“If you don’t know where you come from, you don’t know who you are”. This is an old saying that I suppose has been coined by travellers long time ago. The need to keep a link with one own place, to feel roots and identity is in human nature. For some more than others, but it is there. I am thinking about this while in Bangkok, waiting for the taxi to pick us up and bring us to the airport to catch the flight to Colombo this evening.
Yesterday I had a similar conversation with an Italian friend living here and again the theme of our roots, how to keep them while working abroad is one that takes always our conversation. I am thinking about it also looking at Olga, who is now one and half years old and so far has been twice in Finland, once in Italy, has lived in Cambodia and has visited Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia. She is starting to speak and uses a strange language which si a mix of all the sounds she hears daily: Khmer, Finnish, Italian and English. We are going back also for her, to give her some roots and a mother tongue, but at the same time make her relaise that she is not just from one palce, but she’s from several and that all these places with all their differences, are part of the same world.
On our way home: Phnom Penh – Bangkok
So we left Cambodia.
In these four years I have often thought about an article I red while I was in the preparation course with DED in Berlin in the summer of 2001. The article was written by an Italian doctor who had worked in Battambang at the hospital of Emergency, an Italian NGO. He wrote about his feeling while sitting at the departure hall of Phnom Penh airport: relief. Relief after the hard work in the hospital and poverty. Yesterday, I was sitting in the departure hall of the same airport and felt that a new page was going to start. I also thought about the people and things we have left behind. So no relief after all, but the feeling that while it is good to start a new page now, the previous one is not fully turned yet and maybe will never turn completely. I believe that we will always feel a bond with Cambodia, the country that has hosted us for four years and where I have learned so much about development and the difficulties to overcome poverty with change. We also left people behind, Cambodian friends with whom we have shared many moments in our work and in our daily life. People who have taken care with love and affection of Olga and with whom our life would have been more difficult.
Now we are in Bangkok. One hour flight, a world a part. We are staying near Siem Square. It is really Christmas here, all the malls that have grown along Rama 1 show that the economic crisis is behind and thata new page has started also for this country or at least a part of it. But again it is interesting to note that these malls and shops and centre resmeble eachother. The Siem Centre whcih is 5 minutes walk from here , has many shops that can be found in the huge Paradom centre, which again are similar to the malls I have seen in Shanghai and Kuala Lumpur this year. It seems that diversity is slowly dissapearing. But this si the surface, in reality these places are populated by people from many counitries: tourists, locals, immigrants, temporary workers, who make thes places really international with their languages.
One hour flight and a world a part from Kampong Thom, Cambodia; our home for four years.
Shanghai for Olga
My dear Olga,
I am writing this email from Shanghai, in China. Sorry for writing to you
in English but I want to post this also in my blog and therefore it must
be in a language that also other people can read. Our friends from abroad
for example.
So this is Shanghai. Someone at the conference I am attending described it
as the gateway of China and maybe it is so. This large town with about
14.000.000 inhabitant (more that the whole Cambodia where you are now) is
close to the sea, at the end of long river and has a large harbor where
foreigners have used since a very long time to enter this country.
Therefore many people have got the first impression of China from this
town and its people. For me it is the same. This is the first time I am in
China and will only stay in this town for one week. Thus the impressions I
get here, though I tell myself all the time that this is only a small part
of this country, will remain in me as the ones of China. At least until
the next time I will come here, maybe with you and mum.
So they called it a gateway. Id rather call it the window. Like the
windows of the many malls that you can find here downtown and that display
luxury goods from Europe for example. As those goods do not tell what
really Europe is, Shanghai does not tell what China is. But is there
something like China? Probably not. There are instead many Chinas that are
all united together under the red flag or the red star. There are dialects
and languages in this country. Also walking in Shanghai I can recognize
Chinese with Tibetan look like we used to see in Katmandu, Chinese from
the north with more dark skins, Chinese with lighter skin. The country
itself has desert, mountains, forests, industries, planes, huge rivers and
gorges, so it is very diverse.
But what about this town? I am not sure how to describe it. What are the
right words? Dont forget that I came here from Kampong Thom not exactly a
large place.
Everything is big here. While coming with the bus from the airport to
downtown where the hotel is, I have been amazed by the number of high
raises houses you can see. They seem to be everywhere. More than Bangkok,
less than Manhattan probably but I did not expect to see so many here. I
thought to find also a larger crowd of people, but instead it is easy to
go around and also in the metro so far has not been particularly crowed.
