Derek Zoolander and my meh attempts to drill a well ......

Apologies, this post is super late! I am now actually finished with my time at Trailblazer in Siem Reap and am in Phnom Penh for one week to do a few interviews with NGOs here before going home on the 24th. Where has this entire summer gone?!

Part of what I had been doing with Trailblazer was going out with the well drilling team (with Sumnang, Vichet, and Kat) to villages around Siem Reap Province. The village chief chooses the family who receives the well, while the family chooses where they want the well. Trailblazer makes sure to work within existing village systems instead of waltzing up with wells and installing them, in turn increasing the sustainability of the project because it is integrated within the community.

I went to Trapeang Svay Village, Reul Commune, Puk District twice. Fun fact: “Trapeang Svay” means “Mango Pond.” I did not see any mangoes when I was there.

My first time in Trapeang Svay we were drilling the actual well. I pretty much embodied Derek Zoolander coal mining as I was basically utterly useless for drilling. This is not a machine drill-- this is a manual drill that you need to be pushing down onto while twisting. A sort of jump-push-twist movement that no machine in the gym can simulate well (or maybe, I need to go to the gym more). The pole is actually made from a bunch of poles linked together with a handled twisting contraption. This is tough work!! Simple and easy(ish) for the well drilling team when the water source is close to the surface, a lot harder for everyone when you have to drill through clay and rock (as we did).

Water being pumped into the truck. Pretty sure the water
buffalo just chilling was not too pleased.

To make the well at first before any drilling, we dug a small pit close to the would-be well that we then filled with water. This water was pushed down the hole (that would become the well source) to coax the pole to go deeper while drilling. 

When the pit ran out of water, we went to a river/field/pond nearby and got water using a pump and lots of tarps (and in the end, most of the water ended up on the ground, not in the pit) laid out in the back of the truck. Two little boys accompanied us for this (although this was midday, many schools are only for half days), and Sumnang and Vichet seemed to trust them more than me. This might have been perhaps due to my Derek Zoolander status or my being a woman, which sadly is more likely to be the main factor.

We continued drilling, only breaking for a meal of morning glory (Khmer water spinach), rice, and oily bony fish with a red tomato/onion sauce. At the end of day, we hit eighteen meters. We tried to pump water from the ground (an up and down movement with one pipe within the other) but sadly with no avail. We had to take out the piping from the well and succumb to the fact that the next day we would be back to drilling. In the end, this well had to be twenty-five meters deep, while at other homes in the village ten meters deep was sufficient.

In Trapeang Svay the second time but at different part of the village, I could help a bit more. This time, rather than drilling, we were making the cement base for the well. Again, this was completely manual. We had no cement machine, but rather I manually mixed the Camel cement mix and sand together with water and a shovel to make the functioning cement.

1. We dug a dirt platform and flattened it right in front of where the well pump was.
2. We then put large rocks in the dirt--still retaining platform’s flat structure (in other words, the rocks we used were flat on at least one part).
3. We filled in the dirt gaps surrounding the large rocks with smaller stones.
4. We built a brick square around the well’s platform that would later become the raised edge of the well structure.
5. We put the concrete mixture on the bricks, and then the stone.

This is super confusing without a plethora of visuals that my slow internet prohibits me from uploading (hopefully the ones that did upload are okay!!), but I hope it makes some sense! Basically: ground --> platform base -->  walls --> finished well. I have noticed that whenever going into villages for filter installation or well drilling, the project seems to encompass the entire village and not just the filter or well team. While in the US one might not help the contractors re-doing your kitchen, in Cambodia this seems completely normal and appropriate.

The mom at this home seemed to have really taken a liking to me, especially as I was helping her son with his English (he was perhaps the only child who actually would talk to me when I spoke to him without parents’ help!). I also sat and talked with her about all of her children, told her about my family, and also looked through her daughter's drawing book which was adorable. Her school notebooks showed photos of (still) current prime minister Hun Sen and his wife--unsurprising to say the least. The mom also wanted to make sure that I was out of the sun to protect my super white skin, and kept telling me to be very careful with my head because I am so tall. When she found out that I was vegetarian, she sent her daughter out to buy me rambutans! I was elated at their kindness, even though I have no qualms about having morning glory and rice every day.

An excursion to... the rubbish collection management center!

No, this is not the kind of visit I would describe on a postcard to Grandma.

Front of the Building

Today, I went to the head office for "Global Action for Environmental Awareness" (GAEA) after seeing the logo on many public rubbish bins (yup! we aren't in Kansas anymore, so trash = rubbish) throughout Siem Reap. (Although there are rubbish bins, rubbish is littered throughout the city and dogs often pick through the rubbish... as do people collecting anything of value including but not limited to: plastic bottles, cans (3 cans is 100Riel, or $0.025 I am told), cardboard, and kitchen scraps to make pig farms.) Why did I set up an appointment to go to GAEA? Because I was interested in how the rubbish collection system works as it is vital to the functioning of a clean and healthy city. Where do you think rubbish goes in New York? Dear reader, it does not vanish into thin air.

Note: GAEA is the only legal mechanism, but in Cambodia you are more than welcome to dispose of your rubbish illegally without direct consequences to yourself.

I could barely find any information about GAEA online except for a yellowpages.kh website. I found this very strange seeing as it is a company of immensely huge importance for the city to function well. When I finally found a website for GAEA, it would not load on my computer. I later found out that GAEA has a website domain, but the company just hasn't actually created their website because as GAEA's director Pho Phallkunn told me, there is really no need for one. At first I was a bit shocked (um, seeing as I have multiple websites about myself i.e. Facebook, Twitter, this blog, another blog, and a super old blog from 2010), but then realized that because most people in Cambodia do not have steady access to internet, they would not be looking up their rubbish pick up system online. And in reality, I have never looked at New York's rubbish pick-up website online either.

The office was in what looked like what could have been a house. There was a secretary office with about six people working, and then Phallkunn's office more toward the back. I first asked for general background about GAEA because, as I said, I could not find a lot online.

