12 - spit-grilled bananas - or frogs whatever you fancy! I went for bananas,4-6 on a stick.
11- cans of condensed milk - only good in iced coffee. I heard it described as "liquid crack".
10 - cans of Angkor beer -or Cheers - whatever you fancy as there is no other choice here
9 - foetus eggs - yes, you read that right, hatching out of the shell and onto your spoon as you eat, yum yum!
8 - kilos of rice - enough to feed 2 people per week. Dave and I haven't managed that in 8 weeks.
7 - Deer - I think that is all that is left here in this town -have the rest been eaten?
6 - o'clock in the evening- its dark and most people have eaten by now.
5 - my favourite fruits so far-mangosteen, rambutan, mango, longan and you are never more than 10m from a banana here.
4- the only places in town which serve "western food" in one way or another.
3 - SUPER markets in town - but not as we know them but one does have a chiller cabinet.
2 - hobs only on my gas cooker - boil rice and stir fry your veg.
1 - KFC in town!! Well, it serves sticky rice and fried chicken and its sooooooooooo good! And all for £1.
Thursday, 23 December 2010
Sunday, 19 December 2010
Where does the time go?
December.
At last I begin to feel like I know what we are meant to be doing here. I have organised and run my first workshop. We have settled into our new home and made a wide variety of cosmopolitan friends and David has found work. Now I shall have to begin some housework as he has been brilliant until now and done it all. We have also had our first house guest- my sister Cynthia has been to stay for two weeks. So come on all friends, book those tickets and come and visit – its brilliant here!
We have begun to explore the area and there are some super waterfalls, Yak Loam(look up the lake on google) is wonderful and the swimming is just heavenly at lunchtime when the temp in the office gets to 32 +. David has borrowed a bicycle and been out far more than me at present.
Work for David began in earnest this week. He has 2 full days in Borkeo (about 35k on the road to Vietnam) teaching sport in a boarding school for indigenous children who have to live in school as they are bright but live too far away to walk every day. The dropout rate for these children is exceptionally high. The boarding house is funded by another NGO called CARE. He has a class of 30+ in the morning but 80+ in the afternoon.
The school has never taught sport before and has no equipment at all. He has introduced extreme frisbee and badminton and football. But we only have the one frisbee we bought with us. So if anyone could possibly send him some equipment which is cheap to post –please do so. He needs some very light softballs, shuttlecocks, frisbeees, table tennis bats and balls and anything really…..
Our address is Janet /David Catchpole. VSO Programme Office. PO BOX 912
Phnom Penh Cambodia.
Once the post gets to PP a member of the VSO office collects it and puts it on a mini bus to here and the driver calls us to collect it to the VSO office here in Ban Lung. I have not heard of any going missing!!
This week he has also been in touch with a Korean nurse working in a school here in the town who would like to introduce sport – so 2 more afternoons are happening soon.
We were very excited to see my sister who arrive for 2 weeks at the end of November. We took her to visit the lake, of course, the lava field, the market is a tremendous experience and we have to go every day. She and David went off on cycle tours and she surprised me by hopping on the back of David’s moto very quickly. We left Ban Lung with her to go to Kampong Cham for 3 nights together and David was thrilled to realise the Bamboo Bridge was being built and was almost ready. This is apparently the last year as there will be a bridge built next year. When the water in the river is high locals rely on the ferry to cross to the islands in the Mekong. Now they have dropped and a bamboo bridge is built by hand every year. We were told cars can go across!! We left her there to visit PP for 2 nights and we came north again to home.
This week I held my first workshop for School Directors and 3 District Directors of Education. It was very daunting but I was prepared and they were all there at 7.30am. However, working through a translator is not that easy and they were so shy! Teachers in England never stop talking! Here, I could not get them to start, they were so anxious about saying the wrong answer; they would not answer at all. Eventually, I watered the programme down and we got through the day with some good results. I shall be very busy for the next 3 weeks as I promised to follow up with a visit to every school with a chat about their requirements for leadership and management skills. Not terribly high on their list as want they would really like is to be paid each month and on time.