I told you about the malls. There seem to be hundreds of them. One can
walk one bloc find a high raise building and find a mall. Then walk yet
another bloc, another mall in another high raise building. Now that I have
walked for several days around, I can also see that the shops also never
change. Same multinational brands: Starbuck Cafe, McDonalds, etc. Things
repeat themselves after a while and are not so interesting anymore. After
all how many mall can you visit in three days without getting bored? Not
many.
Shanghai leaves me with mixed feelings. It is amazing to see what is going
on here and that so little is known in Europe. This country, at least from
this window, is rapidly catching up. Shops are open 7 days a week.
Restaurants and cafes are busy. You do not see many old cars in the
streets. This is happening since years and yet it is so unknown in Europe.
At the same time I looked from the window of my hotel room at the 13th
floor and I see a forest of high raises buildings, grey air and not for
one days o far blue sky. If this is the future it is not a nice one.
The nicest thing I do is in the morning. I wake up at about 7 and put my
runners on and go to walk in the small park just at the corner of the
hotel. At the time is full with elderly people doing exercises. Some dance
at the sound of traditional music from small battery powered loudspeaker,
other follow the order of a woman in charge to show exercises, women in
group of 5 or 6 perform choreographies with “ventagli’ (I miss this word
in English), other follow the guidance of old Tai Chi masters and perform
in slow movements ancient martial arts moves. Every morning these old
people reminds that within the shopping malls, the high raises buildings,
the cars and fashion boutiques there are traditions that remain strong and
that come form far back in time. The only question for me, as I see mainly
elderly people doing these exercises, is where are the young people? Will
they take the place of the elderly when they will be elder themselves or
will these arts and traditions fade in time?
Strong hug,
Iskä
Bicycle shop
Every morning, when I cycle to the office, I cycle along the laterite road on the Stung Sen riverbank. I pass the village; see the women working in the garden and watering the vegetable and plants, pass the kids in school uniform (white shirt and blue shorts) walk to the local elementary school. At the end of the road, just before turning left to pass the bridge on the national road that cuts through Kampong Thom, I pass in front of a small bicycle shop. Six month ago it was not there. The owner of that shop started it few months ago. In the beginning you could not call it a shop; it was basically four wooden poles and a plastic roof that hardly protected against the unbearable heat of the sun in the dry season. I recall that he had a hand pump to refill with air empty tiers and few tools that may have helped him to fix a flat tier, but hardly more than that. One evening, cycling back home, I stopped to put air in my wheels and noticed that he was not along in that shop. It was just before sunset and a young woman has lit a small fire in the traditional Khmer pots that burn charcoal and was preparing a rice soup. I realized that not only he was using this small shack as his workshop, but also as the house he shared with his wife. On the ground they had a board made with bamboo sticks that served as table and probably as bed. To wash themselves they went down to the river. In the dry season dust is all what you can see when you go along these red laterite roads and his house-workshop was just on the road side. I have stopped several times there to put air in my wheels and gave a glace at his place; the wife was sometime sitting, other time preparing some food. He is a thin man, looks Khmer and has a low voice. His movements are slow and also his eyes move slow glances around.
This morning I stopped again. The shop has enlarged since last month. Four second hand bicycles are on sale. He also has more tools that can help him to fix a whole bicycle. Spare tiers are on display together with other accessories. His shop has enlarged and he built a wooden to protect against the rain. I looked at his slow movements while he was pumping the air, looked at his shop, his house. I could not see the wife this time. Probably she was at the market to buy some vegetables for the soup. I looked at all this and though it was in front of my eyes I could not grasp the real meaning of his poverty. The difference between my life and his life. His future.
Monsoon clouds
It is nice to be back in Cambodia. Heavy monsoon clouds have greeted us here in Kampong Thom. Warm rain is falling this afternoon, trees are shaking with the wind and the fields have become finally green now that farmers are planting the new rice. At the exit from Pochentong airport yesterday evening the dump warm air filled me its tropical-Asia-flavour. I kind feel at home as here is where we have the house and our life. I know it is temporary, but the other day while being in the train to Helsinki I clearly felt that the place doesn’t really matters. Home is where the family lives and where we try to make our place feel ours. Indeed it can change and it will, but what matters is that the three of us are the one who make a place home.
