Silk Island

9 April 2006

On a beautiful Sunday afternoon after Pratchum Nheat (of course everyday is beautiful in this country, you don’t have to think oh I hope it’s nice weather this weekend so we can go for a picnic…), I called Kesor to see if she wanted to go to Koh Dach, and island on the mekong where they produce silk. She said she didn’t have a moto but that friends of her with a car would want to go to, so I joined her in a restaurant where they were having lunch and we moved from there. It turned out her friends were actually these old guys she’s just met and didn’t seem to like very much, and then after driving a few miles in the right direction, they decided they didn’t want to go to Ko Dach any more and stopped in one of these restaurants where you sit in a hammac and they serve you food and drink all afternoon. We didn’t know quite what to do. I thought it’d be rude to leave but Kesor didn’t seem to care so we left and tried to find a motodop that would take us there. On the boat to the island Kesor started chatting with this girl who was on the way to Koh Dach to visit her family and friends, as she does every Sunday. Her name was Phal and she said she’d take us around the island, so we ditched the motodop and went around with her instead. That was really cool because it turned out into being a real Koh Dach experience. First we went to see her aunt who had this little farm. We ankouille legned there, they asked me loads of question on my family, my boyfriend, my salary and my rent. Then me and kesor walked around the area, played with the kids and spoke with the villagers. Then Phal took us to see her friend who just had a baby. We sat there in her house for a while and played with the baby. After a while we went to the end of the island where there’s a beach. We rented a little hut, bought food from walking fruit sellers and chilled there for a while. So all in all, we did a lot of chilling. But it was chilling Cambodian style and I really enjoyed it. You can just invite yourself in people’s house, talk about nothing really important and then move on. It’s really fun. I could do that for days…

Pratchum Nheat

April 6, 7, 8

Pratchum Nheat, the “family festival” that Krousar Thmey organises every two years is always a big deal. It is the main philosophy of our organisation that family ties our of extreme importance in Cambodian society, hence our name (Krousar Thmey means new family) and our preference for reintegrating children in their family if it is feasible rather than in a protection centre or a family house. In Cambodia, families often have these family reunions called Pratchum Nheat where all the members of the family rejoin in a particular place and spend a few days together, catching up, eating, dancing etc. So KT tries to recreate this. This way the KT children also feel like they are part of a “clan”. But this year’s Pratchum Nheat was even more important than usually, as it was also the 15th anniversary of KT and for this occasion, the King of Cambodia agreed to inaugurate the festivities. The children were so excited months in advance. Each time I would go to a centre they’d be rehearsing their dance/song/play and asking me if I was coming and what would I be performing.
The organisation for this was huge. I felt like I was submerged with work, with the press releases, the invitations, the exhibition on KT and its programs I had to create, in addition to my normal tasks, but that must have been nothing compared to the work the different centre’s directs and the Khmer staff at headquarters have put in. When we arrived in Kampong Cham on Thursday the 6th of April, everything was set up, a big tribune with for the king and distinguished guests, and 4 large side by side tents with rows and rows of children sitting quietly for the arrival of the king. It was so impressive. First the sheer number of kids. I knew KT took in charge nearly 2000 kids but seeing that huge group of children was astonishing. Second, the way they were sitting so quietly, and they’d been sitting there since 5 in the morning!! I can’t imagine 2000 children sitting quietly on chairs in Europe. The kids were so excited that they’d started getting up at 3am even though the festival started at 8.30. The staff had to put them back to sleep but at 4, there were too many kids awake and running around getting ready that they gave up trying to put them back to sleep….

So all the volunteers were sitting in the tribune along with the “distinguished guests”. We felt quite bad for that, as all the Khmer staff, even the directors were sitting below with the children. Complicated Khmer-foreigner relations at work which I will have to explore in another post. The king arrived at 9 among joyful cheers from the children. He stopped and said hello to nearly every kid in the first few rows. He was bending over really low (usually you have to bend down lower than the King) and spending time with each of them, asking them questions. He was very affectionate, it was very touching.
The ceremony started with the national anthem, which the deaf kids signed in their language. There were really beautiful dances from the deaf girls of the Chba Ampeu school near Phnom Penh. They can’t hear the music so their teacher, who is discreetly sitting aside from the stage, shows them the beat. The king was very impressed and obviously touched by all the performances and the different speeches made by former KT children now responsible adults with jobs and families and by Benito, the founder of KT.
He was then taken to see the exhibition I had prepared. I was waiting in the exhibition room and when Benito and the King arrived, Benito started presenting me to him, saying I was one of his former students, which is a bit of a stretch of the truth. He looked at me confused so I explained that I used to take dance lessons at the Conservatoire in Paris and suddenly his face lightened and he was like: Oh yeah, Anaïs, I remember you now, yes you were much younger, ah thank you, thank you Anaïs. How funny. I knew he didn’t remember me at all, but I played along. He thanked me for ever though. I didn’t quite know what for though so I kinda replied, ummm. You’re welcome you’re Majesty...! Anyway, he skimmed through my exhibition and I was gutted. That thing took me hours. Oh well, I least I had preferential treatment from the king compared to the other volunteers who he didn’t even greet.
After the group picture the king left and the rest of the festival was much less formal. There were dances, music from the blind children, shows from the deaf children. There was the long and much awaited for general knowledge contest. The brightest kids from each centre, family house and schools sit in this multi part test, every time a team catches up another one, every body cheers. It’s really cute to see that they all feel like they belong to a group that they are proud of, but there’s no rivalry between the different “groups” as there is obviously a feeling of belonging to the wider Krousar Thmey clan.
I had a least at much fun as the kids. First, I was able to just “ankouille legn” (best translation would be “sit and chill”) with the kids of the family houses during the general contest.
I’m so glad I can speak khmer now so that I can do that. I don’t understand why KT doesn’t encourage volunteers to speak khmer more. They say it’s because we shouldn’t and don’t work directly with the Cambodians as our job is purely administrative. But in situation like this, or when I show a potential donor around a family house, I’d feel completely useless if I’d didn’t speak khmer. Especially since Cambodia is not a country like some places in Africa where foreigners are welcomed in every homes and live the day to day lives of every inhabitants. Cambodians are very welcoming, if you don’t speak a minimum, relations can be very limited.
I didn’t just hang around with the Cambodians. Maybe it was because Pratchum Nheat is a festival for children, so I felt like regressing into childhood, and when the children were competing against each other in the jar smashing game, Corinne and I begged our colleague Vannak who was on the microphone to play too. There was only one jar left but we said we could play together. So they blindfolded us and gave us a stick and we jumped around like idiots for 15 minutes whacking our stick in the air, trying to crash the hanging jar full of sweets. The kids and the staff all around us where hysterical. White people making a fool of themselves is as funny as it gets… We never managed to get the jar in the end. I sneaked out of my blindfold and told Corinne where to hit it. Now I am known as the cheater.
The volunteers and staff of the headquarters had also prepared a show. As I said in my previous post, as we can’t seriously try to do something as nice as the kids’ dances and music shows, we did something silly that would make them laugh. So it was the happy giants against the mean ghosts, who tried to encourage kids to stay in the streets and do drugs etc. The happy giants win in the finale general fight. The kids loved it.
In the evening the children would improvise music and dance and sing. It was a lovely atmosphere. It was so great to be able to be a part of that.

