Learning a New Language.........

Hi Everyone - Geoff first:

Learning a new language when you are in your sixties is, as I have discovered, not an easy thing. Not reading or writing in the new language adds to the difficulty. Reading is a comparatively painless way of acquiring new language and familiarising oneself with structure and idiom. As I learn Khmer I am totally dependent on conversation to practise what I know and to learn more. So last week I crossed the road and asked our local seamstress (what a lovely word) if I could sit with her for an hour and speak Khmer.

I took some cold drinks over and she pulled out a chair for me and I spent an hour chatting as she continued working at her sewing machine. She told me that she was seven when the Khmer Rouge came to power in 1975 and the first thing that happened was that her family were driven from Samraong to work in the rice fields as the new regime began to empty all the towns. Her story was interrupted several times as customers came and went and they too were happy to talk to me as they left work for her or collected their clothes or like me came just to chat.She said to come back whenever I want and the next time she gave me her old school English text book as a gift. In return I took Sarah, one of the new VSOs, to meet her as she had some alterations to trousers she needed doing. Our seamstress has no children of her own but there are always babies, children and young people there giving the shop a family atmosphere.

Compare this to my other learning situation which takes place on Sundays on our roof.Carol's boss, Hing, comes round with any problems in English he wishes me to explain and I present him with a list of things I need to practise.Here I get a chance to look at grammatical structure and improve my accent. In this way I think I am improving slowly. I can say a lot of things in Khmer and at last I am beginning to understand more of what is said to me.

One of the reasons I like to go to Phnom Penh is that I get to speak more Khmer than in Samraong where people are not so comfortable with strangers. We are off to the capital this Thursday for a long week-end. A couple of friends from Oxford are coming to the end of their VSO placement, so we'll enjoy a swimming pool, cocktails and food together.

Carol now : Suzanna and I are presenting ideas for joint volunteer working following her trip to Samraong at the VSO Health Sector Workshop, so we'll spend some time planning this too. We've had almost 4 wks back in our little place, living simply, so it will be good to have a break. I've been working hard - long days from 7.30am to 7pm a couple of evenings, which reminded me of RMCH days! It seemed to take for ever to complete our full project proposal but its now done, 10.000 euros are secure and we are recruiting for 2 more health promoters. CHHRA has also completed an evaluation of its health promotion activities and I'm trying to help the management team to think critically so that we learn for the next project. 3 yrs on 77% families surveyed are still boiling water and 47% now have latrines, no mean achievement!

We've also had a team of German assessors from Delhi to evaluate our community based health insurance scheme and I'm now trying to support the organization to move things forward. People pay for health care in Cambodia unless they are desperately poor and have a 'poor card' which is provided by Government but funded by international agencies. Our scheme supports the not quite so poor, who for a premium of 8ooo reals, $2 per family member, per year, get health centre and hospital treatment paid for, transport for delivery at the HC, transport to and from the hospital, funeral and house fire expenses. User fees are then paid to HC's and Samraong hospital which gives them income and gives us a little bit of clout to try and raise standards there. Sounds good in theory but there are no real alternatives to send poor people to!This is all administered by village insurance volunteers who tend to be poor , illiterate villagers, who are paid a small incentive by the scheme for each newly insured or renewal member they recruit, and who are supervised by CHHRA's insurance promoters. Our scheme should be sustainable in the very long term, but our major difficulty at the moment is that we are not likely to meet our target of 5ooo insured by the end of the year, and we need this to secure new donor funding. There's no free lunch, even in the developing world! The villages where the scheme operates are some of the poorest in the province. Many leave to cross the border to work illegally in Thailand and those who remain are subsistence rice farmers who rely on the sale of rice for disposable income. 80% families exist on less than $1 per day. So, it feels a tall order for our team to come up with a marketing stategy to sell more health insurance, but it is well recognised here that illhealth is the biggest driver into long term poverty as families sell their assets, like a cow, pig or moto to pay for major health care costs like a road traffic accident or surgery.Its hard to work out where the problem is - have we too many young, healthy male adults who because they have been well throughout the period of their last premium , can't see the point of re insuring. At least the insurance promoters know me well enough now to come and ask for help and we've planned some training around motivating the volunteers.

Several days have passed since we started writing and we're now in PP. Its a bit cooler here and the monsoon rains have been fierce each afternoon. Geoff leaves next week to see his Mum, so he may catch up with some of you too. I'll be fine in Samraong - Weetabix has returned to Cambodia, so all's well with the world!
Love to you all and please keep in touch,
Carol and Geoff xx