My name is Donkey

Today I teach my first class. Phalla and I have already talked a lot about what he wants and needs from me. I am after all his first volunteer through SAFE. His priority is to free some of his time by helping his young teachers improve their English and lesson planning skills. I will be doing this every day for two or three hours throughout my stay. Then I will observe and assist with teaching at schools in different villages. This way I can meet the children, help them with correct pronunciation, and introduce new ideas (and games!). I think my mere presence in the various local classes is a present to the children, particularly those living in some of the most remote villages. Their enthusiasm and receptiveness was apparent on Saturday. I can’t wait to meet all of them.

My teachers’ class takes place at the Pagoda school, about a kilometre away from Phalla’s village. I am so happy to be back on this wonderful site.

I start by introducing my self in Khmer. As I do this there are some serious, almost expressionless faces and some giggles on the other side of the class. Now Phalla also giggles and stands up to explain that Lia in Cambodia means donkey.

So I stand up and say:

‘My name is Donkey but you can call me Ass’.

The young teachers

The Uniting Market

Uniting market photo link:

http://picasaweb.google.com/liamoutselou/UnitingMarket#

On Monday morning I head to a market near my hostel. The Uniting Market is in the opposite direction from the Siem Reap tourist hub. The avenue I walk on is bustling. Young children in the Cambodian school uniform, white shirts and blue trousers or skirts, cycle against the flow traffic, on the road side or pavements.  Nearly all the children and young people wave at me excitedly. Some locals (and there are only locals here at least at this time of day), look at me bemused. It is a hot day, and I am walking without a hat, on my own.

The market reveals itself on my left. This is a local people’s market, a cornucopia of foods and goods. The clothes here are reasonably priced. This is not the place to find colourful silks and traditional wear.  This is a real people’s market selling what is affordable and practical. People smile, some are surprised to see me here but most remain indifferent.  Colourful baskets filled with chillies, vegetables, fruit. Fish and meat is sold at the back of the market. I am the silent visitor.  People lie in hammocks, they watchTV, talk to each other. There are internal eateries offering simple delicacies. I don’t know where to turn first.  

A gentle pull on my hand and I turn to face a little girl who generously offers me her smile. She takes me with her and I follow her to her family. She has a loud older brother who jumps around me excitedly whilst speaking in fast Khmer. Am I picking up a different accent? I happily sit around them enjoying the human interaction of smiles and sounds. When I leave the little girl gives me a sad smile.

Bows of respect and a couple of offers of goods follow in the market lanes. I take a left turn again to be faced by a beautiful little boy, a little Buddha leaning forward towards me. His father looks at him with so much love.

Photos and words are limited and cannot convey sounds, scents, affection and human connections. I still wish I could write better. I wish I could take better photos and that I had a better camera. Mr Green be prepared to give me an intensive course on basics in photography on my return.

I am the enchanted wanderer. My senses are sharpened and I am so emotional ( pulse Michalaki mou , I am still a pulse). I see more children and spend some time with another sweet child who is my host for a while. Children are Cambodia’s treasure; I hope Cambodians understand this and do their utmost to protect their little hearts and their health. They open up their hearts , reach out to you, lead you to their families (who might have otherwise not bothered ), they try , they give and don’t expect much. I really bow to them.

I reach a banana woman (surrounded by hundreds of lying and hanging bananas) and am approached by young man who offers his help. I explain that I just want to look around, maybe buy a hat, we have a chat about what I am doing in Cambodia. And then I hear the cursed word again. Barrang stands out amongst other words and syllables in a woman’s conversation behind me. I turn and see an older lady looking at me in an unfriendly manner. I cannot blame her. I am a pale European looking woman, conjuring up images of past stories that have been passed on to her. Respectfully I say, ‘ Teh Barrang Ming’ (Not Barrang auntie). I turn to the young man . ‘Teh Barrang Orm’ (no barrang brother). ‘Yes’ he smiles reassuringly ‘ You are not Barrang’.

