Week 2 - Steady away

Highlights - Doing it Cambodian style on a moto, eating cow goes to mountain & starting to make sense of all the information.  Lowlights - 12 mosquito bites, a bruised knee and grit in my eye.

Week 2 has been a busy one.  Monday was spent mapping out the financial processes of CCAF so that I can make recommendations around improvements.  Mapping out the process makes it easier to test that my understanding is correct when discussing this with the staff, as I've found it's very easy to have pre-conceived ideas, which are very different to what is actually happening. 

Tuesday and Wednesday gave me chance to gather further information on the process and start to explore the reports produced by the charity.  My role is to help to develop financial capacity in the charity and therefore I spend a lot of the time talking with staff, firstly, to gauge their understanding on the financials and secondly to get their ideas about the current processes.  I discuss my ideas with them and walk them through my thought process so that when I write my final report there will be no suprises in it, as they will understand the reason for any recommendations and hopefully will be able to easily implement them.  Thursday, I worked with Leakhena to produce by programme, an annual budget, a monthly report and a cashflow as I want to help the charity in their planning process.  Friday I started to write one of several reports I need to produce- the good news is that the laptop is fixed.  Good job as I am running out of pens...

In and amongst the accountancy excitement I have also learnt about Cambodian weddings, watched monks receive their alms and heard first hand, the experience of living under the Khmer Rouge regime.  It is very humbling when people choose to share this with you and I find myself unable to say anything useful in response and therefore just listen.  I have found that often it's about being able to talk about the experience which is important to the person telling the story and not about them a needing a response. I have only admiration for these people, who have lived through so much.

Thursday evening was great fun as we were invited to dinner at the home of the CCAF treasurer and his wife.  We ate 'cow goes to mountain',  drank lots of beer and listened to great Khmer music.  'Cow goes to mountain' is best described as a fondue but with beef rather than cheese! Strips of beef are placed on top of what can only be desribed as a giant juicer under which charcoal or gas flames cook the beef and the juices run down into a soup, in the rim of the juicer, in which vegetables are cooked.  Everyone just digs in with their chopsticks, whilst sitting cross legged on the floor (a cushion is definitely required after the first hour). A friend of the host offered to take us home, so there was the driver, me sat side saddle and Rich wedged behind me all piled onto a moto (moped).  How the moto wasn't wheely-ing down the road with us two sat on the back I have no idea!

We headed off to Kampot town for the weekend to get our fill of the countryside.  We opted to go by private taxi choosing comfort over price.  Our original plan of a share taxi, lost it's appeal when we found out that a share taxi squeezes four in the back and three in the front  with the driver half in/half out of the car!  It's one of the delights of Cambodia that I'm happy not to discover...

Kampot is a beautiful town situated on the river and surrounded by hills.  Saturday we headed up to Bokor Hill Station, lured by stories of a ghost town and beautiful views.  We got the beautiful views but there wasn't so much of the ghost element, I think thats disappeared now that the construction work has started.  It's easy to understand why the French chose the location for the old hotel/casino and why the Cambodian government have sold this for development.  However, the destruction of the forests in the National Park in which its situated is a heavy price to pay.  We at least got to walk through the ancient forest on our way up to the Hill Station which once the road is renovated and re-opened will no longer be part of the trip up. 

Sunday we headed towards Kep, taking in Phnom Chnork (a cave temple) and a pepper plantation of the way before eating our own body weight in prawns and crab, which Kep is famous for.  The cave excursion was an interesting trip.  Around 11 kms down a dirt path, situated on land which had been cleared of land mines and with 7 young locals as our guide we entered a huge cave which had several rock formations resembling animals.  Our guides were entertaining - play fighting all the way up to the cave and one particular bad boy insisted on throwing fire crackers as we walked along.  They all pulled out mobile phones to act as a light in the cave shrine- unsuprising really as wherever you go in Cambodia there's always a mobile phone shop!

So here endeth another chapter - am posting photos so no-one has to sit through a slide show when I get home.




