. A typical trip into the cultural unknown awaited us after dinner, as NGO friend knew no more than us and actually lived in Banlung and hasn’t met most of these people before.
We washed up and got ready to go; to be told to wait a little longer as the beef wasn’t ready to eat (is poisoned meat ever?) Despite just having eaten and knowing there was more food to come, Thavy cut a large chunk out of the huge jackfruit. Sat coated in ants on the side. This was the sweet variety of jackfruit and it was amazingly sweet, tasting a lot like actual sweets – something quite hard to communicate to Thavy, as it seems she’s never had sweets/candy of the Haribo-like variety. The seeds of the jackfruit were saved to then be boiled with sugar – two snacks in one! The seeds/nuts were very similar to Brazil nuts and served to fill me even further.
By this point we were told to go to the uncle’s house even though the beef wasn’t ready yet – but we’d be allowed to just try a bit of meat and go home as it was already 9’o clock. Well the beef certainly wasn’t ready yet, I’d still class it as barely slashed up cow at this point, some muscle still throbbing as chunks lay on the bench.
There was surprisingly little smell, but I suppose it was very fresh. Well, fresh looking until shit filled intestines were dumped on top. The NGO friend joined our trio as an added outsider, watching the group of men butcher the cow with great speed and skill. He seemed quite nervous and avoided talking much to the villagers (who all speak Khmer) other than his friend. He did get new info on the death of the cow; it was bitten by a snake and died only a few hours ago, it’s heart turned black from the poison and that’s it’s calf stood mewing only a few metres away – to that calf : ‘Nehk mai ch’nang, nyam mai haoee – Your mother’s delicious, I ate her’.

Yes, despite the dodgy nature of the cow’s death we were still required to eat it, but most of the rest of the village was coming buying bags of meat so I assume it was ok.  Our new health NGO friend demanded we had a better cut of the meat, rather than the intestines which everyone else was eating, and we were promptly brought a nice looking cut which made a delicious steak, very well done, as per health NGO guy’s orders. After a rather lengthy trip back home to make a lemon and garlic seasoning we returned to the party to eat the beef.
While waiting for the rest of the group to come and eat (and drink…) NGO friend told us, in a slightly disgusted way, about the indigenous ritual used when houses were finished or other important events – basically tying a cow to a pole and chasing and hitting it with sticks until it dies, something I’ve not seen happen and might not even happen quite in this manner anymore. But shows that some Khmer are somewhat scared of the indigenous as I’ve heard a few people mention.

The rest of the group came and we ate our nice, well cooked beef – chewy but delicious. Then the weird beef and copious rice wine was forced upon us, and our slightly drunk host uncle kept saying “Ahh you can’t not eat/drink, it’s against my culture!” This was a bit uncomfortable, especially because it was so late and I did not want to drink or eat possibly poisoned raw beef; which at this point another great revelation came out, the snake bite was just a guess and they didn’t really know how it died…
Thankfully our hosts friend helped us out, and requested no more rice wine (at least 3 ‘one mores’ had occurred) and took us home. Well I survived the poison beef, after a slightly sleepless night of excess toilet visitation, but Josh could barely get up the next day ‘Feels like my stomachs working on double capacity’.

 

 

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Building Bridges

Yeak Laom Team’s Bridge Building and Lake Protection CAD was held on Sunday, for a group of around 50 pupils and teachers from Krou Yeung and all the ICS volunteers.
The day began a bit later than expected as the wood wasn’t delivered on time. While sat waiting a group of government officials arrived, followed by dozens of camera men and then trailed by security guards, concealed weapons all round. Linden asked around and found out it was the Minister of Information (or misinformation) on a publicity visit to the lake, their visit was short lived and involved taking photos and some short interviews at the Buddhist shrine and dock one (might have got on the Cambodian news, we were recorded for a while). This is not an all too uncommon sight, many government and military groups with their armed guards visit the lake, in Heean’s words (lake manager) ‘to drop more litter’.

Ministry of Information inspecting the Buddhist shrine and Alex, who was putting a plaster on when they arrived…

The army of school pupils arrived, three to a motorbike, without helmets… Matt (their teacher) said he allowed this for once, considering so many came to give up their only free time of the week – the rest of the week being spent in school, evening English classes or helping on family farms/businesses. Some activities had to be cut down or not done, due to the limited time and the actual bridge building being more important. Which didn’t happen anyway.
It was evident as soon as we loaded up tools and concrete blocks for each team that the work was going to be heavy and hard.  The smaller children struggled carrying their tools, especially all the way to the last bridge so I ended up spending an hour carrying things back and forth. On my rounds I realised most teams were struggling following the instructions, they maybe hadn’t been explained too well. Most of the day ended up being spent getting the concrete foundations in the ground which proved to be exhausting as the ground was so tough and tools were limited.
I wouldn’t say the day was a complete disaster, as we had planned for the bridges not all being finished in one day (ok none were done) but undefeated our Yeak Laom team, with the assistance of an expert builder, Chamreun, resolved to build all the bridges by the end of the week. This was quite a mammoth task as it involved hard manual labour all day over consecutive days, something were not used to.

Bridge foundations being dug by Claire and Chamreun

But it was definitely a worthwhile experience, mine and everyone else’s skills in sawing, hammering and general construction vastly improved, and Chamreun changed from an impatient somewhat bossy teacher at the start of the week to providing helpful advice and feeling like one of the team by the end. Eating lunch and working together every day definitely brought the team closer together, maybe some metaphorical bridge building was involved.

