Hills of Kong Pisey and Karaoke Wars

Hey Ya’ll

So this past week has been really interesting at work. Mony was on leave so I was acting Head of Sub-Office right when we have been doing some number crunching trying to find a few hundred metric tonnes of savings from the TB program and the School Feeding program, mainly through cutting poor performance. At the last management meeting we analysed the future pipeline and at the moment we are okay until April next year (after I go but we have to plan quite far ahead) and we are not expecting any further donations until June 09. As avid readers (hi Mum!) will know three years running we have had top at some point suspend the program, that is in 06, 07 and 08. So we have decided our credibility is really on the line so we CANNOT cut again in 09. So we are going to downsize a little bit by cutting poor performers to get us over the hump until June 09. Working on this list with the Senior Programme Assistants (Piseth and Sovanna) has been fascinating.

As well as that there has been all this other HR stuff and other admin stuff which I think has been great management experience. We have been trying to convert one of our drivers, Pliek, who is on a temporary contract to a permanent contract. I managed to win half the battle signing him on for another three months but we will continue to try and get him permanently cos he is a top bloke and he fixed my bike J Also Thol, one of the field monitors has been trying to get transferred to the Kampong Cham office for a while now (to be closer to his family) and we (well I) managed to get that done so we will get a new staff member soon, exciting. One staff member (who shall remain nameless) came up to me with a genuine concern that the new person will be a woman (since we have the lowest gender ratio of all the offices) and we might not be able to party as we used to…I reassured him woman or no woman we will party J (although on that note on Thursday I skipped an office party – I think I am getting old!).

Anyways, this weekend I had not one but three visitor to the Speu! It was the national election on Sunday and Steve (an American friend) had been assigned to work election monitoring in Kampong Speu so I offered him my spare room, and then a few days later I got a call from Kat and Lee (Kat is working here with AusAID) and were working Kampong Speu as well!. Upon reflection I should have got involved cos it sounds like it was very interesting but I didn’t hear anything about it out here. I am sure WFP wouldn’t have been happy about me doing it so maybe it’s for the best. But I did learn that Kampong Speu province has over 700,000 people in it, a stat I have been searching for since I found out I was coming year in 2006.

So on Saturday Kat and Lee arrived in their beast of a car that they had borrowed from AusAID (that required Lee’s incredible parking skills to actually get in the gate of my house) and Steve arrived by taxi soon after. After lunch (we went to the awesome Khmer place we sometimes go [most of the restrauraunts in town are owned by Chinese) and introduced them to spicy stir fried frog) we went for a drive in the country.

I work a fair bit in Kong Pisey district, which is actually quite a poor district, but is surrounded by these great mountains (ok maybe hills) and I have always wanted to go in my own time to look at them and all the pagodas perched amongst them. Last time I was there a few weeks back it seemed wetter and more lush but it was still nice to see the rice fields.

We spotted this really cool looking shrine perched up high with a very civilised stair case leading up to it, so we thought this was probably the best way for us wannabe mountain climbers to begin.

The nuns and guys maintaining it very very surprised to see us there but welcomed us and allowed us to climb up. The stairs were very imposing

and at this really awkward height so it was too small for just one step but too big to take two at a time, maybe its designed like that to exhaust you when you get to the top so you drop to your knees in front of the Buddha at the top.

Steve and I arrived at the top first and there was a nun up there who opened up the shrine so we felt like we should pray (although my Buddhist prayer technique is sorely lacking). It was great being high up and looking around, and seeing GREEN!

Those little white dots are cows.

And then of course, the inevitable stair case down...

So we journeyed on through Kong Pisey town and turned to go to our real destination. I have often seen this red pagoda hidden away in the base of one of the hills and the guys at work say it was built by a government minister but there is something rather sinister about it. [ UPDATE AUGUST 4- Apparently it was built by the current Minister of Rural Development who belongs to some small sect of buddhism that revolves around fire worship and, get this, human sacrafices, but apparently this has stopped :) ] Trying o find the road to get in we spotted this giant Buddha in the countryside and nestled against a hill and had to go have a look.

There were plenty of shrines hidden in the surround greenery as well.

Thats steve in the blue shirt if you squint for a size comparison.

So turning our attention back to the evil castle looking pagoda, we soon deduced that the only way in was to jump (or rather crawl under) the barbed wire fence, so a few very ungraceful and very uncommando like rolls we were on the other side.