temple kitsch

Thanks to all of you who emailed or called to see if I was alright. I did have some pretty difficult times lately, especially since the attack happened amid a whole bunch of other things which are going wrong. But I never said it was going to be easy all the time, and I know it will pass soon.
A couple weekends ago I went with Corinne and Clayre out to Phnom Brasset, halfway between Phnom Penh and Oudang. There were supposed to be pre-angkorian temples to see there. We never found those temples, but we did see some pretty interesting stuff. Interesting, not in the sort of historical or architectural sense. More like in the degree of tackiness in each of the temples we visited. And there were many… The first one we saw was huge and still in construction. Nagas served as street lamps and a giant pineapple and monkey welcomed victors and worshipers alike at the entrance of the complex. The whole thing was made out of cement which seemed to be just spray painted in this sort of reddish stone colour like many temples are made of over here. Some of the stuff looked so fake that it seemed like there were just props for a movie set, except a pretty low budget one. Made us laugh. We visited quite a few temples like that. One of the last one we saw was in the finishing stages, and it actually looked alright, once they spray painted the Buddhas in gold and tiled up the inside with moulded bas-reliefs...

Corinne had brought a picnic so we ate outside one of the temples under a hut. She’d brought camembert and saucisson and other French delights. We ate that in front of a concrete replica of the Bayon.
I’m embarrassed but I actually have very little else to talk about these days. Well I do, but going on for pages about how everything is going wrong at the moment would make for a depressing read and would make me feel more self-absorbed than I already feel, so we’ll just skip that. Besides, next week KT is celebrating it 15 years in Kampong Cham. The entire staff and children will be present (around 2000 of us) and the King himself will be inaugurating the festivities. Loads of journalists, ambassadors and VIPs are also gonna be there. It’s gonna be huge. 3 days of performances from the kids, speeches, games and contests. The HQ staff also prepared a little play. I’m in the role of a giant. At first I was a street kid but I got demoted from this position by real life ex-street children. I don’t know if I’ll make a very convincing, or even less scary giant but you know, it’s all in the talent of acting, which I am lucky to be gifted with… Anyway, all that to say that I’ll have plenty to write about when I get back, so it’ll make up for this post.

And I thought I was doing so well on the bike...