In 2002, all of Cambodia's waste collection system was officially privatized; however, before then, it was privatized unofficially anyhow. Phnom Penh has a private rubbish collection system with a Canadian company, Phallkunn told me, and was the foremost rubbish system in Cambodia until GAEA. Founded in 2007, GAEA is a for-profit business for rubbish collection and is the only rubbish collection system in Siem Reap (honestly, from the name, I assumed it was a non-profit business concerned with the environment solely). For $1.50 a month, you can have your rubbish collected (although I am unsure if this is for individuals and also for large hotels).  GAEA estimates that they handle 180-190 metric tonnes of rubbish every day. They have a 50 year lease on the Siem Reap City rubbish system (the villages' rubbish collection consists of collecting it into a pile and burning it). In the past five years, GAEA has expanded to other cities in Cambodia including Kampot, Bantey Meanchey, and Kampong Thom.

In 2009, GAEA relocated Siem Reap's open dump that was only 7km out of Siem Reap town to one that is 25km out of Siem Reap and 500 meters from the closest residence (the one 7km out of town was in a town-- and I am unsure if this dump might still be used unofficially). GAEA's dump is 8 meters deep and protected with clay compact on all sides (except the top, of course).  GAEA would like a technical and closed dump to enable them to collect methane gas and use it for energy (a CDM project or "Clean Development Mechanism") as opposed to an open dump, and although supposedly money has been funded for this, a technical dump has yet to happen. GAEA receives no consistent formal funding from the government. South Korea gave roughly 2 million USD five years ago for a technical landfill that has yet to materialize--and sadly, the money seems to have mysteriously "vanished" (a.k.a., it has likely been used to purchase a yacht or two). Yet two years ago, the Ministry of Environment in Cambodian pledged about 4 million USD for a technical landfill (which supposedly is happening at least in Poi Pet on the Thai border).

GAEA's open dump outside of Siem Reap is subject to scavengers and fires in the dry season, making a covered dump a lot safer. According to Phallkunn, there is no cut-and-dry way to remove the scavengers from the dump (this is how some people make a living). People scavenge through the dump, and people scavenge through the rubbish bins in Siem Reap city. People know that scavenging has awful health side effects, but this is what they have to do to get by (and this is where the overarching government ideally should step in and help out, ex. job creation or something). However, private companies like GAEA are basically left to negotiate with local politicians and the government without actually receiving any tangible and measurable support from the government. The government has no initiative to help, and GAEA can only work so hard and still remain afloat as a profitable business. GAEA's hope is to have a technical landfill in Siem Reap in the next five to seven years.

Toward the end of out chat, we discussed how tourism creates an opportunity for more rigorous rubbish collection. Who wants to come to Siem Reap when the city is overrun with rubbish? Phallkunn estimates that 65% of all hotels comply with GAEA's standardized rubbish pick up schema, the majority of this 65% being larger, internationally managed hotels. Angkor Wat Complex uses EnviroCam, a private cleaning service to pick up litter all over the park. EnviroCam is actually associated with APSARA, the management group that runs the Angkor UNESCO World Heritage site. The real challenge, as stated, is in the cities. In fact, Phallkun joked that EnviroCam gets a lot of the credit with GAEA being overlooked.

I asked Phallkunn when the rubbish problem really ballooned in Cambodia. He mentioned that in 2004 and 2005, Cambodia experienced an economic boom and there was a lot of rural-urban migration. Phnom Penh's population, for example, has increased to 2.2 million residents from 634,000 in 1990, and at the end of the Khmer Rouge genocide a reported (as per Wikipedia) 32,000. This is wicked fast, people!!

To distill this post into crucial points: the key to solving the the rubbish problem, according to Phallkunn, will be a combination of education that leads to behavioral change and market forces at work (a lot of the same rhetoric used for solving environmental problems in general). There are still a plethora of challenges that face GAEA, such as electronic waste, road conditions prohibiting rubbish pick up at all, illegal disposal on the streets, and practices that people have a hard time giving up, such as burying and burning rubbish.

*the first line of this post does not include my Oma, who would love to read about this :)

Case Study Writing

Part of being a not-for-profit NGO is just that: it is not for profit. Trailblazer's funding relies on donations, and soliciting donations is not an easy feat. Roughly just over half of donations come from individuals, meaning that the personal case studies from Trailblazer's projects are very important. They need to make that person reading them at, say, 1am be compelled to send a check or click on the paypal icon. Last Friday, I went to Chea Smun village (per usual, not how this village is spelled in Khmer (obviously) but how I understand and pronounce the name) to interview two students who had received donated bikes from Trailblazer. 

Srei Mau and her bike

Chea Smun, about an hour by moto away from Siem Reap, was one of the most remote and undeveloped (in terms of infrastructure) village I have been to while in Cambodia thus far. The dirt-clay road was a brilliant sinopia-tawny color, accentuated even more by the puddles left from the immense amount of rain the night before and that morning. We arrived at the secondary school: two lines of classrooms with a portico attaching all of them and a tattered Cambodian flag in the center. 

One of the hardest parts of doing the case study was making sure that the questions my Cambodian partner, Lon Sey (works with Trailblazer), asked were indeed the questions I had prepared. A lot can get lost in translation! Getting more sentimental / opinion answers to the questions (versus one-word answers) I was asking was a tough feat as well from the the boy and girl I interviewed. They were so shy! Then again I would probably be shy too if this massively tall foreign woman wearing strange clothes came to my school asking questions about my bicycle. As for the case study itself, this is what I have written: 

FINALLY got a smile :)

Every day many children in Cambodia have to walk long distances to get to school, meaning they arrive physically tired and mentally drained before class even starts. This situation is exacerbated in Siem Reap province, one of the poorest in Cambodia, and specifically in Meanchey Commune where children often walk to school. The reality is that walking long distances limits students’ capability to succeed and disincentivizes them from attending school. To address this problem, the Trailblazer Foundation has provided bikes to multiple students in Siem Reap Province, allowing for the students and their families to have more mobility and save valuable time. 