We got there and there was a monk there, but we soon gathered he was there just hanging out with his mate and was rather bemused how we ended up out in very rural Kampong Speu.

So this place was totally creepy, someone had obviously poured shitloads of cash into it cos it was well maintained and expensive carvings everywhere. It was locked up but looking in to where the Buddha should be, there was like a conference centre with chairs and tables.

So our theory was that its this cult plotting to take over rural Cambodia, complete even with what could have been a very bond-villain crocodile pit and superfluous bridge that were being highly underutilised.

And as we were leaving there was this really weird SuperMario meets Street Fighter statue in one of the surrounding pagodas. Who is he? Why is he brandishing those weapons?

So after our turn in the country we returned back to my pad, hung out then headed out to dinner at the Bun Chao (Vietnamese pancakes) restaurant for a typically pumping Kampong Speu night (there were like two other families there). The next day they headed off early to do their work and I kinda bludged away my Sunday.

So Sunday night , election night, I was watching ‘No Country for Old Men’ which was really good but the dvd copy was bad so I couldn’t finish it, but I heard all this yelling and screaming and motorbikes revving, so I headed out on the balcony to have a look and there were two groups of guys yelling at each other and driving around the block mad max style. Their bikes kept backing up, which is normal but it was happening so often I was actually thinking maybe they might have been gunshots (which they weren’t of course but paranoid old me…) We has been warned the post election period might by dicy so I was thinking of course it happens literally on my doorstep. So I decided to turn my lights out and watch from the balcony (just so I wouldn’t have any unwanted attention on me – not that I don’t feel safe but I think in a volatile situation its best not to add a foreigner into the mix (foreigner =$ of political interference etc. etc.). So they are chasing each other round on motorbikes hitting the corrugated iron fence of the school opposite my house with sticks and all the neighbours are craning their necks over the fence to see whats going on. So then two military police and three normal police arrive on the scene and disappear down the road towards where the incident started (and these guys roll with shotguns and automatic weapons just to make it more interesting). So the one group of the guys clear off, leaving one group then the whole community comes out to do the post mortem on what happened.

So it turns out it wasn’t election related at all, it was girl and karaoke related. So there is meant to be an alcohol ban for the election and this place was obviously breaking it and some kind of fight broke out. But I find it very suspicious not a raised word on my street for over one and a half years and then a fight breaks out on the most tense day of the year and its not election related? I don’t buy it but Romany said it was nothing to worry about. I couldn’t really hear the conversation of the community very well (some of the guys were still there and a bit drunk and some were holding axes and sticks so I thought It might not be a good idea to get involved but they were saying something about the hospital so I assume some guys ended up there.

Violence is pretty common here in Cambodia, but not much directed at foreigners (mainly the occasional robbery and armed hold-up in Phnom Penh). Most of the violence is alcohol and drug fuelled and occurs in rural areas. For instance here are some excerpts from the Phnom Penh Post ‘s ‘Police Blotter’, a round up and translation of police matters in the preceding week.

“July 18: San Samnang, 20, was arrested by Kampong Chhnang anti-trafficking police for raping a mentally handicapped woman while drunk and then falling asleep on top of her…”

“July 19: Two suspects were arrested by Modul Seyma district police and sent to the Koh Kong provincial police department after a drunken argument ended with them killing one of their friends. Kak Sieng, 25, and Kak On, 23, got very drunk and began arguing with their friend before beating him and stabbing him three times…”

“July 21: Khen Kheuon, 37, was arrested by police after chopping his wife repeatedly with an axe during a drunken argument…”

“July 21: Two cases of patricide occurred the same day in separate provinces. In Kratie province at around 6.30pm Sok Thom, 22, chopped his father Lay Sok, 64, with an axe as he was fed up with his father being drunk every day and picking fights with his family.. The same day in Kampong Cham province, Mom Reth, 46, from Ampil Thom village, Khet Thom commune, Prey Chor district was killed by his son Mom Soknov, 22. Mom Soknov told police that his father drank all the time and beat his wife repeatedly despite his son begging him to stop. Finally, Soknov could bear it no more and when he saw his father begin to beat his mother he took a sickle and chopped his father’s neck causing him to die immediately.

And this one is particularly weird

“July 22: An Australian man named Mario Alfredo Gonzalez, 42 became engaged in a fist fight with a female gasoline seller before trying to self-immolate after he filled his motorbike with gasoline and tried to leave without paying…”

Oh and Monday morning as I was getting ready for work I was freezing so I went out to check the thermometer outside, and it read 28 degrees (probably more like 25 degrees when you consider the wind). Still, I think I am truly gone native!

