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Published: March 22nd 2010
Sooooooo what to say. Ive not been to many new towns or cities or monuments recently but I have been getting around some and learning a great deal about Kampuchea and teaching and all sorts of things. A very informative few months. Much goes on in a small farming village where nothing happens. All sorts of country gossip, its a bit like emerdale. Not that I watch such things..
The place I work in acts as a sort of community centre as well as a free school, before and after lessons theres always some hanging about going on, football is a great way to impress the ladies as well as engage in what can only be described as proto-flirting.Really proto.Its a place where young people can hang out and spend time with each other in a way which they are not normally able to. Time alone with someone of the opposite sex who isnt a family member is pretty risque and frankly impractical given how full kids days are and the strict lifestyle most parents are accustomed to.
One of the very best, if not the best, things about teaching here is being able to see what it looks
like when students value their education. Genuinely. Some of my students are at school for up to 12 hours a day, with only a small break for lunch, which is mostly filled with more free lessons. Hardcore. I dont have to do alot of teaching here as its a free school and lessons are on when normal school isnt, so lunchtime, after school and weekends. I have enough spare time to engage in my own private studies, the huge university textbook for environmental sciences will keep me entertained for a long while yet. I also have time to read loads and go about and take part in the various programs we got going.
The other day i was out checking the rainwater systems we installed for 210 villagers. Its basically 3 large concrete tubes with guttering leading in. There is a filter to catch crud from the roof and a first flush system which means that the first load of water just cleans the system out of dirt and so on but doent contaminate the container. Its really simple and relatively cheap at about $240 including labour costs. this means that someone living in an area with wet/dry seasons
will have clean,free water for the dry season. as long as its used properly then it will last aaaaages and is so cheap to repair its silly. The problem is that alot of people still dont use it properly and fill it with scummy pond water which makes them ill and means the whole system needs to be emptied and cleaned. Out here clean water can mean the difference between life and death. in fact it does everywhere. Dirty water spreads things like cholera, which is a bit of a problem here. Many people dont have access to clean water or dont have the education/desire to maintain such sanitation. Meat and veg are left out in the open mostly, which means flies, who also transmit cholera, can infect your food. You can die within hours if you get cholera and you are malnourished and dont have access to clean water, food and health care. Give a small child one huge purge of his bodies nutrients and hes in trouble. Or have clean food and water and you will be ok. There is a tragi-comic argument in the papers between the shitty government and a chain of proper hospitals (who, as
an aside, offer free heath care for kids) , the government say theres no cholera and even found some W.H.O scum to say its not a serious disease, and the hospital says they are treating loads of people with it and they have the numbers of infected and dead. Just for their hospitals mind. The idea that this government has accurate numbers for anything, especially the hospitals is laughable. Most hospitals are so filthy that people have been known to catch typhoid fever and aggressive diarrhea just by spending time in them.
Anyway that 11,000 people die here every year from something as mundane as diarrhea ( just under double the amount who die from aids) is not a subject i shall dwell too much on, its mucky. Lets move on to GENDER ISSUES!!YAAYY!!!
As i sat writing some of this,it was international womens day. This meant i had to cook for myself which is terrible. Life as a chick here in general isnt very awesome. Until very recently it meant that you didnt really get an education, you were allowed by law but tradition and the nature of the family unit meant that the daughter stays home
to work and the son goes on to get learned and paid. If someone gets ill, the girl comes home and looks after them, if help is needed working in the rice paddies, the girl does it. Basically girls have to do everything in the house, even if they somehow move out, they then owe their parents a life debt which means they have to send their wages home forever. The C.I.A world fact book tells me that only 73.6% of the population are literate, in terms of gender 84.7% of males are literate but only 64.1% of females. Thats really bad. in terms of schooling, in 1999 about twice as many boys than girls went to secondary school. now its evened out and in the past or 2 years it may have flipped. As some anecdotal evidence, 3 of the teachers at my school are my age, i asked them what the ratio of boy/girl was when they were at school. Of a class of 50 students only 5 were girls.Five. Now my lessons are populated mostly by girls and the boys are the silent minority, and generally (though not always!) they arent as good as the ladies.
I
might start teaching the girls bad english to give he boys the leg up they deserve to end this cruel subjugation at the hands of the evil sex.
