Obama - Water Festival - and lots of ME

Its true, I have been quiet on the posts lately, but that can also mean a good thing right? Busy bee…

I had a week off two weeks ago, and travelled down to my cozy Sihanoukville Town where I ventured to the beach again to baste and imbibe.  This time on my own since my friend who was supposed to come with me had his wrist broken, and when that happens you don’t stay here and have to leave the county for an operation.  The treatment here would consist of wrapping your arm with bamboo and letting the shaman say a few words.  If your injury breaks the surface, then you go to the typical hospital or at least that is the practice in the countryside.  Needless to say, it was a quiet vacation where I decided to become more of a foodie, (most delicious was finding a sushi place in the middle of nowhere, and eating an Elvis sandwich at the guest house!) I also started to sketch with pastels which look like crap.  One of these days I still plan on being some form of artist…

The vacation time was due to the Water Festival in Phnom Penh, which didn’t actually happen.  It was cancelled this year because of the King’s death (second year in a row it’s cancelled).  The event is supposed to be three days of dragon boat racing (I had signed up for) to go down the Tonle Sap River which runs through the City.  Two years ago there was a stampede that killed almost 400 people on the bridges during the event, so even if I went I would have been hesitant.  The bridge had swayed from too many people and then they trampled each other, as well as grabbing electrical wires to hang on to which electrocuted others.  Needless to say, the festival is based on the end of the dry season and the changing of the river direction.  Yes, it seems that this is the only place in the world where a river that is inundated with flood water is pushed inland by the mighty Mekong River and as the precipitation subsides, the natural flow returns again towards the China Sea.

I had my first quiet birthday (yes, everything is quiet outside the city).  I celebrated with a snickers and tetra pack of milk on my satellite chair and I was quite content as it wasn’t a big stressed out organized event like the past 100 years!  Well, my B-day just happened to go in tandem with the arrival of President Barak Obama.  He came to visit me, how cool is that?! Just when I had been thinking perhaps the world doesn’t revolve around me and I started to adopt a humbler perspective, I get thrown back into the spot light!  Obama came as he is concerned with the increasing control China is having in the Region, which from what I have seen, China owns a lot of land, exports and even builds the bridges in my Town.  Not that this is any different than moron Harper selling off an oil company for 15 billion.  Resources as an export is limiting and does have a shelf life, hasn’t anyone read Jane Jacobs?  This is what I ponder as I watch another sunset on the Mekong...

My other connection to Obama’s visit was that he requested the release from jail of the radio station owner Mam Sonando who allowed free speech against the government. (By the way, all names here are placed last name first, and I still can’t pronounce squat).  It seems that if you have an issue with the government, which is totally an autocracy disguised as a democracy under the 30 year leadership of President Hun Sen, you might be in for a beat down.  During my training with VSO Cambodia I met the radio station owner’s niece who explained the human rights violations and how she had to pay all the guards to make her way into the jail for a visit the day before.  Corruption is rampant, and I dare not discuss futher! 

I know I still haven’t disclosed much of my work activities, but I don’t want to write boring poo.  Although I finally created two draft proposals for grants and I wrote an anti-corruption policy (very satirical here), so I am on the right track.  Oh yes, speaking of poo, I also had my first bout of food poisoning where I did the tsunami at either ends, which is always worth mentioning! Two days of being a zombie poo-barf machine.

Another note, I travelled to Benlong a few times, which is the Province next to me.  I swam in a volcanic crater lake, went in waterfalls and met many new friends.  I truly have made many great friends along the way, they just aren't in the Town I live in!

Finally, as much as I had built up December 21 as potentially being the end of the world in the past and wanting to have a party to top all parties, I clearly am in no position to host or have anyone around me who fed into such Mayan apocalypse conspiracies!  Therefore I am going to the 4000 Islands in Laos on the 21^st until after Christmas with some of the older VSO friends to ride it out!  I will bring my Swiss Army knife just in case.