This blog is a great way for me to help me take stock of the situation while sharing my experience to people close to me. The experience I am about to express is not a pleasant one, and I hesitated to write it out. But in fact, just like good experiences, writing helps me make sense of what I am living through here, and I want to share this too.
Every first Friday of the month, there’s a big party in this bar called the elsewhere. The whole expat community is there, in this big garden with a pool. I had loads of fun. Corinne was there, as well as the founder of the Krousar Thmey, Benito. We drank a bit, danced a lot. I was all hyper because for the first time I had taken out the motorbike for a long-ish distance. I still didn’t feel ready to take it to work, but I had managed that afternoon to go to my driving lesson and back without any trouble. I was so excited by that performance that I asked Clayre if we could take it to the party too and she agreed.
I stopped drinking after a bit as I knew I had to be driving. Still, I was kind of worried for the way back. I just though if something goes wrong in the middle of the night we’d be screwed, so I asked a guy friend if he could escort me home. We joked about that a bit with Corinne, saying that he might just escort me to his house, and he was like yeah yeah sure, let me just finish my drink. In the end I got tired of asking him. When I said “I’m going” I though he was following me, but when I realised he wasn’t I didn’t worry too much. I thought I’d be fine after all as I felt completely sober and that anyway Clayre was there behind me to tell me where to go.
I was worried about my driving skills, not about anything else. But I drove really well. In any case there’s no one in the streets of Phnom Penh at 3.30 am so it wasn’t hard. We arrived home and Clayre complimented me on my driving. She got off the motorbike to open the front door. Then two guys on a motorbike stopped next to us. When I saw them my first thought was there are motodops, which was very silly as we were on a bike ourselves and obviously arriving at our house, but that’s just the thought that crossed my mind. My second thought was that they were guys who wanted to chat us up and asking what we were up to. That thought didn’t last long as suddenly a gun was pointed to me and the other guy pointed to my motorbike. The whole scene lasted like 10 seconds but in my head so much stuff happened that it feels like it was 10 minutes. I though of saying no, please don’t take that, it’s not mine but here have my hand bag, have everything you want. Its ridiculous, but the gun didn’t scare me that much at first. I was shocked by it. It was the first time in my life I saw a real gun and here it was directed to me. Then I thought, no they just can’t take the bike, it’s only been 4 days since Amaury lend it to me, he’ll kill me. So I thought what’s the worse that could happen, he’s about to shoot in the stomach, that won’t kill me. I’m glad Clayre was there to put me off that though. She pulled me off the bike, they hopped on it and there I was just paralised, looking at them just drive off. I was speechless, motionless. Clayre was all panicked and she pulled me inside the house telling me to hurry. She locked the front door and pulled me up the stairs. I just couldn’t believe it. I kept swearing to myself. We arrived upstairs and I called Amaury to let him know for his bike. I was starting to shake a lot. He was all worried asking if we were alright and I kept apologizing for the bike. It cut off pretty quick (Cambodian mobile to Belgium mobile in France is pretty steep…). Then we called Corinne. There I just burst out in tear like a baby. I was crying so much I couldn’t breathe. She was trying to calm me down, telling me I mustn’t care about the bike and that I did the right thing. She was really comforting. That’s probably why I let go so much and couldn’t stop crying. She told us to lock the padlock inside the house (my house keys were on the with the bike’s key) and to sleep in the same bed with Clayre. That night Clayre was being much stronger than me. She’s the one who told me to get off the bike and pulled me inside the house. Then she was comforting me when I was crying.
We had a pretty rough night. I kept dreaming of the gun and the bike driving away while Clayre would wake up at the slightest noise outside. We woke up in the morning and saw the little note I had put on her door the previous morning saying “have a nice day” and we were like, yeah, that was a great day indeed. There were loads of ironies to that day. Like the way I wanted someone to escort me, or how I was all proud that I finally felt ready drive the bike, or how I told Corinne’s sister that I felt at ease and really secure in Cambodia and that I really loved my new house. She even told me that I should probably leave the bike there and take a motodop home and I was like no way, the bike will get stolen if I leave it here. Little did we know…
The next day was pretty hard. I was overwhelmed by a feeling of guilt. I felt so stupid for taking the bike that night. I thought it’d be a good idea to get used to driving because it wasn’t very far away and there is hardly any traffic at night. It didn’t even cross my mind that it could be dangerous for other reasons than my driving. I’d hardly heard any stories like that. Last week a British guy got burgled when he was in the house and when he caught the guys and tried to resist them, they knifed him and his wife and he died. But I’d never heard of stories of mugging at gun point. And I felt like I’d been so naïve to go out so late at night, two girls on a motorbike.
Clayre was dealing with this in a much more different way. She was really strong that night but the following morning she was completely freaked out. The smallest sound or movement would make her jump, even when I was talking too loud she would look terrorized as if I was about to attack her. I went to work in the morning and she got up with me to buy new locks for the doors. She came back and went to see our neighbours, two nuns from France. There she burst out into tears and they comforted her. She couldn’t stay alone. We went to the market together when I came back from work and then I was supposed to meet a friend and I made sure she could come with. It was a bit hard cos I felt like I needed someone to be there for me but I had to be there for Clayre first, and she was having a much harder time to deal with things. In the evening Kesor came to see if we were alright. A friend texted me to come have pizza with them but Clayre didn’t want to move from the house. We ate at home and went to bed pretty early. It was good to sleep and this morning, after a nice lie in, we went to a nice café near where we live and had brunch there. A bit of a treat, but felt great. We were a bit better today. Now and again it hits me what happened and I feel down again. I guess It’ll keep happening like that for a while. I can’t help but feel guilty and stupid still. No matter how much people tell me I did the right thing and that I was the victim in the story, I keep feeling bad for having lost Amaury’s bike after just 4 days. He didn’t even want to lend it to me in the first place, I asked him. And just 4 days later I manage to get it nicked. Now I’m trying to find ways to buy a new one, because no matter what he says, and I know he’s not annoyed at me now, but it will be a pain for him when he comes back and has to take a flipping motodop every day to go to work. I might have to get another job and eat noodles until July…
Clayre reminded me today that that night I blurted out “putain de pays de merde”. No need to translate. I was angry at them, that’s for sure. But that hasn’t changed a bit about how I feel about this country and about the reason why I am here. And on the positive side, I will now be more vigilant and realize that I am in Cambodia after all. I wouldn’t have gone home that late on my own or with another girl in Leeds so there’s no reason I should think it’s safe to do it in Cambodia. I would have preferred that they’d took my bag and not Amaury’s bike but at least I’m safe, I wasn’t brutalized and maybe some kind divine force decided once again to forbid me to ever be able to drive by confiscating my motorbike. Maybe I’m avoiding a deadly accident this way.
That’s what I’ll keep trying to repeat to myself anyway…

Best of the best

So I have been a bit out of touch in the last few days. I hope I don't have too many disappointed fans. I've just been everywhere doing all kinds of stuff, and had little time to write. But I missed it, and I'm glad things have calmed down again so I can take stock of the situation a bit.

On Valentine's Day my Khmer teacher Kesor invited me to a Khmer concert called "Best of the Best". It's a yearly thing. I went there with Clayre, two of here visiting friends and Amaury. It was huge. The whole Olympic stadium was filled of middle class Cambodians, young and old, screaming like maniacs when there idol arrived on stage. Basically the biggest names in Cambodian pop were there, you know, the world famous Prieb Sowat, Sapoun Midada etc. There were even one or two hip pop singers. You should've seen that. Cambodian rap, with like the baggy clothes, the back to front caps and the gold chains and everything. Just brilliant. I actually enjoy some Cambodian tunes now. My ears have got used to it a bit and when I recognise a tune I sometimes hum along. Unimaginable a few months ago. I would pull my hair out when my neighbours would blast Cambodian music out of their window.

Corinne left Krousar Thmey now. She had a leaving do at her house with Sangva who worked in administration and who also left. It was fun. The whole Krousar Thmey staff was there, even directors of some of the centres. There was a karaoke so they were at ease. I got a hang of it as well. In fact, that's a bit of an understatement, I absolutely loved it. I didn't let go of the microphone and squealed Celine Dion songs all night (I'm not quite there with the Khmer tunes just yet…). But it was fun. It was nice to hang out with my colleagues, especially the Khmer ones, outside of the work context. It's sad that Corinne has left though. I really miss her at work. But the positive thing is that I now have my own desk and… check this out: my own brand new computer. Yes, Krousar Thmey gave in to my and Corinne's complaints about the retarded computer we used to have. The best feature of my new computer, except for the fact that it works, is undoubtedly my mouse: it flashed in 20 different colours really fast like a disco ball. At first I thought that was really cool and bragged about it to my colleagues. After about 10 mins, I started looking for the off button. Here my Khmer colleagues started looking perplex: why would you want to turn this off? It stays like that. Even when you turn off your computer! The first week it made me so dizzy I felt sick. The second week I thought I was becoming epileptic. Now I'm used to it. In fact I think I will get one for my laptop and my motorbike (yeah, Khmers love flashing devices. A flashing horn on your bike, or a flashing exhaust pipe on your car/motorbike is top class over here…)

