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!