Day 13 1.14.18 Sunday Rest and walk day
Thots of a day off......Moto scooters - moto scooters-and more moto scooters..the primary mode of transportation for the labor class which clashes with the high end huge SUVs operated by the wealthy. The big construction sites nearby are all Chinese companies and staffed by Chinese men. People are not use to being waved to or approached by someone saying hello - in the press of people, people seem isolated, maybe because of population pressures- more than half of all Cambodians live in Phnom Penh for income and predominantly come from the province of countryside people with small lands which only provide subsistence. We cannot believe that the traffic pressure and aggressive driving have to be in opposition to the expected passive-demurring character of Cambodians and creating an aggression between people. The disparity in culture and possessions of the wealthy (believed to be on the gov’t kickback) again exaggerate this calm equalitarian life belief.
Oh yes-our room and building! We have a young guard who sleeps at the front door on a cot 24 hrs/day. We live in a 3 story building on a calm street of 3 story buildings. Near our building are small stores and coffee places, a full service athletic club and autobody shops, etc. The front of the house is for sewing classes and scooter parking behind a strong steel grating door and huge locks. Next the dining/meeting area, and kitchen. The second floor is volunteer rooms, and the third floor is comprised of a washing machine on the back balcony, some volunteer rooms, an office in the main room and a balcony overlooking the street. Volunteers rooms have at least a double bed and may have or share a small bath the size of a shower stall at home, and especially important, have air con - so called here. In the bathrooms there is a shower head and when you close the door to the bath you have a shower stall (toilet lid closed and toilet paper protected) with cold water only. The floors and walls are all echoing, sterile various colored ceramic tiles of varying sizes. Morning “instant Nescafé coffee”, toast of thin bread, and jam for breakfast, sometimes augmented by an egg cooked last eve and thus cold...but NO rice!
garbage.... This evening a garbage truck went by collecting bagged garbage that people have put outside their houses. We know that recycle collectors pulling carts through the city scavenger through this garbage for anything salable. They might have a scale with them and will weigh the material and pay the homeowner a small amount. In turn the “collector” sells the material. I saw such a collector pick a plastic container off a mound of unbagged garbage yesterday. We saw many of these carts at the slum yesterday so know these people, and perhaps even kids, do this work. We saw some of these collectors selling their findings. This multi-layer process in no way takes care of all the garbage produced here. In addition to the amount of garbage produced, the common attitude is to indiscriminately discard any hand trash to the ground. The common method of obtaining a juice drink from a shop is for the juice/drink to be put in a tall plastic cup with lid and straw then all put in a small plastic bag that has a hole in the bottom and loop handles (like our small disposable produce bags) so the cup can be cradled upright and hung on a motorbike handle or carried easily without spilling. Far too often this all is dropped to the ground when emptied. We went for a walk around the neighborhood- saw a game played on packed sand in an area 12 ft x 24 ft (the name of which we could not figure out- maybe warm climate, sandlot curling), found a person making dress shoes from scratch, bought 2 large cups for more coffee rather than a tea cup at a time, watched a “mobile” knife sharpener do his work and chatted with many people on the street. It appears Sunday is not a special day for worship or for workers to take off.
I painfully shaved my head in the sink with cold water-actually came out good. Later, we TukTuk’d to an upscale grocery store of American quality, space and prices for some home-like basics to augment our meals and got a Blizzard on the way back. There was a call from the orphanage inviting us to a musical happening by Japanese kids...we tuktuk’d over in disastrous traffic to experience a Japanese “popop” dance group timed to canned music. We enjoyed the response of the kids and they all got autographs..and when I got my autographs on my arm, a new fad was started. We TukTuk’d back to RnR and write. Tired...$32 for food and $10 for TukTuk rides.