Thirty years
Thirty years have passed since the North Vietnamese troops entered Saigon, marking the end of the American war, as it is called in this part of the world. That event has been remembered in these days with speeches and concerts in Ho Chim Min City (today’s Saigon) and Hanoi. However, I believe that with three million Vietnamese and fifty-eight thousand Americans who died in that war, there aren’t winners, in a war, there are only losers.
On the 17th of April, another 30th anniversary was remembered here in Cambodia: the fall of Phnom Penh by the Khmer Rouge. That day officially marked the defeat of the Republican army. The Khmer Rouge were greeted by thousands of people who joined in the streets with clothes to demonstrate their happiness for the end of the war that lasted almost five years. That day also marked the beginning of three years, eight months and twenty days of suffering and deprivation for the Cambodian population. The political agenda of the Pol Pot regime was to rebuild the nation on equity against individualism, common property against private property, rural life against urban corrupted life, abolition of money, self-sufficiency of agricultural production, dissolution of religion and family ties, and international isolation. It also resulted in the death of almost two million Cambodians.
I would like to remember those events through the story of one of my colleagues: Bun Chan Lyla.
“My name is Bun Chan Lyla, and I am 47 years old. I am born in Kampong Thom. I was about 12 when my family we left and went to Siem Reap. I remember that it was 1970, and the Khmer Rouge were fighting the Government troop of General Lon Lon. The war was all over the country at that time. I left for Siem Reap with my mother, one brother and two sisters. My father, who was a teacher, stayed in Kampong Thom. We lived in Kbal Speu, a village near Siem Reap that was under Vietnamese-Khmer Rouge control and with little fighting. We stayed there until 1973, when the situation worsened so much that we had to leave. We took a boat to Phnom Penh across the Tonlé Sap Lake with many other people. The lake is huge, and in the middle of it it is impossible to see the shores. At one point, just in the middle of it, we were spotted by two fighter planes that plunged towards us, shooting with their machine guns. I saw the water jumping up on the side of the boat. People were screaming, seeing that the fighters plunged a second time. We opened part of the boat’s roof to show that we were refugees. I remember that my mother gave me a white cloth and told me to go on the roof and show it to the pilots, so I did. Fortunately, the plane left.
It took us three days to reach Phnom Penh. During the night, we had to sleep on the lake shores in hidden places, and we were all very afraid. Me and my family when we arrived in Phnom Penh, we had nothing: no money and only the clothes we were wearing. A relative who had a good position in the administration hosted us for some time. I remember that we had only one set of clothes and looked really as impoverished people look. It wasn’t easy to get work in Phnom Penh. Thousands of refugees arrived every day in the town. After some time, another uncle offered us one room in his house for the five of us. We stayed there for about one year. I had a job, waking up very early every morning I was selling bread (French baguettes) in the streets of our neighbourhood, shouting “Nom pan! Nom pan!” (Bread! Bread!). When the bread was sold, I went to school. My sisters were also selling some food so that we were able to buy food for ourselves.
Then April 1975 arrived. At that time, Phnom Penh was full of refugees from all over the country. The Khmer Rouge had surrounded the town and mined the main rivers. The town fell, and they came in on the 17th of April. In the following two-three days, they immediately started the evacuation of the town. They went around the streets with microphones saying that American planes could bomb the town at any moment and that everybody had to leave. Who delayed the departure or tried to hide were shot. Together with my relatives, we left Phnom Penh on the 21st. We were in large groups of people that the Khmer Rouge made walk south to Kampong Speu. I saw many bodies on the side of the road: military, Khmer Rouge, civilian, many many bodies. There were also burning houses, and shootings could always be heard. I remember sick and injured people pushed onto their hospital beds and forced to walk with us. I saw the corpse of a woman lying in the grass a few meters from me with her baby, trying to get milk from the breast.
We could not help. We could not help anyone. If we did, we would have been killed on the spot. Now and then, we could stop and rest, but never too long as other groups were pushing behind us and the Khmer Rouge were shouting at us and ordered at gunpoint to move on. We were ten people in my family and relatives when we left Phnom Penh and only four when we arrived”.
