Your Comments, Development Technologies, and the Blog of a King

I’ve finally responded to everyone’s comments! My apologies for being three weeks behind in doing it. Thank you all for the feedback. I’ll do my best to be quicker in future.

I’ve also finally found webhosting for all of my non-picture files. I’ve been trying to collect photos to make simple, easy-to-read, summaries of how several of the technologies used by IDE are made and/or are used. I’ve been using them as a memory aid but I think they may be handy for others with an interest in development technologies. They tend to fill in the blanks in the online literature about each technology. This means there will be less about why these things are useful and more about how they’re actually made. I’ve also tried to include the relevant livelihoods information but it’s very Cambodia-specific. I’m hoping this stuff might prove useful as a resource for EWB chapters and undergrads in general. Check out:

http://www.geocities.com/aj2kaufm/Development

Or just click on one of these links:

Manufacturing Ceramic Water Purifiers
Assembling a Drip Irrigation Kit
Livelihood Information for Drip Irrigation in Cambodia
Livelihood Information for Cambodian Traditional Watering
Basic Information for Fertilizer Project

In other interesting news, Cambodia’s former King has his own Blog! (Thanks to my friend Audrey for this news.) This guy is still far more popular than the current king and is viewed as the father of the nation. He posts his own personal comments on Cambodian current events, domestic politics, development, corruption, foreign policy, and even his career as a film director. He also posts letters from his penpal in France. Prime Minister Hun Sen has become so frustrated with this activity that he was cited in Tuesday’s Cambodia daily as saying “[This penpal] would be better off dead.” That’s not an idle threat. The Prime Minister made his attack in a recent public speech saying, “Why don’t you just die?” and “[He] speaks to defend the Khmer Rouge, so [he] is Khmer Rouge as well.” This is particularly ironic since it’s a matter of public record that Hun Sen himself was a Khmer Rouge officer who went over to the Vietnamese… A lot of politicians here have similar histories.

It’s a bit of a mess and you’ll need to speak either French or Khmer for most of this stuff but if you do, I recommend number 41 as a good place to start. Check out:

http://www.boingboing.net/2005/03/17/cambodias_king_sihan.html and
http://www.norodomsihanouk.info/mes%202005/mars.htm

Gender Roles and Wetting My Pants

Last Thursday I went on an excursion back to the ceramic water factory in Kampong Chhnam. Sunday had commissioned the folks there to build a pipe with a fork in it that could be attached to the base of a large electric blower. The blower was connected at the top to a large funnel. At the base, the fork stuck out into the two firing holes underneath one of the brick kilns. The pyromaniacs in the audience, including my sister the firefighter are going to love this…

The plan was to bake a batch of filters almost entirely with rice husks. Bag after bag of rice husks were poured into the funnel. Thousands of tiny little husks flew, sluiced, dribbled, or occasionally poured through the fork into one of the two firing holes and burst into small patches of brilliant flame. Jams were cleared. Alternative methods of pouring were tried. Husks were thrown in by hand. A variety of tools was used to mix the flames. Massive piles of smoking ash were stirred and removed to make room for more husks. Despite unseasonable cloud cover, everyone broiled in the sweltering heat. I didn’t know to bring a facemask. Sunday forgot his. It’s amazing just how much ash twenty-two sacks, each the size of half a grown man, filled with rice husks can make. The effect on one’s clothes and breathing though are fairly predictable.

The kiln needed to be heated from about 400C to 850C over the course of five hours using only rice husks. It was tiring work. We broke for lunch. I was offered some wine. Watching the other Cambodians down their wine in two and a half ounce shots, I followed suit. This of course meant that my glass was soon refilled. It tasted good. By the end of lunch I’d had about five glasses. I inspected the now nearly empty bottle. The only English on it said simply: Cambodian Herb Wine. I have no idea which herbs were involved.

