Thursday, June 5, 2008
Monday, June 2, 2008
Monday - Cambodia's middle class and the poorest people in PP: A day of extreme contrasts
Today was a day of contrasts- I began my new job in the morning at the international school. I teach 2nd grade children but they range in age up to 12 years old. There are 10-15 in my class – a perfect number. Only 3 girls though. They seem like good children although clearly have their naughty moments! I now have my grade 2 science book and English book to get started on as homework.
Following on from International Children’s Day the school had Heritage Day –eg. What makes the children proud of where they come from. Part of this day, as a special treat for the children a magician was coming to the school. At the weekend I had read a very funny article in the Phnom Penh Post about Solo, Cambodian’s premier magician. He abstains from sex and alcohol to improve his magic the article said. What asked how he prepared for shows he replied “When I used to perform regularly, I got up at midnight to meditate and I didn’t eat wildlife, drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes or have sex because all these things weaken your magical powers. After I got married, I stopped learning a lot of new magic because I couldn’t stop myself from doing all of these things. Today, before every show I rehearse the whole routine five times in front of the mirror. Nowadays, I learn new tricks from catalogues and DVDs I buy in Singapore. I am now learning a new big trick. When I’ve mastered it, I will perform on Cambodian Television Network and Bayon TV.” This man has performed for the King of Cambodia.
People’s answers in interviews are quite odd and frank here. When asked why he changed his name to Solo his answer was just simply that “I thought if I had a name like Solo it would be easier to become famous”!
For the exciting full article see: http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/200805294826/Post-Life/Sex-booze-and-exotic-meat-put-on-hold-for-magic-s-sake.html
Following on from International Children’s Day the school had Heritage Day –eg. What makes the children proud of where they come from. Part of this day, as a special treat for the children a magician was coming to the school. At the weekend I had read a very funny article in the Phnom Penh Post about Solo, Cambodian’s premier magician. He abstains from sex and alcohol to improve his magic the article said. What asked how he prepared for shows he replied “When I used to perform regularly, I got up at midnight to meditate and I didn’t eat wildlife, drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes or have sex because all these things weaken your magical powers. After I got married, I stopped learning a lot of new magic because I couldn’t stop myself from doing all of these things. Today, before every show I rehearse the whole routine five times in front of the mirror. Nowadays, I learn new tricks from catalogues and DVDs I buy in Singapore. I am now learning a new big trick. When I’ve mastered it, I will perform on Cambodian Television Network and Bayon TV.” This man has performed for the King of Cambodia.
People’s answers in interviews are quite odd and frank here. When asked why he changed his name to Solo his answer was just simply that “I thought if I had a name like Solo it would be easier to become famous”!
For the exciting full article see: http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/200805294826/Post-Life/Sex-booze-and-exotic-meat-put-on-hold-for-magic-s-sake.html
Here is the "amazing" Solo and his car finding bird.
It made me realise just exactly how small Phnom Penh is when the children’s magician was none other than the famous sex deprived Solo. The magic show was basic and involved 2 dogs (poodles) in sparkly coats (red and pink), a dove (that apparently flys into the car after the trick?!) and various bits of rope (not necessarily used all together.... Anyway, the children liked it but I was left wondering how much the not eating of meat/no sex affected the show and whether it was really worth it.
In the afternoon I went to the CCH orphanage. Steung Meanchy is Phnom Penh’s municipal garbage dump. All the children at CCH have been rescued from this site – They are all orphans and had no adult looking after them on the dump. Today, I planned to go and see the dump for the first time. One of the older children, srey Pov, took me and Penny to the land fill site. We travelled from the orphanage to the dump by tuk tuk for about 10 minutes. The drive took us though many back streets of one roomed wooden shacks then all of a sudden we were at the edge of the dump – A vast expanse of plastic bags and rubbish lay before us.
Srey Pov, took us onto the rubbish and we began to talk over the mound of plastic towards the rubbish pickers. Clouds of black smoke filled the air from the fires. The dump certainly is a 100-acre mountain of smoking, decaying, gloopy waste.
I spent some time talking to Srey Pov to find out what her life was like at the dump before CCH. It is difficult to talk about these things when there are usually 30+ orphans wanting attention. She moved to Phnom Penh with her parents and 2 brothers from the provinces. She spent sometime on the streets of Phnom Penh before going to the dump. She lived there from the age of 5 to 10. Her mother and father died of AIDs and I think that she went to CCH when she was 12/13 years old.
