Week one - only103 to go

Our first week in Ratanakiri (this means gem mountain in Khymer)

Our new home- well just the upstairs.

After an exhausting journey and stressful arrival we woke at 6am to find what I can only describe as a squatter hut attached to the fence one meter from our house and the family are cooking on charcoal pots outside and chattering loudly.

View from bedroom window

So up we get and after a minimal breakfast we go off to the market on the moto – more about that later too!

Trying to find cleaning materials was difficult but we managed and got fruit and bread.

Dave scrubbed the bathroom with bleach and I cleaned the kitchen, swept floors with a soft bristle broom; oh for a vacuum cleaner here as it’s so dusty. In the pm a couple of other NGOs arrived one with a huge bag of longans. I like them, Dave not too keen, he says he does not like smelly fruit.

In the afternoon we went for a ride on the moto around the lake in town and explored a little and then got a text inviting us to sunset snacks not far from us ( well nowhere is far from here the town is about twice the size of Framlingham.

My moto in the garden downstairs plus the awful no gears VSO bike!

First day…

Up with the family and the cockerels at 5.45am so at least I could not oversleep for work today. Nervous about riding the moto to work on my own but I memorised the way and it was fine. I met Myrko the Dutchman and another VSO working in Education and Narin the translator that we share, then I hopped – well straggled my leg over to ride pillion with him to a school about 35k away towards Vietnam. A small school only 2 classrooms and teaches grade 1 – 4 however, the children are indigenous and do not speak Khymer and here if you do not pass each grade or start school late you stay down. So there were about 4 boys who looked about 13/14 still in with the grade 1 and this is not unusual and yet there is no curriculum suited to their needs so most drop out as soon as they can and rarely stay to go to the next school at grade 5 level. You can be a teacher at a school like this as long as you have a grade 9 certificate to say you passed that level.

I was asked if I wanted to make my own way back on the moto and being the only female I had to say yes. It was fine until 34.5k later and I could not find my way to the office whichever way I tried. Eventually I gave up and had to ring Narin. I was 300yards from the office, they were in the coffee shop ( I use this term loosely as it was a bamboo shack) and they had seen me driving round and thought I was doing more practising. On the way home I got stopped by the police. He made me stop my bike, get off and then told me to go another road as this was blocked. Then proceed to laugh with his mates about my inadequacies of handling a moto. All before lunch so luckily I had a quiet afternoon in the office.

Riding pillion.

The women here all ride side-saddle and never hold on to anything.

Cambodian men riding pillion can hold onto any part of their male drivers.

Women cannot touch any part of their male driver whilst riding pillion even if it is their husband.

Only the driver is supposed to wear a helmet – but only the westerners wear them really.

You can have at least 6/7 on a moto. As soon as children can sit up they are on motos.

Signalling left does not mean you are going left.

Even though you are meant to drive on the right you can and do use any part of the road you want to.

So you can see that first thing on Monday morning riding that distance pillion with a male translator was an experience. However, the scenery was magnificent and this really is a beautiful place.

My work hours are 7.30-11.30am and 2-5pm.

Tuesday I spent getting to know my way round the hot, dusty, dirty office in the department for the Ministry of Education. When I am not quite so new it will get a tidy and a clean-up.

Wednesday was another school visit and I played hookey in the pm and went to the bank to get my ATM card –it took over an hour and a half.

Thursday back to the school we visited on Monday for a World Teacher Day ceremony which was very nice and simple and then we played a game with the children.

Playng the circle game

In the afternoon I had my first language lesson and I learnt that she had not prepared anything but wanted to know what I wanted to learn!! So I leant to ask the mother below us if I could use the washing machine – which worked! Also how to ask for things in the market – which was not so easy! I have problems understanding the cost of items as 100 is mapon and 1000 is maroy which in local dialect sounds the same to me.

Being on the top table

Friday was a holiday to celebrate Kings Coronation. We were invited by the family to have a picnic by the lake but we declined and went to the market to buy food and more storage containers as everything has to be kept sealed. We also need coat hangers and all sorts of necessary basic stuff.

In the evening which is after 5pm in Khymer time we went to one of the 3 relative western restaurants where all the NGOs meet up each week. There are about 15 in total of all nationalities but English is the language in use luckily. We ordered drinks, dave a beer and me a lime juice when an Aussie arrived and announced he had just got engaged to a local girl and without asking ordered a round of tequila shots with salt and lemon and that was it we had to drink up. Yuk!! Then get on the moto in the dark ( dark by 5.30pm here and weave our way home – late by standards here as it was 8pm. Then we ate on the balcony still but it was so cold, the temp dropped to below 25 for the first time and we shivered and had to put on warmer long sleeved clothes.

Dave reading on the balcony.