Throughout the day, the women teased me in Khmer. One woman in particular really seemed to take joy in it, teaching me how to knock ampoul-tet (a bean-like fruit) out of a nearby tree, just so she could steal it from me. She was also a little crude at times, making the kind of jokes that come across with a minimum of translation. We ended the day semi-exhausted and more than slightly dehydrated from the heat and the wine. Sunday offered to purchase some palm wine for us from nearby farmers. Hear they tap their palm trees with a long bamboo tube that serves as both ladder and pipe. They use them for juice, boil the juice for sugar, and ferment it to make palm wine. Twenty-five cents provided enough wine for two. While Sunday busied himself with the purchase, I sat down with the women in front of the factory, grabbed a bamboo club, and began breaking raw clay with them.

Palm Trees Tapped for Juice

They roared with laughter. They continued to tease and I continued to blush and look puzzled. The woman who has displayed such enthusiasm in trying to get under my skin earlier began making girly dancing motions as I broke the clay. It would appear that at a factory operated by women, I had crossed a gender boundary. One of the few men around translated for me, “This one say she would sleep with you. They all think you pretty boy. Which you like?” I responded with, “They are all so beautiful. How can I decide?” I smiled, blushed, and added in Khmer, “Very pretty.” They offered me some candy.

Sunday returned. I continued to joke and make small talk with the women’s cooperative before sitting down under the landowner’s house to drink the palm wine with him. It was stored in a reused thin cheap plastic bottle, the kind the local spring water companies use. This stuff was volatile. Every time the bottle was opened, it made a sound like a champagne bottle shooting its cork and fizzed over the top like pop that’s been through several earthquakes. It tasted strange but good. We shared a glass between us, our small wine shots in turn. Sunday told me the story of his marriage, his separation, and his love for his wife. Two different fortune-tellers had told them that living together would cause them to fight incessantly. They separated. Eventually they divorced. He spoke of his current love life. We exchanged explanations of how love is handled in our two countries. I felt a warm wet spot blossoming on my groin.

“What the heck!” I thought. Looking down, I saw that one of the bottles had burst a leak. I have no idea how farmers brew or ferment this stuff but obviously no mere plastic can contain it. I wondered what I’d just allowed myself to ingest, concluding that it was probably no worse for me than the battery acid we call Coca-Cola. Sunday and I continued to chat for a bit before leaving the factory. I was slightly tipsy and horribly dehydrated. Returning the next morning to the factory, I retrieved the remaining bottle of palm wine from the table under the factory owner’s house to give to Sunday. He looked at me puzzled, sipped it and spat violently. I frowned and tried some. Picture the taste of salty warmed over vomit and you’ll be almost halfway there. I spat violently and reapeatedly. Sunday put the bottle in our pickup. “Good for vinegar,” he said.

How to Wash Laundry by Hand

Having only had to do it a handful of times prior to coming to Cambodia, I know that I had (and probably still have) no idea how to do hand laundry properly. When I asked others for instructions before I left, I always got the same response: “Use detergent. Scrub a lot. You’ll figure it out.” For those of you, who like me, prefer step-by-step instructions, I’ve now compiled this handy guide. I developed it during the many hours I have now spent using detergent, scrubbing a lot, and figuring it out, in the one place where I do all my best thinking… the bathroom.

1. Get one big container for soapy water and one for rinsing water. Buy a good detergent.
2. Fill your containers, one with soapy water, the other with rinsing water.
3. While scrubbing fold part of the cloth in half and rub it between your hands as if you were trying to warm them. Repeat this action systematically over the whole article of clothing.
4. For stains, hold the cloth around the stain tightly by turning your hands into fists. Scrub the stain by rubbing it quickly back and forth over your knuckles.
5. For big stains, your knuckles will soon start to bleed.
6. Give up. Stop scrubbing. Bloodstains are probably harder to clean than whatever you’ve already dribbled on your pants.
7. Invest in a scrub brush. This makes a world of difference. Sit down. Hold the wet cloth over your leg and scrub away.
8. Eventually your leg will become irritated and develop a rash.
9. Repeat from step 2, laundering your clothes as infrequently as possible (i.e. Until they smell and/or look like you’ve rolled in a ditch) so as to avoid this unpleasant task… OR
10. Give up. Pay the local laundry service the thirteen cents per article of clothing they charge to do all this for you.

