Christmas in Phnom Penh 2010

Ewan listening to some carol singers outside Sovanna

This is our first Christmas in Phnom Penh! So what is it like? What is the same what is different and what is the same? It is strange having Christmas when it is 32 degrees outside in a country where christmas is not really celebrated...there are the obligitary tacky tinsel up in some shops and a few santas but it is essentially an imported holiday.

Sovanna Shopping Centre

It is amazing what we take for granted in the UK...being able to do Tescos delivery order to avoid shopping, getting nearly all your presents in one shop, family and friends nearby, carol services and treats on special offer.
This year Christmas crept up on me as there was not the constant reminder from shop displays, adverts and music. When you don't have all the trappings around you get to choose what you want your Christmas to look like....  it was nice to be able to make Christams what we wanted it to be.

So what was Christmas to us? A time to share, give and spend time with family and remember Jesus who came to the world. It needed imagination and perseverance to do this and sometimes was frustrating. ithink when you don't have things and have to work hard to get them it makes you appreciate everything so much more. There was great excitement when we found something like a nice cheese or the cranberry sauce. Having family and friends to share it with makes it so much more fun.

Here are some of our unique Phnom Penh Christmas experiences....

Lucia waiting at moto park at Russian Market

*Searching high and low in shops to find the turkey, cranberry sauce, cheese, ham, sausages and yummy things to eat. This involved going to about five different shops all around the city not knowing if you would get something even though you saw it last week.
* Shopping with my mum in the market and seeing who can get the best deal...she is a very good bargainer!
*Trailing round the hot busy Olympic market with Colin (he was not so pleased) to find the presents...took nearly 2 hours to find a Liverpool football kit for Jamie..everywhere else had Chelsea or Arsenal.
*Taking a break from Christmas shopping at Brown at a new Cambodian run coffee shop.

Colin in Browns

*Making christmas crackers from coloured tissue from the market and cereal boxes.
*Coffee cake and coffee for Christmas breakfast...my familys Christmas tradition
*Cooking an entire Christmas dinner for 12 in an oven the size of a microwave.
*Having to call out a locksmith on Christmas day because the door handle came off the door of the bedroom my parents were staying in..my dad was trapped inside!
*Making homemade Gingerbread lattes

Santa had a Korean influence this year

Christmas morning

*Having Mike and Jo (my brother and his wife) for Christmas (the first time ever)

Mike and Jo

*The church next door having a big Christmas party next door (including loudspeakers!!) just as we were serving up Christmas dinner...fortunately they stopped and ate a little bit later
*Having a Christmas service in Khmer...no carols or candles! but great food afterwards.

Jubille Family Church

*Being given curry on Christmas day by our Christian neighbours (just after we had finished Christmas dinner!!!)
*Singing Christmas carols with family and friends with the warm tropical breeze blowing through the doors.

Boys with boys toys!

My brother did a reading at the end of Christmas day about how we as people come in packaging. Some have nice pretty ribbons and paper but others sometimes have torn paper or are damaged or broken. WE should not look at the outside but inside and see the true gift of the person inside. The person who Jesus sees and the reason why there is a Christmas to celebrate.

Words,Marshmallow Hot Chocolate and Stationary

This morning I had to drag myself out of bed at 5:45...ok well the alarm went off at 5:45 and I had to be in the lobby by 6:20 to get the bus. it was tight! Me and Jane were do excited by the Special K with Strawberries (simple things make us happy) the guys were not so excited by that. We were disappointed byt the tea and couldn't understand why it wasnt turning brown ..it was some sort of yellowish colour, until we relaised we had put the chinese tea in!

The conference was inspirong. The firs tkey note speaker was talking about the media and the influence for good and bad that it has on out children. I went to workshops on teaching ESL kids one on learning the other on writing, digital portfolios (@ Fiona if you are reading this you have done a great job with the wiki ..you ticked lots of boxes so thumbs up!!) and Motivating Teachers. The most inspirational of all was a lady called Dr. Josephine Kim who talked about being culturally sensitive but it was really her testimony of how she switched between Korean and American culture and eventually went to an international school. She shared how one teacher in America turned her life around and made her feel worth something,. I had tears in my eyes. Also how the hard times in her life when she was confused as to where she belonged helped to shape her into the person who she is now,a lecturer in Harvard University.

We met with some other teachers from Cambodia and prayed as this is a  national day of morning for the 339 people who died on Sunday and over 1,000 injured.

We went to find somewhere to eat at teh shopping centre and ended up at Burger King (we ate all Korean yesterday!) Then a coffee and cream puff in Dunkin Donuts. They have these cool gadgets. When you by a drink you get a balck disc like a spaceship.When your drink is ready it lights up!!
After this I went shopping....got some little goodies for my lovely family!!!