Day 14 1.15.18 Monday back to the grind with 1st aid supplies
On our trip yesterday we found our young security guard at the orphanage for the program we attended and learned he grew up there. Taught him to throw a spiral football pass yesterday! We will leave at 7:30 AM today for the feeding program. Arranged the first aid training time and materials introduction. We will get an order for sanitary supplies for the orphanage. I’ve kicked more soccer balls and thrown more footballs in 10 days than all my days in college - sore. With all the traffic and no systematic traffic organization, we have seen only one fender bender-amazed. At the restaurant for kids we dropped off $75 worth of 1st aid supplies for their dispensary and which we plan to use in training later in the week. Then we bagged donated vegetables for kids to take home and to deliver to another feeding location. A young boy was eating an egg in the shell in which there was a baby chick - a usual food item here. While we were helping here yesterday the older kids were chopping chicken parts into 2x2 pieces, bones and all. After they are cooked, the small pieces of meat are eaten from the bone and the bone is cast away. In the process of watching I got splattered with chicken blood; time for the laundry. Soon we were in a TukTuk back in traffic to see another feeding location and deliver the veggies, way x town. We visited a slum village that floods in the monsoon but is still inhabited. Kids were on their own as parents were away working, etc. Then back in the TukTuk and across town to retrieve 1st aid supplies for the orphanage, which was 5 minutes from where we visited the second feed center...2.5 hrs in the TukTuk this am. At the orphanage Marnie got hopscotch going and I taught a 1/2 hour multiplication lesson after we organized the 1st aid supplies we bought/donated. Hot and tired...then another TukTuk. Back to our ac to cool down and shower. We learned how to talk on a telephone while on a moving moto. Not for the feint of heart! TukTuks are pulled by a single cylinder engine 125 cc scooter. Because of the small cylinder pulling heavy loads, the engine will overheat and blow if not cooled. To cool the cylinder, water is dripped over the cylinder from a water can on the side of the moto using a syphon in a small plastic tube from the can, and subsequently wets the ground - an inventive cure for the problem of the small inefficient vehicle. They can buy fuel from vendors along the road who stock gasoline in glass Pepsi bottles, etc. Empty spray cans are repressurized with fuels for use in small kitchen stoves.
Day 15 1.16.18 Tuesday meeting of the Global Service clan
GSC no show.tomorrow...Success. After 1.5 hours of throwing footballs and kicking soccer ball my good knee is “bad”. There are volunteers at the feeding center from Italy, France, China, Taiwan, Australia, and America tasking between preparing-distributing food, holding little kids, playing ball (we took 8 balls there today), drawing/coloring/reading and cleaning floors/tables. We start 1st aid trading with staff and teens on Wednesday am. 30# Bags of rice are being sent home again today. Marnie started another round of hop scotch- which lasted as long as she demonstrated and coached - then reduced interest. Thereafter she cleaned and chopped garlic, I can smell it tonite. Now on to the orphanage. For a second time we had a cooked vegetable called wax gourd stuffed with meat along with an excellent meat/rice lunch. After greeting kids as they went off to high school, we worked with JrHi English and math. Rick had students practice multiplication drills and gave Wisconsin pins as completion rewards and tutored others through their math assignments. At 4 we TukTuk’d to our residence and collapsed. We see a lot of construction. Locally-manned construction appears piecemeal and unlikely to get done, but the big projects move fast from Chinese construction companies with Credit Chinese labor and engineers -most construction is for housing-apartments and condos with first floor commercial shops. Great meal of a variety of seafood in flavored rice.
Day 16 1.17 Wednesday we start teaching the vol staff...
At the feeding program we started the introduction of 1st aid materials and lessons on cuts, burns, fire, bites, and scraps, bloody nose.etc. Stole the writing board from VCDO and wrote out a course outline in the TukTuk on our commute. 45 minute class very animated and concentrated. We think they learned - cut-scrapes, burns 123, fire on clothes- stop/drop/roll, eye washing, nose bleeds. Drew injuries on the kids with washable marker. Need dog bites and others. Had an emergency right after class - little girl cut her head and a student helped treat her and took her home. Pumping up balls for the orphanage by our security person. The GSC staff and vols talked with the Manager of the feeding center and we joined when able. Time for coffee with GSC at a coffee bar and discussion of activities and then on to orphanage. TukTuk to the orphanage and had lunch. We met the money manager/raiser for the center - budget is $130k and they have only raised $90k. GSC people came later and we had a meeting with the “Boss” and Sothy, the program manager, about needs and programs for the orphanage. At 2:20 I went to help math class. I am concerned about the tone of the teacher-gruff and not very positive/motivating. I’ll try to get the message across. Left at 4 for ride to VCDO. hot,hot,hot! Sat outside on the street with our guard and waved at passersby, especially the ladies. We live in a neighborhood of narrow 3 story houses with covered areas in front where cars and motos are usually parked or used for commercial enterprise. It must be middle class because the cars are smaller-like Corolla and not Lexus suvs or 4 door, huge pickups we see all over the city. Oops there goes a new big black Lexus, but there aren’t many. Just met a doctor and a UN worker who live in the area. Generally, people do not appear happy on the streets unless we wave and signal them - we do most often get a positive response.
