Merry Belated Christmas!

Well, we've given up on trying to upload our Christmas video, it just won't work! Suffice it to say that we missed our family and friends over the holidays.
We spent Christmas in Ratanakiri, the northeast remote corner of Cambodia and had a fantastic time. It is really beautiful there and we did some hiking, saw amazing waterfalls and spent quite a bit of time at a gorgeous volcanic lake. We got there by dirt bike, which was such a fun, though a little soar after a while, way to travel around the country. We saw a lot of it!
On Christmas day we relaxed and reflected and felt like it was really a holy day. We also found a guesthouse that had a Finnish sauna, so we enjoyed that for a while, too (very random). Christmas dinner was Swedish meatballs and Wiener Schnitzel. A different Christmas, for sure, but it was great.
We miss home now that our adventure is over, but plan on attending a big expat party at a club tonight for New Year's to take our minds off it.
I posted more pictures of our trip on Facebook as well.

On Monday we had our Chab Dai Christmas party on a sunset cruise on the Mekong! We ate and talked and sang much karaoke and danced to the karaoke. It was really fun getting to know the staff even better. We had a great time.

We visited the Phnom Tamao Wildlife Sanctuary on our day off last week with a few friends. Most of the animals there have been rescued from poachers.

MTV EXIT Concert

MTV put on four concerts around Cambodia to raise awareness among youth about trafficking. We attended the one in Phnom Penh at the Olympic Stadium. After four hours, much waiting, many speeches, one very bad DJ, concrete seats digging into our bottoms, and a few Cambodian pop singers, we gave up and went home at 8:00. Apparently the English band finally came on at 10:30 after an hour of sound check... oh well, you win some, you lose some.

A Picture a day: Aerobics at the stadium

We live right near the Olympic Stadium, and it is the site of many different sport and exercise activities. Basketball, football (soccer), jogging, tai chi, etc. What has surprised us, however, is how popular aerobics are here! Everyone does aerobics, both men and women, of all ages and sizes. And they are mostly public classes, where anyone can join. It's pretty refreshing to see all kinds of people comfortable enough with their bodies to go all out to pop music, following a (usually) male instructor who can do high kicks in jeans!

A fraction of life in a few pictures

We've been all talk, talk, talk, so here are some pictures of around our place.

Evening view from our flat

We got Christmas stockings made by a tailor in the Russian market; of course, they turned out just a little "off"!

Shredder, our cat, just "hanging out" (hehe, I'm so punny)

We're loving our evening chats in the hammock after work.

Training of Trainers in Phnom Penh

I just finished up a two day training of trainers on child abuse prevention with Chab Dai! We had 25 participants from 15 organisations! We delved into many aspects of child protection, including our biblical mandate to protect children, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, definitions, types, and symptoms of abuse, screening and operational procedures and abuse response protocol. This training was in English, so most of our participants were foreigners (from Canada, the U.S., Europe, and other Asian countries), but having some Cambodian participants was very helpful when discussing cultural issues. The Khmer training will take place over three days in January.

Through the activities and discussions, we were able to confront difficult issues, such as cultural practices that are potentially abusive, and a real sense of cooperation emerged, giving some organisations encouragement that they don’t have to face these issues alone. Chab Dai is a coalition, a learning community, where organisations working to end child sexual exploitation and trafficking, can learn from each other, lean on each other for support, and share knowledge and resources. Child protection is just one of the issues involved in this fight, and I hope this training was a big step in the right direction!

Child protection in Cambodia is very different from child protection in Canada. In Canada, if one of our staff reports an allegation of abuse, our main responsibility is to report it to the police and social services, and to extend compassion and facilitate healing for the victim. In Cambodia, where social infrastructure is still lacking, police and social workers severely underpaid and overworked, and significant levels of corruption exist on every level of government services, organisations are mostly left to investigate and substantiate abuse themselves. There is still much work to be done in this area, both in helping NGOs and churches do this aspect of abuse response, as well as challenging and helping government services to improve and respond effectively and without prejudice.

Keep Cambodia in your prayers!

A little about my work.

It's about time I actually let people know about the work that I am doing. I am working for an organization here called Child Helpline Cambodia. As you can imagine, it is a helpline, where children in Cambodia call when they need someone to talk to.

