Babs’ travels -The Peking to Paris Rally and other driving adventures.

The computer has been doing strange things.  For continuity read the first blog about Koh Ker and then the latest missive.  My typing is atrocious and it doesn't help that the link keeps being lost.

The latest from the local mafia is that they told all the teachers to pay them one days salary a week and to take the day off.  They said that everyone would benefit.  Te teachers would get a day off, the village wuld benefit because the children could do more work and everyone would be happy.  You can imagine Ponheary.  For such a tiny woman she is a powerhouse of strength.  She stood up to them and also used some of her contacts in higher places to sort it out. The grade 1 teacher had a great swollen black eye yesterday.  Her husband is a thug who, when the plf took over the running of the school deamanded to be paid for 'allowing' his wife to work there.  He took a girlfriend and when she got pregnant brought the child home for his wife to look after.  All this and he beats her up regularly too.  It's a great life. The main reason for going up to the school was to take books for the new library.  The children have never had s...

Yesterday we set off at 5.00am to go to Koh Ker School.  Koh Ker is in the far North of Cambodia, towards the Thai border.  It is a desperate place, in a Country full of desperate places. The van had been loaded up the night before and eight bleary eyed people set off.  Not even a coffee, there's never a Starbucks when you need one!  Ponheary, Rethy, our driver and chef for the day, Pohv, tuk tuk driver and friend of the foundation, Gordon and Dorothy two volunteers from Canada, Bernice, a French women who teaches at the International School and lives at the house, Lori and me. We also had all the food needed to feed nearly 300  hungry children along with all the utensils, pots and pans etc.  and books for the new library and medical supplies.  The roof was piled high and every inch inside was stuffed.  We stopped on the way to collect ice and 25 kilos of beef, an unheard of luxury up there, for the lunch. Ponheary first heard about the schoo...

Knar school is an hour away from Siem Reap in a very poor area.  I will tell you more about the school at another time.  Today, I took three boys from the school to the children's hospital with Lori.  They have all been complaining of hearing loss and saying that they did not want to go to school  anymore.  As an Audiologist in a former life it was hoped that I would be useful. None of the boys had been to Siem Reap before and coming to the big city (actually small town)  was a major event.  None of them speak any English.  Their teacher, who does have some English came with them and helped to translate.  They came to the house first; the youngest boy did not have any shoes on.  So, first we got him some new flip flops.  He beamed when he realised that they were for him.  Newly shod, we set off in a tuk tuk for the hospital  They all looked rather frightened about being hauled off in the big city they had never seen and ...

A very sad day today.  A boy at school had obviously been beaten up by his father.  He is normally a perky little thing and very animated.  Today he was very subdued and had red marks and bruising in his face. I spoke to him after class and he said that it just happened in the night.  There was no way he was going to tell me the truth. I guess that he had just had a very sharp belt across his face. He didn't seem to hurt anywhere else.. He was trying not to cry the whole time I was talking to him.  It is very hard to know what to do.  The answer really is there is  nothing you can do.  Just to try to reassure him that it was not his fault and that he is safe at school.  When I spoke tabout it to Rithy, one of the teachers with good English, he just shrugged, it's normal here. Many parent's beat their children viciously here.. There is sexual abuse too.  It will take a long time to change.  There are NGO's working in child protection...

Yes, that's right nearly 5000 children in one primary school.  But, it is not what you would think.  Of course, only half of he children are there at one time, either in the morning or afternoon.  If ever the Government want to showcase Cambodian education hey come here.  It is unique in the country. The headteacher is a visionary.  He believes that all is children should have a good enough grounding so that they can go to a good high school and then into higher education.  One small aspect of this is that it is the only school in the country where the children have to wear shoes and socks and keep them on in the classroom.  He does this because he feels that it prepares them for life in business at the level that he wants them to aim for.  There was an outcry when he brought this rule in, people were horrified as it was against all custom. THe plf sponsors 680 street children to go here.  The shoe rule caused huge problems as none of ...

I went to Wat Bo primary school down the road from here.  It has 4800 children.  Now, I know that my typing is bad but that is not an error.  There really are 4800

You generally need to know about the past to any make sense of the present.  So, instead of telling you what I am doing I am going to tell things that I have discovered about the past here, things that happened to this family. When the soldiers came and emptied Siem Reap they were marched for ten days zig -zagging across the country to disorientate them.  They were together for a short time and then their father was taken away to be executed.  Being a teacher or a doctor, even wearing glasses marked you out as being educated and so you were killed.  They found out afterwards that he was tortured for three days and ended up confessing to being a CIA agent which shows how desperate he became. Ma was taken to another camp and made to work, as were the children but in a different camp.  The KR knew that it was easier to 're-educate' children, especially if they were apart from their parents. There were 6 girls and 1 boy in the Ly family.  Ponheary was the e...

The school that I am at for the time being is a short tuk tuk ride away in the countryside. There are 750 children there up from about 250 5 years ago.   No, here hasn't been a huge surge in the birth rate it's just that more people are sending their children to school now.  The children either attend from 7-11 or from 1-5.  My lessons are from 11-1  I have two classes; English 1 and English 2 with about 25 children in each class.  English is an extra for them and so they have to do their khmer lessons first.  The Teachers at the school are very supportive of Ponheary's team and the school really value having English taught by native speakers.  Rithy, the teacher I see most of has good English although his pronunciation needs a little polish.  He is a young, very keen chap who lives in the school during the week and only goes home to his family on Sunday.  He doesn't have to sleep at school and there are no facilities but he worries about sec...

Coming into land at Sem Reap my first impressions were of a flat, thinly populated very green country.  Most of the houses seemed to be built on stilts over the river.  The airport was smarter than I imagined thanks to all the tourists who fly in for the day to visit Angkor Wat.  I was met by a smiling boy who brought me to the guesthouse. I was warmly greeted by Lori, the Texan, who, after visting Siem Reap and seeing the work that Ponheary does was inspired to move here permenently and set up the foundation to raise money to further Ponheary's work with disenfranchised children. My room is on the second floor at the back of the building where it is quieter.  I had a very long chat with Lori about the work here and Cambodia in general.  Beneath the veneer of everything working well that the day tourisst see there are profound problems here. We went out for a delicous meal and a couple of beers to a Vietnamese restaurant and Lori showed me around. Siem Reap is...

I am having a couple of days in Bangkok before flying to Cambodia. I haven't been to Bangkok for a long time. On every visit I have been amazed at how it changes. It now feels more like Tokyo although the old Siam is still to be seen not too far from the centre. I am staying on the fabulous Chao Phraya river. There is so much activity on it it makes the Thames seem like a backwater. There is constant traffic, river buses, hotel shuffles and huge barges, often tied 6 or 8 together ferrying freight. This morning I went to Wat Pho, a huge temple complex near the river. It houses the massive reclining Buddah, has the usual colourful buildings, a million statues of Buddah lots of monks and the devout praying and the most famous School of massage in Thailand. If you do nothing else in Bangkok you should have a massage at this place. It is housed in an attractive pavilion with a very jolly red and gold ceiling in a quiet part of the Wat looking out upon a great many stumpas. After chan...

My last full day at home.