Take(o) Two

Can hardly believe that another productive and happy week has aready gone by here in Takeo. We've continued every day with the fencing project, despite temperatures in the humid mid 30s most of the time. The last few uprights of the 56 metre run were nailed into place on Thursday, this last week's work being thanks mainly to the continuing efforts of Andy, Bun Seng and the NFO's handyman-cum-security guard, Sao, because considerable numbers of the volunteers who'd been working on the project departed mid-week - some just for a short break and others for pastures new. 



Sao Provides the Finishing Touches.....



.....While Andy Provides a Gate.

 Those of us on the sanding and varnishing team (which now includes a new intake of a couple of Swedish girls, an Aussie girl lucky enough to live in the wonderful Byron Bay, and two Spanish girls, Paula and Maria, both with a great sense of humour. Paula speaks really good English, having honed her language skills whilst working for a couple of years at the Holiday Inn in Sutton, south-east London, of all places. This is the town where I mis-spent my teenage years, and where my parents still live. So, there you are, mum and dad, you're truly on the map as far as Paula is concerned anyway. Though she says she wouldn't want to go back to live there, she said she had really enjoyed her time in Sutton - which she compares very favourably (and quite rightly) to nearby Croydon - Sutton being "not quite so rough" apparently! Not the most whole-hearted of praise for the place, but it's better than nothing, I suppose.



Khouy with Sarah and Darren

 One of the highlights of this week for us has been a brief rendezvous with little Khouy on Tuesday. I'd spent the morning at one of the local schools, at the request of 3 of the girls in my French class, and, on my way through the playground to get into the school, had spotted Khouy in the distance, across the other side of this pretty vast space, standing with some of the younger children. It was 6.45 (A.M! - school starts at 7 a.m, 6 days a week here), and I wasn't at all sure that I'd seen correctly, but my 3 hosts verified that this little figure was, indeed, Khouy. I'm not sure why none of we volunteers who'd enquired after him at the orphanage had not been told that he was still in the nearby school every day, but doubtless there are good reasons. Anyway, to cut a long story short, two of the other long-term volunteers who'd spent so much time with Khouy last year, Sarah and Darren, had that very day also learnt, by another route, that he was there, and had waited for him at the school gates at the lunch break (11 am over here). Although at first he was very reluctant even to make eye contact with them, they carefully won him round, and took him, and a couple of his 'cousins', off to a little cafe half-way between the school and the orphanage, where we also joined them. He slowly became animated (well, as far as he ever is), and we chatted together (again, so far as we could, with his very limited speech, even in Khmer, never mind English) and we even managed to get a smile or two out of him. We were all pleased to see that, though still very thin, he has grown a little taller and did look pretty healthy - mind you, he gobbled down a bowl of noodle soup as though it might be his last! As he didn't need to get back to school until 1.30 pm, Sarah and Darren ventured a little further, by bringing him into the orphanage to play for a while - not to the delight of all of the children, it must be said, though most of them took little interest either way. It was difficult to gauge the reaction of Bun Seng, who is a bit inscrutable at the best of times. He certainly didn't turn Khouy away, and nor did he remonstrate with Sarah and Darren. After Khouy had been returned to school, Bun Seng did, though, explain that there is to be another meeting with Social Services within the next couple of weeks, before any decision is made about Khouy's possible return to NFO. That's fine by us - we were just pleased to see the little lad again.