The team after finishing the last brige

On Friday evening at dinner, Thavy begun saying “The host mum asks after dinner do…”, “You want to go drink rice wine?” I finished correctly; it is quite a common question. The drinking was to celebrate all of the cassava being sold, and we were going to our mum’s brother’s house, who I hadn’t met before. A precarious walk along a dark path, with Beean on my back who couldn’t walk fast enough, found us at a full house quite far from the main village  – I realised I didn’t feel nervous visiting new houses anymore, as the people here are always welcoming and offer plenty of good food and wine. Which was exactly what happened, I was waved over to a circle of already tipsy/drunk men and sat next to a man who appeared to be in his late 30’s and who felt like the authority in the group, sitting calmly and still. He introduced himself in perfect English as our host mum’s brother and handed me a full cup of strong rice wine, then told me to try the food. It was a delicious dish of wild boar with bits of seasoning and slices of onion. The pig was caught by my host (forgot his name), using traps, in his youth he’d hunt with a crossbow, but not anymore as the wild boar are a lot harder to find and he feels too old for this activity.

We got talking and he told me about himself: he works with an NGO (forgot what it’s called…) as a trilingual translator for Tampoun, Khmer and Kreung languages, has a wife, three children and only one sibling, our host mum. But he used to have four, two were killed by the Khmer Rouge – this fact surprised me considering I’d only been talking with him for 10 minutes and he was already on such a dark topic, and I’ve lived with my host family for 2 months and heard nothing of it. His siblings could have been quite old at the time, considering the age of his (both living) parents who look at least 70. I’d have liked to have been told more about the family’s history, but he instantly looked sad on mention of it, and it reminded me how recent the events of the Khmer Rouge were and how it was my host parents’ generation worse affected. Makes the families’ current relative success all the more impressive.
Me and Josh then talked about our work with VSO; what our projects have completed and plan to do, and then what future cycles will hold. Present was a man who Josh and the Agriculture team had recently built a vegetable garden for, using my host uncle as a translator, he told how grateful he was for the work they’ve done. Being told how glad he was for VSO helping the community was very rewarding, especially the mention of Beean’s surgery – he had told his sister to take him to the hospital, but it wasn’t until VSO stepped in that they went. Things like this make it feel all the more worthwhile being here. Talk continued along this line until Thavy came over, from the women’s circle, saying she was a little drunk now and wanted to go home. After three more ‘one more’ refills of rice wine, we begun to leave, but not until our host had apologised for not meeting with us before and then said he’d come round on Sunday for dinner to make up for it!

Farmer for a day

Saturday morning, start of another work day. This time, much more physical than the usual office type work. Me, Josh and Thavy were set to visit and help on the family farm for the day, or however long we felt like staying, the parents constantly worry about us being too tired.

The family’s rice fields (already harvested)

The subject of our farming was apparently a type of poisonous potato which would be sold to Vietnam as a paint ingredient… Some mistranslation was involved here, turned out to be cassava, which is thoroughly edible, I was laughed at when I asked if it was edible and was told, no, it’s poisonous. Yes, when raw; another example of the very literal answers to questions. Also, I couldn’t find any evidence of cassava being used in paint, but it is imported to Vietnam for 500 riel per kilo, where it is processed and used widely in many foods.
The day was luckily quite cool; I don’t think I could’ve managed the work in the usual high 20°s. A quick example was given on pulling the potatoes out the ground – snap off the tall half of the stalk, grab the short bit left over and wiggle it out the ground. Rather simple, but infinitely satisfying.
Everyone helped out from the youngest boys to the withered, hunchbacked grandfather, who both struggled in equal measures despite the obvious difference in experience. And a few back breaking hours later, large piles of cassava lay all over the field.

Granddad at his peeling pile

Then came the less physically intensive task of peeling the thousands of cassavas, makes peeling a few potatoes for dinner feel like nothing. The work was still relatively satisfying, especially when seeing my peeling speed increase throughout the afternoon (it’s the little things…)

Me and one of my many peeling piles

Also, turns out we have another sister in the family, who was helping on the farm that day. I’d seen her before, but never known she was in the family. She looks around 15 (impossible to guess ages here though) and lives with the grandparents, who need looking after. It’s quite weird how she’s never even home for dinner, considering the proximity of the grandparents and parents home, even more that the grandparents live separately from the parents considering the traditional values of multiple generations living together. But the family home is only 3 months old, the building was only completed a week before we arrived. Maybe the arrangement is only temporary while the family is hosting volunteers.

My host mum, Thavy and Beean

Back on topic, the peeled cassavas were lugged over to a chopping site by the dad and granddad in backpack baskets. The task must’ve been difficult for the granddad considering the weight and his age, but he must be no stranger to intensive physical labour as he lived through the Khmer Rouge era. A great field of chopped cassava was formed, all cut by the grandmother. It was then left in the sun to dry, ready to be collected later and sold in the market and be imported to Vietnam. I find it baffling how seemingly none of it is kept to eat by the family, considering how much was farmed and its use in many other countries as a food staple.

One woman, one afternoon, one axe

The work of the day was not done yet, but a break was needed. We followed Pun to the nearby well, where we washed fruit she had collected. A familiar gourd and tamarind was in the basket, as well as a fruit which resembled a bell pepper in smell and appearance, but had a rubbery outside and extremely sour inside (plus a maggot…) Here I spotted a hole with a huge, centipede peering out of it. I went over to inspect and Beean came too with a stick. He poked a little, then the creature scuttled out from the hole, around 20cm long, bright blue and with long spidery legs: of course he attempted to beat it to death, but it was too quick and escaped, leaving a few legs behind. I have to say it was one of the most impressive insects I’ve ever seen and looked disgusting. Also in the hole were some huge cockroaches, red ants and beetles – I think we disrupted a large, insect party.

