Climate shame

The non-result of the climate conference at Copenhagen which I got to know on Saturday evening was a disaster – is a disaster as climate change remains a threat.
Being, as I am, in Cambodia and having little direct access to media, except for this blog, I have little means of protest. I very much appreciate the protest so many people expressed via media or in Copenhagen directly.
In the despair politics at Copenhagen have thrown me into, I decided to set at least some sign of protest and solidarity with protesters all over the world by shaving my hair.
I know it is not much and I am conscious of that fact that many of you might object to it, either because of aesthetical reasons or because you consider the action senseless and having now effect, especially here in Cambodia. But be assured, even by objecting you make yourself part of the small effect I am trying to achieve.

Another (un)fortunate interruption of information flow

When I started giving an account of my holiday experiences, I was strongly determined to publish a post at least every second day. As some of you might have observed, this commitment has ended pretty quickly. The reason is that after a long search a finally found a field and a corresponding place of study increasingly appealing to my interest. Therefore, I am currently busy writing my application and find little time for other preoccupations, as the first submission deadline I am intent on meeting is the first of January.

Holiday Day 4 (29.10.09)

This day was another early waking up. The luggage was reassembled and our tired bodies hurried towards the bus station.
After waiting another few minutes, we boarded it and thus entered upon one of the most disagreeable bus trips I've made so far.
We were seated in the back row together with three other adults and three children. Unfortunately, all of them seemed to have trouble stomaching the trip. Three of them (a man, a woman and her daughter) frequently emtpied the contents of their interiors into plastic bags, where they were conserved for the rest of the trip. This did not contribute to the olfactory enjoyment of the journey. The most repulsive thing, however, occurred when an unfortunate girl sleeping on the ground was covered by the contents of a breaking plastic bag placed above her head. All this did quite spoil our appetite. Not even the filled turtles offered at a restaurant where we had a break could change tempt us.
Finally in Siem Reap, we were able to evade the attacking tuktuk drivers by having Michael, another ww-volunteer, pick us up on his moto. The result was another test as to how much can actually be transported on a single vehicle. We managed to fit onto it with three persons, two trekking-backpacks, two daypacks and a guitar. The rest of the day was largely uneventful. We relaxed a bit in the hammocks at the boys' house, got to know some more ww-volunteers in Siem Reap, had some ice cream, transferred our luggage to the girls' house, had a look at the bar scene of Siem Reap and finally went to bed.

Note: Siem Reap is the town with the highest ww-volunteer density in Cambodia, with 6 people placed here. There is an equal distribution of
gender which resulted in the boys occupying one house and the girls another. The town is also witness to Cambodia's first ww-internal love relationship.

Holiday Day 1 - 3 (26.-28.10.09)

Long time ago I posted my last blog entry. At least, this lends some truth to its title, as it was partly in expectation of my future preoccupation/laziness that I chose it.
As I promised to give a detailed account of my holidays before and during the water festival (2.-4.11.), I will try to note down at least the most striking points now.

I spent the first day travelling to Phnom Penh, a largely uneventful, long journey (8 instead of 6 hours due to delays at the border of PP - The preparations for the Water Festival were already underway). Luckily, there was not so much karaoke music, however, a Khmer comedy was shown, during which the four somewhat disgusting men behind me continuously erupted into fits of laughter.

Having arrived in Phnom Penh and evaded the TukTuk drivers' ambush - a phenomenon I had quite forgotten during the peaceful months in Battambang - I walked to Moritz's, another weltwaerts-volunteer's place. Here, I was to spent the night in a 'deck chair in the living room in the company of an older Khmer woman, an acquaintance of one of Moritz's  flatmates. Though not the most comfortable lodging avaiable, it was certainly the cheapest and even included free pancakes as breakfast and dinner.

After a somewhat irritating visit to a noble hotel and casino called "Naga World" with Moritz and Matthias from Battambang the first evening, I spent the next day buying an acoustic guitar and sitting in free-wifi caffees, where I completed the last extensive entry on this blog.

The next day I had an early wake-up as my travelling schedule was rather tight. I was due to go to Siem Reap with Saskia on 29th and did not want to miss the opportunity of getting at least a brief impression of Kampong Cham, where she lives.

I therefore took the bus at 7:00 which took me to KC in 5 hours - a journey even less eventful than the first one, which was a good thing with regards to the journeys to follow.

In Kampong Cham, after resolving some confusions at the designated meeting place, I finally managed to arrive at Saskia's and Fabio's abode.
Here, we had a perfectly delicious self-cooked lunch (fortunately I was not involved in the process of its creation) on their idyllic terrace.
Afterwards, I accompanied Saskia to her workplace. We were a bit delayed as the bike we (read "I") were driving, was unwilling to go up a hill with our combined weight on its back and broke its chain.
When we arrived, there was not much work to do. I had a nice encounter with the head-monk of the organization (Buddhism for Society Development Agency: BSDA), whom I knew from a lecture he had given at our preparatory seminary. Saskia showed me around the place, which contained besides the office, a crafts school, a sewing centre, an Apsara school, English classrooms and an old temple beside which a pagoda was established.