Kampong Thom 3. May 2005
Arnaldo
30 years
30 years have passed since the day the North Vietnamese troops entered Saigon marking the end of the America war, as it is called in this part of the world. That event has been remembered in these days with speeches and concerts in Ho Chim Min City (today’s Saigon) and Hanoi. However I believe that with three millions Vietnamese together with fifty-eight thousands Americans who died in that war, there aren’t winners, in a war there are only losers.
On 17th of April another 30th anniversary has been remembered here in Cambodia: the fall of Phnom Penh by the Khmer Rouge. That day officially marked the defeat of the Republican army. The Khmer Rouge were greeted by thousands of people who joined in the streets with cloths to demonstrate their happiness for the end of the war that lasted almost five years. That day marked also the beginning of three years eight months and twenty days of suffering and deprivation for the Cambodian population. The political agenda of the Pol Pot regime was to rebuild of the nation on equity against individualism, common property against private property, rural life against urban corrupted life, abolition of money, self-sufficiency of agricultural production, abolition of religion and families ties, and international isolation. It also resulted in the death of almost two million Cambodians.
I would like to remember those events through the story of one of my colleagues: Bun Chan Lyla.
“My name is Bun Chan Lyla and I am 47 years old. I am born in Kampong Thom. I was about 12 when with my family we left and went to Siem Reap. I remember that it was 1970 and the Khmer Rouge were fighting the Government troop of General Lon Lon. The war was all over the country at that time. I left to Siem Reap with my mother, one brother and two sisters. My father, who was a teacher, stayed in Kampong Thom. We lived in Kbal Speu, a village in an area near Siem Reap that was under Vietnamese-Khmer Rouge control and with not much fighting. We stayed there until 1973 when the situation worsened so much that we had to leave. We took a boat to Phnom Penh across the Tonlé Sap Lake with many other people. The lake is very large and in the middle of it is not possible to see the shores. At one point, just in the middle of it, we have been spotted by two fighter planes that plunged towards us shooting with their machine guns. I saw the water jumping up on the side of the boat. People were screaming seeing that the fighters plunged a second time. We opened part of the roof of the boat to show that we were just refugees. I remember that my mother gave me a white cloth and told me to go on the roof and show it to the pilots and so I did. Fortunately the plane left.
It took us three days to reach Phnom Penh. During the night we had to sleep on the lake shores in hidden places and we were all very afraid. Me and my family when we arrived in Phnom Penh had nothing: no money and only the clothes we were wearing. A relative of us who had a good position in the administration hosted us for some time. I remember that we had only one set of clothes and looked really as very poor people look. It was very difficult to get work in Phnom Penh. Thousands of refugees arrived every day to the town. After some time another uncle offered us one room in his house for the five of us. We stayed there for about one year. I had a job, waking up very early every morning I was selling bread (French baguettes) in the streets of our neighborhood shouting “Nom pan! Nom pan!” (Bread! Bread!). When the bread was sold I went to school. My sisters were also selling some food so that we were able buy food for ourselves.
Then April 1975 arrived. At that time Phnom Penh was full of refugees from allover the country. The Khmer Rouge had surrounded the town and mined the main rivers. The town fell and they came in on 17th April. In the following two-three days they started immediately the evacuation of the town. They went around the streets with microphones saying that American planes could bomb the town any moment and that everybody had to leave. Who delayed the departure or tried to hide was shot. Together with my relatives we left Phnom Penh on the 21st. We were in large groups of people that the Khmer Rouge made walk south to Kampong Speu. I saw many bodies on the side of the road: military, Khmer Rouge, civilian, many many bodies. There were also burning houses and shooting could be heard all the time. I remember sick and injured people pushed on their hospital beds forced to walk with us. I saw the corpse of a woman lying in the grass few meters from me with her baby trying to get the milk from the breast.
We could not help, we could not help anyone. If we did we would have been killed on the spot. Now and then we could stop and rest but never too long as other groups were pushing behind us and the Khmer Rouge were shouting to us and ordered at gun point to move on. We were ten people in my family and relatives when we left Phnom Penh and only four when we arrived”.
Kampong Thom 3. May 2005
Arnaldo
Tiredness
An Italian journalist who lived for more than twenty years in Asia once wrote that traveling and living abroad makes you tired, it makes you older. After three and half years in Cambodia I start to believe that this is true. I feel a bit tired, though I am not sure I feel older yet.
