Day 41- Describing it in Pictures

I have FINALLY been able to upload some pictures from the past two weeks, and since I haven't posted in a while, I'll hold off on the long, detailed stories for this post. Here's my past two weeks in pictures (and short descriptions :P) :

Beautiful Cambodia Sunset...

,,,and a window look at part of the Phnom Penh night skyline 

This corner I would call Phnom Penh's 'Party Central'.. clubs, bars, pizza, and lots of tourists.

This little guy (NOT...he was probably 12 inches long from head to tail!!!) surprised me on my way home one evening... 

My wonderful friend Hallie, a former Intern  with COCD...

...and another lovely friend I have made here, Sophorn!  

Last Thursday was a holiday here in Cambodia (yes another one) and I was in the car with some staff from COCD driving through Phnom Penh. We drove by a large group gathered outside of the French Embassy and at first glance we thought it was a mob of protesters. As we passed we realized it was actually a peaceful gathering in celebration of the holiday, the anniversary of the Paris Peace  Agreement.

Later that same day, I joined COCD's Executive Director, Mr. Pola, on a trip to check out a couple preschools for a new project I will be assisting him with. The moment I stepped into the doorway of the second preschool, I was swarmed by the students. You can barely see my head peaking out in the picture! The little boy on the left really wanted to stand right in front of me during the picture and wouldn't move. It was hilarious and I couldn't stop laughing!

Had the chance to explore a couple of the famous Phnom Penh markets. Here's a look inside and outside the Central Market (Psaa Thmay). 

...And I also, for the first time, explored inside the Russian Market (Psaa Toul Tom Poung) which is right down the street from where I live. 

My friend Rachel spotted this sign at the Russian Market and we all thought it was hilarious... not sure why "House" and "Road" are in quotes...seems like there's a hidden message..

Day 31- A Little Taste of History

This past Sunday I FINALLY had the opportunity to do some touristy stuff here in Cambodia. I met up with my Khmai friend, Bopha, who works at COCD, and we went to two of the museums here in Phnom Penh: The National Museum and the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. I actually didn't plan on going to the National Museum but with that language barrier between us, there was a bit of miscommunication and we ended up there first. Since we were already there and I hadn't been yet, we went anyway. The National Museum is full of ancient statues and relics mostly from the Angkor Empire which was one of the most powerful kingdoms in Southeast Asia between 800 A.D. and 1500 A.D. Bopha knows a lot about the Khmai history from school, so she was able to tell me quite a bit as we wandered around. A wonderful part about hanging out with Bopha is that she really wants to practice her English so she can travel abroad one day. I also want to learn how to say some basic things in Khmai. So, when we are together, she has an opportunity to speak English with me and at the same time I also have the opportunity to learn some Khmai from her. 

Our next stop was the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. This place is actually not more than a mile away from where I am living but I had yet to go until this Sunday because I did not want to go by myself. It's a very sad place to see. Tuol Sleng is an old school property with a few classroom buildings. During the Khmer Rouge regime, all forms of education were outlawed and Tuol Sleng was converted into a prison/torture chamber. Out of the estimated 20,000 people imprisoned there, only 12 survived. Almost all the men, women, and children imprisoned there were killed, many after being viciously tortured.

Walking through the school was very surreal. The classrooms in the first building are mostly empty except for a steel skeleton bed frame in the middle of the room. Sitting on some of the beds are the torture devices used by the Khmer Rouge and a few of the rooms also display a picture of a victim that was found in that room. The entire first floor of the second building is full of thousands of pictures with the faces of many of the victims killed at this prison, from infants to the elderly. The next floor is actually full of information about the genocide and what has been done since then. By the time we reached this section, I wasn’t in the mood to look at much else. 

We did get some ice-cream afterwards at one of my dodgeball friend's shops right around the corner. That certainly made us feel a little better. It's pretty unbelievable what happened to the people of Cambodia, but I'm so glad I had the chance to learn about it. Not only learn about what happened, but also learn what is being done to counter it. I know that my internship site, COCD, is part of that powerful counter movement.

National Museum Courtyard

 

Me and my lovely friend, Bopha :)

The first photo shows a look inside one of the empty classrooms at Tuol Slang. In the second picture, The white objects below are the caskets for the some of the last victims killed at the prison. I didn't take any pictures of the people killed here.