New visitor at the Old Market

It’s great to be living with local people and my priority here is to work with the SAFE foundation, help Phalla, teach teachers and children. After a nap I feel a great urge to get out. I want to meet other people and hear what brings them here. My hostel is in the quiet side of the city (quiet at night and not when there are celebrations at dawn). I decide to do the Tuk Tuk thing. Tuk tuk’s are wonderful moped led carriages, typical of the place. The come in different shapes and are colourfully decorated. Today my carriage is a bat mobile!

In the streets of the old market, people try to sell me things, give me rides, feed me but I don’t feel hassled. A polite no ‘ teh orkoun’ goes a long way. I don’t like everything I see: some rude American tourists with derogatory behaviour, a fifty year old man hugging and fondling a teenage Cambodian boy. 

My mission is to taste the amok fish dish that Lucy has told me about. I find a beautiful looking restaurant with very reasonable prices. At the Angor Palm the young waitresses and waiters are extremely nice and caring. Possibly because they help me practice my language skills. I don’t know all the ingredients of amok fish (yet) but the dish consists of fried and beautifully spiced fish, flavoursome greens and some type of cabbage. It is (of course) served with rice. My neighbouring table is excitedly celebrating a birthday. Geni, introduces herself and gives me the thumps up for my choice of dish. Genie is Australian, used to be a teacher and is travelling through Cambodia , to Vietnam and Laos with her husband and two friends. We talk about the Safe Foundation (they love the ethos and jot down the website address), my home in Wales, Geni and Peter’s visit to Wales (and their love of St David’s), Phalla and the Cambodian Child and Hope Association, their travels, and my homeland Greece (as well as their Greek connections-everyone’s got one right?). The young waiters come in and out of the conversation, first joining when they hear where I am from and adding me to their list of ‘first sightings’. They also (like my Korean passport control man) have never met a Greek before. ‘Perhaps all Greeks are as friendly?’ they say. Here I am again in the position of a national ambassador. Perhaps I think and then perhaps not, particularly at current times.  Peter on the other hand just says, ‘Well I have never met a Greek with an English accent before’. Hmmph, Welsh accent Peter, Welsh….And just like that I am invited to stop by when in Melbourne.

Arun Khmer (the good Khmer)

Arun Khmer photo link:

http://picasaweb.google.com/liamoutselou/ArunKhmer

I wake up gasping,  thinking I have overslept. Metallic string notes fill the air with beautiful music. Beautiful but… very loud. I open my eyes and feel so tired. Perhaps I spoke too soon about the jetlag. I look at my watch.

5 am.

I hear brooms sweeping, intermittent running water and pots clacking in the kitchen across my room on the ground floor. I know the Khmer get up really early, eat lunch usually between 11 and 12 and also sleep very early- a timetable that helps them cope with the hot and humid climate. (Well it helps those who can stick to it if they are not running a late night business in the tourist areas).

Still it is 5 am, it is the beginning of the cold season and generally quite cool (mid to late 20s Celsius scale) and I can’t help but feel a bit pissed off that someone decided to turn up the radio. How do I explain to the women running this restaurant and hostel (with its only guest me) that I NEED TO SLEEP, whilst being polite and keeping face?. I spend half an hour trying earplugs, sandwiching my head between pillows, swearing in Greek to myself and then I breathe in, smile and walk out to the veranda. The women are washing in sarongs by the water tanks between the restaurant and the residential building. No running water for the Khmer, just my highness (I am so embarrassed). They look at me kindly smiling, pointing at the building behind our ‘home’ immediately grasping why I am up.