The first time I did it, my clothes were cleaned and my knuckles were bloody. I felt a sense of accomplishment. The second time, I still felt pride. By the third time, I realized why people pay money not to have to do their own laundry. It’s a royal pain in the butt. A small scrub brush is a Godsend. If you’re doing your own laundry, find one and buy it. I haven’t reached step eight yet but knowing me, it’s probably just a matter of time. Oh, and in the same way that I’m not using my air con or microwave, I’m avoiding step ten on general principle.

We Apologise for the Inconvenience

I had hoped to have some writing done by now about the events of my trip out to Kampong Chhnam last week. Unfortunately, my relaxed weekend of typing at the computer somehow seems to have passed with a minimum of actual computer time.

A friend recently pointed out that he’d really enjoyed reading the following from some personal correspondence I had sent. It seems to fit in nicely with where the blog is at right now. So I’ve decided to post it here (hope you don’t mind Mac) along with something a little lighter that I wrote yesterday for a laugh.

"This past week it was a trip out to Svay Rieng province. Spent the first day looking at a program to improve fertilizer delivery. Was led by a village chief on a tour through the rice fields to a paddy that had been set aside for the experimental fertilizer. Several local were harvesting the rice from a distance using what looked like small traditional hand scythes. Afterwards I was driven to a small farm where the machine that makes the fertilizer pellets is housed. The engineer in me was happy. I mostly observed but also helped to tinker a little with a big machine until an hour or two after the stars came out. Beautiful night skies here of the variety you can only see up North back home

Thus far, the constant focus on agriculture has kept me from learning much about the mine situation here. If not for the stream of amputee beggars, it would be almost possible to be completely oblivious to it here in Phnom Penh. The resiliency of some of these folks is astonishing. There was a beggar at the top of the 27m high Wat Phnom in the North of the City who I encountered yesterday. He had no legs. The stumps began and ended at the level of his hips. He ambled about smoothly and almost elegantly with his hands in flip-flops. I can only assume he climbed each step to the top of the hill this way."

Working from Ignorance

We had our first meeting to schedule work on the vegetable transport and packaging project today. The big tasks to be undertaken were seeking out and informally surveying farmers, wholesalers, distributors, and retailers regarding their involvement in the chain from harvest through to sale and hiring a team of field workers to collect data once the study is underway.

During the discussion on how best to collect data, I was politely silent and/or asking questions when I could. In response, others would keep seeking my opinion. My two responses, “I don’t know, what do you think would be best?” and “I think we wrote somewhere already that we would do this,” usually led to a short stretch of laughter, the kind the Khmer use to cover awkward moments, followed by a seemingly sensible decision being reached.

By the midway point of the meeting, I had a suspicion that there was a problem. I’m thoroughly ignorant of Cambodian culture, contacts, and agriculture in general. These people had years of experience in the field yet seemed earnestly interested in my opinion. Kimsan, the operations manager, is one of the most senior people at IDE. In Khmer culture, age commands both deference and respect. At 23, I was the youngest one there. Sunday, at about 30, never ventured a single opinion throughout the whole conversation. Certainly some of the atmosphere was due to the fact that I have a central role on this project. For the rest though, I think I may have just encountered the Khmer version of a development problem I’ve heard countless stories of before. As a Western foreigner, my opinion has far more value than it should.

By the time the conversation had moved onto hiring our team of field surveyors, I was totally adrift.

Colleagues: “We will find candidates through friends of our employees. Do we think we will need a CV from them? How much education will they need? What other skills? How much should we pay them?”

My thoughts: “Do I want to encourage nepotism? With only a week to hire the appropriate people and not knowing how hiring is done here, is there a viable alternative? Are CVs generally used for this type of contract hiring? What is education like here? What skills are needed to survey farmers and distributors, testing the quality of their crops as they are moved to market? What costs will they incur traveling about with the crops? What is a fair salary?”

Outside of some quick questions about procedures and past experience at IDE, I used my fallbacks as much as possible: “I don’t know. What do you think?”