Right now the organization (CHC as I call it) is in its preparation phase, so there are only 3 of us that work here, but soon there will be more people. As it is so small, my work has been quite varied. One of the big things that I did was to design a database using Access where we could enter the details of any organizations that partner with us. This was a big task. Normally in Canada, when a child calls a helpline, and it is clear the child needs ongoing help, the helpline can just make sure a local social worker takes the case. However, in Cambodia, this does not exist. So since we are not going to be able to go bring kids the food they need, or give them shelter, or stop them from being abused, we need partner organizations that can do all these things. And we need a way to search all these organizations that lets us easily find the best option for a child in need, and that's what my database is for.

Creating the database has been a really interesting time for me, and a lot of fun since I get to think logically about how things interact, and also I get to pretend to code. If I did another database, I would definitely design it and then make it, not the other way around, because I spent a large amount of time realizing that I'd made a huge mistake and starting over when halfway through, and then another large amount of time making small corrections everywhere.

Another large part of my work here has been to find the organizations that we should be working with, and to convince them to partner with us. This is generally quite easy. I stress that we only want to send children to an organization that is a very good fit for that child, and many people respond well to that idea. Also, I think that the idea of giving children the voice to speak their issues is something that people really identify with. I have really enjoyed this part of my work. Talking to all of these organizations has given me a really good broad view of the work being done here in Cambodia. I have talked with people who work with children and youth from: Legal organizations, Human Rights organizations, Shelters, Work Programs, Education Programs, an HIV/AIDS support centre, Crisis Centers, and more. While the problems facing children in Cambodia are certainly numerous, it has been very uplifting and hopeful to meet so many people who are all working to bring hope and change to the lives of children here in Cambodia.

I also support my boss in many general office ways, taking minutes at meetings, preparing presentations, and so forth and so on.

The one other thing that I do, that I am really enjoying is working with another ex-pat from a different organization, who started working there as an artist, and has moved into a more development-type of role. I have been meeting with him and one other person from his organization, and sort of working through a lot of development thinking. Most recently we developed a Logistical Framework Analysis for a program he is working on. It has been really great for me because it is easy to meet with people who work in development, and have been for years sometimes, and have no idea about the types of issues that arise when development work is done. To have someone who is so keen to learn about some of the pitfalls of development work, and who is willing to put in a little extra work to avoid them, has really made me enjoy my time here.

I am sorry for all the text and no photos.

Ho Chi Minh City

We haven't told you about Vietnam yet! Although it was a month ago already, it's still fresh in my mind because we had such an amazing time! We were gone almost a whole week, leaving on a Saturday and getting back on the Thursday. We didn't have many plans when we set out, but had a guesthouse booked for the first few nights in the backpackers' district.
Ho Chi Minh is such a great city. We enjoyed it very much, found our way around the main area pretty quickly, loved the neighbourhood we were staying in and ate oodles and oodles of noodles! There are many more green spaces than in Phnom Penh and it was nice to walk and sit in the big park near the market. We also ate in a nice little Russian restaurant, which made us feel like we were in Charlie's Oma's house eating borscht and pirogies.
On our second day, we joined a day tour and saw the Cu Chi tunnels, where Viet Kong fighters hid out during the war. It was really interesting and very propaganda. We even got to walk along part of a tunnel that had been expanded to 'fit' tourists (the normal size tunnel required you to shimmy along with your elbows on your stomach). I had to remind myself a few times not to panic, but I was glad I did it.

Charlie fulfilling a childhood dream... shooting an AK-47
Can you see me?

We also visited the Cao Dai Temple that day for the noon mass. Cao Dai is a strange religion, which we learned a little about from our tour guide, who liked to be called 'Slim Jim'. It is a religion that combines aspects of Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Taoism and Confucianism. They also worship Victor Hugo as one of their saints... umm, yeah, we're still confused by that one. All in all, though, it was an honour to be allowed to observe their worship service.

Some of the priestesses; men and women sat on opposite sides of the temple
Can you find Jesus?

The last thing we did that day was visit a handicraft factory workshop where the government hires physically disabled people, which Vietnam has no shortage of thanks to Agent Orange (thank you, America). The crafts are beautiful and the people very kind. It was obviously a tourist trap, as almost every tour bus going through this town stops here, but it was a nice experience anyway.

After a couple more days hanging around Ho Chi Minh we decided to get back to Phnom Penh by the scenic route, literally. We booked a two day boat trip along the Mekong, stopping by a floating market and a few other coconut and rice paper workshops. It was lovely. Some bits were by bus, but we caught a beautiful sunset on the ferry ride across the river.

Kitty!