Before I forget...when still in shock from the 30 hr flight we witnessed a Hmong drumming at the death/funeral of the wife (or mother) of the hotel owner of the Golden Gate Hotel. Just now I realized that I had evaluated a Hmong gentleman who became psychotic over a few weeks and began hearing the Hmong funeral drummers. As a result of the episode he killed his wife and daughter by accident. Having been bothered by the thinking about and hearing the drums upset him totally and he was unaware 5 days later that he had killed them. He was found not criminally responsible and committed to the Mendota forensic unit, where he remained for 18 years until found not mentally ill and dangerous, and released. I knew I knew something about the drumming and it took 10 days to put it together. We got Dianna, a retired nurse in our group, to look at the boy who we’re concerned about the lesions on his face..actually they have cleared fairly well.. they were a contagious malady that he has overcome and passed on to other kids by now..we shall watch- she thinks it is a viral infection. Some of our kids are HIV+ or AIDS kids, but they can not be id’d. See lunch time above..
Day 17 1.18 Thursday Teaching all Day..1st aid & tooth brushing
Anxiety producing day. Read for 1 hr this am- 5 newspapers. On TukTuk and seeing police sleeping and workers sweeping everywhere. Traffic is crazy again today. We were sent to another feeding center instead of teaching-frustration and all the prep anxiety for naught! Screwed up.. no teaching, off to another feed center and it was filthy. So Marnie, along with kids to whom I gave pins for their work, our young driver, and I swept and raked the crap from the concrete pad and the playground while the child care workers sat looking at their phones. Then we were told we needed to leave, after only a little socialization with the kids and a few games of rock-paper-scissors, to a place in the slums we had been before. Then to the orphanage early for lunch, tho not until forced. Will teach 1st aid at 1:30 followed by hand washing and teeth brushing. The cook was cooking pork in a wok over a charcoal fire for the kids suppers. 1st time I urinated during the day in spite of drinking inordinate amounts of liquid - some days never cuz of heat, humidity causing constant sweat. Toilet is flushed with a small bucket of tap water, no handle or pipes. Our coordinator for volunteers grew up as a farm kid- rice farming— plus water buffalo, hog etc. He told about hanging onto a buffalo’s tail to make it run through a paddy so he could body surf-good guy!
Photo: Preparing dinner for 52 kids and several staff - some kind of pork cooked in oil over the open fire. Home at 5 and starved as ate little lunch - I am overeating since my recovery. We had a very good teaching time with a marked volunteer (wash off marker) for each issue 1. Nose bleed, 2. Scrapes, cuts and stitches, 3.burn and blisters (don’t break)-1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4. Burning clothes-“stop, drop, roll and don’t take off clothes, 5 Bites and rabies, 6. Hand washing, and 7. Tooth brushing. The 30 kids stuck with us and our translators very well for 1.5 hours. Success! To VCDO and dinner interspersed with much resting..exhausting day! Laundry for the week. Taste of pizza tonite when kids and the lady who donated the oven cooked with her supplies-I shredded cheddar cheese.
Day 18 1.19 Friday one more 1st aid class at feeding
Marnie is up for an hour of morning exercises...Rick reads 4 paper summaries. Laundry is done. We have seen no public drunkness in the city. They are not use to making eye contact, smiling or waving on the street- one would think people are unhappy. Probably few accidents cuz patience and courteousness- tho the confusion in traffic to us is unmanageable and distressing. Traffic here is like water filling all the space and flowing around any stationary objects. The picture is of kids arranged to get supplies to take home - donor’s proof. We got to the feeding center and did our song and dance about 1st aid treatment- very successful with high school age workers. Then we packaged food for kids to take home and passed out pins. There is little grass in the city except in medians. Cars form a caste system that is superior to TukTuks, Motos, and bikes. The huge vehicles, mostly less than 5 years old, drive and park where they like-pissy ignoring snooty people, in closed windows with ac blocking all other traffic, wherever they wish appearing as tho they are privileged. Rather than wait for an opening to proceed, vehicles creep forward to force an opening/space and interfere with an orderly flow of traffic- then everyone is stopping and staring. TukTuk to nearby market for a walk down a closed market street and then on to the orphanage. Attended English class as tutor while Marnie prepared for buying trip for hygiene supplies, etc. I tutored math til exhausted and then wrote GSC evaluation. TukTuk’d to CDVO for a shave and trip packing. No sun, a few sprinkles about noon, and heavy smog all day. Sat outside in the evening and waved to passersby-astounded passersby! After dinner, which is degrading, we talked at length with Chammy about our perceptions of the programs. $50+ for orphanage hygiene supplies.