As part of Trailblazer Foundation’s Cambodia Assistance Program, Trailblazer provided bikes to students at Chea Smun Secondary School in Chea Smun Village, located in Meanchey Commune of Prasat Bakong District. Besides this, Trailblazer has also installed four biosand water filters at Chea Smun Secondary School to help the students maintain good health. More than half of the students at Chea Smun Secondary School have bikes, making it important to help those who do not integrate at school. The donated bikes in general are easy to use and bike maintenance has so far only included simply repairing flat tires. 

Seyha, a 17 year old student in his eighth year of school, received a bike from Trailblazer four months ago. He said that already his studies and day-to-day life have greatly improved with the time gained from biking as opposed to walking to school. It used to take him thirty minutes to walk to school, and now it takes him five to ten minutes with his new bike. His father finished his studies through grade eight and his mother did not even go to school, so Seyha is excited to attend high school next year and complete his studies as he aspires to become a mathematics and chemistry teacher. Seeing as Chea Smun Secondary School currently only has six teachers for 176 students, Seyha finishing school and becoming a teacher would greatly help the Cambodian education system at large. Because Seyha’s high school next year is 10 kilometers away, his bike is going to substantially reduce the time it takes to get to and from school. On the weekends, his parents also borrow the bike to go to and from the market to buy food for Seyha and his two younger brothers at a much faster pace than before. 

Another one of Srei Mau's neighbors

One of Seyha’s neighbors, Srei Mau, also received a new bike from Trailblazer. Srei Mau is 15 years old and in grade eight as well, and her favorite subjects are chemistry and biology. Similar to Seyha, Srei Mau wishes to become teacher but for biology, yet admits that she has a lot more to learn. Srei Mau loves that her new bike allows her to stay after school for longer to continue studying rather than have to dedicate time to walking home. She will also attend the same high school as Seyha next year, likewise surpassing the education level of both of her parents. Her parents use the bike on Sunday to go work on the farm, while she uses it also to go to the market for her 3-person family.  

Seyha and Srei Mau thank Trailblazer profusely, smiling widely, for giving them the bicycles because the donation has helped them concentrate on their studies with more passion. Bikes save students’ valuable time so that they can study and learn more while following their dreams. Both students also ask if Trailblazer can donate more bicycles or school supplies in general to other poor students, Srei Mau relating poignantly, “please try to help us some more...because we need it.” For only $45, you can supply a bike to help a Cambodian student pursue his/her educational goals, thereby improving wellbeing and quality of life. More educated Cambodian youth means more power for development and social change, and a brighter future for Cambodia.

Me and the cutest savior ever! 

We went to both Seyha and Srei Mau's houses to get photos with their families (that I had to really try to coax smiles out of) and bikes. In both cases, the father was not at home. Seyha actually did not have his bike at school in reality because his mom used it that day. Unfortunately, this is not uncommon in these cases albeit slightly awkward (I mean, we were doing an interview about how he bikes to school). Nevertheless, his bike was at home which was great because using the same bike in their individual photos at school was honestly super obvious. 

For the photos at Srei Mau's house, I hid the TV that Srei Mau had in her house toward the front entrance within visibility of the camera. Contrary to popular belief, you can be in dire poverty and still have a television--but most people do not want to see or know this. "If they can afford a television, why do I need to donate a bike? Shouldn't the latter be the top priority?" Well, it can actually be easier to access a 3G network in the jungle than it is a proper waste system in a town, for example. What's more: who are you to tell a family how to spend its money? Just because a family cannot readily afford a bike, does not mean it should be deprived of any simple entertainment. Must a family live extremely basically / in borderline squaller if it cannot afford rudimentary items, but can afford a small toy for a child for the time being? I also made sure not to  photograph the solar panel that a Japanese NGO installed on Seyha's roof the day beforehand. The family also had a water filter from yet another NGO, furthering my burgeoning opinion that NGOs in Cambodia are, in a sense, enabling the government to continue their corrupt practices by doing a ministry's job. That being said, would the government actually step up to the plate? Moreover: we cannot wait ten years for water, transport, education, etc. etc. etc. 

What was most shocking about where Seyha and Srei Mau live is that the flooding is so bad in the rainy season that they must take a boat to cross the murky river that separated their neighborhood from the main village roadway (bike is not going to help in that situation!). Right now, a very slippery and narrow bridge connects the land masses--a bridge that a little girl held my hand walking across. Houses are right up against the river, and I can only imagine the living conditions inside of them during the wet season, and what this does to water supply as well as sanitation practices. Sadly on the way to Lon Sey's motorbike, the little girl was not there to hold my hand. But I sucked it up, realizing how silly I probably looked towering over this girl yet nearly shaking with my fear of heights. 

Filter Installation~~

A shop at Lolei Village

All of the time I have spent sifting sand, sifting gravel, washing sand, and washing gravel has paid off! On Friday, I went to Lolei Village outside of Siem Reap to install eight water filters which--let me tell you, reader--was an incredibly long and arduous day.

I rode out to the village on the back of a pick up truck, and borrowed Bone-knee's (not how you spell his name, but how I pronounce it) über Cambodian hat that was camouflage colored with a lovely flap that covered my neck and then wrapped across my face to snap onto the other side. Literally my entire head, neck, and face except for my eyes (which had sunglasses) were covered. This was great, as this hat was going to do more than any sunscreen I owned would. As well, the dust flying everywhere would not stick to my sunscreen and sweat, but only my sweat. Much better!

A family next to their filter

The village had no electricity, only one generator in one of the nicer houses. There was one dirt road that went through the village, houses lining either side, and a few small shops. Behind the houses were either more houses or gardens / farms / open land. Most of the villagers were at home to receive the filters, and from what I observed at least, about half of the children went to school.

We installed eight filters, which took a total of about six and a half hours including lunch, installation time, and driving time. The filter mold comes from a Canadian organization called CAWST (The Centre for Affordable Water and Sanitation Technology) that creates a lot of filter molds, I am told, for NGOs all over developing countries. The filters are immensely heavy, as they are made out of concrete, and so are the bags of sand (I really never realized how heavy sand could be). The filters are relatively easy to install seeing as they are just plopped on the ground wherever the family wants them (and this means they can be near a toilet or sewage source, but because the filter does not draw on this water (necessarily :/ ) this is fine). On Friday, we installed the filters either next to their well or next to their kitchen area.

