Campaign Time!

My beautiful flowery mosquitoe net at home

Hopefully a short one this time.

Spent the week in Pursat province doing TB food distributions, HIV home visits and some meetings with the Provincial Education office.

Pursat is like 4 hours from Kampong Speu. Pretty uneventful trip this time apart from being stuck in a cowjam briefly (this is a national highway which almost all freight from Thailand comes through!).

We also stopped for our customary 'inside of cow with rice noodles' snack at Kampong Tralach.

Its funny on these long car rides is when you have some very strange conversations. For instance Hay was telling me how he is recording a CD in Phnom Penh two songs a week and he will try and release it just for fun (he does have, as they say, a voice as sweet as jackfruit). Other random stuff was pointing out a monkey brain export factory. Apparently this company buys monkeys from villagers and removes the brain and send the brain to China for traditional chinese medicine, the going price in China being US$70 per brain!. These car trips also remind me of my really bad sense of humour, i swear that will be the hardest part of returning home.

Distributions were as usual. Except I found perhaps the most beautiful health centre in Cambodia at Chouk Meas. I don't know if the director is spending all his money on the garden but it was a tropical paradise with butterflies and fish ponds. Normally health centres are pretty depressing places, muddy, dilapidated and full of cow shit.

After one distribution, Hay and I had to wait for the WFP car at the dried fish market at Krakor. This area borders the massive Tonle Sap lake. In true Cambodian style there are like 50 of these stalls all lined up together.



Thursday marked the first day of the election campaign which is being held on July 27. WFP has suspenced all distriubitons in this election campaign to remove any chance of our food being perceived as political. Certain parties have a habit of turning up at free food distributions and claiming responsibility.

What this means is that there is campaign flags everywhere and election campaigning involves hiring a truck, filling it with people and driving around the cities with loudspeakers attached. Or if you are the CPP (the party that has ruled Cambodia very controversially since the first elections after the UN administration), you give out 10,000 riel and two sarongs.

Its going to be a long month.

How to Waste a Day - Maybe a little harsh but I stand by it

Okay so as I think I already leaked on my facebook, we were visited by the Republican Presidential nominee's wife Cindy McCain. One thing I find funny about these visits is that these VIPs fly in, see something for a day and then piss off again. I wonder if they realise the amount of work that goes into these things (3 security dry runs, 3 days of work on WFP side and cost and time on the side of our partners).

Anyway she visited the centre run by a French organization called PSE that works with children who live and work on the garbage dump in Phnom Penh (which I didn’t attend) and a visit to Partners in Compassion (PiC) in Takeo, a cross faith HIV/AIDS orphan children’s community I have blogged about before. I was actually pretty excited about this.

She and her daughter (and her daughter's 'best friends) are doing some charity visits in Asia (and to her credit this isn't the first time she has done but the cynic in me questions the lashings of press following she has had in Vietnam and Thailand. In fact her visit to Cambodia was meant to be private and she ditched most of the media in Bangkok but this didn’t stop an obviously very private friend who also happened to be a journalist with TIME magazine. Thank god no one reads TIME magazine anymore. A campaign person from John McCain’s HQ was also with her.

Anyway this is what they came for

A feelgood shot to promote her as first lady and I almost wish they had just done it and left.

Notice her hat that says ‘NAVY’. I understand John McCain wears it as well everywhere he goes to underline this special infinity with the military for his campaign. Spousal solidarity I suppose but perhaps a broad brimmed hat may have been more appropriate in the sun.

Okay I am being totally harsh here, I didn’t actually meet her I was just in the back of the throngs. I guess what threw me was that of all the hordes of people there, hardly any of them asked any questions about anything. The closest I came was one of them was straggling behind I waited for them and pointed out the small farm they had as she had missed the explanation, but instead of any questions about the project it was all ‘how did you end up here!’. An American girl working for the Partners in Compassion felt the same way.

Ok so back to the story. So me, Mony and Piseth arrived a bit early to find one secret service agent already there (as we had been told) and dressed not at all what I was expecting (no black suit, no sunglasses but there was an earpiece). Also there were throngs of Cambodian police and people from the Ministry of the Interior. We heard 30 Cambodian security people came down from Phnom Penh and guarded the centre the night before.

So their convoy arrived led by a police pick up with 5 or 6 police men riding in the tray followed by 5 or 6 landcruisers. They of course kicked up a tonne of dust and promptly had to eat it when they hopped out. There were swarms of them.

Officially there were 10 guests but the most important one for me, her hot daughter, was not one of them. (Mony and I spent the morning trying to figure out which one she was and were very confused but it turned out she had gotten food poisoning and stayed at home).

This bit also got my goat up a little bit. Yes there were a throng of people there waiting to meet her and she greeted the cofounders of PiC, Wayne and Van Din. But then they just launched into the tour, I would have thought that she would have greeted everybody! I can imagine the Obamas doing that. Okay maybe I feel bitter because she (or any of her crew) actually said hi to me or any of the Cambodian staff but hey I guess she was overwhelmed).

It was also quite amusing because almost as soon as it arrived one of the cars got bogged. Karma? Well they got it out eventually.