Pun washing the fruit

Next up was tamarind collecting, which involved climbing a huge tree and shaking it. Thavy was unsure if I should, which of course, made me want to climb even more. The lower levels of the tree were rather bare, so I climbed right to the top, where large pods invited me to stretch out precariously to grab them. Eventually I was shouted to come back down as we had too much tamarind… We collected up hundreds of pods, some of the biggest I’ve seen in my time here, we must’ve had at least 2KG – could take it up as my new business venture, they sell for about $2.50 per kilo in the market.

Heading back home with the tamarind haul

The day had to be one of my favourites here so far, working all day with my host family and eating every meal with them too. I wish I had more chances to do it, but all time from now on is spent on a very busy work schedule, working weekends too.

 

The Final Month

The end suddenly feels quite near, I already see people preparing for our return to the UK, through conversations about their post ICS-plans, their shoe shopping list or the team leader’s favourite phrase “Save it for the next cycle”.
That’s not to say we’re almost finished with our work here, the opposite is true – this is to be the busiest and most important month so far. I almost have a feeling harkening back to school exam time, as Mr. Davison (head of college), always said “This is the final push!”

So many events and activities are planned/being planned for the next few weeks; Sunday is Yeak Laom’s Community Action Day, with an estimated 80 attendees. We’ll be delivering training sessions to the indigenous youth group, students in the local high school and community members on the issues regarding the protection of the lake and how best to resolve them.
After this, teams will be chosen and set the task of either clearing large areas of waste or the main activity, rebuilding the many bridges along the lakes path. These bridges are placed over the streams leading to Yeak Laom and are prone to flooding in the wet season, decaying or destroying the bridges. But not this time! Raised concrete foundations to the rescue!
Other planned community events include indigenous tree planting at Yeak Laom, fruit tree planting in the villages, opening a market garden in Lapo village and the unveiling of the new and improved Cultural Heritage Centre.
Alongside these events are dozens of other projects between the three groups and awareness days, such as a ‘Dental Hygiene’ event.

From the ‘bridge destruction’ day on Monday, in preparation for bridge building we needed to remove all the old/broken bridges

The coming weeks are regrettably going to fly by; it still feels like I have lots of Host family bonding to do. The kids are comfortable with us now (no longer trying to be annoying), and Pun enjoys beating me at a speedy rock catching game.
A few nights of the week, we’ve played huge impromptu community games, with more than 30 kids joining in the end – making what is usually a quiet area, teeming with kids running and screaming. And the best part is the infinite energy they have here, one game lasting way over an hour. The circle-tig game had everyone stand in a circle with two to a row, then there is one odd person and someone who is ‘it’. The lines can only have two in at a time, and if there are three to the line, the person at the back is pushed out of the ‘base’, then chased by the ‘tigger’. A great, easy to organise, wordless game. ‘Tom and Jerry’ is another kid’s favourite here – a circle of people protect Jerry in the middle, and Tom has to scamper under arms into the circle to catch Jerry. One round pitted Faradh (our team leader) with a local teenager; the chasing and evading lasted at least five minutes, both were dusty and exhausted by the end. And it is these kinds of games I love and will miss, languageless, energetic fun.

Thavy playing the rock catching game, impossibly quick reactions!

Last night, after dinner, we had the rice wine jar brought out as Nyan was in a particularly good mood and (after asking if we wanted to drink) said we were drinking to bond/build the relationships (translated by Thavy) as he has been out a lot recently. Again, although there’s little language exchanged, it’s nice to just spend time in someone’s company (while watching very graphic news in Khmer, no censoring here!). What was discussed though, was a trip on Saturday morning to the family farm. It had been mentioned a few weeks ago but hadn’t been brought back up, so I did, and now we’re going helping with the potato harvesting!
The potatoes they grow are amazing, there are so many varieties, but this kind look like normal, English potatoes (albeit a little wonky) but are peelable by hand, taste sweet and have a wonderful fluffy texture. The one I had was from Ros’ family, none in my host home (yet). I asked if they sell their produce at the market and was told how merchants come round the farms at harvest time and buy or trade the goods right there – a far cry from the traditional slash-and-burn production from a decade ago. I’d love to witness this process first hand; obviously I won’t be able to follow fully, but to see how the food trade system works will be interesting.
My weekend is going to be so tiring, two days in a row of manual labour… Looking forward to it!

Reviewing Mid Phase Review

(as usual I ran out of time and will post pictures later! Go look at them on facebook here though:
https://www.facebook.com/haydn.perks/media_set?set=a.684632038317900.1073741832.100003133312142&type=1&pnref=story)

Mid Phase Review, it marks the middle of the ICS programme, and is held in Siem Reap, the tourist capital of Cambodia. A time to review, reflect and most importantly, relax – that is if you want to miss all the sights on offer in Siem Reap!
Apart from sleep, training and the occasional break, my goal was to spend the four short days seeing (mainly eating) as much as I could, because Ratanakiri cannot nearly match the range of things on offer.
We set off at 6am, a time I’ve not been outside at before – all families in the village huddled around small bonfires for warmth, I’ll admit it was a bit chilly.
The journey went quickly, thanks to some risky chicken wings from a random stall, third breakfast and lunch stops (my stomach is such a bottomless bit…) you can never get bored with frequent food.