Putting well water into a filter 

Basically, we wheeled the filter on a dolly to where the family wanted it installed. The family pays 13,000Riel, or $3.25, for the filter that then goes to the village fund. The price in 2012 was $2.60, but due to inflation, I am told, the price increased. This place has to be level in order to function properly, and in a few cases we had to add sand or a pebble or two underneath the filter in order to ensure this. We then put some water into the filter, pour the large gravel into the bottom, and level it. I leveled the gravel as I can reach the bottom of the filter with my rather long arms and still not get my sleeve wet. Then, we pour in the small pebbles, level these again, and then the sand which two people need to pick up to dump in due to its immense weight. We level the sand carefully without packing it in, and also then clean the filter using water and a cap-full of bleach. Finally, we pour more water into the filter and place the blue perforated filter contraption on top of this sand and water (it fits nicely into the concrete filter). You pour water on top of the blue filter and then, after about two weeks of being installed, clean water comes out of the drinking end.

Diagram of a filter

The two week waiting period is for the biofilm to develop and mature in the sand. The biofilm is created in the sand to trap bacteria in the water (it will consume bacteria such as E.Coli), and is developed organically and biologically specific to that water source. A biofilm for pond water would be different from a biofilm for well water, for example. The biofilm traps about 40% of the bacteria, while 60% or so of the other objects / not-so-great minerals in water (if there is a lot of iron, for example) is physically trapped with the blue filter or does not make it through the sand at all. For example, pond water had a lot of silt that is physically blocked with the sand and/or blue filter. Biosand filters trap about mid 80s to high 90s % of the bacteria and objects found in water, with percentages varying due to maintenance and quality of the original water source. When the biofilm develops after about two weeks, clean water is good to go. The gravel serves as another physical filter to maintain the integrity of the sand part of the filter, preventing it from going through the outlet tube.

A page from a booklet

The cleaner the water is going into the filter, the cleaner the water is coming out. Therefore, if you use water from a stream that feces run into, the water that comes out of the filter will not be as clean as water coming from a well 30 meters or so from a toilet. With each filter Trailblazer installs, they also hand out and explain a blue booklet in Khmer with pictures to show how to maintain the filter, how to use the filter, and how to drink/use water responsibly and sustainably in general. The pictures show fenced in livestock so they do not poo in streams, and also enclosed toilet areas, for example.

Drunk driving and helmet notice

Rice (duh), sauce, fish, and omlet

We stopped for lunch at one of the houses that actually belongs to one of Trailblazer's staff. His wife cooked a great meal of rice (of course), a sauce for the rice that consisted of chili and some sort of cilantro-esque herb, grilled fish, and a great omlet. While eating the omlet, Sotirot (again, not how you spell his name but how I pronounce it) asked me what the eggs of the fish were called. "Fish eggs," I said, "or from certain fish, it is called caviar and this is very expensive." "Ohhhhhh" he said, very excited. "There is caviar in this omlet!"

I am vegetarian, and trying to not eat fish in the middle of nowhere. So much for that one. But it did explain why the food tasted so good!

Also on the Lolei trip, I held three more naked babies that I loved but God was I worried about them peeing on me. We also went by a makeshift school with English and Khmer letter charts, as well as an English parts-of-the-body chart. There was also a fruit poster in English, and randomly in Chinese, with fruits I don't even think they readily have in Cambodia, like blueberries. The man at this house said he learned English with monks at the pagoda, and hopes to teach English to Khmer students for free. I also witnessed the only anti-drunk driving poster I have seen in Cambodia, and I am told that drunk driving is actually a serious problem.

At about 3:15, I climbed back onto the back of the truck, put Bone-knee's fashionable hat back on, and went home. 

A Plethora of Goods

First, sincere apologies for the lack of photos in this post. Also, please comment with questions or other opinions (as I say at the end of this post).

Markets in Southeast Asia range from live fish flopping about after being severed alive (I really do wonder what Peter Singer would say to that sight), to piles of fruit I don't know the names of in English, to women screaming "buy something?!" about their kitsch and ubiquitous elephant emblazoned handbags (most of which I have been told are from Thailand or Vietnam), to circuitous halls and halls of batik sarong cloths, to where I went yesterday: a NGO sponsored market with all locally made handicrafts and goods. I went from stall to stall learning about the different NGOs while also looking at the handicrafts being sold (often scarfs not meant to be worn in tropical heat, post cards, pendants, bracelets, etc.). And I saw serious problems with much of this.

Some NGOs, it seems, have basically taken over different villages with no route of action in mind to leave. They help the children (always the children, or children and women, not the (male) adults who are also in need of help) buy school supplies to go to school rather than beg on the streets, and also provide art (the photographs are made into postcards) and English lessons. Pictures of kids brushing their teeth and looking doe-eyed into the camera dot the brochure. To compensate for the parents' loss of income, the organizations will often provide rice or other forms of non-monetary help to the families. The NGO begins to thus dictate their livelihoods. Although helping children is 110% important, so is helping the adults who force their children to do beg on the streets. What about helping parents find work? If there are no jobs (and this often seems to be the case, unfortunately), what is the underlying problem, here? There is more to the story than just the children.

Most NGOs also help women, and female-made products becomes a sort of branded attribute. It is a selling point of the commodity--one might even say a "trend." The women from one village bead bracelets and pendants for a tourist market in order to provide for their families.  The Australian head told me all but three of the men walked out when I asked her what the men do while women bead. This is excellent, the women are able to help their families now when before they were not able to.

But it is also problematic: beading these bracelets still marginalizes women to do handiwork as well as relies on a tourist market to buy the goods. Without this Australian woman, and without a tourist market, the women would still be impoverished. NGO work today is reminiscent of my studying the French Indochina Empire but in a lighter and more charitable way. The white power is still coming into the impoverished country to "help" to poor people who cannot help themselves, while also benefiting themselves (goods are still being produced for a western market). Yes, this is a stretch but a reasonable connection.