I speak with Papok the only girl that speaks some English at the place. Buddhist families here have random celebrations that involve playing beautiful traditional music on loudspeakers. Apparently this could go on for days…

Arun is the hostel I am staying at. Papok is a bright young girl and the niece of the owner, a rich but honourable Khmer who had time to listen to Phalla and give me place to stay at a reasonable price (other people just dismissed his gentle and unassertive manner). His restaurant is run by a collective of smiling, proud, caring women and their children, who are given board and payment in return. Ming Pow (Auntie Pow) is my favourite. She comes and sits with me every morning talking to me in Khmer. I don’t understand a thing but I am so grateful for the company and her loveliness.  I see her as the leader and Matriarch and I think they all do too. But I have not yet established whether they are all related. Another girl tells me they are in broken English but when she says ‘ No father’ and wells up I stop and embrace her. It is clear by the resemblance that Ming Houn and Houn are mother and daughter. And so are Ming Pol and Seng Chium. There are also other girls who are very shy and I have not met properly yet. There are also two boys who roam the site and sleep outside in net beds guarding the yard.

I had a curfew the first couple of nights. A metallic fence is wheeled over in front of the restaurant as soon as the last customers leave as early as 10pm. The first night I went for a walk at 10 as I needed to shake off 17 hours of flight. I had to wake up the boy to open the gate when I returned half an hour later.  After this I had to ask the owner for a gate key. It is not ok for me to wake up the young boy just to let me in (even if is just 11 I come back and despite the owner’s assurance that ‘this is the way things are done’. I was prepared to move rather than be a heartless cow or run to return to my room at 10.

Mr Green I think when you asked Phalla to take care of me, he decided that the best way to do this is to lock me up in a ‘nunnery’ and give me a curfew. But no! I now roam the streets of Siem Reap free on a bicycle, occasionally getting lost and going around in circles.

Phalla, like the Khmer people I am staying with, is a good and honourable Khmer respected by his community. Do not be fooled, I have not romanticised Cambodia at all. Like every country and culture it has a good and bad side because this is how they world and humanity is. But I am saving these other type of observations for later and still feel privileged this place is letting me in.

Today Phalla has planned a tour cycle ride for me to show me routes, important places and sights and of course one way systems. I try to tame my urge to go fast on the bicycle: after all I have nowhere to be or to rush to. Cycling in Siem Reap is not dangerous because of heavy traffic or high speed. It is dangerous because of the opposite. Everyone has their own slow rhythm that they will not speed up or slow down for anyone. Sometimes I have to waive and point to make sure that I am acknowledged before I take a turn onto a busy road. It is like I don’t exist and clearly I have to go for it if I want to move, hoping for the best. It somehow works!

Today we visit the heart of the city centre, the old market, the Golden Temple where Dan and Lucy stayed (I like!), the night market, a free wi fi internet café. I learn where the banks, the hospital, the most beautiful Wat (temple) of Siem Reap are. I love the cycle ride. There is a nice breeze and I am enjoying this despite the lack of sleep. I mind map Siem reap and hope that I can find my way back. The Old market is full of Barrangs and tourist spots. Barrang is a derogatory word used for the French colonialists and consequently for all similarly looking westerners. Phalla tells me that it is used to reprimand children who don’t behave. ‘Eat your food or the Barrang will come get you’. It has a negative connotation. Could you blame the Khmer?  (At this point I am embarrassed to admit that I have missed a bit of Barrang conversation).

Sivatha Boulevard

, our next destination, is a big avenue that sits in stark contrast to the villages I visited yesterday, where there is no electricity and running water. A big busy road, with many banks, a shopping mall and a KFC! Two different worlds just 20 minutes away from each other.

We next cycle through the French quarter, named after its French styled architecture and buildings. There is nothing else there. It is quiet and seems like an area reserved for luxury accommodation for the fortunately wealthy. The Rich Khmer or rich visitors as Phalla says.