In the evening, we had a beer (brand: Angkor) at the river(Mekong)side and tried to play some badminton. We had a phenomenal failure at this but succeed at entertaining the surrounding Khmer profoundly.
We had dinner at the BSDA-run "Smile" restaurant, where I made the acquaintance of a DED-worker in Kampong Cham, who was interesting due to his long experience in the work and his self-critical attitude.

Battambang Visual

I am very sorry for not updating in time. Right now the office is very busy with preparations for Friday's Forum, so I didn't find the time. Now, however, you have something to look at (especially all those of you tired of reading long texts). I now have a second blog: www.battambangvisual.blogspot.com
There, I will from now on post all my pictures. While I will briefly comment them, you will still have to visit here to get the whole story. As I love the written word, the emphasis will still remain with this blog and the articles I publish here, with Battambang Visual being something of an accompanying side-blog.
Right now, you can view lot's of pictures from my visits to Angkor, with more promised to come (especially after my next visit to Phnom Penh, when I will exchange pictures with Saskia, my travel companion).

Freetime - Breaktime

For your, my reader's sake, I'm quite sorry about the fact that during my holiday I did not develop enough passion for the written word to post something here. Now, that there is lots to write about, work consumes most of my time as tomorrows meeting and next weeks Forum need some planning. Therefore, it will only be next weekend that I will come to write new posts, however, these are sure to be extensive. For those tired of reading I also have delighting news, as I plan to establish a separate photo-blog with the only text being explanations of the photographs shown.

A(n) (un)typical working day

6:00 My phone rings – time to wake up

6:15 Finally managed to fall asleep again

7:00 Now it’s really time to get up. Jakob already got up to fetch breakfast with his moto.

7:20 I took a shower and Jakob is back with some baguettes. Breakfast time!

7:50 Breakfast is finished. Simone arrives on her bicycle and joins us for the remaining 10 minitues

8:00 Time to go to work. Today the schedule was a bit tight, as work starts at 8 and it takes 1-2 minutes to get there. Fortunately, you can count on the others being very patient.

8:15 Having spent some time discussing today’s activities with the other Teams, Neruh and I leave for Prek Luong commune, Ek Phnom district. The goal is to talk to some village leaders and the High School director to ask them for some youths to join our small meeting the next day.
I spend the drive in a state of half-consciousness. Not fully awake yet, I only perceive some single impressions: Wooden huts lining the road, Old women in street shops, a entire family manning a motorbike, palm trees on the riverside, a wooden bridge, a dirt road, a straw hut with some signs in front.
That last item turns out to be the commune office. We enter the (not so) big conference room. One wall is occupied by the Cambodian flag and the faces of the king and his parents (these insignia can be found in every official building, as well as in many NGO offices – ours included). On the opposite wall, there is another Cambodian flag, albeit an a-bit-out-of-date one – it is from the time of Vietnamese rule (1979-1989). When we close the windows before our departure and I have a closer look at the construction, I wonder what keeps the building from disintegrating.
We are greeted by a commune officer who is very willing to lend his aid; however, as he is new to the commune he cannot do so to a great extent. As we are not eager to await the arrival of the commune leader (in the afternoon), we let him introduce us to some of the village chiefs. Following his bicycle, we arrive at a street shop with an old woman inside. She kindly explains that her husband will be back for lunch and we agree to meet him then.
Again in the wake of the bicycle, we go to another street shop (apparently a favorite place for village leaders to live at). Here, we meet a middle aged man. The stylistic combination of fine black trousers and a ripped singlet makes an impression upon me. The village leader of Prek Luong, he welcomes our activities and in addition to assembling his village’s youth for the next day, he even offers a room for the meeting.
Next, we head for the nearby High School, as we think it a nice idea to have some youths from there join our meeting as well. Unfortunately, the principal doesn’t quite think so. Owning the tidiest office we had seen so far, with documents carefully ordered in folders and his inferiors working on wooden tables, supervised by the principal in persona from his comfortable office seat, he has used every inch of wall to cover it with statistics and royal insignia, not to forget numerous photographs showing him in the company of important personalities.
He would make a great German Kultusminister in the way he emphasizes the need for the students not to miss a single lesson – making it regrettably impossible for them to join our meeting.
He also expresses severe concerns about a Forum potentially taking place at his school – surely the young people would trample the grass and damage the interior. Only the prospect of inviting the police chief of Battambang somewhat softens his disposition towards us. He is suddenly even ready to give permission for a Forum – until 6 o’clock in the evening (it is supposed to last till 9).
Confronted with such convincing arguments, there is little left for us to do but to leave.

