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Published: July 13th 2006
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For those of you that graced my ‘Myspace’ blog and have been kind enough to view this one as well…Thank you! Photo stresses that plagued my former blog are no more!! AND…I’m turning over a fresh leaf…gonna scribe on this page frequently, and keep you all up to date with my heady, beautiful existence over here in S.E.A...
So…there’s loads to catch up on but I have to start with today because it was such a memory packed one…I’d be lying if I said I shot out of bed with the energy of a nuke at 5:30am (in fact I was one pissed off bunny)…but all the aches and pains of early early morning wake ups soon left me as I traveled in the CDPO truck (Cambodian Disabled People’s Organisation - the org that I’m working closely with) out to Kompong Speu Province, about an hour West of Phnom Penh. The bustling streets on PP gradually gave way to the garment factories…then the airport…then the country. And despite my stay in Battambang Province for the wedding where I thought I’d seen the all the picture perfect paddy fields I could possibly want to see...I found myself eyes wide open (finally,
Katy) and jaw dropped just staring out at endless luminous green rice fields.
I have to say, (and sorry Mum!) but today I experienced the only moment of thanks in my life that I was in a four wheel drive…now I might go off about the Sloane SUVs and the nasties that drive them but it sure was what we needed today! Skinny dirt tracks rising above the paddy fields with foot deep potholes had my bum bruised within 5 mins - god help us if we’d been in anything else! So off we trundle…bump after bump…and to our left and right, there are Khmer women with their chequered headscarves bent half over picking rice out of water that looks bright blue because its so calm and reflective of the sky.
the point of the trip today, as much as I could fool myself it was for leisure was to meet women with disabilities that work for the various women's federations in this province. My amazingly helpfull and hilarious collegues at CDPO had bent over backwards to secure some top notch interviews and focus groups..so first stop was a cutesy little office in the middle of said paddy
fields, with 4 women and 3 men waiting for super-researcher Katy to turn up (ha! as they like to believe...I'm learning fast but i'm constantly stupified by the amount of trust and honour they give on me). Discussion went off without a hitch and soon it was time to depart for lunch at another feds house (not before using half my memory card on taking photos of the - as half Khmer society would put it - 'ugly' but in my mind beautiful Khmer women...who couldnt get enough of my camera!).
After another bumby but insanely stunning (yet so normal) journey across the watery terrain, I arrived at the house in time to help prepare the rice for cooking...and to see something that I found GROSSLY FASCINATING...a darling black duck getting knocked-off to end up in our stomachs in an hour (anyone who knows me will be shocked to see I stuck it out and LOVED the gorriness of it!! and...NO FAINTING! can you imagine it? I must really be toughing up out here...)
Once I'd got over the excitement of witnessing a murder (the 2nd i've seen in a week! although seeing a goat get its head
chopped off with a machete and then writhing around for hours on National Geographic channel isn't quite so 'in the flesh' but was even more gross)..we got swiftly on with the focus group and again I reaped great reseach and eye-opening rewards from the life stories these women told me. Even a short downPOUR that drowned out our voices didn't stop us from sharing experiences and smiles. Once lunch was tucked sweetly in our tummies it was upstairs for karaoke (this is a majoy national obsession..try and get a citylonghaul bus anywhere and youll spend the journey trying to drown out the painful warbling of Cambodia's lovesick youth)...and once all sung out it was time to hop onto the next place for the final focus group.
Those from the women's fed that we lunched with came back to their office with us and I presented them with a game of connect four that i had lugged over from England..and once the initial 'what the hell is this plastic thing?' was over..they could be heard for miles screaming at each other and giggling madly...just what it was meant for (most of these provincial office have little in the way of
practical resources, let alone funds for 'fun' things that bring people together and relax those that have a pretty hard life).
By this point I was just a little tired...so got through the last focus group in an hour (relatively quick!) and said a huuuge goodbye to everyone that involved another hundred photos! I wouldn't want to gush about the poor little indigenous that i'd spent the day with...being immersed in 'village life'...coz thats just patronising..but I really did leave there today with a warm feeling inside that told me I had met some wonderful people, who had been genuinely thrilled that I had visited them...and purely as a bonus...I'd been slap bang in the middle of a South East Asian vista dreamland...
What more could a girl ask for?
K x
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Ann
non-member comment
Alright for some people
Some of us are dealing with crackheads breaking into cars and stealing cd player, Indian tenants who leave a flat looking like a squat and who have the nerve to tell us about the Indian custom to leave rubbish scattered throughout when you leave a house so it isn't empty and say it with a straight face! Stay in cambodia then! Love mum