The Clapping Game

Images for this posting at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/liamoutselou/TheClappingGamePhotos#

I am amazed that I am not jetlagged. Today I am a refreshed and happy.

On my first day in Siem Reap I embark on an orientation trip with Phalla my host and director of Cambodian Child and Hope Association (CCHA) bright and early. Leaving Siem Reap we drive on main but small roads that are not as busy as I expected. I truly like Phalla’s slow driving (the rest of the traffic clearly does not agree with me judging by the beeping and waiving!).  We chat about Phalla, his family, my life, Greece, Wales, the children he teaches (and of course Lucy and Dan) and I still have time to take in the landscape. I am simply stunned by everything but at the same time it all seems  familiar and welcoming.

Siem Reap is not really an urban centre by my standards. It bears no resemblance to the manic cities of Greece where I have grown up but I slowly realise how much busier it is than its suburbs and countryside.  Entering zone 1 of the Angor national park seems like stepping into a different world, a Cambodia that modestly gives me a fist glimpse of its glory. Luscious leafy roadsides, the first peak of a Cambodian Buddhist temple to the right then just a little further comes the second one with an imposing entrance. Road side stalls and small markets with fruit, water, frog legs and all the goods that this earth gives to its local people to nourish them and help them make a living. Phalla tells me that 80% of the population here are farmers and they don’t receive stable salary. ‘We are very happy’, he adds.  His parents now in their sixties have worked hard all their lives and still do feed their 5 children and grandchildren. When there is no rice farming work they sell rice to get some more food on the table. They are very proud and proud of him.  He becomes really emotional and that is something that Phalla simply is.

At the speed  Phalla drives, it is easy to make eye contact and acknowledge everyone at the roadside . Here people still give you a smile for a smile. The power of its warmth is tantalising and life affirming.  For a moment I become really sad as I realise how much my homeland has changed in my brief lifetime. We too called everyone uncle and auntie in the village and the city neighbourhoods, my father's village got electricity in 1989, my grandmother used to put  signs on the main road selling eggs and welcome strangers to her home to sell the treasures of her vegetable garden (that is : when her children did not take everything back to the city). In this different culture and, I reminisce of my childhood and a different society as narrated by my parents:  one of openness, warmth, absence of fear and contentment.  [Aggie and Elpida this is for you : 'there was a time'].

We take small narrow clay dirt tracks to visit the first couple of CCHA schools. We are now deeper in the Siem Reap countryside. The schools are bamboo built fenced yards with wooden benches and a triangular bamboo roof. A simple structure, beautifully made, fitting in really well with the surroundings but requiring much maintenance. Phalla has created a trademark for his project, which is so much valued by this community. He tells me that before donations were made by generous volunteers’ to build these schools lessons took place beneath the neighbouring houses standing on tall stilts. The CCHA has been running since June 2007: a young charity run by a young man who is self admittedly on a learning trip. I think he has done allright.

The third school I visit is the base of the charity, on the Pagoda site (pictures of which I gave you earlier).  We spend much time talking about my contribution and role. Lucy my angel if you are reading this, you should know you have already done so much to help Phalla and CCHA. Then we talk about cultural sensitivity and I have my first lesson of Cambodian words, etiquette and greetings. I insist that Phalla teaches me this so that I know where to use the right term to address people of different ages and to hold my hands at the right height when greeting these different groups of Cambodian communities. Chhum reap sur (How do you do?) is what I mutter for the next hour whilst roaming the Pagoda site, pausing to think about the right term and height of my hands each time I greet someone and causing much laughter as a result.

I also find that by some wonderful coincidence Le Chantier Ecoles (the silk weaving school) of Siem Reap that I was reading about on my flight and wanted to visit is on the same site! It’s paradise. So many wonderful women and their daughters weave colourful silk fabrics and talk to each other. They let me sit amongst them.

I can go on forever… because my first day seems like opening a treasure box and I am still taking it all in. The Khmer noodle lunch at Preahdak (Phalla’s village), the amused giggles of the girls who I greet as if they were Buddha (arms in the air!), the next school even deeper in the countryside of Siem reap, smaller dirt tracks, participating in lessons, digging into pots of freshly caught sweet water crabs, little girls calling out ‘hello’ and waiving at the Barrang (the scary white woman) with joy!

I just want to end with the most beautiful moment of the day. At dusk we reach the final school of our first day's visit. The site is the most beautiful one yet and the colours of the oncoming evening set the scene for the beautiful event. The lesson starts with a very young and very competent young teacher in charge. Children keep streaming in to join the lesson. I keep wondering where they are all going to sit. They sit on each other, with each other, we sing, we read, we clap, we laugh. When we finish Phalla asks me if we can play the ‘clapping game’ I taught  another and smaller group of students earlier. All forty odd students and three teachers we spread ourselves in a circle, standing. The game is to receive and pass a clap from and to the person next to you. The group has to work like a team, like one living organism that breaths and sighs, in harmony, through claps. Fourty pairs of hands pass claps and laughter to each other. We go faster in an impressively synchronised manner and at a high speed. Children are happy to accept their mistake when they miss a clap and run around the circle fast to get back in place. There are screams, laughter, claps, teasing, and sheer enjoyment. I don’t know how long we play for but when it is about to get dark Phalla stops us and ends the game. Then something wonderful happens: 40  children of different ages run to me with their arms open, hugging and kissing me, asking me to stay and come back on Monday. Neak kru Lia. Now for that many smiles and so much love I will play the clapping game with them every single day.

Thuay Bong kum to the Cambodian children I met (the highest form of greeting usually reserved only for Buddha and Kings). You already have my heart to keep.