I learnt that at the dump the rubbish pickers can earn 100 riel (about 5p) for 1kg of plastic or 100 riel for 2 cans. On a good day the rubbish pickers can make $3. This is more than they would make in the province which is why many come. The people were also collecting mounds of food mainly rice they had found in the rubbish. Covered in flies, foul smelling – I was so relieved to hear that they were only collecting it as pig food not to eat for themselves. I hope this is true and it doesn’t turn out to be someone’s evening meal tonight.
Srey Pov used to scour the dump every day for plastic, cans and glass. I cannot begin to imagine what it would be like to have no escape from that place. The land moves as you walk on it – as the rubbish turns to black sludge, you move with it. We were lucky it had not rained for 5 days or so. Being there in the wet must be a nightmare. People silently picked rubbish around us. Srey Pov talked to some of them to get the answers to some of the questions I had for them and her. Some people were surrounding the new dump trucks coming in to the site. Others were going through the day’s findings sorting it into piles to sell. One of the recyclers told us that once she buys the rubbish she sells it in Phnom Penh and the glass, cans and plastic then go to Vietnam. As we stood talking I looked down and aw I was practically standing on a dead rat no smaller than a cat. Its legs stuck in the air flies all over it. Truly hideous. We walked past one of the houses actually on the dump itself. An open shack, no walls, just a hammock (for the baby). Flies everywhere.
We walked further into the dump – more of the same spread for what seemed like miles. A vast area. Small steams of disgusting “water” ran around the edges of the mountains of the rubbish. A man walked across the site with a rice bag full of rubbish. Liquid was oozing out of it as the rubbish was rotting inside so badly. The people here have no idea that the fumes and the needles they are exposed to every minute of their day and night are deadly. The CCH children try to educate the people by performing role plays and educational songs on Sundays to the people at the sump and other deprived areas.
The dump is definitely a living hell. However, without sounding too much like a “do gooder” CCH is an amazing place giving hope to children like Srey Pov who is about to leave to go to Japan for 3 months to train as a hairdresser. She will come back before going again, the next time for a whole year. Eventually she would like to be a doctor. She has learnt English in 2 years. An awe inspiring young woman.
Photos to be provided – A disposable camera was used to save theft.
It made me realise just exactly how small Phnom Penh is when the children’s magician was none other than the famous sex deprived Solo. The magic show was basic and involved 2 dogs (poodles) in sparkly coats (red and pink), a dove (that apparently flys into the car after the trick?!) and various bits of rope (not necessarily used all together.... Anyway, the children liked it but I was left wondering how much the not eating of meat/no sex affected the show and whether it was really worth it.
In the afternoon I went to the CCH orphanage. Steung Meanchy is Phnom Penh’s municipal garbage dump. All the children at CCH have been rescued from this site – They are all orphans and had no adult looking after them on the dump. Today, I planned to go and see the dump for the first time. One of the older children, srey Pov, took me and Penny to the land fill site. We travelled from the orphanage to the dump by tuk tuk for about 10 minutes. The drive took us though many back streets of one roomed wooden shacks then all of a sudden we were at the edge of the dump – A vast expanse of plastic bags and rubbish lay before us.
Srey Pov, took us onto the rubbish and we began to talk over the mound of plastic towards the rubbish pickers. Clouds of black smoke filled the air from the fires. The dump certainly is a 100-acre mountain of smoking, decaying, gloopy waste.
I spent some time talking to Srey Pov to find out what her life was like at the dump before CCH. It is difficult to talk about these things when there are usually 30+ orphans wanting attention. She moved to Phnom Penh with her parents and 2 brothers from the provinces. She spent sometime on the streets of Phnom Penh before going to the dump. She lived there from the age of 5 to 10. Her mother and father died of AIDs and I think that she went to CCH when she was 12/13 years old.
I learnt that at the dump the rubbish pickers can earn 100 riel (about 5p) for 1kg of plastic or 100 riel for 2 cans. On a good day the rubbish pickers can make $3. This is more than they would make in the province which is why many come. The people were also collecting mounds of food mainly rice they had found in the rubbish. Covered in flies, foul smelling – I was so relieved to hear that they were only collecting it as pig food not to eat for themselves. I hope this is true and it doesn’t turn out to be someone’s evening meal tonight.
Srey Pov used to scour the dump every day for plastic, cans and glass. I cannot begin to imagine what it would be like to have no escape from that place. The land moves as you walk on it – as the rubbish turns to black sludge, you move with it. We were lucky it had not rained for 5 days or so. Being there in the wet must be a nightmare. People silently picked rubbish around us. Srey Pov talked to some of them to get the answers to some of the questions I had for them and her. Some people were surrounding the new dump trucks coming in to the site. Others were going through the day’s findings sorting it into piles to sell. One of the recyclers told us that once she buys the rubbish she sells it in Phnom Penh and the glass, cans and plastic then go to Vietnam. As we stood talking I looked down and aw I was practically standing on a dead rat no smaller than a cat. Its legs stuck in the air flies all over it. Truly hideous. We walked past one of the houses actually on the dump itself. An open shack, no walls, just a hammock (for the baby). Flies everywhere.