We have a new friend - a kitten! Helen found him on the roof of her house a few days ago and we have adopted him. He is very young, can't be older than 2-3 weeks old. We think he was abandoned by his mother and had very little to eat for a while before he was found. So we've become parents! Feedings every two hours from a bottle, lots of cuddling, and we're so proud when he pees! We haven't settled on a name yet, but we're attached already. We're taking name suggestions :)

A lazy Saturday

Yesterday, our friend upstairs bought a "Christmas tree" and decorated it with lights and a few balls. It truly is a Charlie Brown tree, but sitting by it with the apartment lights turned off made it feel more like the holidays than we've felt until now and it was nice. We have decided the best way to not feel too homesick this Christmas is to tackle it head on. So we will bake cookies, get a small tree, stuff stockings for each other and listen to carols over and over again! Of course, on Christmas day itself, we will be at the Angkor temples, so will have things to distract us all day!

Today we're having a relaxed day of nothing. This morning we watched our weekly shows, The Office, Bones and HIMYM (I do have my woo moments). Then we went to a cafe near our house for hot chocolate (which, in Charlie's words, was "just as good as Starbuck's but $6 cheaper!") We were there for a while just reading and now we're hanging out in our apartment... um, doing nothing. It's nice.

Leaving a Legacy

At the beginning of November, Chab Dai had its bi-annual all member meeting. Over 100 people came to share what they've been doing, network, and learn together. The theme of the meeting was "Leaving a Legacy" and so what was most discussed was what we are leaving behind through our programs, organizations, and relationships. For many expats this is a very real issue as many, like us, are here for a definite period of time. For many Cambodians and long-term expats it is an important issue because there is limited time and funding for a lot of projects.

I was pretty busy during these two days, especially on the first. I was acting as note-taker for the whole meeting, but I also did a presentation on child protection and our upcoming training workshops and I led a focus-group discussion on the theme of the meeting as well. In the end it was a great day, I met a lot of new people and some people I'd been emailing with but had never met face to face, and really started to understand how important Chab Dai is as a coalition of committed workers.

It went really well, and Charlie and I were definitely ready for some R & R afterwards, so I guess it's a good thing we left for Vietnam the next morning! More on that soon, I promise!

Here we all are! Can anyone find Charlie?!?! Yeah not that difficult. Try to find me, though!

Here is one of our member organizations presenting on a new game developed by the Chab Dai Family Forum. It is played by families in the communities and gets them talking about all sorts of issues they wouldn't usually feel comfortable talking about. The pilot project went really well and now they will replicate it and distribute it to the other members!

Here are some members being presented with program grants after having completed, or are completing a Project Cycle Management training course.

Poipet

Last week we went on site visits in three provinces, in the cities of Poipet, Battambang and Siem Reap. It was four days filled to the brim with a lot of meetings, field visits, and travelling, travelling, travelling. Thankfully, many of the "highways" in Cambodia are pretty smooth and the only real scare we got was when we stopped to refill the taxi's propane (yes, propane) and the driver lit up a cigarette in the middle of a small sea of propane tanks. (We've also heard of a moto driver lighting a match for light to see how empty his gas tank was!)
Our first stop was Poipet, a city of the border of Thailand about 6 hours northeast of Phnom Penh. In the past 10 years, Poipet's population has grown 2000% and it's only attraction is the collection of casinos right at the border. Gambling and casinos are illegal in Thailand, so they just opened them up 10 feet from the border crossing into Poipet. The contrast between the glamorous mini Las Vegas and the actual town is striking. The main road through town isn't even paved. It's just mud.

Poipet's population grew way too fast and development and infrastructure just couldn't keep, as is the case in so many developing world cities. This particular bording crossing is infamous for smuggling, trading, and trafficking anything from drugs, clothes, food and even people. Also, when the Thai police round up illegal Cambodian workers in Bangkok and other cities, they drive them to this crossing in big trucks and literally drop them across the border (where many of them will cross back into Thailand the next day). Among these are many children who had been trafficked into Thailand and sold into labour or sexual exploitation. 

One of Chab Dai's partners is running a program up there to take in some of these children. The shelter can house up to 40 kids and most of them will stay in this facility until they grow up, for many different reasons. Some don't know where they came from in Cambodia, others can't go home because they are at high risk of being re-trafficked. So this organization kind of serves as a surrogate family for them. 

Another project this organization is running is a transitional living community for people with HIV/AIDS. Families with at least one HIV positive parent are referred to the project if they are extremely poor, cannot buy their ARVs, and the children are at risk of being orphaned. The project provides housing, ARVs, school fees for the children, primary health education and vocational training so the families can survive economically once they are reintegrated into the ommunity.

Additional training on HIV/AIDS is done to reduce the stigma these families face in their communities.