The buildings of Siem Reap struck me compared to the scenery of Banlung that I’m used to. A fully developed city, with every other bulling a hotel, a distinct lack of shacks, streets lined with trees and a variety of advertisements (not just the same damn beer ad everywhere).

The city environment was a bit of a shock to the senses, and many of the streets and villas looked more European than Asian giving me the feeling of being in a different country.

The somewhat simple rooms we had felt like luxury – air conditioning, hot shower, a toilet… But alas, there were sights to see, and training to be had! Due to training being volunteer led and the room wide need for food, it was a little rushed. To be honest, a lot of it felt like a repeat of part sessions and just part of VSO’s need for constant analysis of us. Despite this some sessions were of use, like writing up group rules, reviewing our progress and promotion of group solidarity.
Josh was dead set on Mexican for dinner, and decided on ‘Viva!’ for us, a brilliant choice as it meant a walk through the bustling city centre allowing me to explore a little with a group, making independent exploration easier later. Also a brilliant choice because burritos. I put my stomach before money and had nachos, garlic bread and a California burrito – thinking about that pork, cheese and fries filled monster makes me want it again, and I just ate breakfast…

After the meal we met up the with Stung Treng team an maybe gloated a little about the meal, poor sods only eat Khmer food at home and had to for dinner here. There’s a lot of contrast between experiences of Stung Treng and Ratanakiri teams; generally their team seems to not get on as well, with some volunteers outright refusing to help with work! The team is also split into those in a village and some in town. The people in town have quite modern houses, with Western toilets, proper kitchens and WiFi. I’m quite glad I’m not living like that as it would just feel too much like home, almost too comfortable.

Pub street in Siem Reap turned out not to look like a street of English pubs; misleading name, instead it was a street lined with bars and restaurants, with people dancing all down the street. There was even a countdown to Christmas day, which required some forcing through the crow to get out of. As the street is a pedestrian area, tuk tuk drivers lay in wait right outside the barrier, ready to spring their festive ‘tuk tuk sir merry Christmas happy new year’ on every passerby. The ‘No tuk tuk, no massage, no money’ t-shirt I saw earlier would’ve been helpful.

On Christmas I was up at half four with the rest of the team to get the minibus to Angkor Wat – bar a few Khmer who’d been plenty of times before. I think my level of energy at this point must’ve been annoying for some of the sleep deprived; me sat practically vibrating with excitement, others barely conscious.
Feeling a little cheated by the $20 foreigner entry fee (paid by VSO though) we walked up the path to the outer wall. For a second, with only moonlight to see, I thought ‘Is that it…?’ but of course it was just the entrance gates, not the actual temple – a freaking big wall in retrospect.
Then came the wait for the sun, stood on the grass facing the temple. A women came over, who had introduced herself as Harry Potter earlier, and said she’ll personally come to sell us coffee and we’d remember it’s her because of the name. Well it worked, but I still didn’t want her coffee, along with all the other sellers persistently trying to make us buy overpriced crap. I can’t blame them for trying so hard, there were thousands of people stood around waiting. Biggest collection of Barangs I’ve seen in months, felt like such a tourist.

Of course, the sun eventually rose, and of course Angkor Wat was spectacular, but sorry Linden, I didn’t cry when seeing it for the first time. I won’t bother describing it and the other temples, you can watch a documentary for that (or visit yourself!) because it’ll just be a page saying how amazing it was. And unfortunately, you can’t go climbing up everything like I painfully wanted to, and the day did feel a little rushed due to how little hours there are in a day and how many things there were to see. I’ll definitely come back to and explore in my own time in the future, because there are dozens more ruins to and ones which require actual trekking and exploring to get to.
To top off the un-Christmasness of the day, we ended up eating at Viva again for the meal with Stung Treng. Their MPR team couldn’t manage to reserve anywhere for 50 people, except for the one restaurant we’d already been to and where they’d seen us go… Hmm… But my being slightly miffed wore off when I remembered how good the foo was, and then more so when Sreymich and Thavy could barely eat any of the pasta dishes they got – how I love leftovers.

The net two days were spent in a mix of enthralling training sessions and free time. I ended up exploring on my own for a lot of it, maybe because my sightseeing/doing list was too extensive. I managed to eat at most the top rated restaurants in town – Schnitzel Wirtin, pepper corn steaks with fried potatoes and Haven, fish amok. Both difficult to eat at, Schnitzel was hidden down a long, unlit street with a tiny sign and Haven was fully booked for the next 3 day, fortunately the manager told me to come at half 11 (opening time) and I could get takeaway of anything. I had to go for Cambodia’s national dish in Siem Reap’s best restaurant.
Because I had a bicycle rented I could go and see most Wats (Pagodas (Temples)) in the city, lots of pictures on my Facebook.
My favourite was Wat Damnak – not because of the amazing architecture and sculptures, but the conversation I had with a monk. Our walking speed intermingled and he greeted me casually, and I formally; I have now been told there are specific words for greeting monks and a high hand placement when bowing, he didn’t seem to mind my mistake though.

The monks English was perfect and his enthusiasm for the conversation peaked when I told him what work we’re doing at Yeak Laom. He told me that when he is no longer a monk (to be considered a true Buddhist every man must become a monk for at least a year) he plans on working on waste management in the city and changing people’s attitudes towards the environment – environmental protection isn’t really a thing for the general population.
We talked along these lines for another 10 minutes, I’d loved to have listened for longer but I had to hurry off for a reservation.