You could argue: what would these women do without this NGO if there are no jobs? And this is a very valid point--the NGO has provided these women with a skill they can market to the flood of tourists in their country at the moment. By having their own business, this empowers them. But I also ask, more cynically: what would the NGO and its often white founders do without these impoverished women? Rather than have the women bead, it might be more productive to get to the root of unemployment rather than place a daintily embroidered scarf over the problem.

Many NGOs have a program where you can tour local villages and really get to know "authentic" and "traditional" Cambodian life. Yes, tourists often strive for this authenticity and yearn for simpler times--but a tuk tuk driver's life is just as "Cambodian" as a rice farmer's. Touring villages helps people who might not otherwise know what life is like sans electricity or plumbing see this, but again, the villagers then rely on the tourists for their income. Tourism is a lucrative industry, but tourism as the primary industry creates problems.  The villagers have to do this day in and day out, making their village more like a museum rather than a place to live. As tourists bike through, they don't want to really see the real, nitty gritty and not pretty life. And eating lunch with a local family? They often want to try the local food, but not too local. And I am not referring to the people who really do want to dry duck egg (no, not a duck's egg, but a duck's egg with a was-about-to-be-hatched-and-then-you-ate-me duck inside the egg), I mean the people who would be disappointed eating only a small helping of rice for lunch. That's local, for you. Of course, there are exceptions to this.

What's more, the people who are buying these goods think that they are greatly helping the situation. They are certainly putting their money to a good cause, but this "passive activism" worries me. Buying ten scarves made by women in the rural village will not change the country. Eating at a restaurant where all of the profits go to some school children will not change the political situation in the country that makes things how they are today. It can begin to help, but buying your way to change is not the answer. Although many tourists and people in general simply do not care enough to make lasting change--they are going home soon. Those who stay do try to make a change, but (as this post describes), I fear it is not the best pathway. And no, I do not have a different, viable, and practical method in mind.

This is not meant to denounce any of the NGOs in Siem Reap and Cambodia at large, it is just that I find multiple flaws and many of them and hope that you, dear reader, might have a different opinions to enlighten me with. I am very very open to other thoughts as I would love to prove the cynic in me wrong. Maybe....is this NGO society the first step to changing Cambodia on the whole? 

"You must be the tallest woman in the universe"

Well, contrary to the popular belief held among many villagers, I am not the tallest woman in the universe. In fact, the tallest woman ever was reported to have been eight foot four inches, while I am a mere six foot 1 inch. But, this is what everyone (so I am told, I have not learned the Khmer sentence "you are the tallest woman in the world" but am on lesson three with my tutor!) has been saying about me, wherever I go.

Ratanak showing how to use the stove

Although this week at Trailblazer I have mostly been working on filtering sand for the water filters or picking salad / weeding (and dealing with my uncooperative stomach -_____-), on Tuesday I (along with others) delivered 82 new cooking stoves to eight different villages (or rather, we went to one village where villagers from eight different villages gathered). The cooking stoves are meant to simulate what Cambodians normally use to cook, but instead of fill the enclosed cooking space with smoke, these new cook stoves make the indoor air quality (or rather, slightly-enclosed-space-air-quality) much better (and contrary to popular belief, indoor air quality is often worse than outdoor air quality). The stoves are also meant to reduce time spent cooking, allowing the villagers to pursue other projects and improve overall quality of life.

Getting the surveys organized

We arrived at a village Town Hall at about 9:30am, and the families from the eight villages selected to receive the stove also met us there. In order to be selected to receive the stove, each family had to fill out a baseline survey, asking questions such as "How long does it take for you to cook dinner?" or "How many people do you cook for?" The surveys will avoid yes/no questions unless it is about something directly observable (ex: "is there soap in your bathroom area?") and not opinion ("do you think you cook for a long time?"). After the families who want the stoves fill out the survey, the village chief (of the eight villages, there was one female village chief which is quite rare--they are almost always male) decides who gets the stove. Trailblazer picks the villages, the village chief picks the villagers. Trailblazer works within the already existing systems as not to impose onto the villages; however, this can also create problems if the village chiefs are corrupt (as is often sometimes the case).

Village chief collecting money and recording it

The Cambodian president of Trailblazer, Ratanak, showed the villagers how to use the stove briefly, and the stove itself came with picture instructions. Scott, one of the American founders of Trailblazer explained how it had taken two years to get the stoves shipped from the US with customs and everything. Some villagers had already paid the $1.50/6,000Riel fee for the stoves, while with others we saw the transaction take place with the village chief taking and recording the money for bookkeeping. The money goes to a central village fund / savings account, as I described a bit in my first post.

Strapping the stoves to bicycles and motos

Getting the stoves turned into a celebration of sorts. With each stove handed out, we got a photo of giving it to the villager. In my honest opinion, this was excessive. I understand how monumental this stove was for the people, and played along with the photos, but did so through a rather fake smile (I was a cheerleader in high school). As someone who really is not a fan of getting photos of myself when I literally appear like a ball of sweat, my hair is sticking straight up, and dirt is stuck to my sunscreen-slathered face, I was not amused.  One of them men receiving the stove remarked about its high quality, literally saying "Looks like quality" and was very excited and proud to have the stove--it was truly moving. Men, women, and children strapped the stove to their motorbikes or bicycles to go home, excited to use them. 

Three Suppers

Restaurant decor with sauces. These photos
are all from my iPhone, please excuse the
somewhat sub-par quality.

It doubled as a tailor shop!

They say third times a charm. Well I have discovered tonight that actually this might not be true, unless I am miscounting. On Saturday night, I went to a great Khmer place across from Build Bright University and had truly stellar fried rice that I wrote about a bit here. Last night, I went to another place and had amazing vegetables with rice. And then tonight.... my first thoughts upon receiving my 3,000Riel noodles ($0.75) noodles was "This is exactly what could give me food poisoning." This is never a good sign. The large pan of them outside looked so promising, the seating area so "authentically" chic, and the baby wandering around so cute, I had to sat down and order. And they had vegetarian options (that I tried asking about in Khmer (!!) but he understood English better -____-)!