Signs of this tiredness are more evident after a trip to another country, having the opportunity to observe another way of life a different culture. I am just back from a short trip from Malaysia where I spent together with Katja and Olga about 10 days. When planning the trip we have been thinking about our destination and decided to go to a country we did not know yet and that had good facilities to make it easier to travel around with a baby. Malaysia was our choice. Kuala Lumpur is just two hours by plane from Phnom Penh, and we heard that infrastructure and communications were quite developed.
The presentation of what Malaysia is today starts immediately at the new international airport. Marble everywhere, people in orderly queues, electric mini-train that links the two terminals and that arrives and departs next to the coffee/restaurants area. Station with train service to downtown Kuala Lumpur that is located three levels directly below the luggage claim area. At the departure track electronic ticketing machines. Kuala Lumpur is a very modern town and it presents itself after twenty minutes by train with the view of the huge Petronas towers. In between the seventy kilometers that separate the airport and the town there is just one plantation after another of oil palms.
As soon as we reach the central station again we are immersed in our Western world as the train station built on various levels is basically a shopping centre. After Cambodia however I felt a kind of relief to be able to have an ice coffee where the ices cube where safe to drink. It was also a relieve to have a ticket counter where to ask prices and get information and having almost everybody around able to speak English.
Kuala Lumpur (KL) as Malaysia itself is a mix of cultures, languages and religions. Around KL there are mosques, churches, Hindu temples and pagodas. The building reflect also the style and the culture they belong to and it is amazing to see the change by walking in little India with all the sari and silk shops and stepping into China town with hundreds of small shops selling almost anything still making business in bricked old colonial houses.
KL surprised me in being relatively small (just over 1 ml people) and having so many green areas and parks where people go an jog or walk in the early morning and evenings. One interesting exercise along the health path in the park was for the foot massage. On the floor a path of cement is covered with small stones that the cement keep together, walking slowly on the stones seem to be a popular exercise that help to improve the fitness of other part of the body. Stones are grouped according to sizes to produce a certain effect and pressure a certain part of the feet. I tried as well and felt only pain.
The few days we spent in KL have been good and have also helped us to learn how to accommodate Olga’s wishes. She wakes up very early, needs a short nap in the morning and another in the afternoon and goes to bed at around 7:30 in the night. The first evening a bit inexperienced with the distance in the two we manage to get back to our hotel only at 9:30 but Olga did not complain too much and slept in the taxi that brought us back.
The next destination after KL has been the Camerons Highlands and the town of Tana Ratah at about 4:30 hours north by bus from KL. We really wanted to escape the heat of the dry season in Cambodia and wanted to see some hills if not mountains. We found what we were looking for. The rainy season had just started in the mountains so we enjoyed the nice mild temperature, and the noise of the monsoons showers on the trees. We did some short jungle walks that have been made easier by a nice rucksack to carry Olga. She has been amazed by having plants and trees all around her and above. She used to sit just watching above her, in the web of leaves of all kind of shape and size. The Highlands are famous areas of tea plantations so we did our very touristic tour to observe how tea is processed to be sold. Because of the tea plantations the Highlands are an area with very strong Indian influence and actually it seemed that the majority of the people were India. It seemed at some point to be somewhere else, in the tea growing area of northern India.
Olga seemed to enjoy the place, but we also learned that the place she liked to most has been the guesthouse room. There is were both of us are and were her toys are, so jungle walk are ok but they must not last too long. Going out to eat is also ok, especially if there is a high baby chair form where to drop systematically all kinds of food and paper towels, leaving to us to say we are sorry.
Next destination, direction West from the highlands, the island of Pangkor. We decided to go there to have also a chance to see how the seaside in Malaysia is. The best snorkeling and diving islands re on the east coast, nevertheless it has been good to be there. Olga definitely likes more the seas than the mountains. The island s was not busy as the monsoon season is starting and this year there are fewer tourists anyway. Good seafood, nice beach, white sand, easy to travel around with funny pink taxi-vans.
Back in KL we visited a Japanese friend, Yamico, working for UN. We met her in Cambodia before she moved here for the work and was good to see her and hear from here how is expat life in KL. Very different from Cambodia, she said. Malaysia is a developed country, in KL in full of shopping centers and you can find almost anything. She does not miss anything of the Japanese cuisine for example. Outside KL is of course different. There are villages and ever tribes that live in poverty, but the government tries to improve the situation. She finds that meeting people was easier in Phnom Penh. In KL many most of the foreigner work for companies, very few of them are involved in development work, therefore it is difficult to join and meet people in this field. In Phnom Penh everybody is involved in one way or another in development and therefore it is easier to get in contact with people.
