An ice-cold drink in Bakong

One of the features of life in Bakong is the symbiotic nature of small business enterprise and the presence of larger businesses or organisations. The biggest source of business in the area of course is the Bakong Temple itself, and it attracts busloads of tourists. Near where the buses stop several little businesses that have popped up to take advantage of the tourist market. These include food sellers, souvenir sellers, but also small NGOs including one which trains its young children to produce beautiful artwork on leather.

Near Savong school there is a similar presence of local businesses willing to earn a few riel by selling drinks, fruit and snacks to the passing trade of schoolchildren. My favourite of these is in fact no longer there. Opposite the driveway which leads down to Savong’s school used to stand a thatch hut from which a woman, a local farmer, sold iced drinks.

The drinks used to cost something like 200 riel, or just a few cents in the American currency. Yet these drinks were labour-intensive and required resourcefulness on the part of the supplier. For a start, the woman would take a block of ice sourced from a larger retailer a few hundred metres further down the road. She and her young son would cycle down the dusty road to haggle over the price of the ice, and then while we patiently waited for our drinks, she would return triumphant having scored a modest block of ice for a good price. Next, she would shave the ice using a wooden plane with a steel blade. She did this with a proud level of craftsmanship as if she was turning an exquisite piece of teak wood in her honest farmers hands. Now the ice shards would be placed by hand into the plastic cups, and over the ice she would pour a cocktail consisting of condensed milk and a syrupy flavouring. I can tell you, on a crucially hot afternoon in Bakong, I can imagine no refreshment more delicious and enjoyable than this one! As we sipped on the drinks, a couple of teachers and myself, the woman stood there, arms folded, proud of her work and proud to see us enjoying her refreshing concoction.

I have often wondered where the ice comes from in rural Bakong. Things are changing there today,  with the arrival of electricity to the area: something which will transform the local refreshment economy. I can imagine there will be no middleman purchasing ice from Siem Reap, and on selling blocks of ice to the myriad drink sellers beer joints and snack vendors in the area. soon there will be the hot hum of small refrigerators struggling to make ice cubes in the face of the scorching heat outside. Such is the way economies restructure themselves, even at a village level.

The Yellow Pages of Cambodia features 26 different companies who manufacture ice. Most of these are situated in Phnom Penh, while at least half a dozen of these companies supply the busy hospitality market of Siem Reap.  Perhaps my ice had come originally from the Golden Falcon Ice Factory located on Number 6 Highway close to the centre of town. Or maybe the ice came from another factory just 200 m away from the Golden Falcon ice factory; Heang Hok Kheang. who knows? Somehow the distribution system had enabled a block of ice to be manufactured in town and then stored, wrapped and preserved in muslin fabric, until the mid afternoon.

When I encounter ice in rural remote places of Cambodia I am reminded of the marvellous novel by Paul Theroux called Mosquito Coast. In the story, an American inventor named Allie Fox takes his family to live in the Honduran jungle. In the book, Allie Fox makes a device, a maze of metal tubes, he nicknames “the worm farm” which creates ice. For Fox, ice is one of the greatest signs of civilisation. The man rant and rails that any civilisation can produce fire, but how many can create ice?

It is a hellish book that begins as a simple adventure for the family but descends into an experience not too different to the dystopian, Joseph Conrad inspired Apocalypse Now.

That’s quite a flashback to have while enjoying an icy syrupy drink on a hot afternoon, and thanks to the grace and dedication of that farming woman, the experience I enjoyed was decidedly civilised. Ice in the middle of the village.

Last time I went to Savong school, I looked for traces of her drinks stall. There was nothing there except a few bamboo poles and the remnants of thatching. The woman had lost the stall in a major typhoon that had swept through the Philippines, Vietnam and Cambodia. I can only imagine that any money, any small change that this woman had earned making her gorgeous drinks had been lost in that storm. Today when I look at the photos I took on the day she proudly made me her rural cocktail, I hope she and her family are all right.

New Year – 2009, an emotional memory

The photo above is Savong’s father, and when I took this photo in April 2009 he was leading a New Year’s ceremony out of the SOC in Bakong. The day was scorching hot as they are in April in Cambodia, with temperatures hitting the late 30s or possibly 40°. I was not the only volunteer there, but us Westerners were dying in the heat.

New year is one of the big two celebrations in the Cambodian calendar, and the countryside was filled with the sound of loudspeakers, music and chanting as well as the sound of children gleefully playing. Bakong is a village with maybe 600 families, and I think everybody that day was celebrating the beginning of the brand new year.