My noodles arrived with a barely cooked egg (unless I have a poached egg on toast and am preferably out for brunch in New York at, say, Jack's Wife Freda, I prefer my eggs cooked) sitting in a bed of water, or oil, or something unidentifiable  The noodles were slimy and gross, and I looking at them I expected the bean sprouts to actually be worms and to move through my noodles (this was in my head, of course). I ate about half of the noodles, paid, and left.

Utterly unsure what that fruit next to the
coconut is as it looks to me like a ham slice.

To appease my stomach, I went and bought a steamed empanada (the dough was like for a Chinese pork bun) down the road which the man said was "sweet egg" but it was more like this jelly sugar congeal in the inside. My first bite was very chewy, but I soon realized this was because I ate the paper under the empanada as well. In true Asia fashion, he plopped the empanada into minuscule plastic bag. I overall was not a fan, which is good because I believe I was severely overcharged (I paid a whopping 1,500Riel ($0.375) for something that likely should have cost 500Riel ($0.125))

I then went to a juice bar to fully mollify everything stirring in my stomach which was decently reasonable. I have no idea what was in the ambiguous mixed fruit smoothie except for ice (which her mom was manually shaving off a block) and the jack fruit I tasted, but I am pretty sure there was condensed milk and also papaya, or something orange, as the color of it was peach and jack fruit is yellow. This, dear reader, is the story of my three suppers.

The Village

Ride to Poon te'Bang village

Yesterday, I went to Koon's (a man who is part of Trailblazer) village Poon te'Bang (this is how it sounds to me) for the whole day, which was very interesting and great to get out of the city where I fear being run over every other five minutes. We left from Siem Reap at 10am sharp, although I had been up since 6am thanks to the Cambodian music blasting from the house next to me (some sort of traditional violin, wooden xylophone, and loud singing. I have realized this goes on from sunrise to sun set. Seeing as I have dealt with now six power cuts ranging from 30 seconds to 2 hours, it is surprising to me that they use their power on this boombox instead of savoring it for, maybe, light).

I had never been that far outside of Siem Reap before, and it was truly (and expected-ly)  a whole different world from Siem Reap. Although only 31km away, suddenly the roads were not paved, toilets became holes in the ground, doors where non-existent (the houses were on stilts), and patches of different shades of green filled the landscapes like a carpet. It was interesting to see the different government signs, most commonly the Cambodian People's Party (Hun Sen's camp), the Cambodian National Rescue Party (of which I have never heard and wonder if there is a different name as well), and FUNCINPEC (Front Uni National pour un Cambodge Indépendant, Neutre, Pacifque, etc Coopératif or in English National United Front for an Independent, Neutral, Peaceful, and Cooperative Cambodia). The CPP had a center in nearly every village we passed through, and Hun Sen's face (and a bad picture of him, honestly) plastered on signs in even the most remote areas. 

So I have been told, people continue to vote for Hun Sen because they know nothing else. Elections are this July, and he is expected to win (or rather, he has little competition as people are too scared) again. According to Sophie, a Cambodian-American I met in Poon te'Bang who immigrated to the USA in 1981 from a Thai rescue camp and was returning to visit her mother, the people are just happy that it is not the Khmer Rouge, and that essentially "anything is better than the Khmer Rouge." Even though Hun Sen he no godsend, he is not Pol Pot. If the people and live and work, albeit often under the poverty line, this is still better than the Khmer Rouge. This is not meant to insinuate that the Khmer people do not care.

Also dotted along the villages and houses were signs from where filters, schools, houses, toilets, etc. had been donated. The most popular signs were from Japan, Canada, Australia, the U.S., and I saw one from the EU. I find it interesting that instead of just donating a water filter or toilet, the country or organization has to make it known who donated the filter, etc. rather than just put the filter in. I understand that with Trailblazer, for example, if the filter says Trailblazer then there is knowledge of accountability if something goes wrong. But the Honolulu Air Force Team? No. In my personal opinion, rather than have your name stamped onto the charitable act, just give it. Do you have to be recognized for everything?

I never say no to a coconut. 

After walking about to visit Koon's multiple friends and random cousins (and being told that I was the tallest girl they have ever seen, asking how much I weighed and asking me to step on a scale that looked more appropriate to weigh mangosteens (I declined to step on it), listening to "Thrift Shop" on the radio with smart aleck ten-year-olds and dancing a bit in my chair (they could not contain their laughter), and holding a baby without any pants on who I prayed wouldn't suddenly pee), I ate lunch and drank a huge young coconut. A woman then split open my coconut and gave it to a very young child (age unknown) who proceeded to scrape the meat out and get it all over herself. Lunch consisted of really good rice, a soy sauce chopped chili concoction, fried eggs, and water spinach. Koon kept apologizing that it was not pizza, and that it was not the famous (yet expensive and not widely eaten by Cambodians on a quotidian basis) amok you get in the center of town. I wanted to shake him and tell him that this is what I liked--not the food in the center of town that as I described earlier, the taste is truly MIA. I did not shake him, and I did tell him how good the food was, but I fear he did not understand (which will change soon as I take my Khmer lessons!) It truly aggravates me that everyone thinks that because I am a Western white girl I want pasta and pizza, but no, the pasta and pizza in Asia are often terrible and I much prefer Cambodian food by a landslide. Really--I remember having pasta at a swanky restaurant in Bangalore and just thinking how it tasted like a Lean Cuisine. No thanks. [Side note: Num Pang Sandwich Shop on 12th and University Place is amazing, yet far from anything I have had on the streets of Siem Reap yet)

After lunch we walked around more and talked to even more people, some of whom were huddled around a black and white television, we went back to Siem Reap. My butt was basically numb by the time I got back to my guesthouse and I struggled to sit still on the back of the moto. 3 hours on a motorbike truly takes a toll on your rear end, and even when I sat on my bed upon arriving home (and all I can say about my bed is that I am glad massages here are cheap), I stood up immediately.  

La Vie de Tomate

A) I really need to set up an alarm on my phone so I remember to take malarone. Although I completely bypassed paying $6 a pill by strategically picking up my prescription in batches over the course of six weeks, I must remember to take these pricey pills that will keep me out of hospital. At least I bought bug spray yesterday. And it smells like citrus (insert emojicon here)!