Day 25- Settling into the Norm

I've almost been in Cambodia for a whole month! Wow, time sure does fly. But it's a good thing, you know? It means I'm enjoying my time here and keeping busy. Every day there's something new, even if it's something small.

This past weekend was really awesome. On Saturday night, I started out by joining a group of new friends at a bar. After a couple hours there, we went and joined a bunch of people from the dodgeball group at another place and the rest of the night went from there. It was a lot of fun getting to know people from all over the world. That night was also the first time I experienced the night life here in Phnom Penh. Most of the popular places are packed with tourists and backpackers which is a very different feel when you have been living here. 

 A sneak peak of my Saturday night

On Sunday, I went with a couple friends to watch a Khmai dance performance. I thought it was pretty cool and different. It's not like most other dances we see. It's slow and repetitive which can put some people off, but it's very traditional and elaborate. My favorite part is the detailed movement of the dancers. When they move, they move with focus on every inch of their body; from the top of their head to their toes and I think it's very impressive.

Their costumes are so beautiful!

So today was a nationally-recognized holiday here in Cambodia and that means, for many including myself, no work. Fun fact, supposedly (from what I've been told) there are about 30 annual national holidays in Cambodia. There are only 11 in the U.S. In other words, there’s A LOT. There's one this week (today), one next Thursday, one the following Wednesday, and then Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday the week after that! I'm thinking we need a few more National Holidays in the States... Anyways, with no work today I met up with a couple people for lunch and then I joined them and got my first pedicure here. It was just $10 for an hour and that included a foot massage. The place we went to was really great too because the employees are women from very rural, poor backgrounds who have been helped and supported by the business. 

Independence Monument

 

Some of the wonderful people I have met so far

 

 This is a very familiar, almost every day view, riding in a tuk tuk

Day 18- Surreal

Sorry it's been a while...about a week since I've posted last! A lot has happened within the past week but the great thing is I took lots of pictures. So here's my week… at least some it:

I have continued working at COCD, learning about the different projects they have implemented and plans to implement in the future. From what I have heard so far, this organization is pretty incredible. They started up in 2008 with only a 10,000 dollar budget. Since then, in 6 short years this non-profit organization has multiplied their donations and expenditures by 50 fold. That means donations, grants, and partnerships have been contributing half a million dollars to help COCD run multiple programs that aim to provide children and families with the support they need to improve their lives.

One project run by COCD provides scholarship opportunities for school children. This scholarship includes paying for their school fees, uniform, school supplies, and for many, bicycles for transportation to and from school. Without these scholarships, many children are unable to go to school.

Another project headed by COCD is setting up self-help groups for mothers. Within village communities, mothers meet up on a regular basis and support each other through discussion and loan disbursement. With support funds from COCD, the women work together to save up money and when someone is in need of a loan to start a business, the group disburses loans according to those with the highest needs. This program helps get money flowing through the community and educates parents on how to earn money, start businesses, and save profit. This self-help group also helps focus household-earning responsibilities on the parents so the children can have a better chance of focusing on school.

Even though the head office is located in Phnom Penh where I am working, COCD has chosen to support children and families in some of the poorest regions of Cambodia. Yesterday I had the amazing opportunity to visit one of these regions in the Kampot province and see first-hand the clients served by COCD and what the current outcomes are from that support. This province is located in the southern part of the country, near the Gulf of Thailand and the Vietnam border. 

It's important to keep in my mind that these communities live in extremely rural areas, many without electricity or clean water. Cars are rare commodities and starting a business usually means buying a cow. I don't know about you, but for me this kind of lifestyle is really difficult to wrap my mind around because this is something you rarely see in the United States. What we see as poverty is pretty good for the people of Cambodia.

I am not saying poverty in the United States isn't a big deal. It is a HUGE deal and the main reason I decided to do this internship abroad is to gain another perspective on poverty. I hope to take this experience and apply it back to the system in the states. Poverty is poverty no matter where it is and it's an awful reality of the world we live in, but I know we can do something to fix it especially if we gain a wide perspective on what can be done to help.

So here's some photos of  my trip to the Kampot province. The trip was pretty surreal. It was incredible but not necessarily in a good way. On the positive side though, there are invaluable improvements in the villages thanks to COCD's support:

Here's the first family we visited. This beautiful young lady on the left is a COCD scholarship recipient. I really love this picture of her because of her eyes. She has very old eyes, tired, one's that look like they have been through a lot. Can you guess her age? To me she looked to be about 9 or 10 years old. She is 13. Many children are smaller than average for their age, appearing much younger than they actually are due to a lack of nutrition and healthcare. Her sister stands behind her in the picture on the right and because of needed support around the household, she does not go to school.