What else to report. Oh... I've started driving lessons. As many of you know, I've had many, lets say, difficulties with passing my licence in the past. It was supposed to be my 18th birthday present, and the procedure started then when I lived in Switzerland. Six years on and different procedures in the UK, Belgium and France later, I have still not been able to acquire this precious document. Now don't jump to conclusions, I am in fact an excellent driver, just not a lucky one. And I have decided to test my luck again in a completely different setting. If I don't get my licence here, I will officially declare defeat and rely and my feet and public transport for the rest of my life – this is starting to be a ridiculously expensive spell of bad luck… So anyway, I convinced my Khmer colleague Chetra that he should really start to learn driving, as once Krousar Thmey is fully khmerised, he will need to be able to drive himself and donors. He agreed and we went together to a driving school not far from work where they offered a deal where for 60 dollars you get 14 driving lessons, 10 theory lessons, the test and the licence. Sounded pretty decent to me, until of course I realised that this tariff does not apply to my white skin and my blond hair (and maybe perhaps my past driving record…? Have they been informed all the way to here? Impressive.) So I had to pay more than double that. Luckily Chetra haggled with the guys there, who wouldn't budge, haggled some more with the next driving school along the road, who agreed to make it 75 for me and 60 for him. Anyway, so we started to learn to drive Cambodian style on this old Camry. In Cambodia you see, a red light is purely an indication, or lets say a suggestion, never an obligation, and the driving instructor actually gets mad a me when I refuse to go at a red light. What else has he taught me to do… oh, overtaking from the right, overtaking on a continuous line, taking a turn in 3rd gear, starting the car in 2rd gear… The thing that annoys me the most is the way they use the clutch here. Each time there is an obstacle in front of you, which in this country is always (cyclos, motos driving against the flow, unsteady small children on their bikes, cows etc) you have to push the left foot in. Even when you're in 3rd or 4th gear. You let go when the obstacle is past. Letting go of the accelerator or, God forbid, braking, is a big no no. You declutch. I always come out of these classes so worked up… I'm starting to worry I won't pass the test here either. Chetra reassured me though, that if I don't get, I can just buy one. He knows somewhere where you can buy one for 35 dollars.

The other big news is that Amaury has left Cambodia and that I have moved in to his and Clayre's apartment. I was always over there anyway, and I use to sleep over there more than I slept at home. Krousar Thmey doesn't pay me much but they provide me with accommodation just above the office. So I couldn't really afford to pay a rent but Clayre and Amory offered to pay half of my rent so I didn't hesitate too long. It's really really nice over there. It's in a nice area where all the cool people live and close to where all the stuff is happening. Lovely breezy terrace, clean tidy flat with a shower that actually shoots out water (not the tiny dribble I was used to) a nice kitchen, a good sized room with fan and aircon. Top notch. It's also mush quieter and less dusty as the flat has windows (fancy huh?). I also really enjoy having my home and not staying at the same place all day long. Well I didn't anyway; I would always go out after work. But still, I found it quite unhealthy to work and live at the same place and with the same people. I'm glad I can disconnect in the evenings now. It also means I have loads more space to host guests, so come along!!! A word of warning though, if you can't bear bad smells, you might not love my new flat as much as I do, as our lovely terrace overlooks a beautiful black stagnant river, which is the road's sewage. It's like you live in the sewer. But if you don't tolerate bad smells, you should probably consider another destination than Cambodia all together. It would just be a traumatising experience. Apart from the smell, the other slight inconvenience to my new home is that I am now far from work. But Amaury, by some sort of crazy surge of well-intentioned trust, agreed to lend me his motorbike while he is in Belgium (until July) so that I can put my life at risk every morning and every evening on my way to and back from work. So far I haven't had the guts to take it out. I have only driven it for like an hour last week with Amaury behind me and that was my very first time on a motorbike. I could hardly handle a bicycle in Leeds, and that was mainly through quite parks. And these motorbikes are so confusing with all these pedals to change gear and to brake, I was just getting a hang of the ones on the car and now it's all different. I'm hoping the confidence will spring to me soon. For now I am still taking motodops while carefully taking mental notes on how they swerve, avoid imminent collisions and handle big crossings with no red lights.

Last thing, I went to another wedding last Friday. Not as fun as the last one, as this time it was in Phnom Penh is this huge reception hall, not in a village. But the fun part was that I got to wear another fancy dress, red one this time (from Barbie to femme fatale) and that I went to my local hairdressers so they could do me up. I had 4 girls doing my hair in curls, one girl on each hand doing my nails, one girls painting me with layers of makeup and one woman supervising the whole operation. They were loving it, preparing a blond girl. Not as much as I was though. And all that for 3$... The best part is when we arrived at the wedding, really late, and then suddenly the crowd stopped eating and I had 200 pairs of eyes riveted on me. They couldn't believe it. A white girl with Khmer dress and Khmer hair do and everything… I was so uncomfortable. Well actually, that feeling didn't last too long. I actually loved the attention. Poor bride though...

party in the mountain and wedding in the countryside

I had quite a busy weekend. On Friday night I went to that boat bar I’d been to before with Dana. I didn’t know I’d end up there and once again I felt so underdressed compared with the other people. I wish I’d brought some of my going out clothes to Cambodia. At work I feel prissy compared to my Baraing colleagues, but when I go out in a place like here, I feel like a bit of a tramp. What is quite strange about this place is that if you were teleported to this place (bear with me…) you would have no idea you were in Cambodia. Not one Cambodian face, but sexy barmaids in dresses that cover just the minimum, cocktails, western music and western design. Anyway, the music was good and I enjoyed myself.