Suwon

I left Phnom Penh last night, and it was warm almsot hot to go to Korea for an education conference with three other teachers from HOPE. The plane was delayed so we didnt leave until 12:30 midnight. Fortunately I was able to catch a little bit of sleep only to be woken up at about 4am for breakfast. (it was very nice) We arrived at about 7:30 am and got out of the plane and could see my breath...so lovely and cold.

                               

We then had a but journey of about 1 1/2 hours to Suwon the town we are staying in. The youth hostel we were satying in was not on the bus route so we had to get a taxi but before we got the taxi we spotted a Dunkin Dounut and we had to stop for breakfast! There were so many yummy dounuts and as we are so starved of anything like this in Cambodia it took a little while for us to decide. It is funny how when you go to a new country you unconsciously look fo the familiar and when you find it, everything starts to slide into place.

When we took the taxi we found that the youth hostel in in the old walled city of Suwon overlooked by a hill covered in maple tree in a wonderful range of yellow, orange and red leaves. There are even leaves on the ground to swish through! (Jane one of the other teachers got very excited about this. The youth hostel is very nice and in such a great location. The rest of the city reminds me of a tired town in England...lots of tall grey buildings, but the part we are in has all the history.

All we wanted to do was check in and put our heads down but the rooms were not ready. Fortunately one teacher came a day early so we went and put all the luggage in that room and sat down for a bit (sorry Brent!)

After we had rested we went for a wander through the city centre to find out bearings (and suitable coffee shops or places to eat) There seems to be so few people about until we discovered a side street. I love the way you just see a street and have to walk down it and then discover a whole area with lots happening. By this time our stomachs were reminding us we needed feeding. So we set abotut trying to find a place to eat. There were plenty of clothes shops, household shops, the odd pizza place (which face it we could go to in Phnom Penh) and street food. Most of this seemed to be dried octopus or fried bugs which at this point of sleep depravation none of us felt up to trying. We then saw some steam and there was a display outside a shop of different steamed cakes and patties of meat. The lady at the stall was gesturing to us and we noticed inside some low tables and other people eating so we went in.

Everything was in Korean except some prices but there were pictures, so we pointed to two soups. One was a pork and vegetable dumpling soup with the most delicious dumplings. The other one was a beef soup which was also lovley. It was served with rice, and pickled vegetables..eaten with chopsticks and us seated on the floor. At $4 each it was also a good price we think!

After a wander back we found a waffle shop...waffles with syrup and chocolate sauce...mmmmmm!

And after all that I get back to find that my room is still not ready.....so have to wait ..not good until I spot a free computer and free wi-fi! So now I will see if I can have that needed head down time!

(Photos all taken from google ..my photos will come later)

My day

I must be slightly crazy, but those who know me know this already. After a full day at work, leaving the house at 6:30 am I come home with the children and some of their friends at 2:30.
After sorting out a snack for the ravenous hords I turn my attention to my househelper who I am teaching to make Thai Green Curry. I discovered after being here a year that the Khmer only have one kind of curry, which although nice, does not compare to the Thai ones I grew up with. Communicating is hard as she has no English (except words from me) and I have very little Khmer. I had magaged to describe the relevant ingrediants to one of the cleaners at school woth the help of one of the teachers, then the cleaner had run my househelper with the list. This invariabley goes wrong as people dont always understand what you are trying to explain!!! I always assume that at least one thing will not be quite right.

Today it was the wrong herb and no chicken!! We finally got there and I was able to teacher her how to make it.
I have discovered that laughing and humour goes a long way to getting the message through. We were both very pleased with the result!!
After this at 5:30pm I have a language lesson for an hour! I have felt like I have made very little progress this year with language and decided this year I was going to make a determined effort!
I am now doing 2 -2 1/2 hours a week, which is not much but more than last year. I have not been able to use my friend Tevy this year as she has extra university courses to do, so I am a bit sad. One of my classes is taught by one of the teachers brother-in-law. It is a group class where the emphasis is on speaking and listening with a bit of reading and writing. The other class I am on my own and I am going to follow on with what I learnt in the first lesson. 
Here is what I have to learn to read!!!!! (I did learn some last year) Consanants.....

vowels.....

and then there are subscripts too which are the symbols below the letters!!! These can change the sound of word quite a lot.
Today was fun because we played "Guess Who" in Khmer. It was a great way to learn questions and useful vocabluary such as baldness and facial hair!!!
So think of me as I try to find time to learn this beautiful but complicated language. Now I have so much sympathy for the students in my class learning English. It is not easy trying to remember everything.
I find I can remember it at the time and then it goes out of my head when I need it.

Explosive Art Lessons.....