Finally, Veasna, a Project Coordinator sitting across from me suggested that we should be sure to hire some women. Promoting gender equity! In a room full of men, at last a development buzzword of which I could be certain! “That sounds like a good idea,” says I. I had expressed an absolute opinion. Any of you with some previous EWB experience know what’s about happen…? ;)

Well, actually, as it turns out, there are difficulties. Will farmers be comfortable interacting with the women? Is it appropriate for an unwed young woman to stay overnight at someone else’s farm so as to take measurements in the evenings and mornings? If so, is it fair to discriminate and hire only married women? Are such even available for professional work that will keep them away in the field for a couple of weeks? Most day to day farming labour is performed by women. Will hiring women help us to gain an inside perspective?

I’ve had it instilled in me that the key to good development work is to be asking questions constantly, to seek information directly from those involved, to work with local resources, and to have as few preconceived assumptions as possible. I’m ignorant at this stage. I will be for a while yet. I know this and try to accept it, hoping that by trying to learn as much as possible, I can become more effective in the long run. In the short term though, working at an NGO is still work, requiring that I contribute. Finding the balance between working productively and reminding myself to take nothing for granted is going to be a big challenge.

On a lighter note, here are the pictures of monkeys that I promised.

Monkey from Far Away



Monkey Up Close

I took these on my weekend visit to Wat Phnom, a temple on top of a 27m high hill, the only real hill in Phnom Penh as far as I know. The story of the city’s founding is that a woman named Penh found four statues of the Buddha lying in the river nearby. She housed them in a temple at this site and the city grew around it. The temple itself is crammed full of hundreds of statues. I have no idea which ones were the four in question.

Also, for those of you with blog clients, I’ve learned that you can point them to http://adamincambodia.blogspot.com/atom.xml, to keep you updated. This info courtesy of my friend James as I have a spotty idea at best of what a blog client is.

Svay Rieng

On Wednesday morning last week, at 8:30am, I hit the road again. This time the trip was to Svay Reing province on the Vietnamese border to observe IDE’s new fertilizer pellet and drip irrigation programs. For those of you interested in the finer details of both programs, I’ve included links to the various illustrated summaries I’ve been writing about both of these programs. Don’t worry, it’s simple non-technical stuff interlaced with information about rural livelihoods here in Cambodia.

Drip Irrigation
Fertilizer

On the subject of rural livelihoods though, I’ve decided to forego the possible stories of driving across dried up rice paddies in a pickup truck, drinking palm-tree juice at the home of a village chief, and eating a still wider variety of strange fruits and insects. (See how I subtly slipped the stories in anyway? ;-)).

Instead, I’m going to share with you what I’ve managed to learn so far about the day-to-day situation of farmers during my visit in Svay Rieng province. As near as I can tell, it’s fairly representative of much of Cambodia. Bearing in mind though, as I’ve only been here two weeks, I suspect that this doesn’t do more than scratch the surface of the situation.

Traditional Hand Mill

Svay Rieng province is undergoing a drought. So is Prey Vang province. In a country that saw mass starvation and genocide under Pol Pot only 25 years ago, this is nothing to write home about. The World Food Programme is beginning to distribute food to pre-empt the problem. This is not uncommon. Here in Cambodia when people ask for more rice while eating, they say “World Food Programme, please,” as a joke.

Cambodia has very poor irrigation infrastructure. Some fields are baked so dry that the ground cracks during the dry season. Others are completely flooded during the rainy season. Though farmers are more than willing to work, their fields may only be usable for one hundred days of the year. The rest of the year they must find another means by which to feed themselves and their family.

The government has recently announced a large push in funding for large-scale irrigation projects. Though in theory, projects to distribute Cambodia’s water resources more effectively could vastly improve the lot of farmers, no one holds out much hope of it happening. Corruption ensures that only a fraction of the money reaches its target. In the meanwhile, the reigning politicians of Cambodia’s nominal democracy pay attention to the rural areas near to election time but otherwise play their own game.

Depending on the size and quality of their crop, farmers may earn as little as $125USD per year. I’ve heard that in the very poor areas, a single family can be fed and maintained on only about $1USD per week. I’m not sure if this is true, but certainly, these people are poor by any definition of the word.

Rice is the primary crop. Some farmers will try to grow vegetables for sale as a cash crop. There is an understanding in villages though that if a neighbour asks for a small part of your vegetable harvest, you give it. Thus the farmers who do farm alternate crops lose much of their work directly to their community. There are also difficulties in getting their produce to market. In tropical heat, food spoils quickly. Many farmers, without a distributor willing to visit them, will peddle their produce by bike for sale in a market several kilometers away. The end result: Fewer farmers growing anything other than rice, and widespread malnutrition.