On Saturday I left for the Kirirom, a mountain south of Phnom Penh. A French guy had organized a huge full-moon party there. We set off at noon by bus and arrived at the entrance of the natural park at about 4. The landscape was amazing and the air so fresh and pure. It was hard for me to realize that we were still in Cambodia. There were pine trees and everything! I just stuck my head out of the window and breathed in all the air my lungs could take in. We arrived at the top of the mountain where there’s supposed to be waterfalls. We walked around a bit, looked for the waterfalls, couldn’t find them or even hear them, so went back in the bus thinking that we would go look for them later, after we had dropped our stuff in the hostel. Except the bus driver had no idea where the hostel was, so we went up and down the mountain 3 times, finally arriving there after 6, by which time it was dark and too late to walk around anymore. I was quite disappointed cos I would have really liked to see nice landscapes and take pictures. But anway, the party was really good. The people who were there were nice and we had a good time. Dancing outside is so much more fun than in clubs.

Saturday morning before I left for Kirirom I had been hunting for shoes to go with my Barbie dress in my favorite market: Psar Orussey. And I found exactly what I wanted in no time at all. But maybe I’ll explain why I needed Barbie shoes. I was invited to the wedding of Corrines’s cook’s daughter. Cambodian weddings last two days, are an opulence of food and drink, music and guests in their best wedding clothes. You don’t just wear a nice dress. You wear an absolutely gorgeous princess dress. At first the western eye would say that these dresses aren’t gorgeous at all but very tacky, and that they look like fancy costumes. I agree the dress I ended up wearing (Kesor my Khmer teacher lent it to me!) was quite similar to a dress I once wore for Halloween when I was dressed as a fairy. Except it was much more sophisticated. And it was Barbie pink. So I had to find Barbie pink shoes. Check out the pictures and tell me if you don’t agree that I look like a real life Barbie, in which case I will assume that you are just dead jealous. So anyway, the wedding on Sunday afternoon was awesome I really loved it. I wasn’t the prettiest girl, as Amory kept reminding me (these stupid Belgians are so untactful), because all the Cambodian girls looked like princesses or Barbies too. The hosts were so honored to have Baraings at their party and we were treated as kings. They wanted us to be present for when the bride meets the groom which is usually only for parents and siblings. The parents wanted to take pictures of us with the bride and groom and everything. And after the meal (which consisted of 6-7 different courses) they kept inviting us to dance. The guys come up to the girls and bow and you have to bow back to accept the dance. But I was so tired by the end (and the Barbie shoes weren’t that comfortable for dancing on dust floors) that I’d sometimes pretend I hadn’t seen the guy bowing in front of me and walk off the dance floor. No but it was really fun. The girls were really eager to show me the different dances, and I was probably making a fool of myself by attempting to do it right but they were so glad for us to be there that it didn’t matter. The bride changed dresses 5 times in the evening and each dress looked more gorgeous than the other. Amory and Corinne kept explaining to me all the different rituals that they were performing. It was really interesting. Then we had to give our money. You take the envelope that you’d received with the invitation and you put in money (you are expected to give quite a bit if you are Baraing) and you hand it over to the two guys sitting near the entrance. One opens the envelopes and tells the other what your name is and how much you gave and then the other writes it down. At first I thought that wasn’t really on, but then I realized that wedding lists in our weddings are not that different.
Anyway, after hours of dancing around the center table, we decided to call it a day, and I set of in the princess-worthy coach otherwise known as the back of Amory’s motorbike. I had to hold up the different layers of dress and veils, so it wouldn’t get stuck in the wheels. That’s Cambodian top class, I’m telling you…

On tour of Cambodia

Every month, the communication team and the finance team go on tour for a week. This means we take the land rover, pack it with stuff like milk, books, but most importantly money (that doesn’t take to much space though…) find a space to sit on and set off for the different Krousar Thmey centers in Cambodia. The idea is mainly for the financial controller to check each programs’ accounts, for the communication team (Guillaume, me and Chetra, except Chetra didn’t come this time) to undertake interviews, take pictures etc of the centers/schools/houses etc for our upcoming activity reports, and to deliver things such as the above mentioned powdered milk, books, computers or other things which were donated.

First stop: Battambang
We set off Tuesday at 2 and arrived at about 6 in this quiet provincial town which is Battambang. Many foreigners who have lived in Cambodia for a long time say that Battambang is the best place in Cambodia because it IS Cambodia, whereas other cities like Phnom Penh aren’t really Cambodia. I’m not quite sure I agree with this vision of things, as even if Phnom Penh has really modernized in the last 15 years, I would still maintain that it is Cambodia, but then again I’m new here and I haven’t been in Battambang long enough to understand what they mean.
We arrived at the school for deaf and blind kids, but the kids had already gone home. We went up to the building where guests stay. It had a beautiful spacious room on the first floor where deaf kids learn to dance, with an airy terrace overlooking the river. It felt so nice to arrive there after the trip in the hot car (I thought at that time that the trip was a bit tough but I didn’t know then what was about to come…). As you can see on the picture, the view from the terrace was very nice. But now would you like to bathe in it to wash yourself?
Well I didn’t have a choice, because the bathroom on the ground floor had no running water. Instead a tub was filled up with this very brown river water which had probably stagnated in there for weeks. It stank and even when I ran it on me with the pot for this effect, it wasn’t clear. But it was that or no shower at all. Apparently the Khmer guys who had come last tour had chosen the latter option. I can’t believe I went through with something even the Khmers wouldn’t do.
We went for dinner in a Cambodian restaurant in town and then I joined Clayre and her workmates for a drink who were also in Battambang that day. We were gonna have dinner all together, but they were planning to go to a restaurant were you can have a dish for 3-4$, but Krousar Thmey only gives us 2$ allowance for food, which means we could only eat in a Khmer restaurant. At these times I wish Krousar Thmey could be just a little bit less stingy with its money. I also feel like this when I’m in front of my computer which dates back from the mid-nineties and which freezes each time I insert a picture in my reports and which is just unbearably slooooow. But until it is completely dead, which means it will not even turn on at all, then I will perhaps be allowed a new computer. And I was used to stealing office supplies from where i worked before – of course, everybody does that. Well here I had to buy my own pen and notebooks from my salary. There is only one computer with internet access, and we have to reuse every sheet of paper on both sides, and then even when it is used on both sides, we put it aside for the blind schools, as they will use it for punching Braille on it. Krousar Thmey is extremely proud of the fact that we only spend 3% of our budget in running costs, all the rest goes to our beneficiaries. It is something to be proud of. Other NGOs can have more than 20%. But sometimes it drives me crazy…
Anyway, back to Battambang. So the next day I spent the whole morning doing interviews and taking pictures, as I have to write a report on the school in February. Unfortunately I was only told at the last moment that I would be doing this report and I hadn’t prepared it at all. It is also my first report on a school. All the other ones I have written so far have been on street children centers or family houses. So it was really difficult because I didn’t know what questions to ask the director and didn’t always understand what he was talking about when he answered me. Then I asked if I could pick one blind and one deaf kid to ask a few questions but they gave me this really shy blind kid, who was new in the school and who wasn’t talkative at all. The deaf kid was really cute. He was signing away his whole life. I love looking at deaf kids sign. Their faces are just so expressive. You can almost understand what they are talking about. But the guy translating the sign language for me didn’t speak English well and could obviously not be bothered, so he would translate 1 sentence when the kid had been signing for like 10 minutes. So I’m quite worried about this report. I don’t know what the heck I’m gonna write about. And there’s a lot of pressure as the donor this report is intended for is really picky and there has been some problems with them before, so we have to "grovel at their feet".