11:30 Lunchtime - time for us to revisit the first street shop. Here we meet the second village leader. A CCP cap hanging on the staircase indicated his party allegiance (not that this has to be taken for his political conviction – it’s just almost impossible for any official not to belong to “the party” if he wants to retain his office). A very friendly old man, he immediately agreed to assemble the youths for the upcoming meeting and even suggested a place for the “big meeting” which is to take place in November with participants from all three communes. With this site as our next destination we say goodbye to the village chief. A few hundred meters further down the dirt road, we find our “meeting hall”: a big open space floored and roofed with wood. We arrange to use it for our purpose with the few people who have set up their hammocks here.

12:00 we pay another visit to the chief of Prek Luong village to accept his offer to use the village’s assembly room for our small meeting the next day and buy some small cakes to strengthen us for the 5 minute ride to our last destination: The pagoda in Prek Kbop (the neighboring commune). We plan to use it for our forum, as we suspect the monks to be more cooperative than the village leader.

12:30 Our hopes have been fulfilled. The head monk, and the head of the villagers living at the commune have agreed to provide space for the Forum at the pagoda compound and will even lend us microphones and amplifiers. Now we only have to get the permission from the village leader of the surrounding area, which shouldn’t be too difficult, considering the number of village leaders we have already successfully dealt with today.
Note: I always write “we”, however, it is to be remarked that it it exclusively Neruh to whom these exploits have to be attributed, as he handled all the conversation (except with the monk who was quite proficient in English).

12.35 Opposite of the pagoda, we ask a boy where to find the village leader. He leads us through two backyards into the official’s kitchen. In the backyard, chicken are raised to be grilled later at the market. Although roofed by corrugated iron, it is only encompassed by the living room on one side and the toilets/bathrooms on the other. Over the elevated working space, a hammock is placed to allow for relaxation when there is no work to be done (this is a common and practical arrangement, which can also be seen in many street shops).
After dressing, the village chief invites us to have a tea at his dining table, crafted from tropical timber. Just like his predecessors, he is delighted with our plans and happy to allow us any activities in his area. Suddenly, an American woman descends the stairs, obviously on her way to the shower. Being a teacher at the pagoda’s English school, she already came to know the first generation of YFP volunteers in Battambang. As she rushed to the shower, there was little time for further conversation.
When lunch is ready, we leave our new friends to enjoy it and to have our own in the town. Again, it is quite a trip (15 or 20 minutes), but this time I am more alert to the surroundings, carefully noting the beauty of the rice fields, bordered by palm trees, the idyll of the river, the peculiar styles of buildings, the shabbiness of the outskirts of Cambodia’s second biggest town, the faces of the people expressing all the different emotions the human being can feel, but most of them smiling. But I’m getting romantic - that’s not my genre.

12.50 We arrive in Battambang. Neruh will have lunch at his home, we agree to meet at PTD at 14:30, so I start thinking about the kind of restaurant I want to visit today. Somehow I’m not in the mood for rice or noodles. Knowing the menu of “Madison Corner” by heart already, I decide to go to “Khmer Delight” to try some fusion food.
At KD I run into Jenny, the Swiss co-director of our cooperation NGO. She lives across the street and orders her food here. We make an appointment to have a lookout for guitars in Battambang the other day, as we both plan to buy one. I have a pizza topped with vegetables which does taste good, but is too small (especially considering my hunger and the price of $2.50). The pizzas size allows for a quick meal and leaves me with enough time to have a coffee at Madison Corner. Here I’m greeted with a hearty “Big coffee” which is exactly what I order. – The restaurant’s menu doesn’t contain a “big coffee” (only espresso-size). Jakob introduced it and he and I are the only ones ever ordering it. This explains our nicknames “big coffee” and “big coffee with milk” (Jakob).

14:25 Time to take a moto to PTD. Just before I arrive at the market, where all the moto-drivers wait for customers, a stray one approaches me. With his price ok, I jump on the backseat for the ride. The driver turns out to be very friendly and communicative and even offers a small discount when he learns that I work and live at PTD.

14:50 After a short Team discussion, Nehru and I again get going. This time, we are headed for the town center to recruit speakers and materials for our forum.

15:20 As ADHOC, one of the local Human Rights NGOs, is not staffed today, we go directly to the police station. The police chief is to be our main speaker after all. The police (especially the traffic police) is not exactly loved, so we entered the public relations office with a slight uneasiness. Befitting the image of strict executive power, it was furnished rather spartanly. The officer was not exactly hearty, but still cooperative and assured us that, as soon as we sent him a formal invitation, the police chief was ready to join the Forum, also the police would provide some movies about the subject of violence. Delighted at the easy success, we continued to meet with staff from Licadho, a second Human Rights NGO in Battambang. We had to wait some time, till a consultation was finished, which left me time to inspect the room closely. It was well equipped, with shelves, comfortable chairs and a computer. The walls were covered with posters advertising Human Rights. One of them struck my eye, as it was obviously from a Finnish NGO and read “Ihan tavallinen lapsuus”. Maybe my Finnish readers (are you out there?) can get some information on that one. I would certainly be interested in getting some.