The pool I visited, 5-star place next to my $5
a night place. 

B) I also need to bite the bullet and buy some sort of sun hat contraption for my dear shoulders. I applied sunscreen twice today and still look like a genetically enhanced tomato. I went to a pool close to my new guesthouse (see below) because the there was a powercut and life without a fan was just not in today's tarot card reading, and it was Saturday.

I am glad I went despite my current tomato status, as the experience was very interesting and something I normally do not do (I am not a fan of pools). I met the owner of the resort, a Singapore-Malay man who lives in Holland and gave me an overview of foreign leased land to build hotels, as well as the immense expat scene in Siem Reap. We also spoke Bahasa! :-o More importantly, he gave me the number of another NGO that works with food and food access that I will call! There were a lot of other long term stay guests/expats (not sure of the line between the two) there as well, which was interesting especially listening in on their conversations. Right before I left, a Cambodian family rolled up in their brand new Toyota, iPad / iPhone in tow. I was actually surprised it wasn't a Lexus, considering the sheer amount I have seen around town. This was just another display of the sheer wealth that certain Cambodians possess.

Yesterday, I was able to find a guesthouse that was far out of town with a monthly rate for $150 a month--almost half of what I had budgeted for. Although I would much prefer a homestay--and still hold hope!--this is fine for now. There are tons of street side restaurants around where I can get really good fried rice for $1. And I mean really good. I had fried rice last night at the market in the center of town and truly, it was a disgrace to fried rice everywhere. The flavor was MIA, I found a random shrimp with two pineapple slices,  the carrots were soggy, so just no.

I also finally got myself a Khmer phone number, although with a company that I have since been told is the worst one in Cambodia (Beeline). I am able to text out to the USA, but cannot receive texts from my mom, for example. I have also realized that some Cambodian phones cannot text in general. In general, I am noticing that there is a wide array of cell phones, from iPhone 5s to Nokias from 2002. When buying my citrus bug spray, I saw a toddler on the floor buy his mom watching a video on his iPad. Seeing all of this Apple wear reminds me of my lost iPhone 4 that I got stolen at Ari Cantik Hospital in Bali, a place I prefer to never go to again (not Bali, the hospital).

Her stuffed animals before her brother came and put them
all behind her head (but didn't take them away? He needs big
brother lessons).

To get my SIM card I went to a shop that was about five minutes walking from my old guesthouse, but the man who worked there, the grandma told me, was getting food and would be back soon. Although she told me this in Khmer, she used enough hand gestures that I knew what she was talking about. So I waited. The children watching TV were too adorable to leave behind, and one of them even brought out all three of her stuffed animals to give me a tour of them (I had no clue what she was saying). Although I loved this grandmother and wanted to give the little girl a toothbrush (although a toothbrush does not change the world, I just hated to watch her drinking Coca Cola with blackened teeth), forty minutes later I was still phone-less, so I went to another shop.

Lots of other exciting things happened yesterday, such as getting lost for about an hour and a half and buying a kilo of mangosteens for $2 (still unsure if this was too expensive, but I was not about to bargain with the woman who was riding on her bike around town sporting long pants, a long shirt, socks with flip flops, and a hat/neck/mouth covering contraption for something that was less than a coffee at La Colombe), and I could keep writing and bore not only you, dear reader, but also myself to tears sitting here with Khmer karaoke in the background and a mosquito bite on my chin. One of the most interesting, poignant, and sad (not sure what the right word is) things I witnessed yesterday were the camps that Cambodian people set up just across the river from the touristy district. Just out of sight for the vast majority of tourists/travelers, Khmer people were setting up camp for that night beside a river. Just four hours earlier, I watched some convoy of three Mercedes, an Escalade, and four police motorbikes and cars escort some public official right by the same place. As I listen to Hun Sen preach on television (the guy switched from karaoke), I am truly shocked at the amount of political and cultural contexts that went right by me last time I was here. I had some idea, but not a fuller picture. 

First two (sunburnt) days in Cambodia

One of the lettuce gardens. The filter is "toaster" because I
literally feel like a burnt piece of toast in this heat -__-

I arrived in Cambodia early yesterday morning (by early, I mean I had to be up at 2:30am in Kuala Lumpur to make it to the airport--of course, there was no traffic so I could have easily slept until 3:30am (!) but oh well) and was able to get to Trailblazer foundation by 9:30am. My home-stay unfortunately fell through, but I booked a guesthouse for three nights and will go on the hunt tomorrow to find a cheaper one with a monthly rate that is closer to Trailblazer. I have been taking motos or tuk-tuks to Trailblazer and unfortunately, this will begin to add up more than I would like (even though I love motorbikes). My other option is to bike, but unfortunately bike helmets are hard to come by and gawked at; however, if I rent a bike I will insist on a helmet not only because my biking skills are not 100%, but also because other people's bike/driving skills are not 100%. I might look dumb but I would look even more dumb having exorbitant yet avoidable hospital fees (although Siem Reap has a branch of Bangkok Hospital, bb <333 #gapyearmemories).

Yesterday, I had a tour of the NGO grounds, and learned more about what they are doing. The three main areas of work that Trailblazer is involved in are agriculture, water for families (filters), and township water (wells). The Cambodian people pay a very small amount ($5) for the water well, and the money is collected by the town and creates a sort of town trust. People can borrow from the trust to buy chickens or to take their child to the doctor's office, for example. The filters provide water for three families, and I have already witnessed that this water comes out very slowly so it cannot be used for commercial use (such as creating a fish pond). As for agriculture, Trailblazer is working on setting up local gardens in towns in order to jumpstart economic activity with the  vegetables. At the moment, Trailblazer is test driving arugula and other high end salad greens to sell to tourist restaurants in Siem Reap as that is where the most money is and the demand is highest. If all goes well, Trailblazer will set up gardens in the village communities. Trailblazer also attempted to grow and sell mushrooms to restaurants, but this did not work and right now, I am helping with the aftermath of this.

Look at all of those mushroom bags!! 

Type of bag that I have been
putting the mushroom
compost into. 

