Cambodia calling: Week 2

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.