There is no such thing as a
typical day…
We’ve now been in Cambodia exactly one year
today and an incredible year it’s been!
I remember our almost 2 hour Skype
interview with a VSO staff in Cambodia and chatted mainly about travels,
education, general life experience to the life in Cambodia that was soon to
begin. Our interviewer had also referred us to a ‘well-seasoned’
VSO couple who forewarned us that ‘there
is no such thing as a typical day and instead - to expect the unexpected… ‘
Once in Cambodia
we spent 4 weeks in Phnom Penh for In-country Training with a fun group of
people. We quickly got used to the
insane traffic, horn blowing, noise for the sake of noise, rules that no one cared to follow and that no one gets upset at each other when a
motor gets in the way of another.
Before we knew it
we were heading to our placement destination.
The beautiful hills of Mondolkiri! A colleague, Karen compared the hills of
Mondolkiri with Wales – green and lush at least during the wet season. During the dry season the landscape transforms
itself to a red plume of dust with a multitude of bush fires spread out on side
roads and in villages where I work.
Kevin
and I arrived in Mondolkiri at the tail end of the avocado season – the tail
end of the monsoon season, in early October 2013, (though it felt at the time that
the rainy season was never going to end). By November the rain stopped and the wet
saffron red clay was replaced by a powdery dust. On the way to the villages by motor bike, a
combination of high winds with heavy trucks created clouds of dust that blew on
our face, mouth and nose and crept into every part of our body, permanently
staining our skin and clothes. Back on
the ranch the red fine dust took on a
life of its own finding its way to anything to the touch: furniture, the crevices of our laptop keys to wooden floors (our landlady soon came to the
rescue with a mop in hand to give us a ‘floor washing’ demonstration).
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| I was welcomed with a Khmer/English dictionary |
On
our arrival to our placement we were very excited and my adrenaline ran high
for quite some months. During the transitional stages of getting
settled, we found a house within a week of being here. Kevin quickly found work
with 3 different NGO’s to teach English to the staff. As for me, I hired a VA a week after we
arrived, met some very important people in the education sector such as my Khmer
colleagues who welcomed me with open arms – they were more than helpful. Each day, either my Khmer partner or one of our
Khmer colleagues took me on many expeditions to meet teachers in the village schools
to observe classes in action, exchange ideas, listen to what the teachers have
to say and to be able to assist and support them in any way we can. My Khmer colleagues work hard each day to
make things happen to help improve the quality of teaching, to reach every
student and more …
Throughout the course of the year there have been successes and
milestones. More money is spent on education and an end to
corruption is finally coming to light. For the first time, earlier this
year, teachers opened their own personal bank accounts. They now receive direct payment from the
government as a result from a two year research, campaigning and lobbying (credited
to a group of NGO’s, VSO/Cuso and the government); potential Bunong in-service teachers graduated
from Teachers’ College in Stung Treng and returned to their home villages in
Mondolkiri to teach; more girls are staying in school; some schools have become
a model school for others; corruption-free grade 12 exams are now strictly
regulated by the government. As a result only 25% of grade 12 students passed
compared to the 86 % that passed last year (you can read more about it in the
‘Cambodia Daily’). As for the challenges, teachers continue to be absent from school.
In the villages, teachers work on the farm, have family commitment and spend
time working at other jobs to make ends meet due to low teaching wages. As a result, teachers spend limited time
preparing and delivering a child-centered curriculum; Schedules,
meetings, sudden change of plans are given without notice – sometimes when I
arrive at the village school teachers tell me that they’ve been called to yet
another ‘unannounced’ meeting; Children
have language barriers; some bilingual/trilingual schools speak Bunong, Cham
and Khmer. Teachers do not speak either
Bunong or Cham. Classrooms are poorly
maintained. Lack of good teaching
practice, limited professional development support, limited teaching resources
is apparent.
My
VSO colleague was right ‘there
is no such thing as a typical day…’ every day is a different day. It is how we face
those challenges that count.
Here
on the home front, I think that we are slowly adapting to their Cambodian ways. We are often invited by our landlord/lady to
join them and their friends for a meal and a beer. We are always happy to accept! When locals (from
other places in Cambodia) ask us where we come from, Kevin has a set answer and
proudly tells them ‘We’re from Canada,
but we live in Cambodia’.
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| Fresh cassava left in the sun to dry |
Furthermore,
we’ve now become more familiar with the tropical fruits, vegetables and lush
vegetation that appear at different times of the year. Some of the fruit trees even grow in our own
backyard: papaya, passion fruit, guava,
rambutan, mangosteen, jackfruit and the ‘smelly’ durian that’s delicious to
eat! It is soon the cassava harvest and
the side roads to the villages will once again be lined with white vegetables
drying in the sun. The indigenous people
– the Bunong people bring their crop from the fields to the side of the road
where they and their little apprentices (their children) peel, dry and prepare
the vegetables for shipment.
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| Awesome teddy bear street pajamas |
Added to our Cambodian lifestyle, we now ride
our motorbikes with flip-flops (I now wear my sandals ‘that soon fell apart from the rain and were re-sewn twice’ in
Phnom Penh), as a result our feet are permanently stained in red. Recently a colleague and I bought a colourful
bright pair of these awesome ‘street’ pajamas that the women wear to the market
and even to work. We wore them to work the
day we bought them except that they were no one to show them off too … In terms of speaking Khmer – well that’s
another story.
Over
this past ‘incredible’ year we’ve had an opportunity to meet and talk to people
that we wouldn’t otherwise had the chance to encounter – to hear their stories - their dreams and their hopes. Such as the late Dara, our VSO Khmer teacher
who was sm art, witty and fun. He had a
way of making us laugh when he knew we had had enough with our Khmer lesson. Dara sadly passed away a month today.
And yes, we are still going strong despite the drastic change of the two seasons
and even to think that we’ve experienced two winters. The first winter came in December and the
second in July when it turned cold because of the endless rain and dark clouds
that keep temperatures low. What counts are the people that continue to
teach us and direct us with the countless things that we are yet to discover...
More
later …
In August we went to Malaysia for a holiday to escape the wet season (an account of our trip will be
mentioned at a later date). On our return there was a heavy
downpour in Phnom Penh and the streets were flooded. We were soon greeted with a reminder of why we
had left. At the airport we had quickly grabbed a
Tuk Tuk attempting to stay dry on our way to the guesthouse. However, there were people on motorbikes that
were drenched and others were wading through the streets with water up to their
knees. By dinnertime the plugged
drainage system had somewhat cleared and the roads were nearly back to normal to walk
the streets while avoiding the garbage that had accumulated on the streets from sewers during the downpour. 
We had also
arrived at the beginning of Pchum
Ben. The local Watt was in full
swing with chiming music and Monks chanting the Sutra’s in the background. This seemed very fitting for this particular
occasion that began at the wake of dawn (4 to 11 o’clock). Pchum Ben is a Cambodian religious festival that lasts 15 days leading up to a 3-day
national holiday. This is a time for
Cambodians to commemorate their ancestors of up to 7 generations by cooking meals for monks
and making offerings to the "ghost" of deceased relatives. It is also
known as "Ancestor's Day". During the 3-day national holiday,
religious rituals were held each day at the local Watt and everyone brought
food-offerings to the Pagoda. Food was
mainly composed of rice, greens, and an abundance of fruits. The end of the
mantras gave rise to a different sound, to the sound of birds’
chirping whilst building nests for their
young.