At the SOC, apart from us volunteers, were the children who lived at the orphanage as well as the staff, who included Savong’s older brother’s Savet, monks from the local Bakong monastery as well is  two senior friends of Savong’s father.  One was a man who spoke French, and another was a woman who had become a nun dressed in white, and with lips bright red from betel chewing. I learned later that this woman and Savong’s father had together collected the bones and skulls from the killing fields of Siem Reap: the remains of family and friends. What a deeply tragic and moving task this must have been. If on the way to Angkor Wat you stop off at a monastery called Wat Thmei, then you will see the stupa in which these bones are held. The land for that monastery was donated by Savong’s father.

So the ceremony began. The monks chanted, and accepted offerings from the children: gift baskets that included food, cans of Coca-Cola and (somewhat incongruously,) packets with toothpaste and toothbrushes.

I was asked to take part in the ceremony, and my role was to lightly splash holy water on the assembled guests. I felt somewhat awkward because this was a Buddhist ceremony and I had no idea what I should be doing. My holy actions were accompanied by polite laughter.

At this point the microphone was handed over to the elderly woman: the nun. What followed was the most remarkable vocal performance I have ever heard in my life. I love the power of song, and I love the strength that comes from a lone voice without accompaniment. If I ever go to heaven then I long to meet vocalists such as Dinah Washington who could add so much soul and depth into any song she sang. Dinah Washington would walk into the studio during her heyday and announce to all and sundry, “never fear, the Queen is here!”

But I’m afraid that Dinah Washington would have to step aside for this elderly Cambodian woman. The singing began as a low murmur. I was kneeling right next to her, and while I could not understand the Khmer language, I was right there to hear the deep almost guttural emanations of her voice. She did not sing from her mouth or from her throat; this woman sang from her heart. It was an incredibly emotional song, and as I looked around the monks and the assembled guests to the ceremony I saw absolutely everybody deep in tears. Standing to one side, my friend Savong was sobbing. Savong’s own father, a man who was seen the deepest tragedies in life, was weeping uncontrollably. I too was sniffing and tearful, yet I had no certain idea what this woman was singing about: her music transcended culture, and crossed barriers of language.

Somehow, I had the feeling that this woman was singing of motherhood, and of loss. After the ceremony I sidled up to Savong and asked: “Brother, what was the song she was singing?”

Savong was still upset, his eyes were red from the crying, and he said to me: “brother, that was a sad song about what it feels to be a mother who gives birth to children only to watch them die in times of war.”

It was a remarkable experience, and I owe that woman the deepest appreciation for sharing from the depths of her own life experience. It was a moment in which I felt connected not just to Cambodia, but to the tragedy that lingers near the surface for older people who remember, no doubt in stark clarity, the horrors of the Pol Pot era.

For me, and more especially for Savong, the daily marks another element of tragedy as well. I mentioned that Savong’s older brother Savet was working there, and this was the first occasion I had ever met him. He was older than Savong, and a very reserved character who kept largely to self. I learned later on that Savet had left home at age 7 to fend for itself during the worst years of poverty faced by the family. At times he was reduced to eating bark from trees. Later in 2009 Savet died of cancer, and I cannot help but think that he, too, was a victim of Cambodia’s recent past. His death affected Savong greatly, and I often feel that the memory of Savet is never too far away from Savong’s consciousness.

This is what Cambodia does to you. You begin a day full of cheer and celebration, and here it is five years later and I am still ruminating on the experience of hearing the woman sing from her soul.

 

 

 

 

Savong’s School takes another step.

Agony or Ecstasy? Students at Savong’s School clamour to see how they fared in the latest exams.

Hey I’m back. It’s been a month between blogs in part due to a need to recharge my batteries and also to give you gracious followers a break!

This last week I had a terrific Skype call withe Savong regarding the school. This year marks our tenth year of working together and I’ve often reflected on how the vision of Savong – to provide free education that gives a vocational boost to poor rural students – has remained intact while the expression of this vision has had to move with the times. Ten years ago providing language skills that would get a student work in a guest house was truly aspirational. Today that vocation is pretty basic and students are wanting to reach higher. Some want to be doctors, lawyers and business owners. Their dreams are bigger.

What Savong talked about is a reconfiguration of his school which two weeks ago received fresh licensing from the Ministry of Education, Youth & Sport (MOEYS) and is seen by Government as part of the network of local official schools rather than as an NGO “rival” to the State system. That distinction is important because up until now Savong School has been operating in a complementary fashion to the local high school in Bakong. When it operated in the morning, Savong’s school opened in the afternoons: the aim being to give local students a booster shot of additional education.

This year Bakong High School extended its hours, which we’re certainly not complaining about, but it has squeezed Savong School opening hours later and later. Right now it opens not at 2:00pm but at 4:00pm and finishes in the black of night which in Cambodia arrives at 7:00pm. This is late for the students, and less safe for those who walk to their homes.