Another great free experience was had watching Apsara dancing. A restaurant had the show running every evening, with dinner meant to be eaten with the show. Having just eaten, I sat down at the front and wasn’t even asked to order. Even got photos with the dancers!
And then, to finish the trip off (this certainly wasn’t free) me and Ruby went to a Phare Cambodian Circus show. The performers are made up of disadvantaged teenagers – previously homeless or from poor families, who were given the opportunity to perform at a school with free arts lessons, music, acting, circus skills. This kind of school was non-existent in Cambodia beforehand and a progressive step towards Cambodia improving and increasing their entertainment industry.
The show we watched was called ‘Chills’ and certainly lived up to its name, the story followed a group of high school kids trying to get rid of their ghost problems, in the silliest ways possible… The ghosts combined trapeze and ventriloquism, with some truly impossible looking positions, those guys must’ve had no spines.
To finish everything off I ate at a Japanese restaurant, as the only non-Japanese person there, again feeling like I’d travelled to another country. And how unadventurous of those guys – there are so many other cuisines to try!

And that is all my writing for MPR one, written a week later because there was so much to write about, an amazingly busy few days and I’m so grateful for VSO allowing us to have so much free time to do what we want. Makes me eager to travel independently in the future.

Tourist for a day + Updates

Yesterday our group cycled to Kachang waterfall. Despite having been taken last week by Sok (a teenager living in Sel village) with a few Khmer volunteers, I went again as more of the group was going this time.

Kachang is one of the four waterfalls found around Banlung, my favourite of the three I’ve seen so far.
We visited two last week, but only the one this time, as after the trip we had a party planned at Narin’s house, our project supervisor. And two waterfalls in a day requires a crazy amount of energy, which the Cambodian volunteers seem to have an unlimited amount of.

We met at the Independence Monument in the centre of town, gathering outside the Western snack store on the corner (us being here must be making them rich) before setting off on the hour long cycle along dusty dirt roads. Here you can get a good view of the Ratanakiri landscape, miles of farm land, mainly rubber and cassava plantations, some far off forest and lots of roads and small villages.

And the roads are pretty damn bad. Three accidents in the one day, with Vinita’s tyre popping, my bike just giving up and falling over, and a collision between Claire and Alex – no major injuries, just very dusty, orange clothes. The good side of the roads is that they’re really fun to ride on, lots of bounces and holes to avoid.

The never ending dirt track

The waterfall, as everything has round here, had a ‘foreigner’ fee. 3000 riels for foreigners and 500 for locals, a bit annoying, but still only 75 cents to visit a tourist destination – with the contribution going to support the management of the waterfall (not much to manage in my opinion though…).

I mentioned that this waterfall was my favourite mainly because of how good it is to swim in. The water gets really deep quickly and beats any simulated waves swimming pool back home, and after a battle against the waves you get a massage from sitting under the waterfall. Writing about it is making me want to go back now! I don’t know how descriptive I need to be here, but there are a lot of pictures which do the explaining a lot better.

Hey I was sat under there! + Rainbow!

Exhausted yet happy after all the swimming and exploring, a few more hills needed to be conquered before we could get to Narin’s for the barbeque. Cycling uphill in what is essentially a desert was a test of endurance; with some of the group piling into Ruby’s tuk tuk with their bikes – she hurt her leg last week after a stationary moto reversed into her, hence the tuk tuk. Don’t worry, it wasn’t too serious, and luckily the police were nearby (being their usual effective, jerky selves, stopping people and taking money due to the new helmet law) and helped her to the clinic. The moto driver was let off as VSO didn’t want to press charges as it was only an accident, and Ruby got to stay in a guest house for a few days, equipped with private bathroom and shower.
Makes it tempting to get injured too.

More never ending road…

 

Turns out the barbeque was actually a Christmas party, with a decorated tree too! I really liked the look of his house, a mix of Khmer and Western styles – having no stilts made it look a bit like a flat, but it still had the open plan layout. Outside under a metal awning was an office area, with a desks and a book shelf, all covered in red dust.

This coupled with deck chairs, beers and Western music made it feel quite un-Cambodian, the village children must’ve thought the same as they all gathered around the entrance staring in at the party, watching intently as food was prepared.

And turns out peanuts must be a universal ‘pub snack’, Linden told me that when they drink beer, they always have the roasted peanuts with too (well they put sugar on peanuts instead of salt, so not quite the same – but delicious, try it). I tried explaining pubs, both Phan and Linden seeming quite fascinated with the idea, it felt odd realising they don’t have them here, considering they’re such a staple of English towns.

The barbeque consisted of kebabs (with pineapple, again a delicious twist), sugared unripe mango (oh hey, another great combo, the sourness is great with sugar), a salad mainly made up of one of Cambodia’s many variants of cabbage, baguettes, and chips (no crazy twist, just salted).
But no jar of rice wine, what!
And also, a full eel chucked onto the middle of the barbeque. Put on and taken away by a single guy, possibly to eat on his own… He seemed very pleased with it as he walked away.

 

After eating a gratuitous amount of kebabs, we were reminded that no great Christmas party is complete without some terrible games. A representative from each of our teams came up, unknowing of the horror they were about to face – to stuff as many cake blobs in their mouth as possible while stilly coherently saying ‘Merry Christmas and a happy new year’ between each cake. I don’t know if the winner (13 blobs) should’ve felt proud or disgusted by their achievement, impressive nonetheless.
The party began to finish up around 7 which is a late night here, pitch black outside, apparently it’s fine to break curfew as long as the whole group and team leaders are there too. Cycling home in the dark along bumpy roads was exhilarating, sometimes the only guide being our pathetic bike lights.