Stop 2: Sisophon
We left in the afternoon for Sisophon, a small town in the northwest of Cambodia. We first went to the school for Khmer arts and culture. Promotion of Khmer art and culture is Krousar Thmey’s 3rd main domain of intervention (the other two being child protection and education (blind and deaf)). The school is intended for any kid in the area. It is free of charge, so they can just go and learn traditional dancing, painting, sculpture, shadow puppeteering or music after school. It’s a really nice atmosphere there. I really loved watching the kids dancing and painting.
Then we moved to the protection center. We were put up in little wooden hut on stilts. The confort was very basic but it was luxurious for the area. Plus we could see the effort that was put in to welcoming us there. I spent the whole afternoon playing with a gang of young kids – they were just adorable. And my level of Khmer is just enough for 3-4 year olds, so we get along perfectly.
After dinner we were invited to Jean-Pierre’s. He's an old French guy who once helped Krousar Thmey in logistics and who retired in the Sisophon center. He now lives with his Khmer wife and two adopted kids in a small house just off the center. They made us crepes, which were absolutely delicious. It made me wonder how it could be possible for westerners to adopt a Khmer life completely. I mean, most people who come here know they will return at some point. But he lives here permanently. And it’s not like he’s in Phnom Penh, where there’s a bit of modernity. Sisophon is very small and rural. They don’t have a fridge, as electricity only comes on after 6pm, if at all, and live in a very decent but extremely simple house. But I guess he traveled a lot before he came to Cambodia (he was in the military) but it just made me wonder. I don’t think I could be up to that.
We went to bed, shattered. Felt like it was 12. It was 8.30 (normal bedtime in cambodia, especially outside main cities)

Stop 3: Poipet and Siem Reap
We got up quite early to go to Poipet, the most unglamorous place in Cambodia, if not the world. It’s a border town between Cambodia and Thailand and it has nothing to offer but casinos, human trafficking, poverty and misery. You drive in and everything is gloomy, falling apart, the kids never smile. Krousar Thmey has a school, a protection center and a women’s village there. The village was created to alleviate conditions of single women in Poipet. Little houses with a bit of land were given to these women. They are now single grandmothers rather than single moms. But life continues quietly for them in this small haven away from the ghetto. I was invited into one of the houses. The lady was so happy to have me over. It made me smile because the house was just a wooden cube with a surface of about 6 square meters. There was no furniture at all, but this huge sound system for their tv. Obviously the top priority for this family was quality sound for their favorite karaoke tunes..
What shocked me in this town was that you could sense misery and see it on people’s faces. For a start, an unbelievable amount of kids had light hair because of malnourishment. In the protection center, one the kids must have been so badly beaten when he was younger that his faced was completely deformed. He had no nose, a huge bump on the back of this neck, scars all over his face and was mute. Another 4-year-old kid could not walk or even stand up because he was blind and he was left without care all this time.
It felt that Poipet was in a too desperate state to be worthy of attention from other organizations. It’s quite demoralizing.
After lunch at the centre we went back to Sisophon to take our stuff and then set off to Siem Reap. The road from Sisophon to Poipet was bad enough. It was full of potholes so that the car had to stop and start again every metre, or if the driver hadn’t seen the big hole and was going fast, we would now and again get a good back slamming. But the road to Siem Reap… Dust road (dark red dust) all the way with a surface similar to the moon’s. We bounced for 4 hours and every once in a while we would wipe off the dust off our glasses and give our kramas, which were protecting our heads, a good shake...

We passed a demining crew on the way.

We have loads of projects in Siem Reap. First of all, Siem Reap, being the tourist hub of the country (it is the base town for the temples of the Angkor period, millions of tourists come here every year) there is consequently a lot of beggars and street children. Anyone who visited Siem Reap will have noticed that the street children are a nuisance. They are very numerous, everywhere and very persistent. And it is very hard to keep them in our centers, as begging in the town or near the temples is very lucrative. So we have a street children center (center for temporary reception of street children), a protection center (permanent reception for orphans or street children who cannot be reintegrated into their families because of problems of alcohol or violence) and 2 family houses (big houses where parents host 10-12 Krousar Thmey children, usually children who are too badly traumatized to be integrated into a permanent reception center and need the closeness and comfort of a real home - see post January 12). There is also a school for blind and a school for deaf children, a massage place with blind masseurs, an exposition on Cambodia and the Tonle Sap (Cambodia’s main lake/river) and a dance troupe which performs every week in a posh hotel. So there was a lot of things to visit, a lot of children to see and play with and a lot to discover. Veronique invited me to take part in a speech therapist class for deaf children. She has been training the KT teachers in speech therapy and she was supervising one of the classes. It was really interesting to see how they were trying to make these children understand sounds. I was amazed by the patience it required. I was there for 1 hour and the teacher went over just 4 sounds which he kept repeating to the three kids, using different methods for them to understand the difference between the sounds.
Siem Reap was not all work, and in the evening we managed to go to Benito’s (the founder of the KT) hotel which has a nice pool. It was also the occasion to take a shower from a real shower and not a big jar of stale water. That was sweet. Especially after the never-ending trip on the red dust roads between Sisophon and Siem Reap.

