I've spent four days at the New Hope Community Center. This NGO operates within a very poor community living on the doorstep of Angkor Wat. Its HQ is a former "karaoke" bar (brothel) now a community center. Three rooms are dedicated to teaching Khmer and English. There is one computer room (they have Internet on Fridays), a kitchen and a beauty room to teach practical skills the students can use to find jobs. A free clinic on campus provides basic health care and medicines. One of the most important roles New Hope plays in this community is organizing sponsors, via their webpage, to help families in critical condition receive 15 kg of rice a month.
For two days I worked as an English teacher. The lessons I taught were very similar to those I taught in Korea but the experience at the school has been extremely different. Many of the kids get to school by peddling a grownup bicycle, about 5 times too big for them, with one kid on the back, one kid on the front, and one barely touching the pedals with their feet. Few of them are wearing shoes. But they are a smiling bunch of kids extremely motivated to learn.
More volunteers arrived on Tuesday and I gave up my class to do some admin work. The last two days I have dedicated to writing profiles of families in need from the community. These profiles will be posted to their webpage and hopefully somebody will sign up to be their sponsor. Today I'll be going with a Khmer New Hope volunteer into the village to collect more stories.
On Monday, we all got a stark reminder of how close these kids are living to starvation. Over the weekend a little boy in the kindergarten class (the class we made balloon animals with on Friday) ate poisonous toad eggs and died. Of the four kids who ate the eggs one died, one is still in hospital and two have returned to their families. There was an emergency assembly at school to tell all the little kids never ever to eat eggs they find and if they are hungry to come to the school and they will be given food.
On Tuesday, a woman showed up at the school sobbing uncontrollably. Her neck bore red marks from her husband's hands where he had tried to strangle her. She had obviously been beaten and was clearly in a lot of pain. As far as I understand the situation, they are getting a divorce but the man showed up demanding she give him 2000 riel (equivalent to 50 cents US). We called the police but they were busy. They told us, as an NGO, we could take a statement from the woman. Finally a policeman showed up but it appears all he accomplished was to force the man to "take care"of his wife. It seemed like an extremely dodgy resolution to force a batterer to be in close contact with his victim.
Teaching feels like a side note to the drama that passes through New Hope on a daily basis. Though I definitely recognize its importance. It's been an eye-opening experience here at New Hope and I will endeavor to continue my support of this organization after I leave Cambodia.
Wednesday, April 29
Friday, April 24
Dr. Beatocello
Dr. Beat (pronounced be-at) Richner has opened 6 children's hospitals in Cambodia. He has developed a system in which he can provide free medical care and medicine to his patients. He is doing great work for the children of Cambodia. To support his hospitals he relies on private donations and receives some support from the Cambodian and Swiss governments. I learned about his work from a provocatively named documentary "Dr Beat and the Passive Genocide of Children." Dr. Beatocello is the stage name of this Swiss doctor who believes poor children in poor countries deserve the same medical care as kids in richer countries. I went to his concert last Saturday night to hear him play his cello. Though he played two of the shortest pieces I have ever heard I believe his cause is a good one. Learn more at his website.
Julia and Julia Teachers
Julia Teacher is back! In the volunteer edition. Next week Julia Teacher 1 and Julia Teacher 2 will be helping out at the New Hope School on the outskirts of Siem Reap.
Today we showed up for some orientation which translated into making 75 balloon dogs, and playing a variety of my favorite games from Korea includin 7UP and hangman though sadly no hokey pokey.
The downside of teaching is the hours. We work from 2-6pm which happens to be the hottest time of the day during the hottest month of the year in Cambodia. It is unbelievably hot. By 2:30 I had drenched my T-shirt in sweat. It does, though, feel really good to have purpose to my day more than hunting down food/lodging and the occasional temple.
Today we showed up for some orientation which translated into making 75 balloon dogs, and playing a variety of my favorite games from Korea includin 7UP and hangman though sadly no hokey pokey.
The downside of teaching is the hours. We work from 2-6pm which happens to be the hottest time of the day during the hottest month of the year in Cambodia. It is unbelievably hot. By 2:30 I had drenched my T-shirt in sweat. It does, though, feel really good to have purpose to my day more than hunting down food/lodging and the occasional temple.
Saturday, April 18
The Streets Are Full of Water
Yesterday was without a doubt The Best Palace Visit Ever.
The grand palace here is of the same sparkly-gold spire variety of that in Bangkok. The crowds are fewer and the gardens are greater. But the weather was incredible!