Rather than be sandwiched like this, Savong sees a better solution which is to extend the hours of the school and to teach a wider syllabus including Khmer lessons (mathematics, history) as well as the languages and computer skills already taught.  Students would be allowed to choose this school rather than Bakong High School and of course Savong would stick to the core vision of providing free education. State Schools are supposed to be free, but the practice of charging a monthly fee to help boost teacher salaries is widespread and hurts poorer families.

Examinations held at Savong School will – as they are already – be recognised by the State system.

The change of syllabus offering needs planning. Teachers, support textbooks need to be prepared, and any change needs to be carefully communicated to the community. Savong is picturing any changes to take place in October when the new school year begins.

I’m very excited by Savong’s plans and look forward to the additional service and support his school can offer local students.

Here’s the latest on the new school plans. Can you assist?

Librarian with a heart of gold – an awakening of a memory.

Sreylam is one of the quiet unsung heroes at Savong’s School, serving many years as librarian. As any school librarian knows, the job involves encouragement of new students and the creation of an environment that is conducive to the full flight of young imaginations. I cannot imagine anyone better suited to the role than Leam Sreylam: she is like a child-magnet and in her presence students open themselves up.

When I first met her I was reminded at once of a teacher of mine, when I was 5 and in Canada. Mrs Cohoe was a golden presence who made us feel so welcome in her classroom. When I was almost 40 I visited Canada once more and looked Mrs Cohoe up in the phone book. I gave her a call and her now elderly voice creaked open like a door. “Ye-e-e-e-e-s?” she asked.

“You won’t remember me but my name is Duncan….” but she chipped in and completed the sentence.
“…Duncan Stuart…why your family emigrated to New Zealand in 1961. How is your mother Margaret?”
We swapped notes and it appeared that Miss Cohoe had kept tabs with legions of students. So I asked her, “How do you keep in touch with everyone?”
“Well, I don’t know about that,” she pondered, “it seems everybody keeps in touch with me.”

Sreylam is from the local community and I’m certain that even though she is very quiet and unassuming she’ll also have legions of students who grow up and forever remember her as a favourite. What a difference these wonderful individuals make in our lives.

For more about my favorite library in Cambodia – click here. And here. And about other initiatives in Cambodia – Room to Read.

Opt-In. A fund raising idea for Savong’s School

So there I was, drooling over a $4,000 bicycle when the idea hit me…

This year I have set myself a challenge. I’m 58 and within sight of that ‘retirement’ finishing line which, mysteriously, is coming up more quickly even as I’m slowing down. The challenge is to set up a fund-raising ‘machine’ that continues to operate, and prosper for the sake of the rural students we support, even if I’m run over by the retirement bus.

Fund raising. I wonder who enjoys it? I think one reason I don’t enjoy it – despite having a great cause to support – is that it fundamentally leads to a lot of people losing face. By asking you for a thousand dollars I risk that awkward moment of having a friend or acquaintance saying, “No, sorry.”  They feel awkward, I feel awkward.

A second problem is, I think, the way requests for money are framed. An out of the blue request for $50 seems like an imposition: an unexpected expense. Yet if you were buying a new car and the salesman said, look – the sports-styled magnesium cup holder will cost an extra $50 – then, well to hell with it! What’s an extra $50 when you’re already investing $40k? It’s nothing.

I recently visited a bicycle shop near where I live and it was there I had an insight flash. A way to fund-raise that removes the face problem and the framing effect. A bicycle had caught my eye. It got me reminiscing about a great 800km journey I’d completed with friends 20 years ago and I was seduced by the weight (about 3 nano-grams) and appearance. Just beautiful. And it could be mine for a mere $4,000 which itself was a discounted price. You could buy 45 children a new bicycle each, for the same amount in Cambodia.

Yet the person who buys the $4,000 bike is not a bad person. They may be a dedicated triathlete perhaps. Or a weekend road-warrior with the dream, simply, of sailing downhill on a summery afternoon after completing a personal challenge.

So if I were to accuse them of being selfish (“How dare you buy that bike when there are needy children in Cambodia!”) I’d myself be offensive. And both of us would lose face.

But if I were to ask that bike purchaser this offer: “Hey, you’re buying a fantastic bike – instead of paying $4,000 – how about contributing an extra $50 to make a child in Cambodia equally delighted?”  Now we’re talking. What’s $50? It is 1.25% and about a sixth of the price of the Italian leather saddle. And a lot more comfortable. Now the purchaser can easily opt in or not – and the amount, when framed this way, really doesn’t seem like a terrible imposition.

So there it is. My big fund-raising thought for 2014. Now I’ve got to find a few opt-in partners – starting with the bike shop. It needs to work for them too. But which bike shop can you think of would not want to spread the joy and benefits of cycling not just amongst the well-heeled west, but through the villages and muddy roads to the schools of rural Cambodia?

