NEWSLETTER MAY - JUNE 2010

Hi Everyone,

Long time no contact!  May was fairly quiet and so I thought I’d do a May/June combined.  No worries.  Then, Andrew arrived middle of June and things changed.  Lots of activity around the place and after class of a night when the generator is on, instead of working on the computer I’ve been lazy, sitting talking and catching up on the last 18 months or so.

Great to have him here at last.

Still no rain to speak of.  I guess this is what you would call a drought.  The villagers can’t plant their rice which is a concern to them as what do they eat in the dry season.  All their vegetables they planted in the dry season died through lack of water.  We went to a community prayer meeting with the monks the other night where everyone prayed for rain.  Only one praying for no rain was Andrew as he wants to get a couple of things completed before the deluge!  It sort of worked as we’ve had a couple of heavy rains since but they only lasted 10 minutes or so.  Not much help for the rice fields but they filled up the bathroom water storage buckets which meant a fresh water bath.  Bliss!!

We have decided not to start the major building until we have the last signature of approval for which we have been waiting for so long.  Everything has been signed in Kep and we have the full support of the Government here but this final signature must come from the big Government.  So we decided to start and  complete the smaller jobs.  The chicken palace is gong to end up better than where any of us live and sleep now so we are thinking of chucking out the chickens and moving in ourselves.  Also, the drainage around the fields is important so for the last two weeks Kep Gardens has been a hive of activity.  Thirteen or so people digging drains, laying cement, bricking up the sides of the drains, all go. Everything done by hand here, no machinery but it provides employment for people.  Also a couple of spillways being built for the dam as we had a couple of floods last year which wrecked the pipe work for the overflow.  This needs to be done in case of flooding again this year.  Although the way the weather is, this won’t be a problem but must be done just in case.

Lots of stuff happening – in this case, drainage

To add to the usual 7 people that live and work here, the students from Siem Reap have completed their course and arrived home, one of which will be living here as well as he has no home to return to.  They are here everyday busily preparing a seminar on Hospitality Essentials that we hope to sell to local Kep and Kampot restaurants and guesthouses.  As we haven’t built the bungalows yet we have to keep them occupied and ensure they don’t lose the skills they have spent the last year studying.  We have spent a lot of time preparing this short course and the students are madly practising their presentations to build their confidence.  We have our first booking in two weeks time.  Having uniforms made for them to wear in Australian gold and green.  Will send a photo next newsletter as the sewing lady in the market hasn’t finished them yet.

A great young couple from England and Spain came every night for about 10 days or so and held conversation classes with the Upper class.   Wish they were staying longer as they were really nice.  Add to this the 130 or so students that pass through the place everyday and a couple of friends that came with Andrew to stay for awhile, we are packed to the hilt at the moment.  From 6.00 am daily we have a steady stream of people passing through the gates.  I thrive on people being around so I enjoy all this activity but fall into bed most nights exhausted.  I am not a morning person at the best of times and all this activity at 6.00 in the morning can be hard to take sometimes!!

Mealtimes can get rather crowded!  
There’s 5 more of us somewhere.

Andrew will start work on the boat in the next couple of weeks once the drainage and dam spillage have been completed.  He wants to get the boat up to scratch by October and the tourist season so hopefully we will start to get some income to help with the building plans.  Our hospitality students will work on the boat and train others to take over once the bungalows are completed.  We won’t be able to start the hospitality school in October like we were planning as approval can’t be given for the school until the Association approval comes through.  Still, slowly but surely, and we’ll get there in the end.