Here is the second family we visited. They are actually two families: the boy and girl on the left from one and the boy on the far right from another. All three are scholarship recipients.The boy on the right told us he was earning all 10s in school which is awesome!

 Here is one of the lovely mothers. She is part of a self-help groups set up by COCD.

For the third and final visit it was pouring with rain and the road to the house was barely big enough to fit a motorcycle down. So we threw on some rain ponchos and trudged through the rice fields!

 Aren't we so cute in our ponchos?!

So this is the Executive Director of COCD, Mr. Pola. He found a coconut and was very proud of himself!

But you can see in this photo how truly sincere he is when it comes to helping the children of his country. Even after only knowing him for a couple weeks, he has already shown me what a great role model he is to everyone around him and a great leader at COCD.

This last village community we visited was pretty big. There were lots of children of all ages and mothers from the local self-help group.

Here's some other pictures I took along the trip. It started bucketing in the photo on the left and it was so loud on the roof I couldn't hear anything anyone was saying.

 The region we visited is famous for two things: their coconuts (delicious) and their duck (even more delicious).

Here's a little bit of an embarrassing (oops haha) picture of Thy (pronounced like the letter 'T'), a staff member at COCD and one of the first people I met when I arrived in Cambodia. I noticed when they cooked the duck, they cooked ALL of the duck. He has the foot held up to his mouth...a whole foot with talons and everything. He ate it of course!

Day 10: You Couldn’t Hit Water if You Fell Out of a Boat

You know how I mentioned I was going to do something really awesome the other day? Well, after work yesterday I went and played… Dodgeball!! That's right, dodgeball (the title of this post is my favorite line from the movie). It was 2 hours well spent and I had SOOO much fun. I played with a group of about 30 people, split pretty evenly between guys and girls. The really amazing thing about it though was the diversity within the group. There were people of all ages and cultures; some 14 year olds, some 50 year olds, most were young adults though. There were people from Germany, England, America, Australia, Cambodia, and more. Even though it was 75 degrees with 50% humidity at 8-9 o'clock at night and we were all sweating like pigs, I couldn't think of a better way to spend my Tuesday evening. And I am pretty killer with my throw. Multiple people asked me if I played softball. My response? “No, I play dodgeball.” HA! After that experience and all the other unexpected things I have done here so far, I've decided Cambodia will be called the Land of Endless Possibilities. 

Here's some pictures of what will hopefully be a weekly Tuesday night activity! I apologize for the blurry pictures though :( I think I am going to buy a new camera because mine is having a lot of problems.

So I've been interning at COCD for 3 days now and I am really starting to enjoy it. I didn't expect to have very much work this week, but I've got to stop with the expectations because I’ve been given quite a few assignments to work on already. I really like that I am already diving into many different work tasks involved in this non-profit agency. That's why I'm here! I want to learn about this stuff and get involved and it's happening all so quickly.

Oh, one quick story. So I went to a restaurant for dinner this evening and the sky, as usual, was threatening rain. But that's how it looks almost every day and it hasn't rained the past couple days so I wasn’t too worried. I wasn't planning on being out very long because I left about an hour before 6 o’clock, when it usually gets dark, and I planned on getting back to my apartment while it was still light out. Just as I was leaving the restaurant though, I felt a drop of rain on my cheek. My apartment is only about a 5 minute walk from where I ate so I figured if it was going to start raining I could probably get home before the heavy downpour (just so you know, when it rains it Cambodia and most of Southeast Asia, it buckets like no other). Of course that is not what happened. I was absolutely drenched by the time I got home. It looked like I’d decided to go for a quick swim… with all my clothes on. Nothing like a stroll in the pouring...no, dumping rain.  

Here's a not-so-attractive picture me after my swim through the Cambodian rain storm!

For some reason I still feel like I've only been here a few days, but if you count the day I left Oregon I have been on this internship adventure for 2 weeks already! Time is starting to move quickly but I'm going to make sure I really experience and embrace every second of it; the highs, the lows, the excitements, the frustrations, and the beauty of it all.