A good description of the Cambodian education system

In this article below, Sokhan Khut of another NGO, Bookbridge, describes the underlying education system in Cambodia.

This post has been “lifted” directly from the excellent Bookbridge website. We are not affiliated with Bookbridge however we admire their work in setting up learning centers in Cambodia and Mongolia.

In this post, Sokhan Khut, Country Manager for Cambodia at BOOKBRIDGE, gives a short introduction to the Cambodian Education System.

In Cambodia, an education system has been in place since at least from the thirteenth century on. Traditionally, Cambodian education took place in the Wats (Buddhist monasteries) and was offered exclusively to the male population. The education involved basic literature, the foundation of religion and skills for daily life like carpentry, artistry, craftwork, constructing, playing instruments etc.

This ‘traditional’ education was gradually changed when Cambodia was a French colony (1853-1963). The French introduced a formal education system influenced by a Western educational model, which was developed through the independence period (1960s), alongside with the traditional education. During the following civil wars, the education system suffered a chronic crisis and was completely destroyed during the Red Khmer regime (1970s). Between 1980s and 1990s, education was reconstructed from almost ‘nothing’ and has been gradually developed until now.

Presently, after its reform in 1996, the formal educational structure of Cambodia is formulated in 6+3+3. This means 12 years for the completion of general education that divides up into six years for primary education (grade 1 to 6) and six years for secondary general education (grade 7 to 12). Secondary education consists of three years each for lower secondary education (grade 7 to 9) and upper secondary education (grade 10 to 12). This formulation does not include at least one year for pre-school education (kindergarten) for children from 3 to below 6 years old and universitary education of 4 to 5 years.

Two others components of Cambodian educational structure involve non-formal education providing all children, youth, adult, disabled people with literacy and access to life skills. The other component is teacher training education. This allows students that successfully completed grade 12 or grade 9 to pursue teacher certificates at provincial teacher training colleges (for primary school teachers) or regional teacher training centers (for lower secondary school teachers).

Currently, the educational system is run by the Cambodian state, but private education exists at all levels and is run by private sectors. Most private schools offering pre-school education and general education have been operated by the communities of ethnic and religious minority including Chinese, Muslim, French, English and Vietnamese. Private higher education is accessible mainly in the capital of the country, but it is also available throughout the provinces of Cambodia.

Cambodian general education is based on a national school curriculum that consists of two main parts: basic education and upper secondary education. Basic education curriculum is divided into three cycles of three years each. The first cycle (grade 1-3) consists of 27-30 lessons per week lasting 40 minutes which are allocated to the five main subjects:

• Khmer (13 lessons)
• Maths (7 lessons)
• Science & Social Studies including Arts (3 lessons)
• Physical and Health Education (2 lessons) and local life skills program (2-5 lessons)

The second cycle (grade 4-6) comprises of the same number of lessons but is slightly different:

• Khmer (10 for grade 4 and 8 for grade 5-6)
• Maths (6 for grade 4-6)
• Science (3 for grade 4 and 4 for grade 5-6)
• Social Studies including arts (4 for grade 4 and 5 for grade 5-6)
• Physical and Health Education (2 for grade 4-6)
• Local life skills program (2-5 for grade 4-6).

The third cycle (grade 7-9) consists of 32-35 lessons which are allocated for 7 major subjects:

• Khmer
• Maths
• Social Studies and Science (6 lesson respectively)
• Foreign languages (4 lessons)
• Physical & Health Education and Sports (2 lessons)
• Local life skills program (2-5 lessons)

Upper Secondary Education curriculum consists of two different phases. The curriculum for the first phase (grade 10) is identical to the third cycle of primary education (see above). The second phase (grade 11-12) has two main components: Compulsory and Electives. Compulsory involves four major subjects with different numbers of lesson allocated per week: Khmer literature (6 lessons), Physical & Health Education and Sports (2 lessons), Foreign language: English or French (must choose one, 4 lessons each) and Mathematics: Basic or Advance (must choose one, 4 or 8 lesson respectively). Electives include three major subjects covering four or five sub-subjects with four lessons allocated per week for each one (students may choose one or two or three of them):

• Science: Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Earth and Environmental Studies

• Social Studies: Moral/Civics, History, Geography, Economics

• EVEP: ICT/Technology, Accounting Business Management, Local Vocational Technical Subject, Tourism and Arts Education and other subjects

For those choosing Basic Maths or Advance Maths must choose four sub-subjects or three subjects respectively from the electives.

Note from Duncan. This description is the best I’ve seen at describing what’s on offer at Cambodian schools. In our work in Bakong our own school – Savong’s School – complements the state school by offering subjects in addition to the school syllabus – notably languages and computer studies.