In Italy we have a say: the grass of the neighbor is always greener. By that we mean that what we tend to consider more positive things that relate for example to another country. This is particularly true when traveling abroad and coming form a longer period in a country like Cambodia, I found myself looking at the bright side of Malaysia. But I am aware of that and I guess I also needed to feel a bit of comfort and not having to bargain for prices and fares. Though I know that Malaysia has much more resources than Cambodia, I needed maybe to see that development when there is commitment and will is possible and can succeed. I am sure that after a longer time over there also the problem will become more apparent: too much consumerism, too much logging, conflicts and tensions between the various ethnic groups. But for the meantime was nice to be surprised by the country.
We know we will be living at the end of the year and move back to Europe. Knowing that gives the impression of walking downhill. I feel less involved with the problems and try to avoid more discussion about the poverty, corruption, development. I feel this tiredness inside me. There to many problems in this country, at all level, involving everybody. Corruption and low education are to me the key elements. Corruption show they face as soon as one arrive at Phnom Penh airport in the area for the visa and passport control. Often there are queues because several planes land at the same time. In this areas there are more custom officer than needed and several of them just walk around seemingly spotting people, however by handing out a 5$ note, the passport can be discreetly taken by an officer, stamped, brought to the other side of the custom where one will be called jumping the whole queue.
This was our short trip to Malaysa. One more surprise at 00:09 of March 29th has been the tremor that woke us up and that linked us for a moment that seemed never ending with Western Sumatra and the second big earthquake that hit there.
arnaldo
Kampong Thom, 6.3.2005
Cambodian story by Katja
Dear all,
After a long break,
here you are.
Again the hot time, it is never cold though, but now it is hot and it is
only the end of February the two next months are the real hot season, it
is now the fourth hot season for us in Cambodia and maybe the last.
Thermometer reached 37 degrees inside the house yesterday. It is a bit
like holiday feeling on Saturday afternoon going around in your house in
underwear and drinking soda with ice… We were first annoyed that the
road work on our village road has been standing again another month, no
progress for several weeks, but now I am happy to have a bad road, this
keeps the traffic slow and cars minimum, so it means also much less
dust. Hot is still OK, hot and dusty is not. One year ago I was facing
the hot season and the dust, Olga in the belly, now it is much easier to
carry on.
She is lovely now, so enthusiastic about everything, world is so full of
wonders every moment when you are eight months. Or, I say lovely, but
yes she can also be quite annoying, this is the time that she loves mum
(aiti), me, so much that sometimes she can not leave me alone. She needs
to keep on eye every move I do and eat my nose and pull my hair whenever
she gets close enough. Of course I still can escape to the work, which
is my strong card. Anyway Chan (Olga’s nanny) is almost the second
important person in her life. But Arnaldo might be the second one. At
least she loves dancing with him.
Three and half years in Cambodia, goes fast, but still the first year
here seems so far away. I guess having kids makes life so intensive that
it is difficult to remember how it was before. Now the scope of life is
a bit different, we are still here, we are in Cambodia, among these
people and in this environment. Everyday facing the difficulties and
also the pleasures of being here, but still in the first place is our
little family, and now we also have our mind that is sometimes full of
thoughts about the future after this year, after Cambodia.
I remember when we first came here the people (foreigners) that had been
here a long time seemed quite pessimistic about the future of this
country. Are we the same now? Maybe we do not have many illusions and
not that much idealism (which is good to have in some quantity), and
maybe I am now living more my own life and not thinking the life of the
people here so much. I am still doing fundraising in my organisation
although there would be many other things that I would prefer to do.
..They (Cambodian staff) still did not learn how to do it. And there are
many things that are not so right, not so effective and not so clear in
my work and in the work of our staff, and I am here to advice them. So
maybe I have not given the right advice and maybe they have not tried
enough. There are still poor people here which is not a surprise. If
there is any less poor because of us being here I do not know. And these
are not the lines you write to the project proposal.
But then again there are little moments with the people I am working
with and people that are involved in our projects that I feel proud of.