Everyone managed to get home safely, despite Sothea thinking me and Scott had been left behind at one point. Scott got a panicked phone call from Sothea asking where he was but he missed the last part of the sentence, he then powered back down the hill to a worried group of Khmer volunteers. Of course we were at the front, those guys worry too much about us.

Bonus picture: Chart showing the fruits they have here

And now after writing too much about yesterday I’ll try and recap the last week or so, I really need to get back into the swing of daily writing…
For Yeak Laom Commune updates, by the end of the week we’ve gotten much more organised and got our new signs designed and ordered, the bridges redesigned and lots of loose bits and bobs tidied up and finished.

I was also reminded that it’s Christmas next week, as we played some Christmas songs in the office, didn’t think I’d miss those! I feel like as long as nowhere reminds me of Christmas I won’t miss it, but then we ended up talking about Christmas foods, like mince pies, pigs in blankets, mulled wine… And Christmas trees and family and presents and cold and food again, really going to miss the food!
On the topic of food, I’ll be contributing to the Banlung food section on WikiTravel soon, it’s quite outdated and missing some great places. On $4 dollars a day for breakfast and lunch, it allows us to eat at pretty much any restaurant around here, especially if you save up a bit.

 

And new things at home – our dearest little brother Beean is getting better quickly, however having broken a leg doesn’t make the kid a saint… if anything he’s more mischievous than before, along with his other little brother. I don’t blame him for being quite annoying/wanting to play with us, he does sit around all day. They’re fond of running into our room as soon as we’re home, to come and mess with our stuff, attempt to eat any food and take any money lying around. This doesn’t bother me too much, I find them quite funny. But the younger kids have been bugging Thavy a bit more – climbing up the wall dividing her and the families room and peaking over and making noises, rattling her bedroom door and running away, and the other day one of them padlocked the bathroom door. With no key. The dad had to take the lock off after she was stuck in there for about half an hour. Now I know this one is only about 7, but that level of tormenting is quite malicious.
Despite not bothering me too much, she said she can’t wait to go back to Phnom Penh sometimes; quite upsetting but the parents don’t seem to be able to discipline the children.
However, the new TV seems to be doing quite a good job of that. Yes, since the family has had volunteers they’ve got a radio and now a TV – I fear we’ll stop being fed and a Jacuzzi will be installed downstairs (I kid, we’re still being fed very well). But that little extra income must be helping the family quite a bit.  The stuff they watch is a little lacking in substance though, mainly repetitive music videos and a heck of a lot of adverts, despite these being on DVD. The kids are still enthralled by adverts though.
And on that note, I think I’ve finished, only two days of work next week then off to Siem Reap for four days on Mid Phase Review, which consists of about half the time being in training and review sessions and the other half free time, and Christmas day at Angkor Wat. Should be fun!

 

End of the third week here! (Seems like weekly updates now)

As I settle into life here the more difficulties I have about everyday occurrences, be they emotional experiences, the goings on of the day and even weird one off things.

Work continues in our group on a 8-5 basis, with a 2 hour lunch break, and the evenings go by in a sleepy haze. Not to say I’m bored in the least, there are just so many things which need doing every day that it’s difficult to stop and reflect. I’ll try and recount things of interest and updates since last week, well… I was sick for the first time since being here on Friday, after weeks of seeing people being ill and being amazed at how id avoided it for so long. Must’ve been the random ‘Indean’ restaurant we went to for lunch (how do these empty businesses stay open!). But after a 2 hour nap, I was completely fine.
Also on Friday, Beean was finally taken to the hospital. And along with an English-Tampoun speaking community member, we got the parents to take him to the hospital. After examinations and x-rays they found that without surgery, he would die by the end of the week due to internal bleeding. The surgery was booked for the next day, with insertion of a metal plate in his leg. This surgery was still risky and carried a 20% chance of death (compared to 1 or 2% if done in the UK) but it all went fine, of course the risk of surgery was better than no surgery.
On Saturday, we organised a community welcoming party – which has a separate post here (written for the Media Committee)
Sunday had relaxing in cafes and lake swimming.
Monday and Tuesday consisted of work as usual – with a treat of a new kettle (coffee and tea whenever we want!) and a fan.
Also on Tuesday morning, Keean, a Tampoun man (who speaks 9 languages, English, French, Khmer, Tampoun, and five other Indigenous languages) gave a talk on Tampoun culture – to clear up any problems and questions we had. Cat is writing a blog post on this already, so ill let her handle it, but the Tampoun people sure do have an amazing, rapidly changing history – and it feels humbling to be part of a project protected and recording their culture.
Also this week, English lessons stopped unfortunately due to us having to cook dinner for the family. This is because the parents are taking it in turns each night to look after the boy as he recovers in hospital. Although it is a 24 hour hospital, the level of car needed for a recovering child isn’t adequately provided and the actual hospital isn’t too secure, you can literally walk in through the front door and into the open patient’s room without being stopped. I also think he’ll feel much safer with some parental love.
And today, my bike died on my 2 minute cycle to work, the deteriorations which had been gradually building up decided to all come apart at once.
The back tye came off the rim, left flapping about on the back, and my right pedal cracked in half – not a pleasant ride down to the bike shop. Not having a bike for 2 hours was quite fun though, walking round Banlung allowed me to take in the sights a lot longer and be stared at a lot more by locals. One big thing I noticed a lot more is how many shops there are with a stockpile of goods in them, yet absolutely no customers. Seems odd to keep everything boxed up like it is.