Property owners and tuk tuk drivers may not agree with me on this, but yesterday's monsoon rocked my socks. There was so much rain in ~45 mins (combined with poor drainage systems) that the palace grounds and the streets of Phnom Penh flooded! On several occasions I found myself wading through knee high black water trying very hard not to think of terrible water born diseases. As it happened, after the storm, our hostel was in the middle of a lake. It took one foolhardy but awesome tuk tuk driver to discover an alternate and less submerged route back to our hostel and shower. Best. Palace. Visit. Ever.
Man on cell phone in front of the Grand Palace.
The grand palace here is of the same sparkly-gold spire variety of that in Bangkok. The crowds are fewer and the gardens are greater. But the weather was incredible!
Property owners and tuk tuk drivers may not agree with me on this, but yesterday's monsoon rocked my socks. There was so much rain in ~45 mins (combined with poor drainage systems) that the palace grounds and the streets of Phnom Penh flooded! On several occasions I found myself wading through knee high black water trying very hard not to think of terrible water born diseases. As it happened, after the storm, our hostel was in the middle of a lake. It took one foolhardy but awesome tuk tuk driver to discover an alternate and less submerged route back to our hostel and shower. Best. Palace. Visit. Ever.
Man on cell phone in front of the Grand Palace.
Thursday, April 9
Vietnam
It happens every time. Whenever I have moderate-high expectations of a place I am inevitably disappointed. If, on the other hand, I have rock bottom expectations I am usually pleasantly surprised. I understand that if you expect nothing and get something you feel pretty happy. However, in the case of Vietnam I was braced for the worst and got the best.
Street food: fried tofu with mint leaves and white noodles.
Hanoi was a very pretty city with quite insane traffic. I met Julia as planned at a hostel in the Old Quarter and we spent our first couple days in Vietnam practicing walking at a consistent speed across lanes of possessed scooter drivers. We indulged in various types of street food, namely a lot of fried tofu and mint leaves. Discovered a very pleasing, and happily widespread, cafe culture. To get our dose of culture we visited the mausoleum of Ho Chi Minh (raising the number of dead people I saw in a week to 2). Experienced incredible propaganda at the prison that held John McCain as a POW (apparently being a POW at Ha Long prison meant it was like Xmas everyday). And took in a water puppet show.
Halong Bay was one of the most talked up sights in Vietnam. To be honest for us it was one of the most disappointing. It was quite expensive to get there as you are almost obliged to take a tour. It was really cold and I didn't have proper clothes on me. We went on a kayak trip from hell -though did see some nice caves. It was nice but not all that.
Sapa, on the other hand, is all that and more. To think we were seriously considering skipping it all together! Sapa is the name of a town in the northern mountains close to the Chinese border. We took a very comfortable sleeper train to Lau Cai and a minibus up into the mountains to Sapa. It poured our first day and we quickly decided to check into a hotel (into the nicest room I've stayed in to date at $5 each per night).
Many of Vietnam's ethnic minorities live up in the mountains farming rice and other things. In Sapa hordes of Hmong women come to town wearing traditional indigo dyed coats with intricately embroidered sleeves to sell bracelets and other trinkets. It took quite a while to figure out the best way to check out the surrounding area. We finally settled on a 2 night/3 day guided trek with a local guide. Our guide Vu is an 18 year old girl from the local Hmong tribe. She was an amazing guide sharing with us stories about poisonous leaves and indigo plants as well as her very cynical views of marriage (apparently many unhappy wives turn to the poison leaves as a last resort).
Terraced rice fields and H'mong children in Sapa.
The first day of trekking was easy and extremely beautiful but also very touristy. The second and third days we were on our own in a world of terraced rice fields. In the afternoon of the second day as we were walking through a small village we heard chanting. Vu explained it was a local shaman and she took us into the house to have a look. A pretty incredible experience. We were supposed to stay with local families but our "homestay" was more of a rustic guesthouse. We slept and ate separately from the family. I did scam a cooking lesson from Vu at the second homestay and I learned to make springrolls. We woke up on the third day to pouring rain. This proved to be very problematic because we had hiked down to the bottom of a valley. Getting out was a very, very muddy affair. We were tired and dirty but also proud and extremely impressed with our days in Sapa.
Street food: fried tofu with mint leaves and white noodles.
Halong Bay was one of the most talked up sights in Vietnam. To be honest for us it was one of the most disappointing. It was quite expensive to get there as you are almost obliged to take a tour. It was really cold and I didn't have proper clothes on me. We went on a kayak trip from hell -though did see some nice caves. It was nice but not all that.