The final stop is the Khmer people’s shrine. I have been reading about the killing of many Khmer in the late 1970s and early eighties (the killing fields).  I see a glass tower with the bones and skulls of many of the victims. I see pictures of Pot Pol (the beloved one), the leader of the Khmer rouge. I am not left indifferent by such historic events. It hurts when nations attack their own and bleed themselves. But I have read very little about Cambodian history, so I can’t pretend to be the best informed. During the Pot Pol regime, everyone was made to work in the rice fields. Educated people and the rich or non farmers who did not abide by the rules of the regime were the first killed. The aim was to create a society of equals and they judged that drastic measures were necessary. But then it got out of hand. It was a general Lon Nol that did most of the killing. Funnily enough, I read that Pot Pol came for a very privileged and read family (something that he had in common with other communist regime leaders).

Phalla tells me that his parents were introduced during that time. They did not fall in love but the regime matched them up, asked them to reproduce and took away their first son to indoctrinate. Phalla does not know where his brother is. But he is not upset about it. I think this is because the Cambodian just deal with things as they come and do not waste their energy. The hurt and pain is internalised and dealt with.  Nor does he think that the regime was necessarily bad. And this is not because he supports the regime. I listen to the stories he tells me and am amazed to find out that the Khmer are not taught history at school. People who want to find out about Cambodian history have to make their own enquiries and look to accounts from abroad.  I think it is horrible not to know your own history but could dwelling on the past prevent you from building a future? And is it not true that sometimes that international accounts are the most accurate or the only ones at times of great destruction and war?  I don’t know. I am left with a lingering question. 

Soon I remember an earlier conversation with Phalla: the Khmer language has neither past nor future tense. Could these be the most fortunate people on earth truly living in the moment?

I reserve forming an opinion.

My good Khmer is tired and I need some Barrang time alone and hopefully with some other wandering travellers. And the discussion of politics should be left alone when tired…

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.

The Pagoda

Before I give you my first story...

here are some images from the Pagoda  (Cambodian Buddist temple) site which is the base of Cambodian Child and Hope Association where I will be working in Cambodia. The Pagoda is within the Angor Wat national park borders. I have an entry permit and all that which entitles me to roam freely within the site and outside the different Angor temples. How lucky am i?

I have taken only one photo inside the Buddhist Pagoda and more of the buildings , the stupas (where ashes are stored after cremation), including the most colourful stupa on the site (one of a rich and powerful man) and a couple of photos of the beautiful surroundings of this peaceful and  beautiful site. I was greeted by a Buddhist nun like I was her long lost daughter. She embraced me tightly, wanted to feed me and keep me. Sounds like my mom too! An old buddhist monk was joking with me. I have been really respectful and tried not to impose on the monks but I found that the older Buddhist monks and nuns are very warm and engaging with me. It is hard to refuse so much love!

Tomorrow I start training the teachers at the Pagoda School between 2-4. I am their neak krou (female teacher) and I am so glad that I will be able to help them. They are really good : a couple of nouns, prepositions and word endings to add and they will be perfect!

From inside the Pagoda

Stupas

Rich man's stupa

Three Hundred

This has been the best flight of my life. I ate,  slept, was taken care of like a distinguished member of a precious multinational cargo. In Korea there are loud and silent goodbyes amongst the passengers , as we all rush through the transfer stations. The standard of this place is beyond what I could have imagined. Clinically clean and ordered but with some distinctly colourful ornaments and decorative touches. I am not easily impressed by this much order but I don’t think I have ever seen an airport like this before. Even queuing is short: there were definitely a hundred of more passengers standing in line and I am in a few minutes at the passport control desk. At this sterile but strangely welcoming destination stop, I am serviced by a young Korean passport controller. The queue has stopped moving and he is looking at my passport and at the computer, then again at my passport, then at me. As this strange interaction continues I begin to worry. I have not come that far to be stopped in Korea. And what could the problem be? Has something escaped my obsessive mind?  And then he mutters something indecipherable. He looks too happy to be delivering a bad message.

‘Sparta!’ 300 Hundred! Greece!’

He has never met anyone from Greece before and wants to ask me many questions but the Australian behind me flying to Melbourne in 40 minutes is not amused.

I smile and kindly accept the stereotype.

Today I will be one of the 300! Long live Thermopulea.