Day 19 1.20 Saturday off to Siem Reap.. 300 kilometers
6 am pickup and on to the countryside and small towns. OBSERVATIONS FOR THE TRIP...3 coffees and pineapple. Crickets, scorpions, tarantellas on a toothpick, baby quail eggs, silk worms, cockroach-like water bugs, chicken & quail eggs, eggs with chicks inside, and traditional foods available at a open air restaurant-market. Lots of cattle for meat are tethered out at the small farms. I inadvertently pointed to the short hair of young monks waiting for alms and violated their space. $5.50 for soup, 4 coffee and pineapple. Along the river north so most houses are built on stilts with living areas upstairs to prevent flood problems. Driving on 4 and 2 lane roads as fast as possible and passing as much as possible, horn honking. There are every form of TukTuk - people/taxi-like, charcoal and many different haulers, goods from the city, pigs to market, construction material, chicken cages, fruits/vegetable carts, furniture to market and food carts. Most Ag areas have rice hay stacks for their brahma cattle, not water buffalo yet. We saw small Kabota mechanical rice harvesting combines on tracks. Most fields are brown and harvested, but where there is sufficient water a second crop has been planted and is getting started, beautiful green. The terrain is unusually flat compared to what we expected. Plastic bags all over the place but less trashy in the country than in the city of pp. The best buildings are all Buddhist holy places with much building completed as elaborate archway entrance- housing is not nearly as substantial and well decorated/clean- and many small surrounding burial stupas. Schools have hundreds of Motos and/or bicycles parked in front. There have been many very large factory buildings all along the highway - sewing, charcoal, brick making, rice processing, steel & aluminum processing, etc that support many families. Traveling in the country-side is more comfort and speed limits are about 55 mph. As we go further west the housing/court yard is more substantial and clean, water buffaloes are present, more bicycles, and there are tractors/motorized power units with long steering arms for multiple implements on farms and in rice fields. All of sudden we entered a very upscale urban center of tourism of Siem Reap, arriving about 12:30. We checked in at the Tanei Hotel and left immediately after lunch for the State run silk making demonstration and production area. First the mulberry, the only thing a silk worm eats. The leaves are taken to the larvae because if out in the bushes/trees the birds would eat them. We traced the worm thru their life span and their sacrifice in death for healthy 2 layer cocoons (larvae in the pic). Then the cocoons are heated and treads come out to 400 meters per cocoon, the outer layer being inferior and the inner thread superior. After it is spooled, it is bleached white, stained by color and sent to the looms for weaving cloth. Lots of people are trained and then sent to work in centers near their home. The state program offers incentive pay, medical care, child care and other benefits. ——- after the tour and ice cream we moved on to the National Museum of Angkor. We did an audio tour of the history of the Khmer, the religious orientation of Hindu and Buddhism told in stone carvings of thousands of Buddha and structural features of Angkor Wat. Back in Siem Reap and exhausted Marnie and I went to the hotel for dinner and started editing.
The heat and exhaustion from work effort motivates me to put off small obligatory things like filling medicine, cleaning clothes, packing, shaving, reading, etc more so than at home. Riding in a closed vehicle with ac is nice but very isolating...can’t interact with people and since we are closed in they ignore us - like the privileged in the city.
Outline of GSC, its partner organizations and our program....
Global Service Corps, or GSC, has a long history of organizing international service programs with “one of the major reasons for the initiation of the organization to be to provide opportunities for adults to become more actively involved in addressing our many global issues”. Beginning in 1993 in Costa Rica and continuing in Kenya, Thailand, Guatemala, Tanzania and Cambodia, their programs have been many and have included but have not been limited to such projects as rainforest preservation and beach restoration, teaching sustainable agriculture and gardening, health education and public health (including HIV/AIDS prevention), teaching English, Buddhist immersion, and food security. Rick and Maxine Lathrop have taken the program most recently in the direction of Service-Learning Programs, working with Cambodia’s most vulnerable populations in development assistance. Volunteers, Interns, college students fulfilling service expectations and others participate in public health, leadership, orphan care and teaching English programs in Cambodia. This information is taken from our Participant Handbook and is not meant to be a complete description of GSC. Inaccuracies and misinterpretations may have occurred.
GSC has several partner organizations including Volunteer for Children and Development Organization (VCDO), the SFODA orphanage and the LRDE feeding programs. We are working at the feeding program each morning and the orphanage each afternoon. See our journals for descriptions of our daily activities.
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