This is Narin my VA-Volunteer assisstant. He is brilliant and literally a Mr Fixit. He has at least 4 different enterprises that I know as well as full time work with VSO. Dont be surprised by the females present. These are the only 2 School Directors I have met so far so I made sure they were both invited to attend.
Everybody here has at least 2 jobs, the second is usually their home farm. This has to supplement their salary. Corruption levels are also very high here, not quite the stories to broadcast here on my blog but I heard that many teachers had not been paid because someone else had received the money and used it to speculate on the soya bean harvest.
I am also supposed to work with the inspection team here in the province. This has not been possible so far as since September they have not received any budget – therefore no school inspections!
We have made many new friends here – Lucy also VSO in Education from the Philippines and her husband Yasir from Pakistan, Erin:VSO Secure Livelihoods –from Canada, Christina from Canada Education -but another NGO and her husband Boris from Uzbekistan. Ema from Spain(with dreadlocks down to her waist) working in Secure Livelihoods and Tania from Suffolk ( on the border with Essex) would you believe! Another VSO girl who is working in secure livelihoods and trying to keep the lake in the hands of the Tampoun people. The indigenous tribe who own the sacred land. There are also 2 more really nice Phillipino girls called April and Ginny who work for an NGO called Health Unlimited. They are all of course much younger than us but they do not seem to mind –perhaps they see us as surrogate parents!
On Saturday we went to dinner at Lucy and Yasirs with Erin and her partner Jamie over from Australia but works in a gold mine in Eritrea. I had tried to make dessert for us all. I prepared some dragon fruit and made coconut ice-cream. However, it did not want to set and was sweet coconut sauce I think. There are no milk products here at all but all the locals eat a lot of condensed milk ( not sure what in except exceptionally sweet coffee). So I bought fresh coconut milk from the market and freshly grated coconut and mixed it with the sweet milk and put it in the ice box to freeze. 5 hours later and no change.
Yesterday I organised a VSO+friends picnic and swim by the lake which was brilliant, except I chose the coldest day of the year and temp was only mid 20s!
Christmas here is non-existent but I came home last night after work to find David had erected a Christmas Tree with twinkly lights which we bought in PP in October and Cynthia had bought us some tinsel. The family below us were very amused! We have been invited for the weekend to Stung Treng a small town about 145k away on a dirt road which is busy as it leads to PP. However, I need to work on the 24th so we are planning to go on our motos after lunch on the 24th and return on the 26th. We shall stay with a Dutch couple Jan and Teah we met whilst doing our language training. It will be quite a challenge for me to drive that far in the red dirt and dust and to traverse the 36 bridges ( well, planks of wood). It has stopped raining only for a couple of weeks but already the dust swirls constantly and if there is a vehicle in front you cannot see for ages. We will be so dirty when we arrive.
Last night was very cold – the temperature dropped to below 20 for the first time and we were chilly in bed. Houses here are just made of wood planks with gaps, etc. so quite draughty. I wore pyjamas for the first time and felt like a local at last. Have I told you that many women wear pyjamas as day wear here. Here is a picture of a woman harvesting rice in her pyjamas.
Enough of us but before I sigh off if anyone is nice enough to send David some equipment please fill the gaps with some cotton wool balls, cheese sauce mix, ind cappuccino sachets or hot choc mixes and j cloths. I cannot find anything like j cloths to clean the house or wash dishes with. Anything easy to post would be a real treat.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year
At last I begin to feel like I know what we are meant to be doing here. I have organised and run my first workshop. We have settled into our new home and made a wide variety of cosmopolitan friends and David has found work. Now I shall have to begin some housework as he has been brilliant until now and done it all. We have also had our first house guest- my sister Cynthia has been to stay for two weeks. So come on all friends, book those tickets and come and visit – its brilliant here!
 |
| Standing on the newly built bammboo bridge |
We have begun to explore the area and there are some super waterfalls, Yak Loam(look up the lake on google) is wonderful and the swimming is just heavenly at lunchtime when the temp in the office gets to 32 +. David has borrowed a bicycle and been out far more than me at present.