I don’t think I told you the story of the pygmy loris (native animal from the surrounding mountains).  One of our neighbours used to be a hunter.  It’s now illegal as is chopping down trees as the mountain area is supposed to be a national park.  Obviously, no one takes any notice of this.  It’s a very hard situation.  Some of the people have made their living selling wood and charcoal for the cooking stoves everyone uses as well as people collecting their own wood for cooking.  All of a sudden it’s illegal.  Unless the government is prepared to offer these people other ways of employment, how do they make their living?  Not everyone can afford to buy wood anyway.  Also, they hunt for food or else sell the animals for medicine. Every morning, oxen carts go past our gate on their way into the mountain to cut down saplings and trees and come back stacked to the hilt every afternoon.  Anyway, back to the pygmy loris.  Our neighbour came to us one day with one of these cute little things, part monkey, part possum.  He was going to kill it if we didn’t want it as he said they caught it “accidentally”.  OK I said this time, but no more.  I told Sothea I wasn’t going to buy animals from him every time he wanted money as I didn’t want to encourage him to continue hunting if he thought he had a ready market.  A few weeks later he rolls up with another one.  No, I haven’t got any money, don’t want it.  So he sold it for medicine somewhere.  Two mornings ago, the one we have had a baby.  It’s the cutest thing and she is a really good mother.  They climb trees and we have thick branches in the large cage for her to climb.  This little one is practising climbing at only two days old and mum sits close by to catch it if it falls and puts out her hands to hold it if she thinks its a bit risky.  A bit like a koala, hangs on to the mum’s tummy or rides on her back.  It’s all of two inches long.  They suckle from their mum for 9 months.  The baby is growing so fast.  We hunt for grasshoppers and bugs for her to eat and she also likes fruit.  She takes it out of our hands.  I looked it up on the web and they are classed as vulnerable animals that is, they need to be protected as numbers are dwindling fast, particularly in Cambodia.  Maybe I’ll set up a zoo for them on the mountain area that is supposed to belong to our land and make a sanctuary for them.  Need to hire a security guard for them though to keep them safe at night so they don’t get pinched.  Hmmm, another thing to add to our plans for Kep Gardens!  I must add it to my list!!

Loris and her baby.

I have had another experience since I last wrote that shows how some people achieve so much in their lives.  I have a new hero Dr Jim.
Sothea’ sister had two noses.  I asked Sothea whether the family had ever thought of doing anything to help her and he said yes, his brother had been to a couple of hospitals in Phnom Penh but they all said no.  I thought of Prof David David at the Adelaide Women’s and Children’s Hospital.  I have seen him on TV at times when children from 3^rd world countries come to be operated on with big bumps on their noses or foreheads.  I contacted Andrew’s brother and he made contact with the hospital in Adelaide for me.  I had to get CAT scans and x-rays and blood tests for general health etc.  This turned out to be very simple.  In Phnom Penh we went to a French clinic at 9.30 am where the doctor took blood and she then sent us to a big French hospital and by 11.30 am all the tests and scans were done.  I was stunned as I thought it could turn into a major exercise to get everything together that we needed.  I was going to post everything to the hospital in Adelaide.  While at the clinic the doctor told me about  Dr Jim who ran a clinic and she contacted him for us and made a time to see him.

Well, this place is amazing.  It’s just a long building off the main road of a suburb of Phnom Penh.  It’s called the Children’s Surgical Centre but they treat adults as well.  It’s part of a larger complex for leprosy, TB, disabled people from land mine accidents etc.  Everyone sits outside on the porch for hours waiting to be seen for whatever is the problem.  It is free for everyone and the people that go there are quite poor, from all over the country.  They roll up and sleep outside until they can be seen.  We waited for hours and then went in and within 2 minutes the operation time was all set up for the next day.

Dr Jim is a paediatrician from Alaska and went to Cambodia for a 3 month volunteer stint.  While he was there he saw the great need.  So he came back and set this place up.  He has contacts all over the world and talking to an Australian lady who took blood from us all (that’s the payment) she explained that the doctors who come to this clinic are the top people in their field from countries all over the world.  They fly in once a year and give a couple of weeks of their time or maybe a few days for free to perform surgery.  So because he has so many contacts, every month doctors are arriving.  We just happened to be there the day 3 German doctors arrived who do the two nose operations all the time.  Anyway, to cut a long story short, she had the operation but there were a couple of hiccups.  She is 24 and Dr Jim said they had never done an operation of this sort on a person this old because they usually die of meningitis well before this age.  She had meningitis when she was 11 and the family thought she was going to die but obviously she didn’t.  He also said that they do not have the facilities or time to do the 101 tests that would be done in Australia before the operation but she looked healthy enough so they would go ahead with it.  Operation went well, but there was a problem with cranial spinal fluid that built up and they had to take it from her spine every 5-6 days.  If they didn’t drain it she vomited and couldn’t keep fluid or food down.  Dr Jim says she probably always had the fluid build up but because of the hole in her head behind the second nose it probably came out through her nose and didn’t build up.  Now that they have plugged up the hole and pushed the bit of brain back into her head the pressure is building up.  They could put a shunt in to drain the fluid but he said it is not easy in a village situation to maintain the shunt that can get blocked etc. but it would be done if that was the only way to fix the problem.  Anyway, she stayed in the “hospital” and they drained the fluid every 6 days or so from her spine.  They wanted to keep her there to prevent infection.  On 21st June a doctor from France came with some new technology that drains the fluid away but doesn’t need the maintenance like a shunt does.  Dr Jim said he didn’t know much about it because he is not a neurosurgeon but the guy that came from France is so he would leave it to him to sort out.  So she had the second operation and after a couple of weeks the fluid seemed to go away, she wasn’t vomiting anymore and was starting to gain her strength.  She has gone back to the village now and will come back later to have plastic surgery to fix her nose.  The first time they only blocked the hole in her head and cut off the nose but she needs to be prettied up yet.  So thankfully all is now well but it was a bit worrying for a few weeks and I worried that I had done the wrong thing.

