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Published: September 20th 2007
Susadey, sok sabaay te? (Hello, how are you?)
As you can tell I am learning a bit more Khmer now - and I emphasise the ‘bit’. We are able to have short conversations with people now, however our topics are generally restricted to asking people how they are, what their name is, how old they are, and (for children) whether they go to school J.
We met these two cute kids after church one Sunday - see photo. They were begging at the local Caltex service station. The girl on the left of the photo is 12 years old. Her mother stays at home to care for her father who has lost both of his legs. She has 11 brothers and sisters! They live in a slum area near a local Buddhist Pagoda. The other girl in the photo is her cousin and she is 8 years old. Thankfully one of our friends was a Khmer guy who was able to help us out in our conversation with the girls. We arranged to meet them the next day so that we could meet their parents and provide some food for their family. With both parents at home, it is
usually the children who are then expected to provide money for the family to survive on. When we were leaving we also met a lady with her 6 month old baby who was also begging at the service station - see photo. She was able to tell us (through our Khmer friend) that she moved to Phnom Penh just a few weeks ago because the area in the province where she was living had no rice crops due to an insect infestation which had destroyed the crops. She has come to the city in search of work and food. On top of all this, her 6month old baby is sick. These are the stories that break one’s heart and makes you reassess your priorities in life. We sometimes think that trying to live on $6 (US) a day is difficult, but when you hear about the challenges that these people have to face we are actually living in luxury… God blessed us that day, by leading us to meet these beautiful people. Reminding us that He is our all-sufficient provider, and that it is truly more blessed to give than to receive.
Life here in PP has its joys
Our office - Chab Dai (Joining Hands)
Our office is on the top floor - lots of exercise!and its challenges - like all places I guess. The joys are many, including meeting the Khmer people, being able to know enough of the language to communicate with them, being able to laugh at the various things that happen to us on our daily travels (including: haggling over the price of a moto-taxi with the drivers, laughing at the cute way the little children say “hallo” to us as we walk by, laughing when we get lost (can be a daily occurance)), and spending time with new-found friends…
Likewise the challenges can be difficult - cold showers every day; sleeping with mosquito nets; the dirt, dust and pollution; getting sick easily; not being able to find what you want/need when you want it; internet and power problems which limit contact with family and friends; wanting to help the Khmer people when you see their needs but not knowing how…
We live in an area called Toul Tom Poung (pronounced ‘tool tom pong’) which is south of the Russian Market (Psar Toul Tom Poung). It is an area that has a mixture of local businesses (stalls), fancy houses, and slum-type areas. Our home is four stories high and
How I sleep
When those pesky mosquitos are around, the net comes out! has 6 rooms. It is the teamhouse for the Mercy Teams International (MTI) whom we are working with while we are over here. It is one of the ‘fancy’ houses in the street so at times you feel guilty coming home to such a place. However when it rains (everyday at the moment) we are reminded that we live in a developing nation as many parts of the home leak, and we often find rain leaking through the fluro lights - an electrician’s nightmare I think J. We used to think that this house was very secure, that was until last Thursday night when some intruders somehow managed to break in (our front gate was padlocked). I was awoken by my bedroom door opening, and not thinking anything of it I got up to close the door. This woke up my flatmate in the next room and also scared the intruders who ran down the stairs. My flatmate heard them running down the stairs and out of the house and then we both realised what was happening (it was 3.30am in the morning so our brains were not working all that fast). They stole $100 of my flatmate’s money (from
One of our training sessions
Our regular morning group at the Riverkids Community teaching Parent-Child Relationship Techniques (our Khmer teacher is on the left - he is also our translator for this weekly program) her room while she was sleeping) and a CD player that doesn’t work. We also realised last night that they had also stolen our video and dvd player (obviously we don’t use these that much because we only realised they were missing now!). We have changed the padlock on the front gate and we now have two more on the inside doors…
Our daily schedule:
Our day usually starts at 7am and we leave for ‘work’ at 8am. We either spend the whole day at the Chab Dai office (see photo) or attend to errands in preparation for our training workshops (sometimes this involves going shopping for resources in the markets, or networking with other agencies) or actually running the training workshops. We usually get home around 5pm where we either relax for the evening, or go out to attend meetings or go to the local internet place to check our emails. At night-time we have just enough energy to cook dinner, have a cold shower, read for a bit, and then collapse into bed. Jacina and I are thinking about taking up the Cambodian long lunch - usually 1 ½ hours with a lie-down included. It makes for
Riverkids Community Kindergarten
A monthly parent meeting where the teachers share with the parents about their children's education healthy living! We are also cleaning up (and trying to fix) some old bikes left by other missionaries so that we can ride to work.