JAGS by year 7/8

One of the things I am loving about HOPE school is the opportunity to broaden my teaching expertise. I am a trained primary teacher but when I trained I did Art and Design as my main subject. This was to degree level and so any opportunity to teach art is always a delight to me.
There is something so fun about giving children unusual and unique opportunities to explore materials, ideas, artists and techniques. The new art curriculum called Interact Art is so amazing. We are looking at five modern artists and how they interpret the vehicles in the world around them through art and sculpture.

This week we were looking at an artist called Richard Goodwin who makes these amazing sculptures out of pieces of cars or motorbikes. It looks like the cars/motorbikes are exploding.
The class thought is was so awesome and I really wanted them to have a go but was struggling to come up with something practical and which didn't stretch the budget!
I had bought these Styrofoam models of cars but I only had two so I photocopied them and we stuck them onto the polystyrene trays you get food in. Then they coloured some bits in and cut out all the little shapes. Then we randomly (but planned random of course) stuck the pieces together with toothpicks.
I was not sure how it was going to work but was so excited about the way their models turned out. The class had really taken the idea on board and produced some wonderfully crazy models.....

I am excited to see how art can promote discussion and deal with ideas and issues that are in the world rather than creating pretty pictures ( which are nice) that don't really say anything. Art is about what you are passionate about and should reflect something of you in it.

I am interested to see how my other Y7/8 class interpret this artist!

Take a Deep Breath!

This is the part of the journey I have been blocking out of my mind because there are so many things which could go wrong. My motto is to plan well but have a back up plan if things go badly wrong!

Our plan was to travel by train from Bangkok to Arunyapatta, cross the border to Poipet and then take a bus to Siem Reap. What is the problem you say? Well the train leaves at 5:55 am and take 6 hours and if we miss it there is not another until 1pm which means we would miss the border opening times and have to stay in Arunyapatta. or we would have to battle across Bangkok to get a bus which also takes about 5-6 hours. Then once across the border it is another 2 hours to Siem Reap. Altogrther a lot of connections I have no control over.

Our morning started at 4:30am trying to drag ourselves and the children out of bed so we could get a taxi to the Station. We whizzed through the streets of Bangkok in the dark. The traffic was light and we arrived at the station with time to spare. After buying our tickets (£3 for all of us!) we made our way down the train looking for seats together........we walked the entire length of the train before we found any seats where we could sit together. Every set of seats had one person sitting or lying down asleep! I have no ideas when they arrive but we were the first to buy our tickets and they were all there in place.
I am so glad we got there ealry because as the train pulled out every seat was taken. This train is third class (hence price) with no air-con just open windows and ceiling fans.
As we pulled out of the station the sun was just coming up over the high rise buildings of Bangkok. We passed through rows of blocks of flats with washing hanging out on the balconies and out of the windows. Sometimes the buildings were so close you could reach out and touch them. The slum houses croweded up towards the trains with their mismatch tin roofs, patched walls and occasionally the bright red flash of a satallite dish. We could look right down onto the early morning lives as people we getting up and starting the day. Flashes of peoples lifes went by as the train gathered speed....a man washing pineapple in red liqiud (red food colouring to make it more vibrant to sell), mangey dogs picking over rubbish piles, smoke from charcoal fires, clothes fluttering in the rush of passing train, sellers with baskets of food balanced on their heads, families eating breakfast of rice soup on split bamboo platforms under the tin roof with just packed mud floor underneath, children in their uniforms walking to school, the saffron robes of the monks as they walk around recieving offerings of food and money. This is a snapshot of the "other" Bangkok far removed from the glittering, pristine shopping malls, and designer living which was where we were yesterday. One thing I found interesting was the number of "parking"lots at the edge of the slum where nice cars were parked. In Thailand what you look like and have is important and often you will see very smartly dressed people who come walking out of a slum area get in their nice car and drive to work!

The train stopped at every station and each time more people got on. We had thought about getting on the train a few stops from the main station so we didint have to get up so early....so glad we didnt because by the time it got to that station it looked like this......

Every time the train stopped there would be a big shuffle round the door where people scrabbled to get off and on and as soon as there was a small crack of space on a seat it was pounced on by someone who had been eyeing it up for the last hour. The amazing thing was people were very unfazed by it and just accepted this was how it was so as the journey went on we had to adopt this attitude and squish up and rearrange out seating. At one point there were five people sitting on the one seat opposite me!

One tired boy!

The city gradually gave way to countryside of vibrant green rice fields. The flat endless plains were a change from the mountains of Kanchanaburi. Everytime we stopped at a main station there would be a scrum of passengers and food sellers on the platform while in contrast the country stations were quiet with only a few passengers getting on and off.

