Working Hard!

Hi Everyone

A quiet Sunday here and as hot as ever, even though we've had some proper rain this week which hopefully will help the rice. Some of the new rice has died because of the lack of rain and people are worried that the drought will cause food shortages and higher food prices. One of our proposals - as a small organisation we have partnered with 2 international NGO's and applied to the EC's food security programme - is to support poor people to diversify their food supply to things like mushroom farms and peanut butter production so that as well as being better nourished themselves, they might have a surplus to sell and so generate some income.



Not that we have had a lack of food this week - we had a staff party to celebrate the beginning of Pchum Bhen, a time in the Budhist calendar when people return to their villages to remember their ancestors and visit the pagoda. A small ox was bought and killed in the office garden, thankfully before I arrived at work and the day was spent roasting it over a charcoal fire with staff taking it in turns to turn the pole. Eating, dancing Khmer style, karaoke and lots of beer seem the order of the day with everyone joining in. One of the health promoters has built a new, traditional wooden house, on stilts and invited us to the house warming party. Here we had what they called ' cow on the mountain' - beef barbecued on a small barbecue on each table with a mound of a grass like vegetable. Stir fry veg and rice with lemon grass, galangel and garlic was served too. All delicious.



Geoff now has classes every day except Friday and has offered to teach English to senior staff of local NGO's over lunchtime. There's a big demand for teaching, especially from a native speaker as in order to get promotion in the Aid world you have to be able to speak and write in English to a high level. Our landlord's son has just come back from a week in Holland, training with his organisation, International Child Support.



My VSO meeting went well. The Health Programme Team spent the morning with CHHRA and I gave my impressions of the organisation, its strengths and challenges, and then presented my work plan. I felt a bit daunted as people are very direct here but the programme manager said some complementary things and VSO were happy with my plans. We had a smile earlier, as Hing my manager, asked Geoff to correct his written report about me! My work, I think, will be largely staff training, and mentoring and support to the management team. We were all taken out for lunch, including Geoff, so it felt a very supportive and encouraging day. Unfortunately, we've had a slight damper on this over the wkend as Sophy, our newest appointment as a communith based health insurance manager, has emailed to say that he has resigned as his family has problems and need him in PP. He's young, talented and very personable and I think could have done great things for the organisation and himself, but this sort of thing seems to happen a lot.



I've spent quite a bit of this weekend taking in clothes as I think I've stopped loosing weight We both feel very well here.I've also got the sketch pad out and taken my 1st faltering steps at drawing a coconut palm! Geoff's Mum, after a rocky few days seems to be improving and is looking forward to her full length cast being reduced in 3 weeks. Hope you enjoyed the Bank Holiday weekend. Looking forward to catching up with your news.

Lots of love
Carol and Geoff xx