Cookin up a storm, Mice, Elections and Bastard Thais

So this past weekend, I have done a cooking class believe it or not. Steve, an American friend, texted me in the week to see if I was interested in doing a Khmer cooking class. So I thought what the hell and joined in. They had this really cool set up and arranged everything. It was eat as you cook so we were all stuffed.

So these are my fat baby taro and carrot spring rolls



My banana flower salad...


The curry paste which has like 15 different ingredients...

And finally my Fish Amok, the signature dish of Cambodia


He also taught us how to cut flowers out of vegetables. I guess someplace, somewhere that is a valulable skill to have but as you can see below, maybe not my forte...

I also watched the rugby with Cristy, Sharon and some others and Cristy and I went shopping for giant Jayavaraman VII heads, the guy on the Bayon Temple, to ship back to oz. A few of us are heading back to oz over September-December (me the last one to go as always) so we may sea freight some stuff back.

This week I am Head of Sub Office and its been really great so far, lots of HR and other management stuff to be done as well as we have to cut schools and TB distribution points to save 1100 metric tonnes of rice by the end of this week. So its been a bit busy but satisfying.

In national news, the election is on Sunday. So far not much violence, but one opposition journalist and his son were shot dead about a week back in Phnom Penh. Compared to the last few elections when grenades were exchanged I would say its an improvement. But all indications are that the ruling (since 1979 ) Cambodian People's Party will win again. I have a few friends doing election monitoring in Kampong Speu Sunday so this weekend shall be fun, visitors in the Speu!

So the mice wars continue but I think i have won, they have had several casualties and have been reduced to using child soldiers. The secret weapon? Well believe it or not peanut butter and cloves. Peanut butter on the traps means they cant piss off with the bait, they lick it and get trapped and they hate the smell of cloves so they dont go in my cupboard anymore (unfortunately i hate the smell of cloves as well but its a small price). The video below was made before this victory so enjoy, I am in the process or organising a ticker tape parade so certain avenues of my house may be blocked off...

In other national news, Thailand has invaded Cambodia. Well there is this disputed border region and this amazing temple, Preah Vihear, that sits almost right on the current border. So the International Court of Justice ruled in 1962 that it belonged to Thailand. Since then its been pretty quiet, but last week UNESCO made it a World Heritage Site.

Originally the Thai government supported it, but the opposition party held mass protests and its no secret that the Thai king does not like this government, and controls the army. So a few thai protesters ran the border to protest and were arrested by Cambodia then returned. But several hundred Thai troops entered Cambodia and have occupied a Khmer pagoda. So there are thousands of Khmer troops there now, surrouding them, but pretty close are thousands more Thai troops ready to cross the border.

Its just madness, and in my opinion the Thais are being total pricks. I mean its bad enough they supported the Khmer Rouge but they have this pathological hatred of Cambodia (probably because the Khmer Empire used to control all of Thailand, and in the 1800s the Angkor temples were occupied by Thailand until the French forced them out.

So i don't think it will go to war, but its crazy.

So i am on an anti-thai boycott cos they is assholes. Its really interesting to see the Khmer staff here, they are constantly forwarding updates, historical maps and pictures of the troops around. Half of them are walking around with radios to hear constant updates and they joke about going up to defend Preah Vihear, but I get the feeling if shit really went down, they would actually go up there.

Anyway, thats enough ramblings for now : )

Get Up Offa That Thang!

Hi Everyone


So the last few weeks i have been in a bit of a funk, i think partly cos its been so quiet around here so i have been skulking around the office even though there really hasn't been that much work to do here. For some reason I really didn't want to head out to the field and one week I worked the whole week in the office!

So finally Mony ordered me out and Ratha and I went out to Kampong Chnang to check out some schools and Food-For-Work projects. As i mentioned, food distributions have been suspended during the election but the schools are still cooking until the end of the school year so that means early morning visits (4am/5am visits which i despise, but its part of the job!).


Driving around and seeing the rice fields was just great and really got me excited about my job again. Chatting with the guys , having snacks and working together outside the office is what i really love about this job so i dont know why i forgot that.