So, with insufficient funds and land that is useful for only part of the year, many farmers seek to supplement their income elsewhere. In Svay Rieng, one popular option is gas smuggling across the Vietnamese border. Gas prices in Vietnam are significantly lower than in Cambodia. I saw a few motorbikes in my drive through the rice paddies carrying enough gas to defy the laws of physics as they drove in from the other side of the border. Others will seek work in the large cities where manual labour pays about $2.50/day. A girl old enough to work as a seamstress (sweatshop) can earn $3.50/day. A skilled bricklayer might earn $5.00/day. A prostitute can earn $15.00/customer/night. In Phnom Penh, prostitution seems to be an accepted part of male culture. You wouldn’t want your sister/daughter/future wife involved but your friends might call a few girls to come join you for a night of Karaoke.

Morals in the village environment are extremely strict and enforced through a community where everyone knows everyone else’s business. When the fields cannot be used, entire villages will be nearly emptied of all but children and the elderly as the population goes to seek work in the city. As people flood out of the community, this restraining force is gone and many will purchase the services of prostitutes, leading to an increase in STIs upon their return.

In Cambodia, education is free up to the end of high school around age eighteen. Effectively this means that rural children will be educated until they are about eleven before being pulled out to help their families earn a living from the land or from work elsewhere. Social mobility in general can be extremely limited. Between nepotism, corruption, and the difficulty of obtaining an education, it’s not what you know but where you were born, who you’re related to, and which wheels you can afford to grease that will determine your success. Hard work pays but only if the circumstances are right.

Now add in the problem of landmines in some parts of the country where farmers are forced by necessity to work land that has not been properly cleared and you have a real mess. In this country, about 1 in 236 people has lost a limb to a landmine. The social safety net here is virtually non-existent. I’ve heard one man angrily tell me of doctors leaving patients who could not pay for services to die in the street. For those who do survive, depending on the extent of their injury, their ability to work is extremely hampered, leading many to beg.

In addition to all of their other problems, nearly every person in this country over 30 is a survivor of the Khmer Rouge genocide. My neighbour has very limited English. We speak through charades and single words in Khmer and English. The other day I asked him what the Khmer word for father was. He misunderstood and made a chopping motion at his neck. It took me five minutes to understand that he thought I was asking after his father. Realisation dawned when he said “Pol Pot” as he chopped.

All of the above should be taken with a grain of salt of course. I’ve only been here two weeks and thus the amount of information and perspective that I’ve been able to gather is limited. I’m sure there are whole other chunks to these stories of which I know nothing.

That being said, to me the most remarkable thing is how the situation here doesn’t seem grim on a day to day basis. In general, the people are cheerful and conscientious. The rural poor are often dressed in old clothes with holes in them but they are always scrupulous in maintaining a clean home, offering tea and/or food to their guests, and taking a genuine pride in what they do have. Wherever I’ve gone thus far, I’ve been greeted with smiles, friendliness, and in some cases very strange new foods. The local equivalent of the maple tree would seem to be the palm tree. They tap its sap for juice and boil away the juice to make sugar, tasty but with a very odd aftertaste.

I’m sure that’s more than enough for now though. I know that much of this read almost like a cliché from a Sunday morning infomercial. I also know that many of you were curious what the situation is like here and I’ve done my best to explain it as I know it. Basically though, the only think of which I’m certain at this point is that the situation is difficult, it’s unfair, and the people here are far more resilient than a just world would expect of them.

In other news, if/when I get around to it, the next blog entry should include photos of monkeys. ;)

For now, I'll leave you with a photo of one of my coworkers taken in our van on the way back from the field.

Kimsan on the Ride Home

Moving Vegetables...?