16:10 I’m starting to get fed up with formal letters. Alright, Licadho is also happy to join the Forum and can provide some film footage on the gangster problem, but of course, a formal letter is a prerequisite. Nehru doesn’t even want to go to the department of women’s affairs without one, thinking the attempt futile. I can understand him. But with Piseth in Phnom Penh and not coming back for two weeks, there is little we can do to obtain one. Plus, I think it’s always good to have some informal talks with people, this keeps them informed, interested and sympathetic to us and our causes, at least that’s what I hope. At the department, we meet with three women, one of them heading the establishment. She makes a kind impression on me, and is indeed eager to cooperate. The request for a formal invitation is not much of a surprise and all in all, I leave this office with a sense of satisfaction at what we have achieved today. Nehru for his part, doesn’t seem as happy, which might well be due to the fact, that he had to do all the talking, which I consider a great but fatiguing job.

16:35 Back at PTD, there is a small setback, as we cannot print the lists for tomorrow’s meeting – the generator is already turned off. Nehru takes his leave and I also retire to my hammock to relax, read and wait for Jakob to come back from the slum school.

17:30 Jakob is back on his motorbike (the sound is unmistakable). As I’m overcome with a strong desire to sleep, I decide to revive myself by jogging half an hour or so.

18:30 I’m back from jogging. Well, it took a little longer. After watching a magnificent sunset on the fields, I was not quite sure which road to take – after half an hour of traversing unknown settlements, I was quite sure I had lost my way. As nobody knew of PTD, I asked for the road to Phsar Nat (the central market). The answer: Far, far to the south. Finally I arrived at a familiar crossroads. My legs are going to hurt tomorrow.

19:00 Back at Madison Corner, I have a vegetarian sandwich (mushrooms, onions, tomatoes, pickles and cheese) and a coconut (for drinking and eating). I spent some time in the internet and get a Khmer lesson from a very friendly Cambodian lady living in France. With her as strict teacher, I should be able to enlarge my vocabulary quite a bit in the weeks to come.

21.15 Tomorrow the time of awakening will be the same, so Jakob and I make our way to PTD.

21.25 A well established tradition, we spent the last minutes before sleeping in our hammocks, discussing whatever topics come to mind.

23.30 Once again, the discussion went a little out of hand. Time to finally go to bed!

It took some time to write everything down. The account is of the 22nd of October.
I know I still didn’t upload any pictures. I’m very sorry for that, but I promise an adequate compensation when I do upload some.

Initiation

While the last few days haven’t exactly been filled with work, they did contain other interesting events. Firstly, (ok this does concern work) we began concrete talks with Jenny, co-founder of Children’s Future International, our first cooperation NGO. We will probably start working with them after the end of water festival (4^th November), when both of us will be a bit better set-up (CFI is just starting its work, with their center still being a construction site – a state that is supposed to change within a month or so). There, we will work with children and youths of all ages from the poorest backgrounds, providing them with English and Khmer classes, offering our own workshops or simply having some fun with them.

Aside from that we were visited on the weekend by two volunteers from the first group. (There were two volunteer groups arriving in Cambodia via the DED, myself being part of the second one). While the weekend itself was fun, on Sunday I received my initiation as moto-driver – I fell the first time. While the scratch on my arm doesn’t look nice, it does heal well and will be a potent reminder to drive carefully (while it was not carelessness, but the combination of a fast driver coming my way and a hole on my way of evasion, that prompted the fall).

Tomorrow there will also be some more pictures, after I’ve had the time to edit them.

Lifestyle

This island forms the center of PTD and provides a nice space for dining (as long as it's not flooded like last night.
Some other houses at PTD, very similar style.
The landscape behind our house - an ideal breeding place for mosquitoes of all kinds.

My room, filled completely by my bed, wherein I spend my nights sleeping like a stone.

Our wonderful wooden house at PTD, with the (less wonderful, but still ok) Jakob in front.

Omniscient waiter

Ups and downs and constants, those are the elements the last two weeks were made of.
Coming back from the conference, I was still full of euphoria and an overwhelming desire to change the world (or for the moment, Ek Phnom district in Battambang, which is to be our target area.
However, this euphoria was quickly to be diminished. Still having received no funds, our project was all but nonexistent, which forced us to stay idle for another couple of days. Quite opposite to vacations from school, this “free time” did not exactly cause any joy for me.
I used the free days to study some more of the Khmer alphabet (of which I know at the moment about half, i.e. 50 letters) and to establish some constants of my life here. Unsurprisingly, these are exclusively tied to the subject of food. The first constant is the vegetarian restaurant I recently discovered at the 2½th street. It is a typical Khmer eatery, fitted with plastic chairs and ever-smiling staff that offers excellent vegetarian food for low prices and is frequented almost exclusively by Khmers.
The other constant is quite the opposite: It is a French bar/restaurant called “Madison Corner” that is frequented only by tourists and expats and is one of the most expensive places in town. It offers food of excellent quality, constituting a welcome variety from the typical Khmer vegetarian food. In addition, it serves the best coffee in town and has free access to the internet which is the reason why right now I’m enjoying a coffee here as well. The staff here knows Jakob and me already by name, and we seldom have to take a look at the menu, as most of the time, our orders are pre-known to the waiters. We also have established a good relationship with the French patron (who would better keep it up, if he doesn’t intend to loose his “meilleurs clients” as he once called us). This allows me to train my French a bit, which might turn out to be quite useful.