As for my visit to the school, this was very different from the one we'd both experienced last year at the large, very make-shift schoolroom out in a remote village called 'Little Po', and which had one teacher for its 180 children. This school - one of at least two dozen we've seen here in Takeo - was much more 'conventional'. It comprises a number of breeze-block and rendered single-storey buildings, each with a tin roof and maybe 2 or 3 classrooms per building - with perhaps 9 classrooms in all. All the children across the whole country wear the same uniform: a white shirt and dark blue (or sometimes dark grey) trousers or skirts. Each class here has around 40 pupils per teacher - though, strangely, of varying ages - seems they're streamed by ability rather than age. At the start of each day, each class is cleaned, tidied and swept out by a small team of the pupils of that class, on a rota basis, whilst the rest of the children assemble in the large, concreted playground to sing the national anthem whilst the flag is run up the large flapole. For some reason, I wasn't allowed to attend this ceremony, and sat outside the classroom, watching the little workers inside at their chores, until our class and their teacher turned up. The first hour of the day was a Khmer language lesson, and, though the 3 girls' teacher had agreed that I could attend for the morning, I was a little surprised that she sat me at a small desk right at the back of the room, and neither introduced me to the class, nor referred to or involved me in any way at all. Although she speaks no English or French, my 3 little hosts all do so, and could therefore have acted as interpreters, and I'm therefore not at all sure why the teacher did not think it appropriate to make use of this unusual 'resource' in her class. For the first hour's Khmer language lesson, I clearly had absolutely no idea what the children were learning. It was, neverthless, interesting to observe the classroom management techniques of the teacher, who, though diminutive in stature, clearly had a great 'presence' and wielded her authority with little more than the occasional imperious glance or hard stare at children whose attention was wavering. After a 15-minute play break - during which the children played some kind of 'British bulldog' chasing game - there was half an hour of French with an older woman, with a shockingly bad French accent and grasp of French grammar, who had nothing like the same authority or discipline as the class's regular teacher (who stayed at the back of the class, near to me, marking scripts and occasionally intervening to keep order). After another 15-minute play break, they then did an hour of maths, in this case using the rules of BODMAS, which took me right back to my school in Sutton a good 50-something years ago!

Early the next morning (still Tuesday evening in the UK) we experienced the second highlight of our week. As we mentioned in the last blog entry, we'd set our alarm for 5 a.m. in order to Skype (or be Skyped by?) our friends at the Six Bells Folk 'n' Blues Club in Chiddingly, having thankfully resolved a sound problem which we'd experienced when Roy and Nini tried to Skype us earlier in the week. Though the signal dropped out a few times as Chris and Simon moved around the pub with the laptop, we saw and heard enough of each other to get the strange sense of being in two places at the same time! We heard some snatches of good music, lots of 'cheers-es' and other greetings from some of the regulars, and, in the background, many very familiar loud bursts of laughter from Paul Newman - "probably the best landlord in the world " (you need to say that in the style of that Heineken advert, to get the real effect of course). It was worth waking up early for - especially as we got back to sleep after about 25 minutes on-line - and, as was pointed out to us, this half-way-round the-world link-up was yet another 'first' for this great little club which Chris started up in The Bells well over 20 years ago. We're now just waiting to hear from Chris about the money that was raised that night for NFO. So, a great big 'thank you' to everyone involved in that evening's fun.

Oh, and just one anecdote especially for Cameron, Dylan, Lucca and Rui: you might like to know that this week I've taught some of the children in my English class the "found a peanut song", which you have all loved to sing along to with me (oh yes, you have - don't argue with me!). After the first practice (for the rest of you, it's about someone who eats a peanut he found in a dustbin, and ends up having to have an operation to remove it), as these 12-15 year-olds began to realise the humour of the song, they suddenly all stood up and made up their own next verse after the "operation" verse, which went as follows: "take the poo out, take the poo out, take the poo out just now"! NOT the official version, I have to tell you all, looking primly over the top of my glasses! Anyway, it turns out that Serai, one of the 14 year-old lads here, had had to have an operation a few months ago, after eating an under-ripe bread-fruit (we think) which then set like concrete in his intestine, and had been given this expression by one of the English volunteers at the time, by way of explanation for the procedure he'd undergone!!

Good job we're having to leave the orphanage for a few days now, to get our visa renewed in Sihanoukville, so I can recover from the shock of such naughtiness!


Some Children Play Snakes and Ladders....



.....While Others Have a Massive Water Fight!