My first full day at the office. Finally a chance to get caught up on e-mail. Nothing new to report yet but hopefully I’ll have written back to most of you and/or set up this weblog soon, instead of saving these on my laptop for later posting. I learned today that about 50% of my job will likely involve a project to help transport vegetables from farms to market more effectively. Tomorrow I make another trip to the field. This time I’m going to Svai Rieng province on the Vietnamese border overnight to see one of our irrigation projects and/or a factory producing fertilizer pellets. To think that I was worried about being cooped up in an office before I arrived here. ;) I’m back in the office later this week to begin meetings concerning the vegetable transport project.

Ceramic Water Purifier Factory

Arrived in the office and finally met the elusive Mike, Country Director and big boss for IDE Cambodia. We discussed my work, my housing, and other such stuff for about a half an hour, before I left with Sunday to visit our Ceramic Water Purifier (CWP) factory in Kampong Chhnum province for the day. From what I’ve seen so far, the CWP project is like a textbook entry for the current International Development ideals. The factory is owned by IDE but operated by a cooperative consisting of ten women (promoting gender equity), whose husbands sometimes help a little with the work but do not direct the finances. IDE supplies and owns but does not direct the plant. The women are paid a commission (about sixty US cents) for each filter. The filters themselves are affordable, though occasionally partially subsidized, capable of turning dirty water from the Mekong or even a puddle, into drinkable water meeting WHO standards. Distribution is handled by several independent distributors (promoting entrepreneurship for sustainability). There are of course problems. Not everyone can afford the cost of the filters. Another NGO does supply them free of charge to the poorer provinces, but I would imagine this solution is hardly sustainable in the long term. The filters are fragile and those who have not paid for them seem more likely to misuse and/or break them, thereby rendering them useless. Free filters also undercut local suppliers who cannot compete. For the development minded out there, it’s a textbook project right down to the end of chapter questions: How do you ensure everyone has clean water without making your project unsustainable and/or creating a permanent dependency…?

I took some photos during the trip so that I could create a bit of a guide for myself as to how the whole process works. It reads something like a children’s storybook meets technical guide, but for those of you who are interested, you can have a look here.

How's The Traffic?

How did I spend my first weekend in Cambodia you might ask...? Nothing too exciting. On Saturday I walked about ten to sixteen kilometers across most of downtown Phnom Penh, learning the sites, purchasing groceries at the markets, and orienting myself. On Sunday, I did the same thing again, this time by bike. Though the cyclists, bikers, and drivers seemed psychotic at first, going down major downtown streets in the wrong direction, never signaling, and treating some traffic signals as mere suggestions, I quickly came to realize that the secret lies in simply not going too fast and generally being predictable in your movements. At home, we stop so that others can move around us. Here, the attitude is more similar to navigating a grocery store with a shopping cart. You indicate which way you will swerve through body language and then other drivers take note and swerve to avoid hitting you. You also need to be certain that your movements are consistent and predictable. No getting frightened. No sudden stops. Get scared, swerve, or stop too suddenly and others will be surprised and unable to compensate. The secret to safety lies in driving as insanely as everyone else.

Needless to say, I wore a good bike helmet and rather enjoyed myself.

Prey Veng - Day 2

Day two in the field. Again the demonstrations. This time we visited two villages, attracting a larger crowd and making a large volume of sales at each. We had refined our presentation, attracting larger numbers by holding the demonstrations before the worst of the day’s heat before 10am and after 2pm and handing out fliers to passing motorbikes (some of whom didn’t slow to grab their flyer from our hands), cyclists, and pedestrians. One village runs into another here like one suburb blends into another back home. By the end of the last village, Kimtheng and Kressna had their routine down to an art, cracking jokes like some kind of Vaudeville show. I couldn’t understand a word of it, but the rhythm and the laughter were there. Kressna though shy in English is apparently a laugh riot in Khmer.

Kimtheng and Kressna amuse the crowd.

At one point I was called upon to amuse the crowd by displaying the Khmer that Kimtheng had taught me. “Hello. My name is Adam. My surname is Kaufman. I am 23 years old. I come from Canada.” This gained some laughs. The applause came when I counted from one to thirty on command. I later further made a fool of myself when some of the villagers, seeing my Tilley Hat, insisted on knowing how much I had paid for it. It was a gift but I was forced to admit that in Canadian money, it cost about $50USD. The farmers all looked at me like I was crazy. Kimtheng pointed out that her hat had only cost 1$. Liz explained that hers was $3. The farmers told me that a good new cow was only $40USD. There was no arguing with that. I quickly gave up on trying to explain economies of scale (is that the correct term…?) and was forced to admit that it is a bit of a crazy purchase. A good time was had by all and by the time we finished at third village, we had run out of stock, leaving the chief to take down the names of those still wishing to purchase.