Work for David began in earnest this week. He has 2 full days in Borkeo (about 35k on the road to Vietnam) teaching sport in a boarding school for indigenous children who have to live in school as they are bright but live too far away to walk every day. The dropout rate for these children is exceptionally high. The boarding house is funded by another NGO called CARE. He has a class of 30+ in the morning but 80+ in the afternoon.
The school has never taught sport before and has no equipment at all. He has introduced extreme frisbee and badminton and football. But we only have the one frisbee we bought with us. So if anyone could possibly send him some equipment which is cheap to post –please do so. He needs some very light softballs, shuttlecocks, frisbeees, table tennis bats and balls and anything really…..
Our address is Janet /David Catchpole. VSO Programme Office. PO BOX 912
Phnom Penh Cambodia.
Once the post gets to PP a member of the VSO office collects it and puts it on a mini bus to here and the driver calls us to collect it to the VSO office here in Ban Lung. I have not heard of any going missing!!
This week he has also been in touch with a Korean nurse working in a school here in the town who would like to introduce sport – so 2 more afternoons are happening soon.
We were very excited to see my sister who arrive for 2 weeks at the end of November. We took her to visit the lake, of course, the lava field, the market is a tremendous experience and we have to go every day. She and David went off on cycle tours and she surprised me by hopping on the back of David’s moto very quickly. We left Ban Lung with her to go to Kampong Cham for 3 nights together and David was thrilled to realise the Bamboo Bridge was being built and was almost ready. This is apparently the last year as there will be a bridge built next year. When the water in the river is high locals rely on the ferry to cross to the islands in the Mekong. Now they have dropped and a bamboo bridge is built by hand every year. We were told cars can go across!! We left her there to visit PP for 2 nights and we came north again to home.
This week I held my first workshop for School Directors and 3 District Directors of Education. It was very daunting but I was prepared and they were all there at 7.30am. However, working through a translator is not that easy and they were so shy! Teachers in England never stop talking! Here, I could not get them to start, they were so anxious about saying the wrong answer; they would not answer at all. Eventually, I watered the programme down and we got through the day with some good results. I shall be very busy for the next 3 weeks as I promised to follow up with a visit to every school with a chat about their requirements for leadership and management skills. Not terribly high on their list as want they would really like is to be paid each month and on time.
This is Narin my VA-Volunteer assisstant. He is brilliant and literally a Mr Fixit. He has at least 4 different enterprises that I know as well as full time work with VSO. Dont be surprised by the females present. These are the only 2 School Directors I have met so far so I made sure they were both invited to attend.
Everybody here has at least 2 jobs, the second is usually their home farm. This has to supplement their salary. Corruption levels are also very high here, not quite the stories to broadcast here on my blog but I heard that many teachers had not been paid because someone else had received the money and used it to speculate on the soya bean harvest.
I am also supposed to work with the inspection team here in the province. This has not been possible so far as since September they have not received any budget – therefore no school inspections!
We have made many new friends here – Lucy also VSO in Education from the Philippines and her husband Yasir from Pakistan, Erin:VSO Secure Livelihoods –from Canada, Christina from Canada Education -but another NGO and her husband Boris from Uzbekistan. Ema from Spain(with dreadlocks down to her waist) working in Secure Livelihoods and Tania from Suffolk ( on the border with Essex) would you believe! Another VSO girl who is working in secure livelihoods and trying to keep the lake in the hands of the Tampoun people. The indigenous tribe who own the sacred land. There are also 2 more really nice Phillipino girls called April and Ginny who work for an NGO called Health Unlimited. They are all of course much younger than us but they do not seem to mind –perhaps they see us as surrogate parents!