I am happy to see that some things happen. Few weeks ago, donor
representative came to see our project and we brought her to the target
pagoda. Key monk was delivering environmental lesson and everything went
quite well, some things were not right, the monk was delivering lesson
of the garbage and placed a coca cola can in the sack that was supposed
to be plastic waste…. (I think only I noticed that something went
wrong…) but anyhow there was good atmosphere, many people and monks
were joking in the end so that everyone was laughing and it is also
important to have fun when learning about waste management isn’t it? So,
but this was not the thing I wanted to tell, but the key farmer of our
project that asked us to come to see his garden in the village after the
lesson was finished in the pagoda. It was wonderful, I was amazed myself
what a great garden he had managed to make in the village where water in
the dry season was so scares and almost nobody else had a garden. He was
very proud to present his eggplant, tomatoes, grafted fruit tree
saplings, compost and water pond. And I was so proud to be the advisor
of the project where he was involved, for the people like him I keep on
doing the fundraising…
And the second thing, a small thing the monk counterpart of our project
wanted to participate on the English and Environment lesson that I try
to organize every now and then in the office for our staff to learn some
basic environmental concepts and at the same time learn some new
vocabulary in English and he participated last week. The topic was seed
diversity, and we put the words that they did not understand on the
board after they had red the background text for the lesson. One of the
words was /survive and/ he did not know this word. And because our staff
speaks good English it was one of them that explained that survive means
to stay alive, and after a moment the monk counterpart said:
“survive…like some of the people in the Tsunami disaster, they
/survive/”. Yes, right, good, he understood! But later after the lesson,
I still thought about the whole thing him being there on our lesson, he
trying to catch up with our staff that has been learning English since
they were in the secondary school. And he, three years ago when I met
him first time he did not speak a word in English, he was quite shy and
did not express his ideas…..and now three years later, he can connect
the new English words that he is learning to the events of the world.
His world must have changed a bit since we met first time and since he
started in our project. It has been a long process for him to collect
the courage and to take his place as a monk counterpart of the project
and to really start acting as a teacher in his community, but that day
and also today I feel proud to have such a monk counterpart in our
project, and privileged to witness the change.
Small things you might say, yes they are, only small things. But I
suppose these are the small things that give me the feeling that it has
been a good thing to be here, I suppose we need to justify our chooses
in some way. And then again move on, make a turn or choose a new path.
It is warm here, ventilator is humming high on the sealing and I still
feel sweat dropping down on the back. I said to Arnaldo this morning,
when we were having lunch in the kitchen with banana trees glimmering in
the sunshine, this is what we will miss one day sitting on the veranda
of our summer cottage in Finland. It is cold and cloudy and millions of
mosquitoes humming around, we will say, “yes, but the weather was so
wonderful in Cambodia, it was so hot and always sunshine.”
And today it is.
Katja
After a long break,
here you are.
Again the hot time, it is never cold though, but now it is hot and it is
only the end of February the two next months are the real hot season, it
is now the fourth hot season for us in Cambodia and maybe the last.
Thermometer reached 37 degrees inside the house yesterday. It is a bit
like holiday feeling on Saturday afternoon going around in your house in
underwear and drinking soda with ice… We were first annoyed that the
road work on our village road has been standing again another month, no
progress for several weeks, but now I am happy to have a bad road, this
keeps the traffic slow and cars minimum, so it means also much less
dust. Hot is still OK, hot and dusty is not. One year ago I was facing
the hot season and the dust, Olga in the belly, now it is much easier to
carry on.
She is lovely now, so enthusiastic about everything, world is so full of
wonders every moment when you are eight months. Or, I say lovely, but
yes she can also be quite annoying, this is the time that she loves mum
(aiti), me, so much that sometimes she can not leave me alone. She needs
to keep on eye every move I do and eat my nose and pull my hair whenever
she gets close enough. Of course I still can escape to the work, which
is my strong card. Anyway Chan (Olga’s nanny) is almost the second
important person in her life. But Arnaldo might be the second one. At
least she loves dancing with him.
Three and half years in Cambodia, goes fast, but still the first year
here seems so far away. I guess having kids makes life so intensive that
it is difficult to remember how it was before. Now the scope of life is
a bit different, we are still here, we are in Cambodia, among these
people and in this environment. Everyday facing the difficulties and
also the pleasures of being here, but still in the first place is our
little family, and now we also have our mind that is sometimes full of
thoughts about the future after this year, after Cambodia.