After the mushroom attempts failed, I have been opening each plastic bag that held the soil, comprised of lime, sawdust, and rice for the mushrooms, and emptying it into large former fish bags to be used for compost in the future. The mushrooms were grown in plastic bags molded in the shape of plastic bottles. Yesterday was brutally hot, while today it has cooled down a bit after it rained last night--making this work much more enjoyable (because I went to bed at 6pm last night, and accidentally screwed up my alarm and woke up 11pm, I missed this rainstorm although I heard the thunder was very loud--a testament to my heavy sleeping). By hot, I mean it feels like the sun is pressing against my shoulders, and as sweat drips off me (in waterfall proportions), my knees my buckle into the dirt ground and I will slowly melt. Although it is somewhat mundane work, I am still learning a lot about how things are run at the NGO and although it sounds corny: I am learning that not everything attempted works (which might seem obvious), and it is good to know that when things do not work, they don't try and pretend they do but rather stop (what also might seem obvious  but think about it: how often do people recognize their mistakes and backtrack like that?). Mushrooms can work in Cambodia, so I have been told, they just need to have very specific conditions.

Doing all of this work makes me sweat up storm, meaning I have a great excuse to replenish electrolytes with young coconut water!!

On a more academic and environmental note, rice farming in Cambodia overwhelmingly uses pesticides, while there is a new push to use organic pesticides (don't be fooled: organic pesticides are not always better for the environment than synthetic, and in fact, synthetic pesticides can be better), according to my supervisor Rataunak.

[Fun Fact of the day: the verb "to eat" in Khmer actually means "to eat rice." This reminds me of the verb "to work" in Indonesian and how it literally means "to work in the rice field." This further proves how rice is not only ingrained in the culture and nutrition of Southeast Asia, but also in linguistic structures.] 

My Brief Saudi Encounter

When I booked my ticket in February, the price of my return flight was honestly too good to be true. For under $1200, I had a return flight to Kuala Lumpur, and a one-way ticket to Siem Reap. The catch: I was flying through Saudi Arabia. 

The Middle East is crudely mythologized in the United States, and it becomes this foreign land that houses oil, burqas, terrorism, and extreme Islam. I felt prepared for my brief encounter with what Flaubert and so many before and after him deemed "the Orient," but felt that I would be sheltered in the airport.

Not so. I arrived at JFK about two and a half hours before my flight (I meant to be there three hours ahead but Bareburger was more important at the time) with my two backpacks in tow along with a large bag of Whole Foods goodies (which wow--I have a lot but I am thankful for!!). Already in the line, I saw more burqas than ever before. I was used to hijabs in Indonesia, but it is always shocking to see a female, just like myself, have only her eyes showing to the world. I also saw some very fashionable Burberry and Fendi hijabs, along with piles of luggage on smartcarts (the amount of luggage was truly concerning)

I was wearing my signature Nike shorts in line; however, when it was my turn to check-in (after about 45 minutes) I was told I had to put on long pants before receiving my boarding pass. 

Excuse me?

Luckily, I had slightly foreseen such an occasion and had leggings in my backpack. I put them on and got my boarding passes to Jeddah and Kuala Lumpur, and by some miracle my bag only weighed 21.7kgs. 

View from the table I parked myself at

On the plane, I sat next to a little boy and a woman with a full burqa on. Assuming that she was travelling with her mom (who came over often, and often woke me up in the process of either leaning her hand on my shoulder, her talking basically in my ear, or her black burqa sleeves tickling my face), I was surprised to see that her husband was in the seat in front of us with his friends, but never once acknowledged his wife or son. For some reason, I thought that they were meeting her husband in Saudi Arabia because there was no sign of him on the plane, and because I was sitting in the aisle seat of a three seat row, I took the spot he might theoretically take. I did see couples, nonetheless, that were "holding-hands-affectionate" with each other. 

The flight attendants were all female, but there were only some male cabin crew in a simple white-shirt-black-pants combo. Honestly, the flight attendants did nothing to ensure that electronics were off, tables up, seats up, and seat belts fastened. There were a few announcements, but no walking through the cabin. 

I was happy that we all had personal TVs, not so happy to find out that these TVs barely had any television on them. I went to recent western film releases, expecting to catch up on the Oscar winners, and instead only recognized Life of Pi, which, sorry, but I have no interest in watching. In television, however, I saw familiar hits: Friends and Modern Family. I watched the two available episodes of Friends and started to realize....some words were bleeped out, scenes missing, and it was fuzzy over Rachel and Monica's chests. The word "beer" was bleeped out, yet not lager, stout, or ale, which was interesting (the episode happened to feature Ross and guest star Paul Rudd having lager together, hence the plethora of beer related vocabulary). In Modern Family, they bleeped out the word "period" and "menstruation." So does this just not exist? I wondered then, what was the point of even showing these series? Is saying the word "beer" really going to ruin Saudi way of life? And periods are a way of life, whether it is recognized or not. As an American, I would see this censorship as the government taking away my freedom to watch what I want, but in Saudi Arabia, because the Koran--or some version of the Koran--is the basis of life, this "right-to-see-Rachel's-cleavage-or-hear-the-word-beer" is not even considered a freedom. Bleeping out "period" irked me even more. On a more macro scale, this means that the human rights initiatives can be construed differently all over the world depending on the definitions of these freedoms. Although much of human rights discourse is founded on equality...are we equal?

I was thinking that I really would not be able to listen and respect my mom like I do today if she were wearing a burqa that covered everything but her eyes, and wasn't assertive and independent. But then I get conflicted: In Islam, this is how women are (not) meant to be. In the US / Europe, are we actually improper? Is complete equality between the sexes ever possible, and meant to be? Although comparing Saudi Arabia to the US is extreme, and let me tell you I am thankful to be able to wear shorts, and write this because I have only recently become very interested in feminism and feminist policies. Even though I am confined to a small portion of the airport, I am still in the land where television is only just starting to break cultural barriers (and New York Times wrote a great article about this) and has two women participate in the Olympics for the first time ever less than a year ago. 

Well aware that I should read some Saba Mahmood, and fully plan on it.