Lunch Break at Ou Reang Waterfall
Coco!
Sean with his blackboards and Pu Trom Cha
Much, much better!Thursday, 17 December 2009
Pictures
Lunch Break at Ou Reang WaterfallCoco!Sean with his blackboards and Pu Trom ChaMuch, much better!
Success at Last! 16/12/2009
So far this week has been a series of up’s and down’s with work, starting badly and now going great! On Monday I had planned to have a meeting with the School Director of Pu Long School to discuss involving the community in creating a new school map for this year. However, when we turned up we were informed that he had in fact gone to a workshop in SM. Not great. Communication is limited at best here and in his defence he was probably informed of said workshop that morning. It would’ve been nice of him to give us a call though and save us the journey. Still, Jeltje was able to do a lesson observation with the grade one teacher whilst I headed back to SM with Sean (a volunteer with another project locally who offered to help us out for a couple of days doing whatever he could).
My Tuesday meeting at Pu Trom Cha was looking to go the same way when we arrived after a 45min gruelling off-road drive (including one painful spill on the way there and one VERY painful and scary one on the way back. And here was me thinking I might be bruise free in time for the beach!). The School Director was there but the community were not. He did dispatch several girls from the school to go inform the village chief that I was here and would like a meeting though, which is progress. The door which we had asked him to fix 8 weeks ago (in order to make the school secure, so we could give it some resources) was still leaning up against the outside wall. So we asked him if it would be possible for us to try and fix it now while we waited. The SD ummmed and ahhhhed for a while and eventually hopped on his bike to go get some tools from his home. He arrived back and immediately he, the teacher, Chak and Sean were all systems go creating new hinges and repairing the old ones. The door was back on again and working in about 10mins with all them sweating like mad in the sun! Still, the door was now fixed and several village elders hod now turned up so I went ahead with my community meeting whilst Sean and Jeltje re-painted the blackboards which were completely knackered.
The meeting was a great success with the SD having listed his issues and ideas for school improvements and the community giving their opinions about the school too. The one thing that was really highlighted was the amazing level of poverty in the community which was certainly reflected in the school. The children there are hardly dressed, have no paper, books or pens as their parents simply cannot afford these things. The school is very run down with hardly any resources, the class room walls are pretty much bare and there is nothing to fill them with. The school is also lacking a water supply which means there is nowhere for the children to wash, go to the toilet or drink. It is by far the worst school I have visited so far and it really pulls at the heart strings when you think about how little is actually needed to get it on the right track. It costs $200 to build a well, around $50 to provide it with resources such as paper, pens, card, chalk etc.
Still, although I have no funding to give them I am determined to help somehow to improve the school. It is the first one I’ve been to where the community has turned up so I am really keen to encourage continued partnership between school and community. During the meeting I suggested a ‘Community Open Day’ where everyone is invited to the school to see what happens there and also to see how it needs some support to make improvements. The community and SD were all really keen on this idea and have really flown with it. I have asked them to come up with some ideas and expectations for the day for our next meeting so we can set a suitable date and a list of activities.
So that was great, a very uplifting experience after weeks of feeling like I’m banging my head against a wall, not getting anywhere and being sick in Phnom Penh!
I have a meeting with Lauka School and the community there tomorrow morning which I really hope goes just as well!!
Just a quick update...I now have a kitten called Coco! She is very cute but still a little too small to catch mice and rats (sadly, as I am completely overridden with the buggers!).
Merry Christmas! I had almost forgotten...I do not feel even remotely Christmassy here as I am warm, it is sunny and everyone here is Buddhist!
Love xx
My Tuesday meeting at Pu Trom Cha was looking to go the same way when we arrived after a 45min gruelling off-road drive (including one painful spill on the way there and one VERY painful and scary one on the way back. And here was me thinking I might be bruise free in time for the beach!). The School Director was there but the community were not. He did dispatch several girls from the school to go inform the village chief that I was here and would like a meeting though, which is progress. The door which we had asked him to fix 8 weeks ago (in order to make the school secure, so we could give it some resources) was still leaning up against the outside wall. So we asked him if it would be possible for us to try and fix it now while we waited. The SD ummmed and ahhhhed for a while and eventually hopped on his bike to go get some tools from his home. He arrived back and immediately he, the teacher, Chak and Sean were all systems go creating new hinges and repairing the old ones. The door was back on again and working in about 10mins with all them sweating like mad in the sun! Still, the door was now fixed and several village elders hod now turned up so I went ahead with my community meeting whilst Sean and Jeltje re-painted the blackboards which were completely knackered.