For the rest of the tour I kind of hung back a bit. In our experience with large missions its hard for them to follow one person leading it so we try and pepper WFP staff around so they can ask questions etc. etc. This strategy worked very well with the last large mission we hosted, a delegation from Japan. But as I said, no questions. Granted it was very hot but I mean can’t you suck it in that you are spending a few hours away from the Raffles Hotel?

Ok I should also clarify Cindy was at the front of the group and was being briefed directly by Wayne and Thomas, our Country Director, so she may have been totally engaged and interested but I can’t comment on that but I have to say I didn’t get that impression as the tour finished well ahead of schedule because it wasn’t padded out by discussions.

So we did our little turn around the centre.

I found the secret service the most interesting part. There was this really angry looking woman always next to Mrs McCain and I was like what the hell is that woman’s problem, but Piseth later hypothesized that she was her personal security person which makes sense cos she was always with her. They were always staking out the next place the tour was going. The guy in the dark shirt was actually pretty cool, friendly and respectful to the locals.

See the strategically positioned guy waiting at the next corner.

The tour finished with a small show by the children for the group.

What happened next also pissed me off (but I have to admit not till the American volunteer pointed it out) is that she just kind of jumped in the middle of the kids to have her photo taken with them.

Okay fine, but maybe she should have like talked with them or played a game or something? That said again it looked like she genuinely enjoyed playing with the kids (some people find the whole HIV thing uncomfortable) .

She also spent all of five minutes talking to the people living with HIV who receive WFP food who had come specially. Maybe she was in a rush?

As our convoy was leaving the American volunteer at PiC wanted a lift to Phnom Penh so I went to Thomas’s car to ask if they could take her. Thomas said fine but the Secret Service guy started saying they are leaving now all stressed and shit and his lead car then sped away. It was also interesting to note that of the 6 or 7 cars that left most of them didn’t wave goodbye, except Cindy.

So yes it’s great that she came and she probably is a very nice woman but it could have been so much more. I hope she donates some of her estimated $100m value to PiC for hosting her. Overall i am disappointed by the entourage than anything else.

Anyway, I am headed to Pursat for TB food distributions this week. I am also making some very adult decisions in my life which is terrifying!

Trouble in Chilli Country

Hey all

So this is a bit of a delayed post cos our internet has been so shitty over the last month. Its little better today but its a sunday so i have all the time in the world. Plus its like 35 outside to its a good excuse to sit in airconditioning.

So one of our field monitors received a call from a member of a community at Kin Tama, one of our schools in the very remote river areas of Kampong Chnang. The community member alleged that the school director was caught putting 11 bags of rice (about 550kg), canned fish, vegetable oil and yellow split pea on a boat to sell in Kampong Chnang. So CSI KSP jumped into action!

To get there we had to drive from Kampong Speu to Kampong Chnang town (about 2 hours) then cross the river on this ingenious dam they have set up. Am not really sure how it works but somehow this 10m long cement structure distributes the water so its only about waist deep even though the river is much deeper. It then drops off the edge.

Also check out how high the houses next to the river are for when wet season is in full swing.
So 2 hours later we were deep in remote chilli country. We were surrounded by chilli plantations which i found fascinating but no one else did really. Except when i mentioned that the smaller ones are the most powerful, when our most quiet field monitor made a penis joke. He transferred about a year ago and i think the debauchery of Kampong Speu is starting to get to him :)

So after a bit of bushwacking

The car hit a snag and we had to start walking. Fortunately i wasted so much time looking at the chilli plantation that Vuthy found a way round the obstruction and we were able to jump back in the car! Yaay for 4WDs!

We arrived at one family house who were busy drying their chillis and agreed to take us across the river.

So to cut it short this school was major bold and the beautiful country. The School Director was supported by the storekeeper (who was married to the boat guy and whose father in law the food was stored at 'for safety'). She alleged she fully informed the community through the Vice-President of the School Support Committee (Like the PnC in oz) (who was married to the cook who it also turned out was stealing canned fish). She then accused the village chief of having a crush on the storekeeper and feeling bitter because she didnt marry him. Whoof! All this in a meeting of about 50 people crammed in a small classroom.

This was a lot to digest on our little pagoda over lunch!

Anywayz it turned out on discussion with the Provincial Department of Education it is a broader political issue and with the elections next month we best wait until they are finished (even though the results are a foregone conclusion).

So as usual we returned to the town and hit the piss.

Plus i had to take this photo. Look familiar? Telecom (back then) won the contract to install Cambodia's telecommunications when it was under UN administration. So there are these phone boxes just like in Australia (and abandoned and grafitied just like in Australia as well- awww).

I have some other news on exciting visits but apparently we are meant to be keeping it under wraps a little so i will post it with photos. I have been waylaid with tonsilitus this weekend which has given me some major hammock time and some photos of course.

Nice sunsets ...

And Rummany's nephew was 'weeding' the coconut trees (cutting off the old coconuts) with this enormous stick and blade.

And i think this shot is the quintisential Kampong Speu shot. Says it all i think :)

Oh and one more pointless Vlog

Bye!