We walked further into the dump – more of the same spread for what seemed like miles. A vast area. Small steams of disgusting “water” ran around the edges of the mountains of the rubbish. A man walked across the site with a rice bag full of rubbish. Liquid was oozing out of it as the rubbish was rotting inside so badly. The people here have no idea that the fumes and the needles they are exposed to every minute of their day and night are deadly. The CCH children try to educate the people by performing role plays and educational songs on Sundays to the people at the sump and other deprived areas.
The dump is definitely a living hell. However, without sounding too much like a “do gooder” CCH is an amazing place giving hope to children like Srey Pov who is about to leave to go to Japan for 3 months to train as a hairdresser. She will come back before going again, the next time for a whole year. Eventually she would like to be a doctor. She has learnt English in 2 years. An awe inspiring young woman.
Photos to be provided – A disposable camera was used to save theft.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Action packed children's day... (Sunday)
On June 2006, approximately one thousand police and military police forces gathered in Sambok Chab village heavily armed with rifles, electric batons, tear gas and riot gear. They bagan to began evict more than 1,000 families to make way for a development project financed by a private company.
They threatened human rights monitors and local and international journalists, and then confiscated their cameras and prevented them from recording police actions. The Phnom Penh Municipality chose to use violent means against the poor people rather than using a non-violent, transparent. There were standoffs and turmoil before police stormed the village, dismantled homes and trucked reluctant squatters and their belongings to an undeveloped site some 25 kilometers outside city limits.
On the new land there were a few public latrines, no drainage, no sanitation, no electricity, no water supply, no shops, markets or schools and no opportunity for employment. Human rights groups blasted the removal as inhumane, and the new residences -- 4-by-12-meter plots with no structures or facilities - as unacceptable compensation.
This Friday the evicted people will have been there 2 years. They now have made what they can of the settlement area with make-shift houses and and NGOs have created an area/centre for people to meet. There is now the fear that as land prices have gone up again these people may be evicted from their new site. Land in the new area now fetches about $3000 per square metre. The villagers have not got the title to the land yet - as promised. This is something that LICHADO, a human rights/legal NGO is trying to obtain for them before the election which is due to take place in July. They are also still trying to get these people access to a constant water supply - At present they are still not connected and have only pumps with limited water.
Within the last couple of years there has been a striking increase in land disputes within Cambodia. The judicial system is misused to threaten communities with arrest and imprisonment, excessive force is used, including use of the military, during evictions. Thousands of landowners and occupiers are forcefully displaced, and often reduced to destitute living conditions without adequate food, water, shelter, and health, education and other services. Many of the people who were displaced from Sambok Chab could not stay in their new area - there was nothing. The returned to Phnom Penh to live on the streets. Many people still send one family memeber to Phnom Penh to work and live on the streets whilst the others stay behind in the settlement.
On Sunday, I helped LICHADO with a fun day at the centre for some of the children displaced by the eviction.
We arrived about 1 hour later.
The children were on a parade and were just returning to begin the fun. First they were organised into groups and given bags of food that children like: crackers, dried meat, nuts etc and then there were a number of speeches in Khmer.
This was followed by large buckets of squash for the children. They then began the activities: painting; juggling; dancing; mask making; face painting, sack races.
After the shows the acivities continued and after I took a picture of one of the children suddenly about 15 teenagers all wanted their picture taken over and over again. First, just by themselves, then with their best friend, then a group shot, then all over again with a friend who had just arrived. It was hilarious and I think they enjoy it because a) they probably don't get to mess around on camera much, I suspect the NGOs take the pictures they need of events etc but not personal photos and b) Khmers I believe just have a fondness for posing for the camera.
I then helped out with some of the activities and amused the younger children with countless photographs. It was a fantasic day. The children were having an amazing time and were friendly even though they did not really speak English my Khmer and non verbal communication skills improved a lot!
The end of the day was a dance .... then pack up to go home on the truck. By the end of the day, at 4pm I returned home exhaused and very, very, very dirty!
They threatened human rights monitors and local and international journalists, and then confiscated their cameras and prevented them from recording police actions. The Phnom Penh Municipality chose to use violent means against the poor people rather than using a non-violent, transparent. There were standoffs and turmoil before police stormed the village, dismantled homes and trucked reluctant squatters and their belongings to an undeveloped site some 25 kilometers outside city limits.