Day 5: Back to Phnom Penh
We left Siem Reap on Saturday morning and arrived early afternoon in Phnom Penh. I was kinda glad to arrive, even though I really enjoyed the tour. But I was happy to see my friends who weren’t with us. Corinne had left me a piece of chocolate cake in my mailbox for when I returned (she never comes on tour because of her kid) that was much appreciated. In the evening, there was a big do at Amory’s and then we all went out dancing. I like this about my life here is that I experience two different worlds at the same time. I’m not completely cut off from the world and we still go out for drinks in nice bars, go clubbing, and recover by the pool on Sundays. It makes being so far from home easier. Of course this is not at all what Cambodia is about, and if I was based outside a main town, I wouldn’t be experiencing these two worlds. But I think it’s good to have a balance. I also try as much as possible to cultivate friendships with Cambodians. I get along very well with my Khmer colleagues from work and with my Khmer teacher Kesor who is my age. She invited me to go to this huge Valentines Day concert this evening. I have traditional Khmer dance class tonight, but I’m really tempted to go anyway. I’d love to meet her friends and that way mix more with the locals. You can’t blame the expats here for hanging out too much together because it’s true that it’s hard to make close friendships when you have such language and cultural barriers. But I want to try anyway. It won’t be the same type of friendship as my "western" ones but it doesn’t mean it can’t be a true friendship either.

Happy Chinese new year!

So I met Clayre on Thursday evening. She wanted to meet at this beer garden next to her work that she keeps going past and thought could be cool. It was like a big terrace and a karaoke stage (of course, otherwise it wouldn’t be Cambodian) and loads and loads of staff. Some of the beer girls were a bit scantly dressed for Cambodian taste which made us wonder if this was the kinda place where you get a bit more than a drink and food. We looked at the menu and decided from the price of the food that we’d just have a drink there and then move on. So we ordered a 1l bottle of Tiger beer for 2. In Cambodia, when you go to a restaurant, there is always more staff than clients. When you order there’s like 3 of them listening, and then when take the smallest sip from your glass, immediately someone will rush to you table to refill it. Then one of the ice cube girls will run to you too and fill up your glass with ice. The problem is that if you said you want no ice, not only because ice in beer is weird but because ice here is made from non-drinkable water, sold in blocks on the floor of a street and then dragged from the back of a motorbike, you have to say it every sip you take because a new ice girl will have not heard it the first time you said no ice, and anyway, even if it happens to be the same person, her job is to refill ice, so she will refill ice unless you put your hand over your glass, look at her straight in the eyes and say slowly "até okun". In this place, it was the same with beer. We were like talking and drinking, and because it keeps refilling every sip you take, you have no idea how many glasses you drink. After a half hour or so I was quite hungry and eager to get out of there, but I looked at the bottle and saw it was really full. Turned out they’d opened another bottle, without asking us if we wanted it. I complained to the guy, but he responded that if you finish a bottle they will open another one, unless you say you don’t want it. So it was our fault from not having caught those sneaky beer girls putting a new bottle in the champagne bucket, even though we had asked when we ordered for one bottle, not two. These are the times I wish I could speak fluently Khmer so I could complain to restaurant staff like I know to do so well, you know, being French.

Friday night I went out with Dana, the American girl from Pact Cambodia. We went to a Thai restaurant in Sisowath quay (the place with all the hotels, bars and white people in shorts). The place was really nice and fancy (except for the frequent blackouts, but that’s just Cambodia. you get used to it and carry a torch with you at all times) and the cheapest meal would burst my weekly food budget. But it was nice, I can do that once in a while. We met up with some of her friends and it was so interesting to be part of a different community. There is so much to say about communities in Cambodia. Unfortunately I have not been here long enough to fully understand the subtleties of it all, but I already notice trends, attitudes etc. You don’t just have the francophone and the anglophones. Within each, you have communities of embassy workers, international organization civil servants, then international NGO workers (like Pact Cambodia) and then local NGO workers (like me). Dana and the girl I met up with for dinner with Friday were all dressed up and had make up, and I felt like quite the tramp, even though when I hang out with my “community” I feel like a prissy girl. Then we went to a guy’s flat which was also on sisowath quay and was this sort of really modern clean flat with a balcony overlooking the river. Here too, people were dressed up nice and drinking expensive drinks. And then we went to a new bar which had opened on a boat. I felt like I’d seen a lot of expats since I arrived, and each time I go out, I would recognize people. But there I realized I had just scraped the surface of the expat world in Cambodia . I have only been acquainted with the local NGO – francophone community. Now there were all these fancy looking English-speaking people in this trendy bar. I was talking a lot about it with this guy I met there. He’s French and also hangs out with the English-speaking people so he had a lot to say about the different communities. It’s really interesting. This could be a great subject for a sociology thesis. Anyway, I’m glad I can meet people in both groups, or in as many groups as possible. I find it scary to be working with people for a whole year, then going out with more or less the same people, and seeing just them all year long. You have to realize that you will be hanging out just with white people when you go out here, so it might as well be as diverse as possible, otherwise you suffocate. And even though I can’t keep up with people earning 10 times my salary, it’s also nice to be dressing nice and drinking cocktails once in a while.

Saturday was fun too. I went to Corinne’s after work for Raphael’s birthday. We started by blowing up hundreds of balloons, making up games etc. The kids started arriving at 3. It was so cute. I’ve seen these kids before and they look kinda scruffy. Here they were all in their best dressed clothes, and had washed their hair and the boys had it parted neatly on the side. They all had put perfume on and everything. Being invited at the white people’s house was obviously a big deal. We had organized a lot of games and each time they did one they would win a toy that we’d bought at Psar O’Russei. They were loving it. We had the food, the party hats (very Cambodian), loads of games everywhere. Corinne had filled in the small pool they have, and Raphael went in there with his dad. The other kids wouldn’t go in , but they all clustered around the pool to watch. It made us laugh, it was kinda like the his majesty’s bath.