The next “up” in my work life occurred, when we met our Khmer counterparts, all of which are very sympathetic. They are all very proficient with the English language, which somewhat facilitates communication (a good thing, as the cultural differences do hamper it quite often already). But let’s take a look at them individually:

• Nareth is studying at the university; she is 22 years old and very good at English. She is very enthusiastic and active, having no fears to express her political opinion or addressing Piseth, our project official directly in order to ask for a change in working hours (to start at 8:00 instead of 7:30 AM – an action that earned her quite some sympathy with me). She works with Paula and Simone in the Training Team.

• Neruh is my partner in the Advocacy Team. He, too, is 22 years old and spends his weekends studying at university. He is very committed to the nonviolent ideals of YFP, despite planning to become an army official later in his life (a paradox that I’m still striving to comprehend). I discovered that he is very able in conversing with the authorities (his father being an official himself), a fact that may still serve us well in our work.

• Paula is the oldest of us all with 24 years of age. She is very patient and understanding and might well once be the island of tranquility in the team. Working with Nareth and Simone in the Training Team, she is also the best (written) translator of the team.

• Last but not least, Sopheeng is the only team member actually living in our target area at Ek Phnom. He likes to speak American slang, which he learned at the university which makes him sometimes a bit difficult to understand, but is still great fun. He works with Matthias in the Publication and Communication Team.

Knowing them for only about a week, there’s unfortunately not much more I can write yet, but it will be great to get them to know better, particularly, because it will make communication a lot easier when we get to know each other’s communication habits. (As for now it is still somewhat difficult to grab the actual meaning of each statement).

Unfortunately, despite having such a great Team, we still had to remain idle for another few days. During this time it the first thing I saw in the morning was Piseth’s face telling everybody how sorry he was not to have any work for us. We already went on the research for other NGOs to invest our workforce and motivation in.
Then finally on Wednesday the relieving message struck: We were to be funded for three months by DED.
Feelings then went continually upwards: During a two-day orientation workshop by Mr. Mony (the YFP program coordinator) we created a concrete action plan and got back all the motivation that had slipped away in the phases of idleness.
Now work can finally start!

Youth Participation Project: project structure

In order for you to understand the following entries I just want to make a brief outline of our project. I’ll do so in a dry, non-humoristic, but all the more informative way:
YFP as an organization based in Phnom Penh that organizes workshops and village dialogues all over the country. The Battambang branch of the organization called “Youth Participation Project” (YPP) is something of an anomaly in this context. It was established with the explicitly for the cooperation with the DED and the German volunteers arriving via that partner.
Last year seven German volunteers and an equal number of counterparts manned the project. However, there were reportedly some problems with overlapping competences and failing communications. Therefore, the project was reduced in size and the competences were clearly divided among three Teams, each of which was to consist of a Khmer and a German volunteer. The teams are as follows:

• Communication and Publication Team (CPT)
o Collecting information about all YFP activities as well as activities of other NGOs in Battambang.
o Publishing regular newsletter, advertisements and web-entries.
o Contacting other NGOs in order to cooperate with them, profit from their activities and offer them to profit from YPP’s.

• Training Team (TT)
o Organizing and providing Trainings to youths in the target area about subjects such as Good Governance, Human Rights, Environment, Domestic Violence etc.
o Facilitating trainings by guest speakers and inviting the guests.
o Organizing a mobile library to visit the villages.

• Advocacy Team (AdT)
o Creating and maintaining a youth network in the target area.
o Furthering participation of youths in the workings of the commune council.
o Organizing Forums in which youths have opportunity to meet with and ask questions to a local authority.
o Organizing field trips about different subjects and organizing actions on special occasions such as the Human Rights Day (10th of December).

The administrative work and the coordination of the Teams is the responsibility of Piseth, our project official. Every second week a Team meeting will be held to coordinate and synchronize activities.

