Cambodia

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Hello,

We have been in Cambodia since the 10th of Feb and it has been a whirlwind of activity. We decided to take the cheap option from Thailand to Cambodia and caught three buses! It was a long trip and when we finally arrived in Phnom Penh (the capital of Cambodia) we were exhausted but excited.It was Kari's first time to an asian country and eating street food was a nerve racking idea but she braved it after watching Chris dive into it. Kari is still somewha cautious about food but she tries all sorts of the new things like Chris, however she has experienced less tummy troubles than Chris. Some of our favorite foods are: pork, egg & rice for breakfast; amok (a type of curry) fish or chicken; a crazy banana, rice & coconut dessert; sticky rice in vine leaves.

We met some really nice people who own the guesthouse we were initially staying in which is called the Lazy Gecko through these people we managed to secure a furnished apartment within days of arriving in the city. So now we have our own 1 bedroom place with a large lounge & dining room, bathroom, kitchentte & balcony. We pay $75 p/wk rent & we get our own cleaner! How epic!! This rent is expensive for Cambodia. The place is owned by a really nice Cambodian family who also live here and we are becoming friends with two of the siblings (aged around 30) who speak very good english. Dao has a son who is three and very cute!! Vannary has a 4 month old son, so we are both happy with the children to play with.

Organising money is challenging as we have to pay for everything in cash & getting cash out is expensive but things are cheap by Australian standards but we don't think in Australia money anymore we just do our budget by Cambodian standards for example we see a $5 dollar meal expensive.

Kari:

I am currently volunteering wtih Transcultural Psychosocial Organisation <cite>www.tpocambodia.org/</cite>.
TPO & LICAHDO are working together on this prison project which is called Preventing Torture. LICAHDO is a human rights organisation and one of the things they do is human rights monitoring and this article discusses the overcrowding and other issues with the Cambodian judicial system for more information see - http://www.licadho-cambodia.org/reports.php?perm=154&pagenb=0&filter=0
For TPO I am currently working with a team to develop a life skills program for prison inmates 18 - 24 who are at the end of their sentence, it should be noted that people can spend 4 years in for arguing with the government illegally taking over farmers land. They don't do bail here and many people are in gaol pre-trial for years longer then their sentance would be, but time spent it gaol pre-trail isn't taken into consideration when sentanced.
We are also developing training for prison medical staff and prison guards about mental health and how to recognise torture. One of the key aims of this project is to identify (and hopefully reduce) how much torture inmates experience and at what stage of the process for instance at time of arrest, to get a confession or daily, this will be done by LICAHDO medical and legal staff and TPO psychological staff. I will also be helping run the first few Self Help groups and Life skill programs. TPO has just won an award for Human Rights efforts recognised by an American Human rights institute which is very exciting



Chris:

It took me about 5 weeks of searching but I found an engineering volunteer job with a organisation called Live & Learn Environmental Education. I am involved in the WASH team which is concerned with improving acess to WAter, Sanitation and Hygene which are major causes of deaths in rural Cambodia. They also work closely with a floating village community who live on the Tonle Sap which is a massive lake in the middle of the country. They currently have a project where they are developing a floating biodigestor that can turn animal waste into fertiliser and produce cooking gas at the same time. My role is as a engineering technical advisor and it looks like i'll work with building staff capacity in using programs like excel and autoCAD as well as helping out with the biodigestor program. I recently visited the floating community for a couple of days and got to help out with the projects firsthand which was really fun. http://www.livelearn.org/



Kari might update this blog from time to time with articles or reflections about Cambodia so you should be hearing from us more frequently. Hope you are all well and if you have any questions please post them & we will answer.

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Comments

[Matilda]

I LOVE THE VINE LEAF DESERT THINGY! YUM!