Sup Bangs

(Bangs is an honourific term here when referring to someone)

So WFP hit Sihanoukville. By that I mean all WFP staff from the four office (Phnom Penh, Kampong Cham, Siem Reap and of course Kampong Speu) went to Sihanoukville (the beach resort town) to hang out with each other and complete our work plans. The hotel we stayed at had a casino attached which i visited twice (once with the other assistant heads to play black jack and lose and secondly with a guy from country office when we were both a little tipsy and i ended up winning 15 bucks woo hoo!)

I had to give two presentations on on 2006 in the sub-office (given I spent all of two weeks in said sub office in 2006) and secondly presenting our 07 workplan. Very exciting stuff. The photo below is myself, Coco (the Japanese deputy country director) and two field monitors Thol (behind me) and Bora (front of picture).

On the second day we went down to the port to see some WFP containers being unloaded and we all had to dress identically in WFP shirt and hat. The end result was some crazy korean package tour action (see below). Of course I decided I hadn't yet embarrased myelf enough so I spilt coffee all over mine (well i was bound to do something embarrasing!).

We were given a presentation by World Vision during which even the hardened secular die hards like myself started to come round, but then she cracked. The woman talked and talked and talked until eventually she was talking about the power of prayer in international development. Now dont get me wrong, people have the right to believe in any religion they want, but when you walk into a poor village with a bible in one hand and a water pump in the other, there may be some room for exploitation. One of the people at my office used to work there and although you don't have to be a Christian to work there, to get a promotion its an unsaid rule (this includes your families religion). They have prayer meetings every morning and chapel every week. He even said that they try to ''outchristian'' each other , so one senior manager put pressure on her staff not to let her children marry non christians [ I had head these rumours while working at AusAID about World Vision globally]. How this plays in a Buddhist and Muslim country like this, i will let you connect the dots. Anyway to her credit she clarified that she meant prayer of any religion.

The best part (or possibly worst part :) of the retreat was the evenings. It was lots of eating (mmm seafood), drinking, karaoke and dancing. I thought i knew the Khmer dance where you twist your fingers while going round and round an object in the middle but no, there is more. There is the ''electric slide meets finger twirling'' , ''docey doe [thanks Inky!] meets finger twirling'' and the ''messed up nutbush''. Khmers love to dance and everyone makes an idiot of themself so it was lots of fun.

My office, being the naughtiest office, snuck off after dinner on the first night to keep drinking at a local karaoke bar. I though i was safe as it was all in Khmer but my boss searched and found some english ones. So after he finished ''unfinished melody'' i thought i better contribute. The karoke beast took hold and well lets just say the details are better forgotten in the land of bad 90s love songs. Unfortunately someone found the english karaoke for the Friday (Australia Day) and the international staff sang some...very badly.

I spent the w/e in Sihanoukville which was really nice but it wasnt as hot as I would have hoped. Those of you that come visit will have to come to this place the seafood is awesome.

And finally, yet another Khmer Rouge moment. After attending a meeting in Phnom Penh, one of the drivers came up from the sub office to pick me up and we drove down, stopping for lunch on the way. He asked whether people in Australia eat much rice, and I told him as a matter of fact I ate tonnes of rice in Australia but that perhaps I wasnt a very good representative sample of Australians :) He showed me on the spoon how much rice he was given while in the Khmer Rouge camps and forced to work, it was one level tablespoon.

He was taken from Phnom Penh when he was 17 and sent up to Battambang to work on digging irrigation ditches. Each person there was expected to do a certain amount of work each day and if they didnt do it for any reason (including sickness) they were executed. While working there he contracted malaria, lesions etc. but was able to meet his quota which grew and grew (still on one level teaspoon of rice). When he came out 3 years later, all 8 members of his immediate family had died and only two uncles and an aunt of his extended family survived. He became a teacher later and had to teach by day and guard to school from Khmer Rouge at night and one night he was shot in the leg in a Khmer Rouge raid.

This guy is the nicest guy I have met here I think, and his demeanour would never give away the tragedy that happened in his life. But still he taught himself english and now earns a decent salary. Whats the worst part of it is that all the top politicians here are ex-Khmer Rouge, the Khmer Rouge war crimes tribunal has been stalled for about ten years and many of the victims of Khmer Rouge live neighbour to neighbour with ex-khmer rouge! No wonder this place is such a violent country (you often read about very small disputes being settled with someone stabbing someone to death [don't worry Mum, a foreigner hasnt been killed here since 96'' :)]. Well actually an aussie woman died last week in a motorbike accident but that was because she wasnt wearing a helmet [mental note remember to wear helmet].

Anyway...this week I have started formal Khmer lessons which is really hard going but I am told it will become easier with time.