NEWSLETTER APRIL 2010

Hi Everyone,

Boy, is it hot here!  The last couple of months are those dreadful months leading up to the rainy season.  Mornings and nights are OK but the day time, especially when the sun is shining feel like a furnace.  And so dry!  The dam is almost empty.  The water we wash in is brown and getting darker.  It feels like you are washing in mud almost, you can feel it on your skin.  We used a lot of water this year because of all the plants we planted.  Won’t have to worry next dry season as the plants will be established and won’t need to be watered so often.  Also, we’ll have a bore so the water for showering won’t be dirty.  Come on the rainy season!  It is thundering now and maybe we will get some rain tonight like we did last night but only a small amount. Once the season starts, it is quite comfortable, not nearly so hot and can be quite cold at times.

April has been a verybusy month.  We had a mid-year exam for the English school.  Exams are part of the culture here and they expect them so they are no big deal.  All the kids rolled up (I secretly thought that some of them who struggle wouldn’t come).  Spent free time and nights marking them so we could get the results back to them before we broke up for Khmer New year.  So that was a busy week culminating in a party for each class with games and lollies for prizes.  Had 4 parties that day!  Then we closed for 2 weeks. The first week was Khmer New year and nobody would have come to school anyway

Thehospitality students were also home for Khmer New year from Siem Reap and so they were in and out all the week watching the volleyball, sitting around talking about their work experience, exams etc.  On the Tuesday night, New year’s Eve, we had a party for the Upper class and the Siem Reap students and their friends.  That was quite a good night.  They played games too and danced, a good start to the new year celebrations which actually go on for about a week overall.  At the same time we had a friend’s daughter staying for most of April so she had a chance to spend time with young Cambodian people and join in the festivities with them.  She went back to Siem Reap with 1 of the students and they had some free time to show her around.

We held the Volleyball Championships with a perpetual gold cup and medals for the winners.  Khmer New year is a time for fun and games at the pagoda of a night time and praying in the day time.  We held the competition in the early morning and late afternoon for 3 days to escape the hottest part of the day.

We had a marquee for shade and a loud hailer that the pagoda loaned us for giving out the scores and a running commentary.  I think people enjoyed it but they are not used to this sort of thing and once they played they headed off to do something else.  And most of the losers didn’t come back on the day of the grand final to watch and see who won although we had a losers competition running too so had 2 grand finals on the last morning.  Very different to what I am used to but we will give it a go next year too and see if it improves.  We didn’t do a lot of advertising as the local authority bloke said he would spread the word and get teams together.  When we rang him a week or so before, he had forgotten all about it so consequently it wasn’t spread around the whole commune.  The eight teams we had were mainly from students at the school and  neighbours.  Next year we will do are own advertising, putting notices up in local coffee shops and on trees around the village and see if that draws a larger crowd.  Then, to top it all off, the winners wanted to sell us back the gold cup!!! Sothea had explained that the cup wasn’t theirs to keep, that the winning team name was engraved on it and we kept it at Kep Gardens but they had their medals that we would get engraved that they could keep.  I let them take it the day they won it as I thought they wanted to show it to their friends and family.  We’ve been chasing it up ever since to get it back!  Anyway, it’s back now but they haven’t given us the medals back to get engraved.  The concept of doing something for fun and because you enjoy it seems to be missing.  They expect something in return for participating ie money, almost as if they are doing you a favour by participating.  I tried to explain that I couldn’t care less if they played in the competition or not, it was just something arranged to add to the fun of Khmer New year.  Anyway, let’s see what happens next year.

One of the first families we ever met in Cambodia are from the fishing village.  The eldest boy is a fisherman and the third child of five is the girl that lives here at Kep Gardens so she can attend the English school.  I see her family quite a lot as they pop in fairly regularly to visit her and her father picks her up when she goes home sometimes for weekends.  The eldest boy got married last week to a girl here in the village actually so I knew both the bride and groom.  This was a middle size wedding.  Everyone dressed up, they had a cake, fairly westernized really, nothing like Borith’s that I told you about before.  There were lots of people there from the fishing village and the local village that I knew from both places so I quite enjoyed myself.  Bit boring if you don’t know anyone at all.

Hope you are all well and happy.  Until next month,Sothea and I have been on the government department rounds again.  This time we were at the Department of Labour and Vocational Training putting in the submission for the Hospitality School.  As there are no facilities in the Province for vocational training of any sort they are very enthusiastic about our project.  They can’t approve it just as the Education Department can’t approve the English school until we have our final approval to become an Association.  Now we have two other departments on our side pushing the Government lady to finalize our initial application.  So let’s see if they have better luck than us.
Andrew has just about finished the building, in fact as I write this, it may be finished already.  He is going to spend the next couple of weeks cleaning up all the personal stuff, picking up donations of bits and pieces and repacking the container, locking it up ready for shipment.  He is planning on arriving in Phnom Penh about 30^th May.  This month will go slowly as I wait for his arrival.  It will be great to get started on building here and getting things up and running.  Slowly but surely and we’ll achieve our aim.
The second week of the holidays I went to Phnom Penh for a few days to do all those things that I can’t do on a weekend because they are closed.  Things like chasing up with NGOs for donations of books for the library when it’s built, many things.  I had a list of 22 things to do. Also nice to be in an air conditioned room and regularly eat some western food for a change but also nice to get back home to peace and quiet in the country.  Phnom Penh is an exciting place, hustle and bustle and great to visit but after a few days I’m ready to go rural again.  
My beloved Crows are not much chop this year I hear.  Must contact the guy in Kampot with the AFL footy channel and see for myself just how bad they are.
Another friend’s daughter is coming to stay for May.  She has worked at summer camps in the US and is into drama so we will probably organize a bit of a concert with the children including English and Cambodian acts.  See how this goes. See whether this is successful and the parents come to watch their children.  Another different concept for them.

Cheers, 

Janine