Our work:
So far, we have been inundated with requests for the workshops and training we are offering to both Khmer and expat counsellors/carers who work with children at risk. We have 8 workshops booked for the month of September which includes specific training for two agencies (where we travel to the agency and present the workshop at their premises and tailor it to suit the needs of their staff). At the moment we have 9 workshops booked for October which includes specific training for three agencies, one of which is 2.5 hours drive away in the Kompong Cham province. We have also begun an 8-week program which runs over September and October and is held at a slum area near the river. Jacina and I wanted to bless these agencies with the training, so they are free and we are also paying for resources, food, and translation for each workshop. While Jacina and I worked hard for 6 months fundraising for this prior to coming here, we did not realise how expensive each
One of the shelters where we visited in August
Group activities teaching girls about self-esteem and teamwork workshop would become. With translation and food alone, a full day workshop for 20 people works out to be $110 US. Times that by 17 workshops and you can see our current dilemma! We have managed to ask some of these agencies to provide for the food and translation if we are doing a specific training workshop for their particular agency and they have agreed with this request, which has lessened our costs somewhat. We want to say a big thank you to Southport Church of Christ and Helensvale Baptist Church who have supported our urgent request for funds these past weeks, which has helped us to meet our shortfall at this present time. We have also been blessed by others. So thank you very much - you know who you are J.
The need for training in the area of human services was brought home to us when Jacina visited a few of the university’s here in PP (keep in mind that a university can be the size of one building and is often privately run as a business). She was enquiring specifically about Social Work and Psychology degrees and was told that there either were none in
New-found friends
Our moto driver, Jacina, me, Sony, and Vista at the Choeung Ek (Killing Fields) in August this area, or at one of these university’s she was told that if there was a demand for a course they would just ‘make one up’. We were surprised to hear this as there are many workers here who are called Counsellors, Social Workers, or Psychologists however we’ve learnt that most are called this due to their roles rather than their training (although some have specific training). The Khmer workers we have met have a real heart and passion to do their job well, and they desire to have access to appropriate training. At home in Oz going to a workshop is easy as there are many to choose from, and it is so natural to sometimes just attend these workshops to meet professional obligations rather than due to a joy and a passion to do our work well.
The workers that have signed up for the workshops are predominantly Khmer workers, with some ex-pat workers also attending. These people work in a variety of areas, mainly working with children and young people. Some come from aftercare shelters where children/teenagers rescued from brothels go for safety, security, and a chance to go to school or receive vocational training. Some
workers come from assessment centres and crisis centres where children/teenagers who have either been rescued from brothels or from the streets come to have their needs assessed and to find a place of safety. The children/teenagers rescued from brothels are often in danger of being kidnapped by the owners of the brothels (the pimps) as these children/teenagers are their livelihood and they are not happy when they suddenly disappear.
One of the organisations we have visited is called Riverkids. As the name suggests the workers from this NGO work with the children and families from one of the riverside slum areas. They have started a small kindergarten and school for these children in the slum area (see photo), where Khmer teachers educate the children to the level of the mainstream schools so that once they reach a certain age they will be able to attend the mainstream schools (and be given scholarship money to attend). These children are often left to their own devices by their parents, either because the parents are busy working to survive or because sadly some parents just don’t seem to care about them. Part of the work we are currently doing with Riverkids is providing them with Parent-Child Relationship Technqiues training so that they in turn can teach the parents of these children. The techniques are based on Filial Therapy which seeks to help parents/caregivers to build positive relationships with their children and to enhance communication and emotional responsiveness.
Well must go, if I don't stop writing this soon you’ll run out of internet credit reading it. Thanks for your support and prayers. Please pray for our health and energy over the coming weeks. Jacina is struggling with a persistent cough, I have a lump growing on my wrist (of all places!), and we are often struggling to get enough energy. Thanks !!
In His Name,
Kirsten xxooxx
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Teeka
non-member comment
wow
Kirsten, it's wonderful to hear from you!!! I'm amazed at how much you are accomplishing over there, and exhausted at the thought of it! I'm so glad to know that you are fulfilling your dream but i miss you heaps. I sent you a private message a while back, did you receive it? I'll definately pray for you and Jacina - keep up the awesome work. love and blessings Teeka