Oh and an update since I wrote this (Wednesday, today being Saturday), yesterday Beean came home! It was amazing how well he seems, he can already stand up, putting a little bit of weight on his injured leg. And the best thing, it will only be 1 to 2 weeks until he can walk again!
The whole family was home and everyone was a lot happier, we all even ate together, young children and all. Barbequed fish and chicken, stir fried cucumbers, gourd and chicken and sticky rice. Ch’naang!

(will upload articles on my host home and project later!)

Community Welcome Party

Written by Haydn Perks and Joshua Joly
Photography by Rosalind Purcell

On Saturday 6/12/14 the VSO ICS cycle 4 volunteers met up with members of the host community at Yeak Loam Lake for a welcoming party. Here we introduced ourselves and explained our projects to the community.

Once the host families had arrived, we gathered on a mat together in a circle. The food was shared out, spring rolls, fruits and biscuits, while the traditional band played in the background. The band consisted of a guitarist, a drummer and a violin like instrument. Singing was one of our group members, Thavy, the music was very good and everyone enjoyed it.

After chatting and relaxing, the formal introductions began. Narin, our project supervisor, and Andre, our project manager, introduced themselves and gave a short overview of the ICS programme in Ratanakiri. Then the microphone was passed around the volunteers, where we said our names, where we were from and what team we were on.

 

The party continued with more traditional gong playing and singing and dancing. All the volunteers joined in with learning the traditional dances, feeling a little awkward at first, but getting into the swing of things pretty soon. A few of the Khmer volunteers sung, very confidently, and also a local child gave a brilliant performance of some Cambodian kids songs.
At this point the dancing had become a little less traditional, with the UK volunteers performing their own dances to the music.
Overall, everyone had an enjoyable time and much cross cultural fun was had.

Day 13 – Lots of updates

Wednesday 03/12/14

(Stuff here was written Monday-Wednesday, so not exactly chronological)

Aaand it’s December already, but no advent calendar! Sorry for not doing a proper update since last week, but no major stuff has happened each day – don’t want to upload a boring hour by hour, day by day kind of blog…
Work has been plodding along slowly, the survey was redone, a new pamphlet is being made, the replacement bridges are on their way to being implemented and we’ve cleaned a bunch of signs and planned the new ones.

Murder bridge no. 3

A sign we cleaned, yey!

The old pamphlet…

Although, nothing was done Friday-Sunday because of the team meeting on Friday and being ordered to take the weekend off – supposedly our last free weekend for a long while.

It also rained for the first time on Saturday, which definitely made me feel at home. It was cool (almost cold at night!) and there was a near constant stream of it. I was woken from the familiar rhythmic tapping on the roof, but on first look outside I was so confused, ‘I hear rain but I see none. I must be dreaming…’ Turns out it’s just really thin rain, but lots of it.

Sel village in the rain (my house is the blue roof one)

And in food news – I wish we had these in England. My host mum made a breakfast-to-go which is like the Cambodian version of a cereal bar. Bamboo leaf for the wrapper, with sweet sticky rice inside – almost tastes like porridge. And there’s a sweet, red paste in the middle, so delicious and filling.

And recently we’re getting a constant supply of bananas grown on the family farm, my host brother just plodded in and gave us two.

Dinner tonight had to be the most unfamiliar food I’ve had so far, with misleading descriptions along with it. The dishes consisted of Jackfruit, which I though was a hell of a lot of pork chunks at first glance, it felt and tasted like eating a porky mushroom, with some unpleasant exploding blobs mixed in.
This fruit was meant to be eaten with a mushy grey slime described as cheese – turns out the cheese was ‘baby fish’. Quite nice, but obviously not what was expected (cheese).

Another dish was a usual stew-like thing, but with a weird flavour. And the last, which no one ate much of, was a green ‘jelly’, tasted and felt like licking algae coated rocks.

But! This being the first time I’ve properly mentioned food, I have to say Tampoun food every other night has been delicious, and some very familiar. We had a soup type dish the other night which tasted like homemade leak and potato soup and another like ham and pea soup (obviously not the same ingredients though).
Also, this bag of delicious fried snacks from a stall near the lake:

Cost 3000 riel, which is roughly 50p. Awesome.

I also had a proper experience of a party here – they seem to happen every other day somewhere in the village. The Khmer volunteers organised a BBQ on Sunday afternoon where we had kebabs and beer in the rain under a house. The kebabs were good, if a little too salty from the sauce.

Woo! Barbeque!

After food there was dancing upstairs, with loud Western/Khmer pop music, dancing and more rice wine/beer. Pretty much a party in the UK, just in a village in Cambodia (again, with no noise pollution laws (or ID checks when buying alcohol (to drink responsibly, of course))).

 

And I started teaching English on Monday, two hours done now!
It was very hastily organised, but I had been told by Thavy and Setha that (Khmer volunteers) we were going to start English lessons on Monday at 6, I had promised to teach English – to two kids from my family…
At 10 minutes to 6, I decided we’d do: ‘hello’, ‘what is your name?’, ‘my name is?’, ‘how are you?’, ‘I am fine’, and numbers 1-10 in our hour time slot.
Me and Thavy taught the lesson, with Josh helping out with conversation examples. There must have been about 30 kids there, and around 20 who were seriously trying and taking part.