The meeting was a great success with the SD having listed his issues and ideas for school improvements and the community giving their opinions about the school too. The one thing that was really highlighted was the amazing level of poverty in the community which was certainly reflected in the school. The children there are hardly dressed, have no paper, books or pens as their parents simply cannot afford these things. The school is very run down with hardly any resources, the class room walls are pretty much bare and there is nothing to fill them with. The school is also lacking a water supply which means there is nowhere for the children to wash, go to the toilet or drink. It is by far the worst school I have visited so far and it really pulls at the heart strings when you think about how little is actually needed to get it on the right track. It costs $200 to build a well, around $50 to provide it with resources such as paper, pens, card, chalk etc.
Still, although I have no funding to give them I am determined to help somehow to improve the school. It is the first one I’ve been to where the community has turned up so I am really keen to encourage continued partnership between school and community. During the meeting I suggested a ‘Community Open Day’ where everyone is invited to the school to see what happens there and also to see how it needs some support to make improvements. The community and SD were all really keen on this idea and have really flown with it. I have asked them to come up with some ideas and expectations for the day for our next meeting so we can set a suitable date and a list of activities.
So that was great, a very uplifting experience after weeks of feeling like I’m banging my head against a wall, not getting anywhere and being sick in Phnom Penh!
I have a meeting with Lauka School and the community there tomorrow morning which I really hope goes just as well!!
Just a quick update...I now have a kitten called Coco! She is very cute but still a little too small to catch mice and rats (sadly, as I am completely overridden with the buggers!).
Merry Christmas! I had almost forgotten...I do not feel even remotely Christmassy here as I am warm, it is sunny and everyone here is Buddhist!
Love xx
Sunday, 13 December 2009
Ratanakiri, Bum breakage and Saturday swim with Elephants! 13/12/09
So this week I spent Sun 6th-Thurs 10th Dec in the province of Ratanakiri, attending a workshop on the issue of education of indigenous children.
This is a problem in several provinces around Cambodia, as in order to reach the UN Millennium Goals by the 2015 deadline, all children must be in education. However, there is a serious issue with indigenous peoples as they all speak their own languages but the teachers speak in K’mai, making it impossible for the children to follow. It is therefore necessary to train bi-lingual teachers who can also teach the children K’mai so that they can stay in education.
There are also issues surrounding teacher retention. The teachers are paid very badly, if at all, so there is a high rate of teacher absence as they usually have to work second jobs. Also, teachers are sent to these remote communities straight from teacher training college and frequently don’t settle as a result of a drastic change in lifestyle.
So, these are some of the issues we discussed during the two day workshop, with representatives from the government, UNESCO, UNICEF and CARE, who are all key NGO’s working in the region in education.
It was an interesting few days and we created some good recommendations for the government on how to increase school attendance amongst indigenous children, namely, recruiting good teachers from the community who are then given bi-lingual education training. Also it is vital that the government pay their teachers sufficiently and on time. However, this has been said many, many times before by lots of NGO’s and nothing is being done. The army on the other hand have been given a large pay rise...watch out Thailand!
Anyway, I’ll tell you a little bit about Ban Lung (capitol of RTK). Well, it is much larger than Sen Monorom, with proper shops and a massive market. It is also much flatter, now that I am used to be surrounded by hills it feels weird! It also has a beautiful volcanic crater lake not far from the town which is simply breathtaking. We went swimming the warm green water and it was just ACE! There is lots of mythology and religion surrounding the lake and it is a sacred place for the local communities who care for it. Sadly, Kirsty (the vso I was staying with), said that there are plans for the government to sell it to the Vietnamese who are going to build a casino right on the shore of the lake. I can’t think of anything worse than this happening and I really hope they come to their senses.
My journey back from RTK (and the bum breakage mentioned in the title) was certainly a little interesting. I managed to arrange to get a lift with the UNESCO people down to Snoul, which is an easy place to get a ride to Sen Monorom. However, the driver got confused and took me to Kratie instead, which meant I needed to get a ride to Snoul from there and then another up to SM. Anyway, to cut a long story short, after much bartering with drivers I managed to get the front seat of a pick up (with 5 people in the back seat, designed for 3 and someone sat with the driver!) to Snoul and the same driver then arranged for me to get in another pick up to SM. This pick-up was the most laden down vehicle I have ever seen! It had about 3 tons of stock on the back, about six people on top and 6 people in the cabin. It went ridiculously slowly as a result and the 2 hour journey took almost 4! Another day in Cambodia!