I remember when we first came here the people (foreigners) that had been
here a long time seemed quite pessimistic about the future of this
country. Are we the same now? Maybe we do not have many illusions and
not that much idealism (which is good to have in some quantity), and
maybe I am now living more my own life and not thinking the life of the
people here so much. I am still doing fundraising in my organisation
although there would be many other things that I would prefer to do.
..They (Cambodian staff) still did not learn how to do it. And there are
many things that are not so right, not so effective and not so clear in
my work and in the work of our staff, and I am here to advice them. So
maybe I have not given the right advice and maybe they have not tried
enough. There are still poor people here which is not a surprise. If
there is any less poor because of us being here I do not know. And these
are not the lines you write to the project proposal.
But then again there are little moments with the people I am working
with and people that are involved in our projects that I feel proud of.
I am happy to see that some things happen. Few weeks ago, donor
representative came to see our project and we brought her to the target
pagoda. Key monk was delivering environmental lesson and everything went
quite well, some things were not right, the monk was delivering lesson
of the garbage and placed a coca cola can in the sack that was supposed
to be plastic waste…. (I think only I noticed that something went
wrong…) but anyhow there was good atmosphere, many people and monks
were joking in the end so that everyone was laughing and it is also
important to have fun when learning about waste management isn’t it? So,
but this was not the thing I wanted to tell, but the key farmer of our
project that asked us to come to see his garden in the village after the
lesson was finished in the pagoda. It was wonderful, I was amazed myself
what a great garden he had managed to make in the village where water in
the dry season was so scares and almost nobody else had a garden. He was
very proud to present his eggplant, tomatoes, grafted fruit tree
saplings, compost and water pond. And I was so proud to be the advisor
of the project where he was involved, for the people like him I keep on
doing the fundraising…
And the second thing, a small thing the monk counterpart of our project
wanted to participate on the English and Environment lesson that I try
to organize every now and then in the office for our staff to learn some
basic environmental concepts and at the same time learn some new
vocabulary in English and he participated last week. The topic was seed
diversity, and we put the words that they did not understand on the
board after they had red the background text for the lesson. One of the
words was /survive and/ he did not know this word. And because our staff
speaks good English it was one of them that explained that survive means
to stay alive, and after a moment the monk counterpart said:
“survive…like some of the people in the Tsunami disaster, they
/survive/”. Yes, right, good, he understood! But later after the lesson,
I still thought about the whole thing him being there on our lesson, he
trying to catch up with our staff that has been learning English since
they were in the secondary school. And he, three years ago when I met
him first time he did not speak a word in English, he was quite shy and
did not express his ideas…..and now three years later, he can connect
the new English words that he is learning to the events of the world.
His world must have changed a bit since we met first time and since he
started in our project. It has been a long process for him to collect
the courage and to take his place as a monk counterpart of the project
and to really start acting as a teacher in his community, but that day
and also today I feel proud to have such a monk counterpart in our
project, and privileged to witness the change.
Small things you might say, yes they are, only small things. But I
suppose these are the small things that give me the feeling that it has
been a good thing to be here, I suppose we need to justify our chooses
in some way. And then again move on, make a turn or choose a new path.
It is warm here, ventilator is humming high on the sealing and I still
feel sweat dropping down on the back. I said to Arnaldo this morning,
when we were having lunch in the kitchen with banana trees glimmering in
the sunshine, this is what we will miss one day sitting on the veranda
of our summer cottage in Finland. It is cold and cloudy and millions of
mosquitoes humming around, we will say, “yes, but the weather was so
wonderful in Cambodia, it was so hot and always sunshine.”
And today it is.
Katja
Picture
Today I received an email from a friend from Finland. It was a forwarded message that found its way until my PC here in Kampong Thom, Cambodia click after click, along a strange and unforeseeable sequence of connections. It had an attachment a picture of a young child, of two year of age who has lost his parents in the Tsunami that hit Thailand almost two weeks ago. He has a Scandinavian face, blond hairs, almost white, blue eyes. scratches in the face, a bandage around his right had. he looks down, not in the camera. It made a strong impression on me, it is like the effect of thee disaster that hit this part of the world has reached also this place, has become all of a sudden more real that the news and picture we can see in TV.
The boy is just two years old, he does not speak and in the hospital they do not even know from which country he is from. Hopefully the message and the next forward of the email will help to find at least some relatives of him. Let’s hope.