Until then, all my best to you and yours during the Holiday Season, wish I could eat some fruit cake with you and thick butter spread (I like it) and eat some of your baked delights while sharing a glass of wine.  And turtles, and turkey, stuffing, boxing day cold turkey sandwiches with mustard and a glob of mayo, oh my I better stop...xoxoxo

The Flooded Forests

The first full week of work has begun in the rusty and dusty (sounds like two dudes from Virgina) Town where I exist in the Suntha Guesthouse, which is visited by a few straggling tourists now and then. 

I managed to end up at the local police station on day one and gave my first solicited bribe.  Meaning I can give what I wish if I wish, so maybe I should wish a little $5.00 if I want my moto (motorcycle) back.  It seems that there was miscommunication -quelle surprise- regarding where I could leave my moto overnight. 

I had a conversation with my translator, and he thought it would be fine to keep the moto at my office all the time as he indicated that the security guard was a friend of his, as I believe everyone in town is. 

My office is a wooden house on stilts where two of my work colleagues live, or more, I am not sure.  Somehow along the lines not everyone who lives at the office was informed and the moto was removed for fear it was stolen.  That’s a fair shake, and it’s nice to see they are lawful.

The other different event on day one of work was that everyone was around the meeting room table looking at reports and pictures of the moon the night before.  To give you the context, the former King of Cambodia died last week and the country has been in a state of mourning for seven days and everyone is wearing black ribbons, EVERYONE.  The loyalists noticed the face of the King in the moon shining down on them.  This would explain why I saw so many people staring at the night sky, and why the street lights were all turned out.  My boss asked me if I saw the moon King, where I replied “I was only looking at the people looking at the sky!” and wondering why said I. 

Day two is a holiday that I was not informed; day three was a funeral of a sister-in law of a co-worker I don’t know, but I did not have to go.  Day four was the best as it was time to conduct my first field visit.  I travelled to an island that is within the area of concern that my NGO oversees called the Ramsar Site.  I was casually inquiring about the issues of the people on the island from my colleague across from me in the office.  He casually mentioned that people on the island have been dying of a strange disease.  He couldn’t pronounce disease right, so I said, “You mean DISEASE?!” and he gleefully said “Yes.”   

I was a bit panicked, as I already have malaria and dengue fever to worry about as they are very typical and serious threats.  About 10 volunteers this year have gotten something in Cambo, and my job takes me directly into the nasty bits were critters dance.  Needless to say, I went on my Khmer long boat and met the Village Chief of the people on the island and researchers who had conducted an extensive cataloguing of native species.  I saw the village fish ponds that my NGO helped create filled with African catfish in the middle of the Mekong.  I networked with another NGO group from Burma, who were wetlands experts, and we all were amazing at the flooded forests throughout the river.  This is a unique habitat where during most of the rainy season and much of the dry season there are pockets of great trees that are submerged. 

We maneuvered around and also saw many small scale fishing traps that were marked with floating plastic bottles.  Please don’t get me started on the plastic garbage issues, plastic burning issues and plastic-plastic so not fantastic issues.

I definitely had a lot of questions, and it may take me-my placement to get some answers.  It was a great feeling as I finally felt I had begun to establish my presence and start figuring out what capacity building I may be participating in. 

This is day five and I am getting mosquito bites in my office and...ok that's enough... 

First Island Field Visit- Kaoh Snaeng

Stung Treng Town- Where Three Rivers Meet

I am staying in a guest house and typing in the lobby and a Khmer (Cambodian) girl is watching me type.  I really don’t know how to tell someone to leave me alone even if it is a little girl.  OMG now she wants me to add her to facebook.  Anyways, today I met my Manager and the Executive Director of the Culture and Environment Preservation Association.  They both were smiling and very friendly even my Khmer standards so I felt right at home. 

