Cambodia Week2
Hi Ron this is the only message I received. Thanks for the emails; it’s good to keep in touch. Life here is hard work but very rewarding, Last week we did mock interviews as if they where applying for a job, Tomorrow we will be doing telephone conversations as if they where secretaries at the end of a phone. The main thing is to get them talking in English. Afternoon is the real killer I have replaced 15 of the computers that I have built with the new ones, thanks to your instructions Ron they are all working very well. We have installed a new program on them called Quick Book an accountancy program, who's going to teach it I don't know, I seem to spend half my time, keeping the other 25 computers up and running. The rest of the time I am helping them to learn ACCESS I must admit I am only just keeping up with them as they are very bright and spend hours doing home work every night. We have set up all the databases done a few Queries' and am now doing relationships between the data bases for the Query's. This is all very new to me so I just hope I can keep one day ahead, I shall be glad when the teacher comes back in two weeks time. I never thought for one minute I wo uld be so much in demand, teachers are in short supply here, also there is virtually no income to pay them with. Nearly everybody does it for nothing; there are a few of the oldest girls getting paid to act as teachers. By June most of these girls are expected to be reasonably good in English and understand all the Office programs, from what I have seen of the speed they pick it up they will all get a job, for there is a demand for girls like this. We are also introducing them to some of the hotels to show them what will be expected of them. Most of them have never been in a Western hotel. There are lots of new hotels going up all around us so it bodes well for the future. At the moment ninety percent of Phnom Penh is built with tin and plastic shacks just held up with tree branches. Last night 120 of these where burned down as they are all illegal and the government wanted the land to build houses for their friends, the easiest way to remove them was to set fire to all the shacks and not allow the fire engine through to the shacks these where mainly peoples homes and lively hoods.
Till next time
Leo
Week 3
Hi Everybody
The job goes better. This week I have to conduct mock interviews with all the girls here, as if they where applying for a job with me, it’s great fun we spend most of the time laughing. Next week I am in charge of two classes as the teacher is going on a course for two weeks, I did not expect to be dropped in it to this extent. they seem to think I know everything about computers, which I don't, but I have managed to get by so far teaching Access most of the girls are from very poor background in small villages in the country most knowing nothing about the rest of the world, never Evan seen a world map and could not believe that England was smaller than Cambodia, Last week we went to visit some of the girls homes, Four hours on unmade roads dusty and bumpy. We started off at five in the morning to arrive in their Village at nine. Every house we arrived at, we got invited in, They posses nothing, most do not have electric They only thing they have to offer, are fruit of the trees and coconuts with a hole cut in the top, this is a pleasant drink but ten houses latter and ten coconuts latter. I had seen enough of coconuts, and these coconuts are three times bigger than ours. In between the coconuts we were given all types of other fruit, some twice the size of a rugby ball. Most tasted like raw potatoes. Angela kept digging me and saying it’s only polite to taste everything. Looking forward to going up country to install all these computers I have built but am a bit wary about staying up there and teaching in the village, but we will accept what comes as that is what we are here for and We are both enjoying it the people are so wonderfully.
Excuse Grammar and spelling as I am defiantly not an English teacher and I am at a disadvantage, when writing on the white board as all my students have thick dictionary's and they check everything I write I have to keep blaming the American spelling but I don't get away with it.
Angela/Leo
very close together, they serve as businesses selling everything from the use of a mobile phone, to 15 pairs of shoes, twenty watches, a compressor to blow your tires up, something to weld your bike if it breaks down, somebody to clean your shoes and every other stall is selling coconuts or some other kind of fruit, most which I have never seen before, but I will leave what we eat to my next letter. Leo
Just short bit of news. Went in one of the student homes yesterday and saw a coffin in the room asked what it was for, they said grandma was ill so it was custom to buy one, as she was ready to die. Grandma has been ill five years I will send you the photo. If you can't manage to afford an undertaker they have big bonfire at the side of the house with all the guests invited. Hope you are feeling well. Leo If you missed my last email the coffin was in the house waiting for grandma to die, no death certificate needed.
Till next time
Leo
Week 10
Cambodia is still full of surprises, this weekend we have been up to Seam Reap, I thought the food here was unusual, but some of the restaurants in Seam Reap are certainly different The monsoon has now started so the rain was able to cascade down through gaps in the roof most of it being caught by various gutters and channelled into large pots, the overflow went into a pool at one side of the dining area where seven large crocodiles lived. These roamed under the floor of the dining area so you could feed them through the gaps in the floor boards, no guard rails to be seen, a few drinks and you where in.
On our way back to Phnom Penh, we called into a wayside café selling platefuls of fried spiders, boiled eggs with chickens inside, considered a delicacy here. Photo to be supplied.
The students are on holiday this week so we are going to take the ones that are left here out to a meal. These are the girls who have no homes to go to.
In the Cambodian Daily newspaper last week it stated there are twenty five thousand child slaves in Phnom Penh, twelve thousand having been sold by their parents for less than 60 dollars, one of the girls we are taking out tomorrow has been sold five times. Last week one of our younger girls didn’t come to school so the Sister in charge here went to her home to see why. It turned out the father had sold here to an uncle against the mothers wishes, so Sister Ophriini had to go and get her back; the Sisters stand no messing about. Every student here has a tale to tell, one young boy fourteen years old was desperate for an education but had no money, he stood outside of our school for weeks, in the end the sisters bought him a bike and paid for his education at a state school nearby. He comes here every day for his meals at six in the morning after cycling seven miles along terrible roads and tracks, he wants to go back to his village and be a teacher. The stories are endless but the appreciation and smiles you get makes it all worthwhile, but we can only provide a small chink in the immense problem here, I have been reading the history of Cambodia and in the past one thousand years they do not seem to have had peace for any long period of time, but they are the most cheerful people I have ever met
Leo
Validates to XHTML 1.0 and CSS 2.1
Copyright © 2010 Leo & Angela Duffy