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Published: April 29th 2012
Since we last updated you things have been going really well. Our language skills are improving - but not fast enough for our liking 😊
Happy Birthday to the Airies Lyn Rand, Fiona, Rob Clarke, Nathan Bartlett, Nigel Moore, Maxine Osgood, and Happy 25th Birthday to Lolly!
Every week Kari goes to the market & she sits on a plastic chair and gets her hair dry shampood with a 20 minute head massage with a neck massage and followed by washing the hair out for another 10 minutes in the sink. This leaves her hair clean for 4 days compared to when she wahes it herself it is dirty that afternoon.
We watched a movie at the cinema called
Lost loves which we hope raises the profile of the Genocide in Cambodia, for those of you in from the central coast Kari has reccomended it to her friends at the Avoca Picture Theatre.
We think this helps you to understand the Khmer better then anything else we have read or seen
Lost Loves” tells the true story of a woman who lost most of her family during the reign of the Khmer Rouge, which oversaw the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million people in Cambodia from 1975 to 1979. It was the year when Khmer Rouge came into power, beginning nearly 4 years of bloody rule over the Cambodians. Amara (Kauv Sotheary) adapted to this alien world, the familiar structures of Cambodian life crumble around her: she was separated from her middle class family in Phnom Penh, cruel and uneducated children took positions of authority over adults, and unending, grinding labor under the hot sun becomes the central fact of her life. (Women and children were sent to collective camps to work in farms and plantations for food they could not eat; men were exhausted at labour camps and intellectuals or suspected persons with any “connections” that went against the revolutionary ideology were tortured and executed.) The mysterious Angkar ("organization" in English), the Khmer Rouge's name for itself, is omnipresent yet somehow always hidden. "The village chiefs endlessly talked about Angkar, Angkar, Angkar, but I didn't know what Angkar is," Amara says in the film.
Kari: Work has been going great I have completed the life skills program for the prisons. I ran some values & beliefs training for LICADHO
Ream national park
The view whilst waiting for our boat(the human rights organisation) as a part of a larger training package. The training was a challenge which involved having the concepts translated but it was successful and fun. I have also been lending a hand to a start up NGO with developing a draft human resource policy and draft child protection policy for a Cambodian context and developing a practical skills training workshop for the Cambodian staff. I'm almost finished the topic on engagement and boundaries. These topics don't directly translate so it takes a fair bit of explaining and It was a challenge, I definately learnt from the expereince and how to better prepare for the next time it didn't go as well as I wanted it to but that is what learning is about!
Chris: Im currently helping to design a small biodigestor system that uses animal waste to create cooking gas and safe fertiliser for floating villages. Im also working on a hand operated compressor that compress the created gas so that it is more easily transportable. This is proving more difficult than i imagined as I cannot find some of the parts requried to build this. Simple things such as gas fittings are
Ream national park
Waiting for our boat to the island extremely hard to find and when found are much more expensive than they should be. Improvising is really needed to fix these problems! I plan to visit the floating community this week to install these systems. Working with cultual differences is a new challenge as well.
Our Island Holiday So it is currently the hottest two months in Cambodia April and May so to celebrate Khmer new year we decided to go on an island holiday. We were off the the coast of the tourist beach area Sihanoukville on an island and our side of the island only had a 2 small accomodation options - one of these our accomodation was full of tree houses - not for those who want a fan in their room - what room we didn't exactly have 4 walls 😊 But it was perfect for us we loved it as i'm sure you can see by the photos. We spent time lazing in hammocks, watching the sunset, reading books, going for walks, swimming, chis went spearfishing a few times and once he caught some fish. Our fish were then cooked by our accomodation place for us nicely shallow fried yum
Sunset
On the beautiful island yum the skin and spine went all crispy it was delicious. Chris also caught some massive muscle things which we got cooked in a curry. So we stayed there 4 nights and then went back to the mainland to stay at a beach called Otres and we stayed in Mushroom accomodation. How cute! they also had a mushroom bar and restuant
. We made some friends which we hope to stay in touch with and all in all it was so lovely to be by the beachside and feel the ocean breeze. The day we got back it was a sweating machine and has been ever since
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Patti Bartlett
non-member comment
Luv the tree house
Wow! - what an experience you're both having - really interesting and worthwhile. I recently read a book about child prostitution in Cambodia by Somaly Mam - horrific story tho also one of hope. i was always fascinated by Swiss Family Robinson and would love to live in a tree house in a tropical country. Spent yesterday in Sydney and took Jo and Tayla to the Fitness Expo at Darling Harbour. Tayla made some useful contacts with her studies next year and then met your Mum and had a Thai lunch at Haymarket. Geoff and I then caught the train home. Archie is growing up and is still really cruisy and lots of fun, Nathan is in his 2nd rotation working in the mines in WA and in his next week off him and Hol are coming down here. Byron stydying at W'gong and Kayla has been assigned a case manager for her visa appn. Enjoy hearing about your adventures. Keep well much love Geoff Patti boys and girls xox