Encounter of the second kind

When trying to get some sleep at PTD (Ptheah Toek Dong, our wonderful home for the moment), you are frequently confronted with several factors trying to prevent you from achieving your aim: Firstly, there are often some weddings taking place in the neighborhood, creating music at top volume for just about the whole night. Secondly, the nearby pagoda regularly let’s us profit from its sermons whenever there is a religious festivity (which occurs quite often, but is, on the other hand, quite understandable). Thirdly, there is the army of frogs inhabiting the pond at PTD, who have the habit of copulating at nighttime. We now had the very questionable luck of finding out about other beings with the same habit.
As the fourth factor disturbing as at night is a karaoke bar, starting to play their music at about 11 o’clock, we once had the idea of having a beer and having a look at the place. On our arrival we were guided to a little hut, open to the sides, with an elevated wooden floor. At first glance it looked like a nice concept for a restaurant, with each group of customers having their own space to dine. The fact that two young women were present was not yet irritating, as in Khmer restaurants it is common practice for one or multiple waiters to stand at the customers’ table, awaiting their orders.
It was only when they started touching as that the situation grew weird. We successfully managed to ignore them until our order arrived: Instead of the two beers we had ordered, a tray with about 30 of its kind was brought. Luckily, it was accompanied by the only English-speaking staff of the establishment. After some time we even managed to convince him that the only erotic experience we whished for that night was to be with our beers. Finally, the girls left the hut, leaving us to “enjoy” our beer, the only joy lying with the fact that after having finished it, we were free to leave. Since that night, the disturbance caused by nightly karaoke music has somewhat changed in quality.

Short Report

Since 4 days I am already back in Battambang, but a certain laziness (and another Aircon-induced cold) hindered me up to this point to write about the YFP-conference.
Within the main subject of the Khmer Rouge Regime and its legacy, the conference covered a broad range of sub-topics. Starting with a penal about the function of art in the process of transmitting memories and a small exhibition of Cambodian artists’ works, there was a series of art workshops throughout the 6 days. Another reoccurring unit was the Action Plan Workshop, wherein the participants were to think of a means to establish a memory culture in their own province. The results, although they were not very diverse (almost all groups planned to built either a stupa or a library), where accompanied by a great enthusiasm and determination on the participants’ side.
The great participation and eagerness for further implementation of the acquired knowledge (both sometimes a bit dimmed by a noticeable, but understandable – and self-experienced – fatigue) were heartening. What was still more unexpected and all the more welcome, was the interaction between the generations: The villagers and village chiefs - many of them survivors of KR-times, communicated with the youth on a basis of mutual respect and curiosity.
One focal point of the conference was the subject of child soldiers and how to treat former child soldiers. With a former, internationally renowned KR-child soldier called Arn Cham Pond, Nicolas Davis, a former child soldier from Liberia, now fighting against the use of CS in the Philippines and Emmanuel Jal, once a child soldier in Sudan, today a widely renowned HipHop musician, it was certainly the most internationalized subject and treated in quite some depth. [If you have the chance: Check out Emmanuel Jal, its worth it!!]

Back again

Unfortunately I don't have the time right now to write the extensive entry on the conference I'd like to publish, therefore you'll have to be patient some more time.
In any case, it would be great to have some more feedback to my posts, so feel free to comment and ask questions!!

Biking for Peace

Just a small message from Siem Reap. That's where I'm currently attending the conference "Youth together in Action for Memory Culture", which is the 4th peace conference organized by Youth for Peace. The next days I'll provide you with some more information on the contents (especially as I'm member of the report-team and therefore have to closely observe everything).
Today, after the opening ceremony everybody (about 200 younger and older people) took a bike to go "biking for peace" through Siem Reap.
While it's wonderful to see so many active, interested young (and also older) people, Siem Reap as a town is very touristic, which makes it annoying in certain ways; for example, I almost forgot how strenuous it was always to deny tuktuk drivers a ride, as in Battambang they're almost non-existant.
After the biking there was also an impressive art exhibition with art done by survivors of the Khmer Rouge era as well as some belonging to the younger generation.

Back to Battambang

Just to give you an idea of the (smaller) contrasts of the country, here is one picture of my favourite internet-cafe (left) and one taken from Gecko Cafe which is situated on top of it and where I'll go now in order to have a "cafe k'daeu ot da sko" (hot coffee without sugar).

Housing and more

The top two images were bot taken from the staircase of the Phnom Penh Guesthouse. In contrast to the outside bathrooms shown in the first picture - our Battambang bathrooms look quite similar except for being located on the ground - the second picture shows you part of the royal palace. Unfortunately, due to the high entrance fee, I never got to see that place from the inside (as opposed to the bathrooms).

The Apsara dancer is one of the favourite symbols of the country, you can not only see it on electricity agencies but also, for example in the ruling party's (CPP) logo, which means at just about every street corner.

Wat Phnom, from which Phnom Penh derives its name, is a nice place to look at from the outside. However, I failed to understand the reward you are supposed to get for the entrance fee.

Some more Phnom Penh

At the Independence Monument (left), there is a great roundabout (3 lanes - not that anybody would care about lanes on a street used about 80% by motos).
The special rules (like most traffik signs) have a rather symbolic meaning.