On Saturday we went to dinner at Lucy and Yasirs with Erin and her partner Jamie over from Australia but works in a gold mine in Eritrea. I had tried to make dessert for us all. I prepared some dragon fruit and made coconut ice-cream. However, it did not want to set and was sweet coconut sauce I think. There are no milk products here at all but all the locals eat a lot of condensed milk ( not sure what in except exceptionally sweet coffee). So I bought fresh coconut milk from the market and freshly grated coconut and mixed it with the sweet milk and put it in the ice box to freeze. 5 hours later and no change.
Yesterday I organised a VSO+friends picnic and swim by the lake which was brilliant, except I chose the coldest day of the year and temp was only mid 20s!
Christmas here is non-existent but I came home last night after work to find David had erected a Christmas Tree with twinkly lights which we bought in PP in October and Cynthia had bought us some tinsel. The family below us were very amused! We have been invited for the weekend to Stung Treng a small town about 145k away on a dirt road which is busy as it leads to PP. However, I need to work on the 24th so we are planning to go on our motos after lunch on the 24th and return on the 26th. We shall stay with a Dutch couple Jan and Teah we met whilst doing our language training. It will be quite a challenge for me to drive that far in the red dirt and dust and to traverse the 36 bridges ( well, planks of wood). It has stopped raining only for a couple of weeks but already the dust swirls constantly and if there is a vehicle in front you cannot see for ages. We will be so dirty when we arrive.
Last night was very cold – the temperature dropped to below 20 for the first time and we were chilly in bed. Houses here are just made of wood planks with gaps, etc. so quite draughty. I wore pyjamas for the first time and felt like a local at last. Have I told you that many women wear pyjamas as day wear here. Here is a picture of a woman harvesting rice in her pyjamas.
Enough of us but before I sigh off if anyone is nice enough to send David some equipment please fill the gaps with some cotton wool balls, cheese sauce mix, ind cappuccino sachets or hot choc mixes and j cloths. I cannot find anything like j cloths to clean the house or wash dishes with. Anything easy to post would be a real treat.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year
Thursday, 2 December 2010
Life settling into normality
Well, after 3 months we feel at last that we are settling down. I am getting to grips with the education system and have made my 3 month plan and am presently organising a workshop for Dec 16 for school leaders and Directors of Education in 3 provinces here. From the results I hope to be able to formulate my long term plan.
I have also agreed to go on a study tour in January to Siem Reap (it is really a tough call- but someone has to go)! This is to meet an Australian NGO team to see if they are prepared to help with training teachers back here in Ratanakiri. It is 3 days but will take 2 days travel each way as there is limited roads east to west. I have to travel south until I can cross the Mekong river which is 350k almost to Phnom Penh, then go west.
David is making inroads into working and is off again tomorrow to visit a boarding house for indigenous children who are bright but live too far from the high school to travel so one NGO is funding this project. He is planning to have at least 2 days work with teaching them sport and gardening. So fingers crossed it all goes to plan. Things just happen so slowly here.........
At the moment we have my sister Cynthia staying, she managed 3 flights and an 11 hour trip north on the mini-bus. So all of you reading this start saving those pennies.
There is NOTHING about Christmas here at all! Hurray! I am not missing all the hype and lead up to the big day, the only thing I shall miss of course is the excitement of seeing the family all together.
I have also agreed to go on a study tour in January to Siem Reap (it is really a tough call- but someone has to go)! This is to meet an Australian NGO team to see if they are prepared to help with training teachers back here in Ratanakiri. It is 3 days but will take 2 days travel each way as there is limited roads east to west. I have to travel south until I can cross the Mekong river which is 350k almost to Phnom Penh, then go west.
David is making inroads into working and is off again tomorrow to visit a boarding house for indigenous children who are bright but live too far from the high school to travel so one NGO is funding this project. He is planning to have at least 2 days work with teaching them sport and gardening. So fingers crossed it all goes to plan. Things just happen so slowly here.........
At the moment we have my sister Cynthia staying, she managed 3 flights and an 11 hour trip north on the mini-bus. So all of you reading this start saving those pennies.
There is NOTHING about Christmas here at all! Hurray! I am not missing all the hype and lead up to the big day, the only thing I shall miss of course is the excitement of seeing the family all together.
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