The start of my second week in Cambodia saw Brian’s arrival with a suitcase of resources for the children. I had been emailing Brian during the first week and continually adding to a list of items that I thought would be useful for the children.
We had the Saturday and Sunday together before returning to the orphanage on the Monday. There was to be no sight-seeing, however, as I had plans that not even flood waters were going to quash. The roads into town were all “floating” so we decided to wade through the water to the local markets. This proved to be a remarkable experience in itself ( by this stage I had grown VERY attached to the yellow plastic poncho which I had sworn I would not be seen wearing in public and Brian had insisted I HAD to pack!!) Women were perched on sandbags outside their tiny flooded bamboo homes weaving baskets, crotcheting and cooking on open fireplates as their children splashed in the floodwaters or took naps in hammocks. Chickens were piled up on the seats of bicycles trying to escape the floodwater, men played cards together and waved to us as we passed. Their day unfolded with apparent ease yet their homes were underwater.
Upon finally reaching the market we headed for the kitchen “department” as I was on a mission to find plastic tablecloths for the timber tables where the children ate together. The markets were completely under water yet were bustling with people gathering their daily necessities. I had to climb over a wall of sandbags to get to the stall that sold rolls of plastic tablecloths and the elderly stallholder reached out her arm to steady me. She looked into my eyes and asked if I was OK. I replied with a laugh that although I had never been on a shopping trip to a flooded market before I was just fine. I then asked her if she was OK. She replied “I not matter”…I wrapped my arm around her and reassured her she did indeed matter.
Next on my shopping list were school books so we waded to the Siem Reap Bookshop dodging kids swimming in the waters, mad moto drivers and massive carts on the back of bicycles transporting produce. I had learnt by this stage that if I wanted to cross a road I just had to grit my teeth, focus my eyes on my destination and keep walking. (Cambodians don’t stop at STOP signs, don’t giveway, rarely wear helmets and have no idea which side of the road they are supposed to be motoring on!!!).
After foraging through the bookshelves we finally found some relevant English teaching resources.I had found the textbook used at the orphanage and high school to be problematic as it was not culturally aligned with the children’s experiences at all. For example, the textbook lesson on everyday language about celebrations had nothing to do with Cambodia. I attempted to adapt the material to Cambodian festival rituals and realised very quickly that they had limited local knowledge.Constitution Day occurred the week I was teaching the children yet they knew nothing about it. This was followed by 3 days of celebration for the Pchum Ben festival but the children had no understanding of the significance of the national festival. The textbook mentioned Mothers Day and Father’s Day-neither of which are celebrated in Cambodia. Similiarly, it referred to birthdays and significant western rites of passage-none of which had any relevance to the children. A young man in my class softly told me only wealthy children celebrate birthdays in Cambodia. I need to stress here this is no fault of the teachers-who are largely untrained. They rely on donated resources and make amazing use of what they have. Nevertheless, I was delighted when I found a 6 series set of “Teaching English in Cambodia” texts. Each lesson was dulpicated in both English and Khmer and all textual representations were taken from Cambodian cultural traditions. Latter in the week I spoke to the teachers about them and they were delighted. I bought spare copies for the older children who were hugely excited to be reading about their own culture-even local place names were now familiar and this boosted their reading and comprehension confidence.
We spent the Sunday roaming around a number of community development centres ( by this stage we both had webbed feet and I was a walking yellow sheet of plastic!). As I teach the Yr 10 Social Justice program at home I wanted to visit organisations which supported community development programs that generate local employment. So we visited “Mekong Quilts” ( http://www.mekong-quilts.org) which is a non-profit organisation that employs and trains local women in the craft of quilt making. We visited “Mekong Creations” ( http://www.mekong-creations.org) which provides valuable skills in the manufacturing of household goods sourced from local materials such as bamboo, water hyacinth and silk. All profits are returned to the villages in which the women live and work.
Next on the list was the “Artisans d’Angkor” workshelters which currently train 50 young crafts people and employ over 1000 people of which 800 involve craftsmen- consequently increasing families’income and slowing down rural depopulation. This was a truly inspiring project. We joined a guided tour of the workshops where local women are trained in one particular handicraft ( eg: silk weaving and painting, stone or wood carving, lacquer work) and a sustainable culture is promoted. Artisans d’Angkor has pioneered a new social policy in Cambodia with contracted level of pay along with social and medical benefits ( 5% of the crafts people have disabilities..due to landmine devastation).The crafts people have a 20% share of the company and the company is an outstanding model of fair trade.The company plays a huge role in retrieving Cambodia’s cultural heritage ( which was decimated by the Khmer Rouge) and nutures the well-being, dignity and self-esteem of employees. We concluded the day with a tour of the War Museum. Our guide had been a Khmer Rouge enslaved soldier who now spent his days educating people about the atrocities committed under the Pol Pot regime and promoting a peaceful philosophy grounded in Buddhist beliefs and practices. He was a beautifully spoken young man who still bore deep shrapnel ( and psychological ) wounds from the war.
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