 Lucia as always made friends with someone on the train. This couple helped us off with our bags and took us to get a tuktuk. I was a bit worried because sometime people will be friend you and then offer to help you, only to take your bags or lead you to some scam. I was trying to keep sight of Lucia  and Ewan who had run ahead in the crowd of people , keep my eyes on the two people who had the bags and try to locate Colin who had not got off the train! When we got out to the "carpark" more like a patch of dusty ground lined with tuk tuks we had to beat our way through the  drivers all trying to get you onto their tuktuk. Finally we all squished onto the tuk tuk  (thai ones are smaller than Cambodian ones) and off we went. after awhile we pulled off the main road onto a side road....mmmmmm a bit suspicious....and pulled up to a parking lot. This is the Cambodian Consulate (pointing at a big house) you get your visa here! No! we have visa already take us to border now!!!! Off we go finally make it to the border entrance past a group who were touting for buisness and a helpful person comes and tells us the real visa (which we alrady have) can be got at the border crossing!

As we are walking a man approachesand says he is here to meet us from our hotel....as you can imagine by this time we were getting a bit fed up of bogus people but it turned out he was genuine as we had ordered a taxi to pick us up from the Cambodian side of the border. (thank goodness) He was really helpful and showed us where to go and what to do.

The border crossing was slow as we kept getting stuck behind a big tour party...the smaller kids had lost it by then and were running up and down, hanging from rails and generally annoying each other. I know all the other passengers probably thought our kids were badly behaved but I was so tired I thought I can either get cross or I can ignore most of it and intervene if it got to out of hand...that worked. Finally after 1 and half hours of queuing and filling out 6 lots of forms each time...we made....then ran the guantlet of taxi drivers to a taxi waiting just for us! It was funny the fare for us on the bus was £8 each and a taxi was £30...do the maths,so we decided a taxi would be better and ran the hotel we were going to stayin to see if he could arrange it and he could. It saved us so much hassle the Cambodian siad as we would have had to walk a little way then haggle, explain where we wanted to go...or get a tuk tuk to the bus station. I had thought we would be tired by then and I was right.

The taxi was only a normal size car but we all squashed in (five in the back including me) and sped off the two hours to Siem Reap.

Our driver was very friendly but a bit of a  hairy driver. He is a typical Cambodian driver who drives very fast up to someone and then has to overtake even if there is something coming the other way or it is a blind overtake. On time he overtook someone else overtaking and something was coming the other way. Another time he was transfering a phone number from one mobile phone to the other talking to the person on the phone....and neither was hands free. I was praying a lot!

Finally after nearly 12 hours we made it to Siem Reap and our hotel. We went straight in the pool and Colin collapsed on the bed and went to sleep!

Time to go....

Our last night in Ong Sit village started with dinner at the Rees family. I grew up with Wendy and we have known each other since we were about 5 or 6. It is nice to spend time with someone who you don't have to start at the beginning with. Everytime we meet we pick up the threads of our friendship and weave a little more into the pattern. She now has a husband Richard and four gorgeous children, who love playing with our children.

When we had finished dinner the rest of the Ong Sit team came round including my parents and another family called the Betts (who have 6 children...3 are back in America) We had some gorgeous homemade ice-cream...strawberry and chocolate and peanut butter chunk flavours.

While the adults talked the children played hide and seek in the dark downstairs under the house. We had to drag them away at about 9pm, not because the kids were tired but granny (my mum) was flagging! It was a really nice end to the two weeks we have spent in the village.

We were up and out in good time Saturday morning as we had to get to Bangkok by mid afternoon. I took the opportunity for a picture with my parents as I don't know the last time I had one.
While we were on the ferry, my mum was talking to a lady selling "snacks" ....pickled fish, fish balls on sticks, sausages (hotdog style) boiled eggs and various dried seafood....none of which I really could face that early in the morning if at all. We could smell something funny but could not work out what it was. As we were walking back to where everyone else was sitting we saw the origin of the smell. Someone was sray painting the engine of the ferry! They like it to look nice and shiney!

We arrived in time to get a bus to Bangkok, unfortunatley it was not the nice one with a toilet but it was ok. We had bought the tickets as soon as we arrived in town and then gone and got something to eat. When we arrived we duelywent to the toilet before we got on only to find that although we had tickets with seat numbers that was not the "rules"...it was a free for all and everyone spreads out and does not like shifting. We were split up over the whole bus. the kids were really good about it and we soon discovered how it works....when someone gets off you quickly move seats to one closer together. By the end we had two groups of seats together. It was a fun little game! We got to Bangkok in good time and decided to go back to the Paragon Shopping Center to see if we could go and watch a movie.

 View of Bangkok from the lift in Paragon

 Center piece of mirroed waterfalls in front entrance of Paragon

Unfortunately when we got tho the cinema there was nothing on which was suitable to watch for our age children. So we gave the children the money we would have spent on the cinema and we went shopping.

Back to Pizza Company for dinner

Famous Bangkok traffic....at about 9 pm it was still busy.. for us it was on the Sky train and underground and back to bed as we had a very early start the next day!