Anyway, after our stressful week, Jeltje and I decided that we needed to relax so yesterday we headed on over the Pu Long waterfall, about 30mins moto ride through the hills on dirt roads. You would not believe the dust now that the dry season is here. It hasn’t rained in about 5 weeks and the roads and just pure red dust, meaning that whenever you go out you inevitably get a ‘mondulkiri tan’. So, jumping into the cold water after the trek down to the waterfall was an amazing feeling, as was washing off the orange coating! We had a lovely time, swimming, pick-nicking, sun bathing and reading on the rocks at the fall. Then something really cool happened, an elephant trek arrived so they could take a bath in the waterfall. It was great seeing the elephants in such close proximity and watching them in the water. However, I felt a bit saddened by the way they were draped in chains and have decided that I don’t want to ride one. We are going to our friend Jack’s elephant project on Tuesday (after visiting a school to meet the community members!) and he doesn’t do rides but does do treks to see them in their natural habitat which I think will be better than going on a touristy ride.
I have put a couple of elephant pictures up but I need to get the photo’s from Kirsty of RTK as I had to leave my other camera in PP to be fixed, sadly.
I will update again soon with pictures from the elephant project and more news about how my work is going here.
C x
This is a problem in several provinces around Cambodia, as in order to reach the UN Millennium Goals by the 2015 deadline, all children must be in education. However, there is a serious issue with indigenous peoples as they all speak their own languages but the teachers speak in K’mai, making it impossible for the children to follow. It is therefore necessary to train bi-lingual teachers who can also teach the children K’mai so that they can stay in education.
There are also issues surrounding teacher retention. The teachers are paid very badly, if at all, so there is a high rate of teacher absence as they usually have to work second jobs. Also, teachers are sent to these remote communities straight from teacher training college and frequently don’t settle as a result of a drastic change in lifestyle.
So, these are some of the issues we discussed during the two day workshop, with representatives from the government, UNESCO, UNICEF and CARE, who are all key NGO’s working in the region in education.
It was an interesting few days and we created some good recommendations for the government on how to increase school attendance amongst indigenous children, namely, recruiting good teachers from the community who are then given bi-lingual education training. Also it is vital that the government pay their teachers sufficiently and on time. However, this has been said many, many times before by lots of NGO’s and nothing is being done. The army on the other hand have been given a large pay rise...watch out Thailand!
Anyway, I’ll tell you a little bit about Ban Lung (capitol of RTK). Well, it is much larger than Sen Monorom, with proper shops and a massive market. It is also much flatter, now that I am used to be surrounded by hills it feels weird! It also has a beautiful volcanic crater lake not far from the town which is simply breathtaking. We went swimming the warm green water and it was just ACE! There is lots of mythology and religion surrounding the lake and it is a sacred place for the local communities who care for it. Sadly, Kirsty (the vso I was staying with), said that there are plans for the government to sell it to the Vietnamese who are going to build a casino right on the shore of the lake. I can’t think of anything worse than this happening and I really hope they come to their senses.
My journey back from RTK (and the bum breakage mentioned in the title) was certainly a little interesting. I managed to arrange to get a lift with the UNESCO people down to Snoul, which is an easy place to get a ride to Sen Monorom. However, the driver got confused and took me to Kratie instead, which meant I needed to get a ride to Snoul from there and then another up to SM. Anyway, to cut a long story short, after much bartering with drivers I managed to get the front seat of a pick up (with 5 people in the back seat, designed for 3 and someone sat with the driver!) to Snoul and the same driver then arranged for me to get in another pick up to SM. This pick-up was the most laden down vehicle I have ever seen! It had about 3 tons of stock on the back, about six people on top and 6 people in the cabin. It went ridiculously slowly as a result and the 2 hour journey took almost 4! Another day in Cambodia!
Anyway, after our stressful week, Jeltje and I decided that we needed to relax so yesterday we headed on over the Pu Long waterfall, about 30mins moto ride through the hills on dirt roads. You would not believe the dust now that the dry season is here. It hasn’t rained in about 5 weeks and the roads and just pure red dust, meaning that whenever you go out you inevitably get a ‘mondulkiri tan’. So, jumping into the cold water after the trek down to the waterfall was an amazing feeling, as was washing off the orange coating! We had a lovely time, swimming, pick-nicking, sun bathing and reading on the rocks at the fall. Then something really cool happened, an elephant trek arrived so they could take a bath in the waterfall. It was great seeing the elephants in such close proximity and watching them in the water. However, I felt a bit saddened by the way they were draped in chains and have decided that I don’t want to ride one. We are going to our friend Jack’s elephant project on Tuesday (after visiting a school to meet the community members!) and he doesn’t do rides but does do treks to see them in their natural habitat which I think will be better than going on a touristy ride.