Although the situation in Poipet seems grim, there are some amazing initiatives here and everyone we met seemed very hopeful. We visited with other organizations there, but I'll have to write about those later. There's so much to share and I want to do them justice!

Udong

Two weekend ago we made a first of many day trips out of Phnom Penh - on motorbikes!! We travelled with 4 of our friends to the old capitol of Cambodia, Udong.  Famous people you may (but probably don't) know who were crowned here include king Norodom and king Sihanouk. The main attraction is two hills with several stupas on them. These hills jut surprisingly out of the Manitoba-style terrain (uh... flat). We climbed up over a hundred stairs to the top and got a spectacular view of Cambodian countryside.

It was an awesome day. After the short hike, we rode around the hills and stopped for lunch on hammock laden platforms. Though we were slightly overcharged, it was still worth it. Julia tried to order chicken fried rice for us all, but it came as a large bowl of rice, and an entire chicken. Including the giblets. And the head. And the feet.

One of the nicest parts of the day was getting to drive through Cambodian countryside, and not in a bus, which is not the best venue for admiring the view. It is really beautiful, and the driving is really fun. We passed all sorts of people including a group of 3 motos carrying double bed frames on the back of their seat! Also, we saw lots of cows. And rice fields.

Besides the wonderfulness of the drive, and the great company, the best part of the day was knowing that it is getting cooler back home, but we all 6 of us got sunburned. Suck it!

Just a short one

I really like this video. It's short, check it out!

This was just travelling around Phnom Penh.

A bit about my work

I must confess I've been putting off writing about my job here. It's difficult to put into words all the issues facing an organization working with sexually exploited children. I can tell you what I do day to day, and even though it won't really get to the heart of the issue, it's a start, right?

My official "title" is Child Protection Support Worker and my main job is to help Chab Dai's member organizations (of which there are around 40) write/update and implement their child protection policies (CPP). This consisted at first to go through each organization's CPP and assess it using an assessment tool I developed when I first got here. As per each organization's interest, I sit down with a director or protection worker and go through their CPP with them, showing them the assessment and giving them suggestions about additions or changes they may want to make to their policy.

Most organizations in Chab Dai have a CPP (it's a requirement for members), but few of them have any active implementation of the CPP in their activities. Usually, the only time their staff ever see the CPP is when they are first hired and must sign a statement of commitment to the guidelines of the CPP. Hardly any do any child protection training. That's where I come in again. We are planning to offer three workshops in November, January, and February on child protection. It will be a training of trainers, so organizations can send one of two staff to our training and then return to train the rest of their staff.

It would be a real shame if we did all this training and capacity development and, when I leave in March, it fell flat without any follow-up or support. This is the third part of my job. I am training a Chab Dai staff member to take over my position when I leave. So I'm bringing her through an in-depth training on child protection and she will soon start doing the assessments with me. She will also lead the Khmer child protection training after observing me lead the English training.

The children we are protecting with these CPP are at-risk children, coming out of sexual exploitation and/or abusive situations, they've been sold into, and now rescued from, brothels and bondage, some as young as 6 or 7 years old. Even though I don't work directly with these children, I am constantly reminded of why I am here and what I working for. More later...

Violence on Thai-Cambodia Border

Yesterday, tensions came to violence in the north of Cambodia, where Thailand and Cambodia have been fighting over the ancient Preah Vihear temple. Apparently two soldiers were killed. We were a little nervous that riots would break out in Phnom Penh, so we left work early and stayed in yesterday evening. But nothing happened and things have seemed to calm down up north as well. So in case you'd been following the news, we're fine!

You can read about it at BBC online:
Gunfight on Thai-Cambodia border
Talks on Thai-Cambodia temple row

Neak Chmooa Avai? Knyom Chmooa Charlie!

We finally started language lessons.
It's wonderful. We can now count past 29, and buy a variety of meats at the market. Also I know how to say my name.

That's it for now!

Charlie

Our apartment

We live in a good location in Phnom Penh. It's a neighbourhood called Tuol Svei Prei Pi and it's near the Olympic Stadium (no, the Olympics have never been held here) It's near enough to the markets and not a far bike ride from work. Of course, Phnom Penh is a pretty small city to begin with and easy to navigate. We really like our apartment, it's bigger than our apartment in Montreal! The only downside is that right on our corner, about 20 feet from our front gate, is a really big dog restaurant. Now, I'm as adventurous as the next person, but this place is pretty gross. I've seen the cooks skinning a dog as I've walked by and they keep the charred dog skulls on display at the front. Thanks, I think I'll pass on that experience.
If you want to find us on the map, see this website (we're a few streets east of the corner of Monireth Blvd. and Mao Tse Tung Blvd.)
Here are some pictures of our living room/kitchen and an extra room we've turned into a reading/Pilates room!