The first early morning visit we did to a school was a really well run school and no evidence of diversion so that kinda set the mood for me, as it sometimes gets a bit depressing seeing the program poorly run over and over again. The storekeeper of this school's son was attending class and wandered out (prob about 5 or 6) of his classroom to watch us counting the stock. Normally Cambodian kids are really shy, at least around me, but this little fella was hilarious and kept jumping all over the rice bags.


When we pulled into the hotel and i looked up to see my friend American friend Shanti there , who works in Phnom Penh. Totally spun out to randomly run into each other in Kampong Chnang of all places! It turned out that she had agreed to lead this group of totally loaded high school girls from Beverly Hills who were doing this 'volun-tourism' thing, where they learn about the world, paint orphanages etc etc. So she invited me to have dinner with them and speak to them about my experiences here. It was a little staggered to begin with but we had a really interesting conversation which turned into a little motivational speech to them which upon reflection was hilarious. I just rambled on and on, contradicted myself at several turns but no one seemed to notice. It was a different experience thats for sure. I had to laugh on the inside a few times when they were giving 'shout outs' to each other and one asked Shanti if they could have an 'ETB' which apparently means Early to Bed in hip talk. Oh dear I am getting older...


One incident we had when monitoring the schools is we pulled up just as the school director was driving off on his moto with a box that looked remarkably like a box of our canned fish. He saw us, kept driving, pulled into the cooks house (which is next door to the school) and dumped the box then he and the storekeeper came out to greet us. We did small talk for a bit and they said they were on the way home so we said we would come back another time. So they went to the cooks house to wait for us to go and we popped the bonnet and pretended out car was broken to wait for them to go so we could interview the cook. After ten minutes of this stalemate we decided to drive down the road, pretend we had gone then drive back. This rouse was successful and we were able to interview the cook and get some evidence to fine the dude for stealing commodities. Nothing like a stake out!

On the next day i met up with Chantheoun who is a great guy who works for Phnom Penh office to go and review some food for work projects. The countryside is just stunning at the moment.

The people below are pulling up their seedlings which will be transplanted into flooded fields like this...



On that note everywhere in Kampong Chnang looks flooded which is great for rice crops. It is nothing like that in Kampong Speu which as Cambodia's driest province is also one of its poorest.



To fully utilise this water you need irrigation canals and culverts to divert water. This is one shit hot one WFP built last year. Connected into it are local culverts (hollowed out trees) which link to rice fields.





We also checked out this road we built this year that leads to a cliff overhanging the Stung River. I found the sudden stop quite amusing but apparently there are plans for someone, sometime to build a bridge. In the dry season this river is able to be crossed but obviously in the wet you would be swept away.


We also ended up at the lovely village of Srae Ouk which i love visiting (the mixed cham/khmer village I always end up having hijinks at). Its amazing to see this very dry and sandy place turn flooded and green. From even a month ago when i was here its totally different! We met up with Thaym who knows WFP well to show us some of the projects he coordinated on and he also showed us his big cock...
Umm sorry, bad joke : )

As we were checking one road out a guy wandered past walking his pig on a leash to add to the number of quirky things i have seen in Cambodia.

This land was all jungle up to a few months ago but now a road cuts through it, consequently people are able to clear the land and open up areas to farm more rice.

I also took this shot of the house of some people i interviewed when we were doing a baseline survey. These people were living on less than a dollar a day at the time but seemed to be coping, in part thanks to WFP food support in Food-For-Work. But i remember thinking at the time on paper these are the poorest people i had ever met. Its kinda nice to be able to stay in contact with people you meet over the years and see what happens to them. Like the daughter of the people here was pregnant when i met her last and this time i was able to see her bouncing baby.

I skipped out on the review of projects in Kampong Speu to make sure i didnt miss my flight to sunny singapore to see Mark, Tara, Dilan and Amali. I kinda lied to Mony and told him that i had a meeting in Phnom Penh to see my volunteer supervisor cos i feel kinda bad saying i am going to Singapore for a weekend. I was especially proud of myself as the share taxi driver tried to rip me off on the way up so i gave him a serve in Khmer much to the delight of the motodops watching and the others in the van as they had no idea i could speak a bit of Khmer.

Sin City was great, managed to pick up some essential supplies, spend quality time with the babies who were really well behaved and cuties and have some good old fashioned fat bastard eating time. Oh yeah.

On a domestic note the rat battles continue, in fact this little mouse is taunting me at work now in the grates watching me, I wonder if that psychological warfare? Have the house mice and the office mice teamed up?






Oh and another video but this time of a much welcomed house guest.