On the new land there were a few public latrines, no drainage, no sanitation, no electricity, no water supply, no shops, markets or schools and no opportunity for employment. Human rights groups blasted the removal as inhumane, and the new residences -- 4-by-12-meter plots with no structures or facilities - as unacceptable compensation.
This Friday the evicted people will have been there 2 years. They now have made what they can of the settlement area with make-shift houses and and NGOs have created an area/centre for people to meet. There is now the fear that as land prices have gone up again these people may be evicted from their new site. Land in the new area now fetches about $3000 per square metre. The villagers have not got the title to the land yet - as promised. This is something that LICHADO, a human rights/legal NGO is trying to obtain for them before the election which is due to take place in July. They are also still trying to get these people access to a constant water supply - At present they are still not connected and have only pumps with limited water.
Within the last couple of years there has been a striking increase in land disputes within Cambodia. The judicial system is misused to threaten communities with arrest and imprisonment, excessive force is used, including use of the military, during evictions. Thousands of landowners and occupiers are forcefully displaced, and often reduced to destitute living conditions without adequate food, water, shelter, and health, education and other services. Many of the people who were displaced from Sambok Chab could not stay in their new area - there was nothing. The returned to Phnom Penh to live on the streets. Many people still send one family memeber to Phnom Penh to work and live on the streets whilst the others stay behind in the settlement.
On Sunday, I helped LICHADO with a fun day at the centre for some of the children displaced by the eviction.
We arrived about 1 hour later.
The children were on a parade and were just returning to begin the fun. First they were organised into groups and given bags of food that children like: crackers, dried meat, nuts etc and then there were a number of speeches in Khmer.
This was followed by large buckets of squash for the children. They then began the activities: painting; juggling; dancing; mask making; face painting, sack races.
Watching the juggling with amazement... and wanting a go.
After the shows the acivities continued and after I took a picture of one of the children suddenly about 15 teenagers all wanted their picture taken over and over again. First, just by themselves, then with their best friend, then a group shot, then all over again with a friend who had just arrived. It was hilarious and I think they enjoy it because a) they probably don't get to mess around on camera much, I suspect the NGOs take the pictures they need of events etc but not personal photos and b) Khmers I believe just have a fondness for posing for the camera.
I then helped out with some of the activities and amused the younger children with countless photographs. It was a fantasic day. The children were having an amazing time and were friendly even though they did not really speak English my Khmer and non verbal communication skills improved a lot!
The end of the day was a dance .... then pack up to go home on the truck. By the end of the day, at 4pm I returned home exhaused and very, very, very dirty!
International Children's Day/Weekend (Saturday)
This Sunday 1 June was International Children's Day. On Saturday I got up at 6.30am to travel to Stung Meanchy and the CCH orphanage to watch the students dance at a ceremony at their school. I had no idea what to expect and was just invited to go along.
I got to the orphanage at 7.30am and a student walked down the road to take me to the school. It became apparent this was a little more than the "school fete" I had in mind. I immediately wished I had worn something a little smarter - but at least I was culturally appropriate with shoulders and knees covered. I was invited to sit on top table! I was horrified when the speeches started and everyone at the table was introduced in Khmer to the crowd of children and stood to bow to the audience... luckily they had the decency to pass over the non Khmer non important people although when the people started doing speeches I was concerned again and started to think of something appropriate to say in case of emergency...! So there we were with the Mayor, the local chief monk and various other important "celebrities" at the school.
The national anthem was sung, the flag raised and CCH did their first of 3 dances. Traditional Khmer apsara dances. They were excellent and I felt very proud to be involved with these children's lives - All the dancers came from CCH. No other school children were involved with their dances and that emphasised to me again that that these children had come so very far from their days on the dump site.
After dance number 1. We had speeches 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 etc etc - There were many of them and I understood nothing. Being on top table I had to look interested and smile. The children made no such effort and although remained standing/seated in the same place (generally) they talked amongst themselves during the speeches especially so through the Mayor's! (at least I think he ws the Mayor).
Dance number 2 woke the children up - in traditional costume. Then books were given out by the important people at the top table and then finally one more apsara dance by CCH. The formal ceremony was then over and CCH then began to perform live music for all of the other children to dance to.
After returning to CCH to congratulate the children I returned home with the intention of visiting them at the water park later in the day where they were going for a special treat. However, upon arriving at the park it appeared that the whole of Cambodia was taking their child to the water park for Children's Day. So much so that the road was absolute grid lock, children walking everywhere with motos on the same pavement...pollution, dust, heat. Children were scaling the outer fences of the water park to get in as they had shut the gates due to crowding.... It seemed only right to go home and then visit Phnom Penh's premier shopping mall to have an ice cream.
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