I have put a couple of elephant pictures up but I need to get the photo’s from Kirsty of RTK as I had to leave my other camera in PP to be fixed, sadly.
I will update again soon with pictures from the elephant project and more news about how my work is going here.
C x
Tuesday, 1 December 2009
Pictures
Sea Forest
Playing footie at break time!
See saw fun, see the buffallo in the background?
Wall of Fame!!
Swinging in the company of large animals with horns!!Pu Tang Cha and Sea Forest 01/12/09
Weather: Windy, windy, windy but lots of sunshine too which makes it easier to deal with!
Khmer word of the day: chor t’lai (discount!)
Wow, I cannot believe it is December already the time is going so quickly!
So today we went on a visit to our furthest school at Pu Tang Cha which is a Pulong village about 40km from Sen Monorom. It doesn’t get visited very often and after you leave the main road you can see why. The roads to the village are seriously hardcore biking and I am actually surprised I made it with only one small incident when the bike fell into a ditch and I physically couldn’t lift it out.
The school is seriously run down and lacking in basic materials. It does, however, have a play ground where the children park the water buffalo they have to look after whilst they’re in school! The kids there are great though, sat patiently waiting to be taught by a teacher who is teaching three grades in one classroom. Their behaviour is impeccable.
The School Director there is also really keen to get the community involved in improving the school and has arranged a meeting for me to meeting the village chiefs to discuss how I can support them, which should be really interesting.
On the way back we decided to stop by our friend Jack’s elephant project which was really beautiful. Unfortunately we had just missed him or we would’ve gone on a bit of a trek to see the elephants in the wild. Still, I am here for another 11 months still so plenty of time!
In the afternoon we headed up to our closest school, Lauka. The main teacher there, Lavi, is amazing. She really takes everything on board and is really keen to improve the school and as a teacher. So we had a positive meeting and next week I am meeting with the school director there to discuss community involvement, which is currently none, so lots of work to do there!
On the way back from this visit we went to the Sea Forest, which is literally a blanket of jungle with little hills in it so it looks like waves. It is very beautiful and from here you can see the Vietnamese border. Really puts into perspective how much this region must have suffered during the US’s blanket bombing of the Cambodian/Vietnamese border.
So I have uploaded some pictures of the beautiful kids at Pu Tang Cha School and of the Sea Forest. Also put one up of ‘the wall of fame’ where I stick all the cards I receive from home...see if you’re on there and if not then send me something!!
C x
Khmer word of the day: chor t’lai (discount!)
Wow, I cannot believe it is December already the time is going so quickly!
So today we went on a visit to our furthest school at Pu Tang Cha which is a Pulong village about 40km from Sen Monorom. It doesn’t get visited very often and after you leave the main road you can see why. The roads to the village are seriously hardcore biking and I am actually surprised I made it with only one small incident when the bike fell into a ditch and I physically couldn’t lift it out.
The school is seriously run down and lacking in basic materials. It does, however, have a play ground where the children park the water buffalo they have to look after whilst they’re in school! The kids there are great though, sat patiently waiting to be taught by a teacher who is teaching three grades in one classroom. Their behaviour is impeccable.
The School Director there is also really keen to get the community involved in improving the school and has arranged a meeting for me to meeting the village chiefs to discuss how I can support them, which should be really interesting.
On the way back we decided to stop by our friend Jack’s elephant project which was really beautiful. Unfortunately we had just missed him or we would’ve gone on a bit of a trek to see the elephants in the wild. Still, I am here for another 11 months still so plenty of time!
In the afternoon we headed up to our closest school, Lauka. The main teacher there, Lavi, is amazing. She really takes everything on board and is really keen to improve the school and as a teacher. So we had a positive meeting and next week I am meeting with the school director there to discuss community involvement, which is currently none, so lots of work to do there!
On the way back from this visit we went to the Sea Forest, which is literally a blanket of jungle with little hills in it so it looks like waves. It is very beautiful and from here you can see the Vietnamese border. Really puts into perspective how much this region must have suffered during the US’s blanket bombing of the Cambodian/Vietnamese border.
So I have uploaded some pictures of the beautiful kids at Pu Tang Cha School and of the Sea Forest. Also put one up of ‘the wall of fame’ where I stick all the cards I receive from home...see if you’re on there and if not then send me something!!
C x
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