Next I went with my translator for a little trip in the afternoon.  He told me that he would show me his grandmother’s farm.  I didn’t know what he meant was that he wanted me to do manual labor in the fields and plant sugar cane!  Of course my ego told him (Porm) pronounced Pom, that I ran through a desert so the heat is no problem, (insert moron here).   I soon needed to sit under a tamarind tree with his family and eat some pomello with my dirty hands which made it even better!  Just in case you didn’t know, the pomello is similar to a large dry grapefruit.  Yes it was a novelty, but I told Porm I will help him again to learn more how to use the land.  I am understanding the stories of hard life and resilience, and thank goodness I DO have my strength for my future field visits with my work, which will take me into villages to see community development projects.

While I was in the field, I got a call from Edwin who is in Paris for a fashion show.  The polar opposite of what I was doing and it put a big smile on my face to know we were both doing our YOLO. 

I also saw the Mekong River from over the Sekong River bridge where it is more remote and lovely, I hung out in a village where we tried to get our own coconuts because we were thirsty, I met Porm’s mom who chews bitter leaf (I may be wrong in the name) but it makes your whole mouth red and doesn’t look so good, and tomorrow I will see a silk farm and find my accommodation.  It is all very different and it can be lonely, but it will give me the drive to learn the language, how difficult and obscure Khmer it may be.

Back to Phnom Penh on Friday for more training….

Pouring in Pehnom Penh

I am finally writing my first blog in-country.  It has been a quick transition into using slow wifi!  I have my group of friends from the training sessions and I am not getting a chance to settle down into my role and visit my province accomodations for another few weeks.  I am currently staying in a guest house that is in central Phnom, and living out of my bags until then.  Two weeks of Khmer language training starting Sunday! 

I think it is beginning to hit me as I speak to other people about where I am going and what it will all entail- country life....I thought I was the city boy who always ran away from the back roads of Ontario?  Well, it seems that it is coming and I will be dealing with a slow pace which I am trying to prepare myself for!  I have my guitar, harmoncia, a USB stick, a few novels and texts to stay busy after work... and my running shoes!  There will only be less than five english speakers there..OMG. WTF

The focus of my work will be on fisheries and sustainable livelihoods for the local communites that access the Mekong for food and everything else.  As that is only my preliminary assessment, I am sure the objectives will change again! 

I am already a little sad that I am going to journey to a town where there are plans in the next few years to potentially submerge the entire area once a massive array of hydro-electric damns are built and new man made lakes are formed.  I believe private companies from China, Thailand and Vietnam will be taking the energy for themselves.  Then there is the future mining operations and explotations with few indigenous land rights.  Not much I can say, other than I have been given a gift to enjoy a culture and people that will inextricably be altered.

In the mean time, as nothing is written in stone, I must determine what lasting impact I can make with the talent I have (not my dancing and singing!), to foster life and share in the story.

As far as the Khmer culture: they love loud, high pitched music and are very kind!  I am trying to smile through the end of the rainy season with humidity and no hair gel!


   

Don't Stop Believin'

The last few days of Toronto life are coming to a close.  With a new adventure on the horizon I look up and out of the apartment I called home for a year with my partner.  We have been looking for a break, and I have been waiting for an opportunity to shine, my sunshine.  And so departing separate ways is becoming more of a reality that I have chosen and it is rollercoaster emotional.  I think as I get older it is harder to leave the ones you love as a greater sense of relationships and bonds washes over me.  Then snap, jump, and launch into the next quantum leap ahead over and above and beyond the borders of Canada. 

I carry my sorrow with my great happiness in one giant sac over my shoulder as I traverse this new path.  My family and friends will be missed.  My friends are my family too, after all they are pretty amazing people that I share my memories, dreams and laughter with.  I see no reason to ever cast doubt on knowing they will all be in support of me and that they will be fine.  My family is family! They are quirky and loving like me, and we understand each other even if I keep changing things up.  I am clearly thinking about everyone, and I plan on tucking you all away in the hiding spot of my mind that I will access when I feel alone.  Seriously thank goodness for technological advancements in communications!

Finally, I really plan on becoming a role model in Cambodia.  I do think it is my time to shine, my sunshine.  I am certain to soon write funny things, and be more colourful, but I am a big boy now and I know what is important to reflect upon before I leave, and that is...what was it again? Oh yes, hmm ok, ok fine, everyone who I love...