Friday 19 June 2009

Field Trip to Anlong Veng

Hi Everyone

We've had an adventure since last being in touch as last week Geoff and I travelled 2hrs east of Samraong in work's land cruiser to visit several villages. It was a remote and poor part of the province and the idea was to support some motivated villages who with the support of our project team have improved the health of themselves and their families by for eg. covering water jars to prevent mosquitoes breeding, started to boil water and possibly built a pig house to keep people and animals separate!

We had large meetings of about 30 villagers with the village chief and village health support workers, who work voluntarily to improve their community's health.People from unmotivated villages were invited to hear and then we all walked around the village, the idea being that everyone would see what was good and bad and come up with an action plan as to how they could bring about change in their own place. These people are a tough lot, living in the middle of nowhere, in the most basic of houses, eating what they grow, in an area still being cleared of landmines and with the sun beating down. We sat under thatched shelters though, had tea and biscuits as a snack, and a lunch of rice and a leafy vegetable soup provided by our project. There was lots of laughter too which is typical of life here and people listened intently even to the session on domestic violence!

After 2 days of these activities, the project manager took us off for a bit of macabre tourism - this area was the last stronghold of the Kymer Rouge in the late 80's. We saw Pol Pot's grave and the house of his 2nd in command, Ou Moc. It was up a mountain, the first hill we'd seen in 3mths, and the views south over a flat, largely deforested Cambodia were stunning.

On the home front, our landlord has built us a thatched shelter on the flat roof which is lovely to escape the sun and get a breeze in the evenings. It's difficult to tolerate being in the house during the day as it is so hot and humid, usually about 33c. Geoff has got going with his teaching, 3 sessions each week at my work place, at 7am! and an advanced english language group at home 3 times a week. He'll be home 2nd July for 2wks to see Nic and his Mum.

I'm rushing this as we're out tonight at a friend's leaving do, a lovely German Girl whose been here for 6 mths building the admin. capacity of an international NGO. We leave for Kratie tomorrow, a town on the Mekong, where we hope to see the rare irrawaddy dolphins. Its a buddy week, arranged by VSO to see how other volunteers work.

Hope all's well with you all and that the sunshine is still with you!

With much love from us both
Carol and Geoff xx

Friday 5 June 2009

Our First Visitors!

Hi Everyone

Laura and Alberto came to stay, over half term week.The flight to Siem Reap from Singapore takes just 2 1/2 hrs; its then the dirt road up here in a taxi, which, because the road is good just now, as there hasn't been too much rain, takes approx. 2 1/2 hrs. They came loaded with goodies - blue tac, quality dusters and dishcloths, books, DVD's, M & S nibbles, good wine and biscuits! The best thing for Geoff was a DVD machine which plays DVD's through the television screen. We really appreciate our simple pleasures.

2 German friends offered to take us all in their NGO Land Cruiser to a remote temple of the Angkor era, well off the tourist route. It was very impressive, if not a bit daunting, as there were huge stone door ways which looked as if they were about to topple over and huge trees growing through the masonery. Some beautiful carvings too. We had a great picnic under the trees - ratatouille, salad nicoise, roast loin of pork and tortilla. You have to be inventive here!

The next day we hired bikes and cycled around the sights of Samraong - the market, my office, the wat, Enfant De Mekong, the charity that Geoff is to work for, the hospital and the lake. Alberto said it reminded him of rural Italy in the 60's! We escaped the heat by watching the film "Milk", Sean Penn, which was excellent, in their ac. hotel room, and enjoyed the relative cool of the evening on our flat roof with good wine and food. Then we went off to Siem Reap to enjoy a lazy time at a boutique hotel with a lovely pool.Hopefully, we'll meet up with them again in Singapore in September.

Clive has asked us via post a comment about the mossies here and how we deal with them. Peter G. also referred to them after hearing a "Today"article, so I thought more of you might be interested! We do have mosquitoes which carry maleria - these bite at night, and denque fever - these bite during the day, but particularly during the rainy season. We always wear anti- repellant cream, sleep under a net which has been impregnated with some chemical whose name I can't remember, and we take anti- malerial medication daily. So far so good - we both feel very healthy, sleep and eat well and we've both lost some weight - me more than Geoff, big surprise! It's hard to take exercise though as it is always hot and there are few facilities for sport. We really enjoy our bikes and have begun to bird watch around the lake as the water rises.

Our big news this week is a straw and wood shelter which our landlord has erected on the roof to give us some shade! This will make such a difference to the quality of our lives as we could only sit outside up their after about 5.30pm. So think about us this weekend sipping our iced Ricard, which retails here for $5 a litre, surrounded by coconut palms, and views of the lake and Thai mountains.That actually sounds more beautiful than it actually is but never mind! Geoff's gone to SReap today to collect some cushions for our heavy wooden lounge furniture and buy a connection to enable us to post some photos on the blog.How is it we still manage to lose only useful things!

Please keep emailing or posting comments. If you'd like to write - we get post sent up once a week - our address is: VSO Cambodia Programme Office. PO Box 912. Phnom Penh. Cambodia

Lots of love to you all
Carol and Geoff xx