Tuol Sleng

I'm afraid, this is not among the nice issues about Cambodia, but among the most important. After having watched a play about the Khmer Rouge era and how it is or should be handled today ("Breaking the Silence") - an impressive play by a Dutch playwright performed in traditional Cambodian theatre style - we visited Tuol Sleng the other day.

This is a small selection of pictures from the Tuol Sleng genocide museum. The site, a former school, was in the Khmer Rouge era (1975-79) transformed into a central place for internation, interrogation, torture and murder, the S21 prison. Much of the place is still in its original state, like the cell in the last picture, with only some pitures and texts on the walls serving as information. In other rooms, there are exhibitions or texts of information.

Among the most impressive/disturbing experiences in the museum were the countless photographs of the prison's victims. When you see these faces, from children to elderly, you can be sure, that all of these lifes were destroyed.

As you may have noticed, this visit took place while we were still in Phnom Penh. Due to the fact, that only now I found a possibility to upload pictures I am now retelling some episodes from the Phnom Penh time, which I can now illustrate.

TukTuks

A typical scene in Phnom Penh - wherever there is a Hotel or Guesthouse, you can certainly find a number of Tuk Tuks. This picture was taken right in front of our Guesthouse (The entrance is just in front of the first TukTuk on the right hand side).

Adaptation Strains

The main reason this blog didn't get updated recently was myself not quite feeling able to compose anything. Having arrived in Battambang I would actually have expected to catch another flu in the Aircon bus. However, when I awoke the next day it was with some great headache and fever. It subsided over the next two days but was immediately followed by my first little diarreah. Fortunately, that one's over as well, but you can imagine that my urge to feed the web with impressions were quite diminished at the time. (And during the fever, they would anyway have been limited to the confines of my hotel room and the news from BBC).
In that hotel room I even watched some "Deutsche Welle" which currently seems rather exotic to me. (Despite the fact that most of the time, I am still very much surrounded by Germans).
I hope that one of these days I manage to remember taking my camera with me so I can share some pictures with you.
The only part of my body that still feels very much unadapted (except for my brain), is unfortunately my skin. A constant itching accompanies me just about everywhere. Tonight it also combined with a nearby wedding party to rob my sleep. One more reason to be glad, there's still some holiday ahead.
Only on the 20th will we leave for a 6Day conference in Siem Reap (Youth for Justice and Reconciliation) where we are co-writers of the report. Those will be our first days of work here.

Fast changing Scenes

The last Days in Phnom Penh just rushed past. For one and a half weeks I had looked forward to quit the huzzle and buzzle of the city and resettle to quiet Battambang. I spent the last half week regretting having to leave it. Something I will particularly miss is the variety of food you are offered there. Especially for me as a vegetarian the Indian and Nepalese restaurants near Sihanouk Boulevard are a paradise (Khmer vegetarian food is usually rather one-sided consisting of rice with vegetables and noodles with vegetables, both also avaiable as a soup).
In those last days it also got apparent that Friedrich had caught salmonellae and had to stay in Phnom Penh some more days together with Sophie and Philip, who couldn't leave for overflooded Kampot yet.
The rest of the Battambang crew (Simone, Jakob, Matze, me) and Monika, our 'Mentor' boarded the bus on tuesday. It was heavily airconditioned and provided the interesting, yet annoying possibility to gain insight into Khmer dreams via karaoke videos. These depictured almost exclusively countryside romances (without so much as a kiss as sexual interaction) and were shown almost the entire trip (7 hours or so) on high volume.
In Battambang we stayed the first four nights at the "Royal Hotel". In comparison with "Okay Guesthouse" in Phnom Penh it almost deserved the title (at the same price).
Yesterday we then moved to Phteah Teuk Dong (in English: Coconut Houses) a local NGO that provides homes and vocational training for street families. Jakob will work there and the Youth for Peace office is also located in the little settlement.
We now live with 4 Persons (Jakob, Matze, Friedrich and me) in a two-room wooden house on stakes, not sure whether it is an arrangement to last. For the moment, it has an idyllic appeal, but not much in the way of comfort.