Or not.
Women here need all the help they can get but they also have to help themselves. Traditions must be broken and cultural norms changed. The idea that if you have sex before marriage A GHOST WILL COME AND KILL SOMEONE IN YOUR FAMILY DEAD has to be dropped, of course these ghosts only take vengence on the woman, ghosts dont seem to mind when guys break the rules. In fact it seems that women around here have to do alot to avoid being punished by ghosts. Even if they dont believe such things, most of the people around them do and to break the rules is basically to say "im ok with harm coming to my family due to my actions" which is obviously not on.
On a lighter note I will be starting a new job teaching at a university in Kampot province, who shall alos not be named. Ill be teaching english and culture studies as part of the 3rd year english course. I had to completely
design this course from scratch by myself.
The entire thing.
This meant acquiring appropriate books and other material, deciding what to include in the course, how to structure it, lesson plans, assesments and tests etc etc. very interesting and exciting, was kinda nervous until the boss told me the other day i couldnt print anything out and not to use big words as they dont speak very good english. Aside from the obvious hilarity of such a statement about 3rd year english students i have been testing my course on my pre-uni students here in the village to see how it went down and if it was too simple. They got it very easily. I believe that my new job is going to be quite the learning experience. It does mean getting paid though and i wont have to hangout with all the disinterested heroin/crystal meth addicted 'english teachers' who the haunt the corridors of Phnom Penhs teaching establishments and late night bars numbing the pain of having students pay for a qualification they clearly dont deserve. For those who read this and feel im exaggerating; Cambodia, Phnom Penh especially, is far beyond my silliest exaggerations and basically its as
crazy as it is weird as it is beautiful as it is wonderful.
Almost every single day here something new happens, i learn something or witness or experience something i hadn't or couldn't elsewhere. The people i meet and the opportunities I have are mind boggling, the company i mix with at times has a range broader than the Mekong and events branch off like the manifold tributaries of this all pervasive waterway. My relationship with the country has changed now that my status has changed. From backpacker to volunteer to worker semi-ex-pat, i see more and understand more and gain more but things are also alot more annoying at times, let it be said that nobody and nowhere is perfect, at all, but there is always an opportunity to learn. Before, i thought i would have loads to write in my travelblogs, seeing that i would discover so much and that im such a politicized person but Kampuchea has knocked alot of the politics out of me, the corrupting influence of power is such a moot point that it bores one to speak of it most of the time and politics here is like watching kids at school
fight in the playground. incredibly childish and naive but brutal and effective.
I cant find the words to convey the things of importance i have learned and i cant be bothered to write about politics here. I dont give a shit about the khmer rouge trials to be perfectly honest and i dont think most khmers do either,like all these things its too long, too late, too little. Everyone can see the whole country has been bought by foreigners, mainly China, and that its being rinsed of everything,you still have to manage to survive somehow so focus on that.Corruption on a more local level isnt even worth mentioning, just pay off the cops and get over it. What really matters is personal relationships, the people i meet and how we influence each other. The best way for me to exact the political change i spent so many years protesting and rioting and whining drunk about is to educate my students well.
The education of children has to be the most important thing anyone in any position of authority can do,parents, teachers, the state. In Cambodia this responsibility is wasted and ignored a great deal which has innumerable
negative consequences which baffle the mind of anybody who has enjoyed even the most basic of western educations BUT it does put people like me in a great position to brainwash children. Which is great fun.And all the christians are doing it anyway so one anarchist isnt so bad.Even things out a bit.
So there, I will try to write more but its becoming less and less transferable into a simple blog, or my writing skills and patience with the internet are waning. One or t'other.
Be well, enjoi the phophos.
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mum
non-member comment
devon
Hi Pat, it's lovely to hear your news, observations. thoughts and photos. It is also interesting to hear how your perspective changes and develops during your stay in Cambodia. I am glad that teaching is rewarding for you and that you are giving much to your pupils. Who probably hang on every word! It must be very important for them to learn a new language and for their families too. It could give them a new passage or more fulfilling life with another language. The tome on environmental science sounds huge but interesting! What a good opportunity you have to be able to focus on new subjects and topics. It is nice to see some photos of you as well. I am very proud of you and think that you are doing a wonderful thing. Hope that you are keeping well and take care. Lots of love Mum