Overall, the trip seems to have been a success. We managed to promote the water purifiers enough to help our Red Cross partners begin to make inroads in Prey Veng province. For my part, I was able to learn a very little bit about the conditions in rural Cambodia.

Oh, and for those of you interested in the crazy stuff that they eat here, Kressna purchased some roast cockroaches from a street vendor at the ferry stop. I tried two. You remove the outer shell, take off the wings, break off the stinger, and eat them whole. They tasted salty, crunchy on the outside, with the consistency of toothpaste on the inside. A nice light snack anyway. I’m still considering trying the much more common snack of snails… and possibly eventually the palm sized roast spiders. Will keep you all posted.

Prey Veng - Day 1

My first trip into the field was two days of culinary, linguistic, and personal adventure, mixed in with the kind of simple advertising drudgery common to most part-time sales jobs back home. I had brought along my Khmer textbook to pass the time during the drive. Liz, who after nearly ten weeks in Cambodia still loves to take photos of everything, would often shout at Kressna to stop the car so that she could photograph a passing oxcart, bigger oxcart, or fishing boat as we crossed the bridge. I took advantage of the two native Khmer speakers with me to learn more of the language. Kressna, though obviously outgoing and humourous with his fellow Cambodians, often seemed anxious about joining in our conversation, physically covering his mouth for fear of offending when he did speak. I’ve been told that the Khmer are a very polite people and that this gesture, though not very common, is used to avoid causing offence through bad breath or bad words.

In the meanwhile, Kimtheng proved to be an excellent Khmer tutor. Given her limited command of French, we had soon struck a deal, she would help me to practice Khmer and I would help her to practice French. So far, it’s been a very profitable deal.

Village Children and Me

Though we arrived late in the first village, the chief had not yet assembled many people. While we waited, I passed the time by amusing and amazing the local children and their parents by recording them on my digital camera. Never have I had so many children overjoyed to see me so quickly. ;-) I was even able to sneak away for a little while to watch a team of men assembling an ox-plow and yoke using simple hand tools.

The demonstration itself consisted of us setting up a loudspeaker system on our pickup truck to play the radio ad for our filter, a re-writing of a traditional Khmer love song to mean something like this:

Man: Please will you marry me?
Woman: No.
Man: What if I purchase this water purifier…?
Woman: Of course then I will marry you, for our children will be strong, healthy, and well-educated. I love you.

Enticing no? Following this came the real proof with a live demonstration of the filter. Dirty water goes in. Clean water comes out. Unfortunately, we didn’t sell a single one. Several women were interested, but were worried about justifying the $5USD cost to their husbands. To put this in perspective for you, a rural Cambodian family will likely earn between $125USD and $250USD per year, depending on the quality of their harvest. $5USD is a lot of money to these people. To put it in better perspective, there were one or two children in the group with the kind of thin frames and distended bellies I normally associate with bad malnutrition. This is about 100km away from where I live comfortably with air conditioning and a microwave for $125USD/month.

This is not just the case in rural Cambodia. In a medium sized town where we had ferried our way across the Mekong, we stopped for lunch. The daughter of the family who owned the restaurant looked about ten. The son looked about six. They were actually fourteen and ten respectively. The children of farmers and restaurant owners alike can’t afford enough food for themselves.

Hotel Sign. You know you're in Cambodia when...

That night we stayed in a hotel. Using the standard IDE stipend for workers in the field, we each had a room with not one but two beds, air conditioning, and private bathroom to ourselves. The idealist in me died a little bit again.

It Begins

Twenty-seven hours, three continents, and twelve time zones after saying goodbye to my mother at the airport, I arrived in Phnom Penh. After two weeks of sleep deprivation, with not one but three seats over which to spread myself on the London to Kuala Lumpur leg of the trip, and a flight staff who not only didn’t take offense, but even offered to wake me up for meals, Malaysian Airlines has now surpassed Sri Lankan airlines as my favourite air carrier.