Sihanoukville

This past weekend was a Cambodian national holiday - Pchum Ben. For starters, Cambodia has 44 national holidays throughout the year, the most in the world! But Pchum Ben is one of the more important ones, when people customarily go to their home towns for the weekend. So we packed up with half of Phnom Penh and headed - well, home was a little far for us - to Sihanoukville, Cambodia's beach 'paradise'.


Sihanoukville is a seedy town. Middle aged Australian men hang around with young Cambodian women, the beer is super cheap, and the whole place kinda smells. The tourist dollars are not going towards cleaning crews, that's for sure. Our room was the epitome of all that is Sihanoukville. We made the unfortunate decision of staying at the Sea Sun Guesthouse, which seemed fine in our Lonely Planet. Without going into too mcuh detail, it was humid, moldy, and the pillow gave me (Julia) a runny nose and swollen eyes in the morning.

You would think, based on our description of Sihanoukville, that we had a bad vacation, but we had a great time!! Ok, so a paradise it surely isn't, but the water was warm and the waves great and it was all around a good time. We sat, we ate, we swam, we read, we relaxed.

Bits and pieces

We've observed and expeirenced so many interesting (and banal) things since we arrived two weeks ago , we thought we'd share some with you.

Julia's Little Bunker

We bought bicycles and it has turned out to be a great mode of transportation in this city. It's pretty flat and easy to navigate. And, YES! we bought helmets as well, although they only had Large sizes, so Julia looks like she has a nuclear war shelter on her head (picture forthcoming). Seriously, the helmet is about twice the size of her head.

Koan Kla and Oom Barang

Two new Khmer phrases that we've learned recently. Koan Kla, the name of the orange office kitten at Chab Dai, is Khmer for Baby Tiger. I pronounce the word Kla as Claw, giving it a Double Entendre, if you will. Oom Barang is my new nickname I received from the EFC CC office staff. Literally, it translates as Uncle Foreigner. 

Expecting?

In Cambodia, when you've been married for as long as we have (yes, just over a year), it is normal to already have a child, or at the very least be preggers. And, if you're not, it's usually assumed that it's the husband's fault. You know what I'm talking about. So when my coworker asked how long I'd been married, and found out we aren't expecting, he proceeded to laugh heartily at my inability to... well, gitter done. 

Driving

If you are worried about us being in foreign parts, don't read this next bit! Driving here is nuts! People pretty much just do what they want, depending on their size. Cars drive forward and honk, motos swerve around each other, especially at intersections because there are no stop signs and about 3 sets of traffic lights in the whole city. Bicycles are pretty much at the bottom of the food chain, and you really don't want to be a pedestrian! If you want to cross the street, you don't wait for someone to stop for you, you just walk across the street and people will swerve around you. If you are on the wrong side of the road, you just drive against traffic until you get the chance to merge into the correct traffic lane. Nutso!

We promise to take more pictures soon! Thanks for keeping up with us!

Angkor Temples

We were fortunate to arrive in Cambodia just in time for the Chab Dai staff retreat in Siem Reap, where the ancient Angkor Temples are. We had a great time getting to know the people we’ll be working with in the next six months. They were very warm, although not all of them speak English, so we’ll have to “brush up” our Khmer as fast as possible. The temples are huge and the detail on them is amazingly intricate. A wonder of the world they are indeed! The size of the temples (and they are massive) highlights the fact that every inch of every wall is covered with details and carvings. Cambodia was once the most powerful kingdom in the region, and these temples testify to the grandeur and magnificence of that empire. If nothing else, this experience has inspired us to learn new adjectives for “big” and “beautiful”!

Here are some of our favourite pictures from our time in Siem Reap.

Banteay Srei: A temple believed to have been built by women, partly because of its intricate detail, even in comparison to the detail on other temples. It was the first temple we visited and it took our breath away.




Ta Phrom: Nature was purposefully left free-reign over this temple, and this ancient relationship is overwhelming and beautiful. This was our favourite.




Bayon: Also a very famous temple, each “steeple” has four sides, with a face carved into each side. Astounding to walk through, although a little intimidating, with a huge stone face around every corner!



Angkor Wat: The main temple, and most known throughout the world. “Just gigantic”, is all Charlie can say. We were there near dusk, and it was so quiet and peaceful inside the temple, a good end to the day.