After they had cake and soda though, some started going in, but they would carefully pull up their trousers so as not to get them wet. Cambodian kids like that probably never saw a pool in their life. They probably went swimming in the Mekong or perhaps in the sea. But pools are usually in hotels or sport centers for white people. But after a while, little by little they would start playing and then 15 minutes later… absolute mayhem. There were like 25 kids in this tiny pool screaming and splashing and pushing each other. They stayed in there for hours and they soaked the whole terrace. They were in a filthy state when we finally kicked them out. It was a bit embarrassing considering how neatly they’d arrived…

We then had a very appreciated shower and went out for Amory’s birthday on the boat. That was really fun too. The food was delicious and the people there were really nice. We went to another newly opened bar in town. It was this kind of “concept” place that keeps springing up all over Phnom Penh. You’ll have like a trendy bar with chilled out music, dimmed lights and like seating areas on cushions. And then there’ll be another room where you can buy expensive clothes and then a art gallery. It’s really popular here. I was quite tired (I haven’t adjusted yet to the 6 hours max sleep per night, 6 days a week. Apparently you get used to it after a few months) but it was good fun. We played silly games like taking pictures of ourselves being turtles until 3 am.

For my only day off I managed to get up not earlier than 9.30 which I was quite happy with. Of course I was more or less awake from 6.30. Not only do people not understand the concept of sleeping in and being quiet on Sunday mornings here, but it’s Chinese New Year today, so a a lot of music dances are going on. This is when you realise how many Chinese live here. The town is dead. All the shops are closed and people only take a day off if they're chinese. So the shop owners hire a chinese troupe to come do the dance of the dragon in front of their shop/restaurant. It last a few minutes, or longer if the shop owner in question has more money. Then the troupe moves on to the next shop. I was gutted cos I didn't have my camera with me when I saw a dance happening, so sorry, no visual aid on that...

Made in O Russei

The last two days have not been as exciting as usual, as I mainly stayed in the office all the time. I'm really behind with all my reports. Today I was supposed to visit a family house and take pictures and interview the kids but I didn't have time so instead I'll just interview the mom when she comes to pick up her allowance on Monday and use pictures which were taken a few months ago and weren't used in a previous report. Tomorrow I'm planning to go to the temporary center of Chamcar Mon. This guy called M. Phanna is the director of the center. He's great. He is so dedicated to his work and he does so much for his center. Writing the annual report for this center is a piece of cake as he already written his own report and all I'm left to do is to make sense of fis English and type it out nicely. Having said that, making sense of his English is not always easy. Here is a paragraph from his report, under the heading of "the reality of streets" :
The sexual contact
Most of the streets children have involved with sex issue. According to the age of puberty, sex attraction, influence of TV, VCD, or films, many children happened with the sex issue. It has found as in the streets:
a) The street boys and street girls have fallen in sexually
b) The street boys and street boys with homosexual (having not often living in the streets)
c) The street women were sexed with young boys (having often happened in the streets)
d) The adult men were convinced, threaten the street girls and raped and quitted, this case never been arrested them.
e) The both Khmer and foreigners have often involved convinced the street children for sex by consoling and offering some thing to the children.

It's even harder to understand Khmers when they speak sometimes. But I'll get used to it. And in the meantime I will improve my Khmer. I started classes this week. I should have never said I was an intermediate level. The teacher speaks to me in Khmer ONLY. She'll repeat the sentence again and again if I don't get it, and then if I repeat a word which is blocking my understanding of the sentence in an inquisitive manner she just uses another sentence in Khmer to explain that word. I suspect she doesn't speak English or French at all which would explain her determination never to translate anything but by explaining and confusing the hell out of me. But 3 classes of complete confusion per week will undoubtedly help me a lot. I only had 2 classes and I can already feel it easier to make whole sentences. One thing is for sure, I master small talk (that is presenting myself, saying if I have a boyfriend, why I'm not married etc etc) for all the kids who ask me, order a meal at a restaurant and not just by pointing on the menu, by reading it out, and most importantly, negotiate with the motodop driver the price of the journey and get him to go in the right place. Granted, I obviously wasn't up to that a few days ago (see fiasco Saturday night) but I've learnt my lesson well.

During my lunch break I went to Psar O'Russei with Corinne to buy crappy toys for her kid's birthday. He's having a party with all the kids from his street Saturday afternoon as I've been enrolled as a chaperone. Oh my goodness, you should come to Cambodia just for his market experience. There is SO MUCH crap there you cannot even imagine. I mean I went there thinking I need to buy plastic toys and party hats and I just wanted to buy everything. I just can't describe what was there. Cos there was just absolutely everything one may need or may probably have absolutely no use for but still wants. Half of the stuff is just made in China crap so mountain of plastic toys sold in rice bags by the kilo. One kilo of plastic army men and tanks for example costs 2000 riel, or half a dollar. Then there's (in a similar order) wedding dresses, notebooks and pens which are stacked up to the ceiling, ribbon, floor tiles, spices, towels, packs of bulk cookies and crisps, hairclips and jewelery, dried fruit, Chinese new year decorations, car parts, mobile phones… and so much more. It made me think of this slogan for this department store in Paris (which by the way just closed) called La Samaritaine. It used to be "on trouve tout Paris à la samaritaine" (One can find all of Paris at la samaritaine). This market's slogan could easily be "One finds the whole wide world at Psar O'Russei" Anyway, you have to be there.

Not much more to report, apart that things are looking up for me. I feel like I've made my nest here now. I more or less situate myself in Phnom Penh, I've got stuff on every night and plans for a weekend packed of fun (including a birthday do on a boat on the Mekong – last time Corinne went on one it sunk and the fisherman who tried to save the poor souls sunk as well) and probably another visit to Psar O'Russei. I've also decorated my room to make it more homely despite the noise the heat and the dust. And I'm getting paid this week so I won't have to worry about every riel spent anymore.

Anyway, gotta go meet Clayre at the Garden Café. I've heard it's -7 degrees in Paris. Boooww, tough luck…. Morijtos by the pool for me!!