Was greeted at the airport by Krissna, one of my colleagues at IDE. The reception I received from this point onwards was very warm. Krissna drove me to the office where another IDE worker, Kimsan, greeted me and gave me the grand tour, introducing me to all of the IDE office staff, including Liz, an Australian and one of only two other non-Cambodians in the office, and Sunday, director of Research and Development, and in all likelihood, someone with whom I will be working almost constantly in the next several months.

Everyone was extremely friendly, smiling and greeting me enthusiastically. I quickly came to remember why the Khmer have a reputation for huge smiles. Whenever there was a lull in conversation big smiles would inevitably ensue. Much to my delight, I also discovered that Selena, EWB’s previous volunteer with IDE Cambodia had left me not only two new bike helmets and a motorcycle helmet, but also a hammock, a mosquito net, and better still, a bike!

Going to lunch with Sunday and Liz, the conversation soon turned to our families. Sunday discussed his recent divorce and the custody problems he is having with his ex-wife and her family. He also talked of the family members lost under Pol Pot’s regime. It was during this lunch that I began to realize that the Khmer smile and chuckle is used not only to convey friendliness but also to smooth over awkwardness. Sunday laughed awkwardly as he spoke of the loss of family members in the genocide. Of all the possible reactions to a genocide I could have expected, anger, sadness, denial, etc., laughter to me seemed unusually disturbing.

At the time, it seemed that Sunday didn’t want to be rude by burdening the conversation with something as unpleasant and embarrassing as the years under the Khmer Rouge. In the week since, I’ve noticed that when mentioning the genocide, Cambodians always use the name of the former Khmer Rouge leader, Pol Pot. The Khmer Rouge themselves are never explicitly mentioned. It’s only an initial impression, but I now wonder that with so many former Khmer Rouge still involved in politics, including the dominant figure in Cambodian national politics, Prime Minister Hun Sen, it is considered politically inappropriate to blame them for the atrocities. Culturally, there seems to be a desire to move on with life, continue to build, and in some ways try to ignore the nasty history of 1975-1979. Hence the awkward laughter. Why discuss the genocide? It’s something of a national embarrassment. From what I’ve read, initially Jews acted similarly after the Holocaust as have Rwandans since the events of ten years ago in their country.

On a lighter note, after lunch, Liz and Sunday took me shopping in a Western style supermarket for food and supplies before helping me into my new place. I’m now living a block from the office in a flat that is by Cambodian standards large enough for a whole family. I know this because I’ve met and chatted with my neighbours using my limited command of Khmer. It’s also equipped with air conditioning, a fridge, a TV, and a stereo. Thus far I’ve avoided using the A/C on general principle. I’m still a romantic idealist at heart and I’m having a little trouble coping with my sudden excessive affluence.

My boss, Mike, an ex-pat Canadian who doubles as my landlady’s brother-in-law, is on a trip to Sri Lanka and won’t be back until Monday. I’ve been given Thursday and Friday off to acclimatize myself but luckily have discovered an opportunity for a field trip. Liz, Krissna, and Kimtheng, a Project Manager with IDE, are making a trip to the field on Thursday and Friday. They’re hoping to promote our ceramic water filter project in three small villages in Prey Veng province. They’ve agreed to let me tag along and observe. One day in Cambodia and already an opportunity to see some of the folks for whom we’re working. Without being able to speak Khmer, there’s only so much that I can learn from this first visit, but still, I’m really looking forward to it.

Contact Info, Map, and Welcome!

Map of Cambodia

A short note. The first few blog entries were actually written after the fact. As I post this, it’s about 7:38pm on March 15 and I have yet to set up a blog account. The first few days being some of the most eventful though, I’d rather write now and post later so as to ensure that my memory is as fresh as possible. More pictures will follow once I get the hang of it.

For anyone who wants to call me, the number here for my mobile phone (courtesy of IDE) is 011-855-12-475-845. My mailing address is:

Adam Kaufman
c/o International Development Enterprises
PO Box 1577
Phnom Penh
Cambodia