Leakhena (Senior Bookkeeper) in the office




Dara (Programmes Assistant)




Channarith (CEO) working on his latest project - wind power



'Cow goes to Mountain'




Bokor Hill Station- Hotel











Phnom Chnork - spot the elephant!



With our 7 friendly guides



Week 1 -And they're off...

So, first week is over.  The highlights are : meeting the great team at CCAF & surviving the 30 minute tuk tuk journey to and from work each day.  The lowlights : still no computer, so no photos to upload, and a virus on my pen drive (ouch!).

Working with Accounting for International Development ( www.afid.org.uk), I am in Phnom Penh to assist, with all things financial, at a small NGO called the Cambodian Childrens Advocacy Fund (CCAF).  CCAF provide assistance in the rural province of Kampot, aiming to help in the reduction of the root cause of  poverty, through the provision of pre-schools and supporting community development.  Pre-schools in remote areas allow children who have no means of transport to access education and whilst children are schooled this allows parents to farm chickens and crops with basic necessities and vocational training provided by CCAF.  This is my paraphrasing so please check out their website for more information  -www.ccaf-khmer.org

As Kampot is around 140 kilometres from Phenom Penh, there is only a small team in Phnom Penh, working in an office at the house of the CEO, where there is a small 2 person office and a large table in the garden. Sitting in the sunshine, with the families dogs at your feet in the peace and quiet is a great way to spend the working day.  I'm not sure it would catch on in the UK though...

The first couple of days the CEO, Channarith, was in Kampot with one of their major donors and therefore I had chance to meet the rest of the team, the senior book keeper Leakhena, Programs Assistant Chandara and the Internal Auditor Sopheary.  All were very welcoming and it gave me a great opportunity to start building my knowledge about the charity.  The rest of the week was more knowledge gathering as the objectives agreed with the CEO are around review of the existing financial systems.  This week has been, not so much a learning curve, more like vertical learning! However, Leakhena who I've worked closely with this week has been great - with a degree in accountancy and soon to have degree in English, my job has been made easy.

My Khmer is coming along nicely as I now have the basics such as hello, thank you etc and a full sentence of 'see you tomorrow'. I can now also give directions to tuk tuk drivers, although I suspect that my wild arm gestures help to reinforce my Khmer instructions.

Too jet lagged/lazy there has not been much venturing out on weeknights so far.  Much research has been undertaken on the local beer and will continue to be researched throughout the stay I suspect.  Saturday evening we went to a local nightclub to watch a performance of rap and breakdance by street kids who are taught by the NGO Tiny Toones, and they were excellent, much better than the aged american "rap star"" who was the headline act.  Much fun was had people watching in the club that night, particularly the sugar daddies, manfully strutting their stuff, to impress their young cambodian ladies.

Anyway this entry is far too long - congratulations if you made it this far.  So it's "leasenhai" from me, until next time.

17/01/11 Get Set

Journey am pleased to report was uneventful other than a brief encounter with 2 Chelsea players at the Travelex desk. Although I have to admit having no idea who they were at the time, tutting loudly about how long they were taking!
Anyway,arrival in Phnom Penh very straight forward and having been collected by an employee of the charity we were soon speeding along by tuk-tuk to guest house. Experience is best described as taking part in a real life mario kart race. All manner of vehicles, any side of the road & about 10 vehicles wide. As a pedestrian, crossing the road is going to be interesting!
Other points of note in 1st 24 hrs-guest house is not the one we thought it was and the laptop broke the minute we arrived, therefore posting of pictures will be delayed.
Next thrilling instalment of blog I will introduce the charity and its people-i should be able to pronounce their names by then!

12/01/11 - On your marks...

So, this is me nearly ready for the off - finishing off all the last minute things before heading off to Cambodia for 5 weeks to do a charity placement.  Now I've set up the blog,I guess this means I really must be going and what started out as an idle thought back in April 2010 has now become my reality.  I comfort myself with the fact that I've briefly visited Cambodia and therefore have some idea of what to expect when I get there, but I'm sure living in Phnom Penh for 5 weeks will give me a whole new perspective.  For now I will focus my attention on whether 5 pairs of shoes is enough for 5 weeks...