I stayed for a few days and got to know lots of the other patients.  Took in soy milk for the kids etc.  When they did the second operation Andrew and Sothea went back to Phnom Penh to support her father who was there by himself.  It’s just like one big family. The family has to be on call 24 hours a day to wash and feed the patients but the clinic provides food for the patients and provides a room for the families to sleep on the floor.  One sleeps on the floor next to the patient and other family members sleep in this room provided.  They take it in turns.  All the patients sleep in one room regardless of age, sex or health problem.  Every one talks and tells their stories.  So many sad stories but these people are survivors and don’t grumble, they are just grateful that something has been done to help.  So that’s why Dr Jim is my latest hero.  Sreypov had her head cut all the way across her skull for the firstoperation with no pain killers or medication afterwards not to mention the many spinal drainage injections she had, but no complaining and she always managed a smile when we visited.

Had the fortune teller out here the other day repositioning the prayer houses as we have been very neglectful of keeping up pray days (every 8 days) and leaving food and drink for the spirits.  He had to rebless them again.  Funny how the monks don’t do this sort of thing but the fortune teller does.  They are very important people in the community.  He has to come and bless the chicken palace when it is finished to make sure the chickens grow well and stay healthy.  His son comes to the Intermediate English class so a packet of cigarettes was the only payment he wanted.

Wehave employed a young man who attends classes to be our librarian.  He comes morning and afternoon for an hour or so and catches all classes.   I use the term library loosely as we don’t have many books at the moment until the container arrives.  But he will probably be the fulltime librarian when we are up and running.  His English is not fantastic but he is a quick learner.  One morning he asked me whether I wanted some pumpkins.  He has quite a good vegetable garden and quite regularly brings some fruit or vegetables for us so I didn’t think anything about it and yes thank you very much.  Anyway that afternoon he rolled up with two puppies!!  We haven’t replaced Fido yet but want a big dog, not a small village dog so weren’t interested but he was so embarrassed and still laughs about it.  Someone took one of the puppies from him so he achieved something.

We have just returned from Siem Reap for 4 days.  The hospitality students graduated on Friday.  We are very proud of them.

Student ’ Graduation Day

Not only did they have to cope with a higher education than they receive at the local school, study harder, stricter rules etc but they had to adjust to living away from home and their families in a large city and not a rural village.  They got through it all together and they all passed their exams.  It was a very emotional day and they were so happy.  The school put on a beautiful lunch, cooked by the cooking students of course, and then had a party for the students that went all afternoon.  We stayed for quite a long time and then left them with their friends to enjoy themselves.

We went out that night to celebrate and coincidentally caught up with some of the teachers and other students so we had a bigger celebration than what we thought.  We packed up the flat they were staying in and loaded everything on the bus this morning, including the motorbike, to bring back to Kep.  As everyone knows what everyone else is doing here, when we got off the bus at the market people kept coming up to see how the graduation went.  It makes one feel a real part of the community.

Glad to be home though.  Always feel good when we drive through the gates of Kep Gardens as it is a very pretty place and so peaceful.  Work on the drainage, dam and chicken palace continued while we were away but Andrew checked it all out and they had done a good job, no disasters to fix up.

An Australian couple visited Kep Gardens last year and we have kept in touch via the newsletter.  Last week they informed me that they are setting up a website for us so now we are madly getting a photo gallery together and writing up bits and pieces to include on the site.  Thanks very much Bruce and Roz for doing this for us.  One more job we can take off our list!  We kept putting it off as we didn’t really know how to do it but you have solved this challenge for us.  We really appreciate your help, particularly the fact that you went ahead and did it and we didn’t have to ask.  Next newsletter I will give you the website address as it should be pretty close to finished by then.

Andrew is going to add his bit to the newsletter every month but as I am so late with this one I will send it of and email a special edition soon with his comments.

Hope all is well with you all.

Janine