Sapa, on the other hand, is all that and more. To think we were seriously considering skipping it all together! Sapa is the name of a town in the northern mountains close to the Chinese border. We took a very comfortable sleeper train to Lau Cai and a minibus up into the mountains to Sapa. It poured our first day and we quickly decided to check into a hotel (into the nicest room I've stayed in to date at $5 each per night).
Many of Vietnam's ethnic minorities live up in the mountains farming rice and other things. In Sapa hordes of Hmong women come to town wearing traditional indigo dyed coats with intricately embroidered sleeves to sell bracelets and other trinkets. It took quite a while to figure out the best way to check out the surrounding area. We finally settled on a 2 night/3 day guided trek with a local guide. Our guide Vu is an 18 year old girl from the local Hmong tribe. She was an amazing guide sharing with us stories about poisonous leaves and indigo plants as well as her very cynical views of marriage (apparently many unhappy wives turn to the poison leaves as a last resort).
Terraced rice fields and H'mong children in Sapa.
The first day of trekking was easy and extremely beautiful but also very touristy. The second and third days we were on our own in a world of terraced rice fields. In the afternoon of the second day as we were walking through a small village we heard chanting. Vu explained it was a local shaman and she took us into the house to have a look. A pretty incredible experience. We were supposed to stay with local families but our "homestay" was more of a rustic guesthouse. We slept and ate separately from the family. I did scam a cooking lesson from Vu at the second homestay and I learned to make springrolls. We woke up on the third day to pouring rain. This proved to be very problematic because we had hiked down to the bottom of a valley. Getting out was a very, very muddy affair. We were tired and dirty but also proud and extremely impressed with our days in Sapa.
Magical Mystery Land
Julia: "I feel like I'm on crack*"
Me: "Me too. How can people hate Vietnam?"
Julia: "Absolutely no idea."
Me: "It's like a magical mystery land."
Julia: "Seriously! Sapa's one of the most incredible places I've ever been."
Me: "Hoi An is Candyland for grownups."
Julia: "Seriously man, this is amazing."
This convo went down after two hours of poking around dozens of tailor shops in Hoi An, a UNESCO World Heritage city half way down the coast of Vietnam. We arrived a couple days ago after two consecutive nights on trains from Sapa in the northern mountains.
My only experience with tailors was the brief stint I had working at StitchIt where I pinned pants. However, StitchIt and the Hoi An tailors are a world apart. Here, you can walk into any of 500 tailors and order anything. Any style, any size, any color, any material etc. etc. etc. Upon realizing this incredible opportunity both Julia and I felt incredibly giddy and really quite overwhelmed with possibilities. So we took a coffee break which probably didn't help too much given the potency and high sugar content of Vietnamese coffee.
One of the many cafés I visited in Hoi An.
After a few days of mulling over my options, sussing out various tailor shops and narrowing my (originally very long wish list) today is the day to shop. Julia has continued south early. I'll meet up with her again early next week. But she's left me dangerously unsupervised in Candyland.
*meaning really, really happy, not drugs Mor.
Me: "Me too. How can people hate Vietnam?"
Julia: "Absolutely no idea."
Me: "It's like a magical mystery land."
Julia: "Seriously! Sapa's one of the most incredible places I've ever been."
Me: "Hoi An is Candyland for grownups."
Julia: "Seriously man, this is amazing."
This convo went down after two hours of poking around dozens of tailor shops in Hoi An, a UNESCO World Heritage city half way down the coast of Vietnam. We arrived a couple days ago after two consecutive nights on trains from Sapa in the northern mountains.
My only experience with tailors was the brief stint I had working at StitchIt where I pinned pants. However, StitchIt and the Hoi An tailors are a world apart. Here, you can walk into any of 500 tailors and order anything. Any style, any size, any color, any material etc. etc. etc. Upon realizing this incredible opportunity both Julia and I felt incredibly giddy and really quite overwhelmed with possibilities. So we took a coffee break which probably didn't help too much given the potency and high sugar content of Vietnamese coffee.
One of the many cafés I visited in Hoi An.
After a few days of mulling over my options, sussing out various tailor shops and narrowing my (originally very long wish list) today is the day to shop. Julia has continued south early. I'll meet up with her again early next week. But she's left me dangerously unsupervised in Candyland.
*meaning really, really happy, not drugs Mor.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)