Teaching started off a bit rockily, as we seemed to have different ideas on how to teach, with me wanting to use as little Khmer as possible (not that I could us more if I wanted) and lots of gestures, and Thavy wanting to write stuff down and explain a lot. I may have forced my method a bit, but really needed the Khmer explanations every now and then, having not taught English or a class this size before. It all went well in the end though, and the class continued the next day, with even more kids this time! We recapped and added another few phrases, like your age, where you’re from and number up to 20. Lessons will be Monday, Wednesday and Friday from now on, rather than Thavy’s plan of Monday-Friday, which would have killed me…

‘wher ya frum mayt?’ bul-un’ – Teaching proper Boltonian pronunciation.

So many kids!

‘What is your name?’ ‘My name is Thavy’

Also, right after Mondays lesson, I ended up having a completely unplanned adults lesson. A man I’d talked to the other week had remembered that I’d mentioned I was teaching English, I didn’t intend on teaching both a beginner and intermediate class though… Of course, I couldn’t refuse his questions as he was very eager to learn, so from about half 7 ‘til 9 I ended up teaching 3 or 4 men in their 20’s and 30’s how to tell the time and count to 100,000 in English. Harder than it sounds, when you consider the rules for saying large numbers out loud. Unfortunately, I had to tell him that I wouldn’t be able to teach him again tomorrow night, as I don’t have the time or skills, as I’m not actually a teacher (as he was calling me) and I’m working from 8-5 anyway. He seemed a little disappointed, but he understood. There are dozens of other people who can teach English around here anyway, I’m just too darn friendly.

A Plaster Cast vs. Magic Cast

(warning: Not a particularly positive story. also, sorry if the formatting is weird, the page won’t load properly)
I feel there can only be so much culture shock until every surreal event proceeding comes across as normal. I think I’ve hit that point after witnessing Tampoun welcoming celebrations, death celebrations, animal slaughter and now, treatment of injuries.

At dinner, Nyan (our host dad, I remember his name now) invited me and Josh to drink at his brother’s house, who’d just returned from hospital from an operation. Despite being exhausted I accepted (doubt I could’ve turned him down anyway). Thavy wasn’t allowed to come as it was a men’s gathering, somehow this didn’t faze me much, I must feel comfortable enough around the Tampoun people to not need a constant translator – not that that was ever her intended role.
His brother’s house had half the village crammed in it. We were pointed to sit around a carpet, where a game of cards was beginning. Hands were dealt to us despite neither me or Josh ever playing the game before, but a Tampoun man told us it was called Angkor “like the beer”… He also told us he speaks a little bit of English and would like to learn more, another recruit for Mondays English lesson (9 kids so far).
Of course, there was rice wine, sweeter than at my house. This was passed around the circle in little plastic cups, one time given to me by a withered old man, another by a Western styled tattooed teenager – looking as untraditional as possible. Some language exchange was had, with a man enthusiastically trying to teach us Tampoun words and learn the English. He couldn’t seem to grasp that using long, full sentences isn’t the way to teach a new language.
After some more wine and sampling a spicy fish dish, our host mum came in looking concerned and angry, taking Nyan and a torch back out with her. Realising they weren’t coming back any time soon we decided to leave and go to bed.
Outside, a crowd was gathering under our house, I figured the party was just moving over here. On closer inspection our little brother was sat at the centre of the crowd looking shocked, but I couldn’t figure out what was going on. Thavy appeared a few minutes later, relieved that the commotion wasn’t to do with us. She found out the boy had fallen from the upstairs balcony, breaking his femur (thigh bone). She also said that they weren’t going to take him to a hospital or use medicine, but use traditional healing methods.
This was quite shocking considering there is a hospital in Banlung he could’ve been taken to, which Nyan’s brother had just returned from. But there was nothing we could do to interfere with tradition.
Soon a police officer rode up, which seemed odd, he inspected the scene and talked with the parents. A group of men were crafting a makeshift splint for the leg from wood and strings – resourceful as ever.
With the sticks tied to his leg, the boy was carried upstairs, howling in pain. The crowd followed behind, chatting and staring, as it is tradition for the village to gather when there’s been a serious injury. This seems like the worst way to deal with a traumatic experience for the victim.
Upstairs, the boy was laid on a mat, with the police officer sat beside him. Turns out he’s the local witch doctor…
If an outsider walked in on this scene, I’d forgive them for assuming there was a party going on in here, everyone sat round chatting, drinking and eating.
More and more people gathered in the small room, some bringing bunches of freshly cut flowers and placing them on a large dish next to the terrified looking boy.
The treatment began by dosing him up on rice wine, not the worst option as this calmed him considerably. But this was about as medical as it got as then a cooked chicken carcass was brought from the kitchen and placed on the dish, I asked a Tampoun teenager (who speaks excellent English) what this was for and he didn’t know.
The ‘doctor’ sat calmly, smoking a cigarette and opened a pack of incense sticks. He lit these one by one, standing them in a circle on the dish. He then made a candle out of pieces of tough string and lit this. He held it in his mouth for a few seconds, removed it, and then blew on the boys’ leg. This went on for another 10 minutes or so, when the ritual suddenly ended. Maybe the bone healed by being warmed up a little…
The boy was scooped up his dad and taken to the bedroom, where he started wailing again, brought back to reality by the movement perhaps. The crowd dispersed a little, opening a path to my bedroom. The party continued outside, with more wine, food, cards and laughter, while the boy continued moaning from the bedroom throughout the night, his mum comforting him. After midnight the party was still going on outside my door, and the chicken had been charred black.
Do I dare call these villagers’ heathens for employing archaic, unpleasant treatments, when modern hospital treatments are available? Maybe. Part of our teams’ project here is aimed at preservation of cultural heritage, but I feel some parts of culture deserve to be in a museum to allow development. But I am just an outsider, jumping into the middle of a foreign film with no subtitles.