The Food Chain: Lexus' - Tuk tuk's - Motos - me

Although I'm right now sitting in the Gecko's Cafe in Battambang, I'd like to share some more Phnom Penh impressions with you first (although they also apply to some extent to the situation here).
A very rewarding experience for me, was to rent a bicycle and cruise around the city, with the only purpose of taking pictures of some of the sights. Well, I did so, but I largely forgot about taking pictures, as it was such fun to take part in the City's traffik. As you can read in most tourist guides (I read quite a lot of them already), traffik is largely chaotic. It does not, for example constitute a problem to drive on the opposite side of the street or even to drive into a roundabout the wrong way. As long as you have mirrors and a helmet on your head, just about the only reason the police will stop you for is to collect some extra fee (as a police officer's wage is by far to high enough to support a family, this is very understandable).
The horn is commonly used to reveal one's own presence to anybody who could just potentially not have noticed you yet (in the consequence, it gets used a lot). The only rule that is almost universial is the rule of size. If you are big and your car fits through thew street, then you can usually drive, if you are small, you wait. By the way, there are some traffik signs, but those are almost completely neglected. The only traffik lights I've seen so far were on some major crossings in Phnom Penh (and were only partly observed).
All this might convey the impression of Phnom Penh's traffik being very, very dangerous. However, from my experience, this is not true. Let me give you some examples:
As a pedestriant, if you want to cross a street, you can just wait for a safe moment to start and then cross the street at a steady, determined pace (in most cases you don't even have to look right or left) - the motos, tuk tuks cars and other vehicles will simply evade you.

Also as bicycle-driver, you don't really get a feeling of danger or fear. This is largely due to the fact that trafik is pretty slow (it is rare to see someone driver faster than 4okm\h in the city). However, it is also due to the smoothness of traffik. It is almost like an invisible ballet, where everybody knows his part. A truly chaotic ballet, but a working one nevertheless, and beautiful in a special way.

Note on Motodubs (called motos) and Tuktuks: These constitute the
public inner-city transport of Cambodia. Motos are usual motorbikes with a big backseat, where up to two big (not too big maby, about my size) or three smaller persons can be accomodated. Tuktuks are moto-drawn vehicles with two seats. The comfortable number of persons to drive with one is 4, while you can easily fit in 7 or even 8.

In Phnom Penh, you tend to quickly develop a phobia towards drivers of such vehicles as they inviations for a ride accompany you everywhere. Logical barriers (you just descended from a tuktuk, so you are not very likely to ascend another immediately) don't hinder them, yet their questions can usually be satisfied by a dismissive hand gesture, mopst people quickly adopt. (Believe me, it is strenous to pronounce a "no" every third step).

Interruption

As some of you might have perceived, the flow of informations did cease for quite some time. I whish to apologize for this to those of you who do indeed have an interest in receiving new Impressions from Cambodia. The major reasons for this lapse (besides myself being lazy) can be found in the following posts "Adaptation strains" and "Fast changing scenes". I hope you enjoy reading anyway :)

Eating into a country

You get to know a country by eating its food. At least that's my conviction nowadays. When I try to remember today's events, the vastly greatest amount of time seems to have been 'çonsumed' by eating. starting with rice soup in the morning, via some fried vegetables with egg and chili at the so called 'russian market' (not that you could find any russians there), many many sweet little baked sweets and fruits and ending with some wonderful veetarian noodle dish in the evening in a green oasis of a restaurant. - I have to admit, that last one was rather some tourist/upperclass food, but also the food from the many little street vendors is great - Besides, buying edibles is also a great opportunity to employ what little khmer we have learned already (which can also earn you a not-so-tourist-discount).
In the 'freetime' (i.e. the time, I didn't spent eating), I walked a great lot around the city, gathering some wonderfully diverse impressions of life in the markets and streets. We (i.e. some other volunteers and me) also visited the so-called Olympia stadium, where in the afternoon the Khmer (the Cambodians) enjoy themselves doing Aerobics (in the early evening there are lots and lots of people to be found on the squares of town as well with the same hobby). Tomorrow we will likely return there to do some swimming.
At this point I would already like to apologies for not having sent (nor made) any pictures yet. I will probaly start doing so tomorrow or the day after (I don't give any promises). My main reason is, that I first want to get to know the place for myself without a lense in front of my eye and with the possibility to then take some really good, non-tourist pictures (although I doubt to succeed). I hope all you readers are having a great time, wherever you may be.

First impressions

There are many, many impressions coming down on me all day here in Phnom Penh.
It's the end of the second day of our preperatory seminar here. (the days start around 7 o'clock with the sun rising at 6 and going down before 19).
After a very tiresome, but smooth, day of travel, most of us were still very tired yesterday (the night was quite short, as it wasn't easy to fall asleep). The temperatures are around 28 degrees I suppose, but due to the moist air it feels like 35.
I love the city, but I will probably be quite happy to leave to smaller Battambang in a little while, where I will spent the rest of my year.
Among the many things to get used to (the non-existent traffic rules, especially interesting when taking a ride on a mototaxi, the climate, the fact of not knowing the language, the conflict between trying to be an actual 'volunteer' and being regarded as and behaving like a tourist, the contrasts of rich an poor you run across ever so often) the usage of internet cafes is just another. Because of this, and the flood of impressions, my first reports will likely be as short of length and detail as this one is.
However, you can look forward to more elaborate ones, once I start getting used to the climate and the environment.

First Statement

Not much to say at this point. I'm still in Bochum, Germany without having realized anything about the fact that I'm about to leave for Cambodia in a few hours.
I'm happy about your visit to my blog, but if you want some additional information, I'm afraid you'll have to wait a couple of days.