WEEK 2: Cultural Lessons on sport and sting operations.

By week 2, we had settled into the village and our teaching schedule. We were slowly learning some Khmer words ("Stop fighting" and "Very Good" being the most used phrases) and also beginning to learn the children's often difficult Khmer names. (By the end of our stay, not only had we learned every single name, but also found that they were actually easy for us to say and understand!). I also started playing semi-regular volleyball games with the male staff members in the evening. Yes, that's right, after all of the many MANY beaches I visited since I left home in January, a SMALL VILLAGE IN CAMBODIA was where I finally found beach volleyball!!! Shockingly, most boys in Cambodia play volleyball, and there are nets up all over the rural areas. The staff were actually quite good and the level of play was fantastic. They all laughed when I played, as girls generally don't join them. It was fantastic... except for the fact that in the dead heat they all got to play in basically their boxer shorts, and I still had to be "conservative" and have my knees and shoulders covered!

Upon arrival at the centre, one of the first things that we noticed was that the older girls (6 of them aged 12-17) were doing a tremendous amount of work around the centre to help with the children, cooking, cleaning, etc. Traditionally, this is typical in Cambodian culture. When the girls leave the centre and get married eventually, they will likely be expected to perform these duties and so in a way they are being prepared for that. However, we of all people know that sometimes girls just wanna have fun, so we arranged for a slumber party for the older girls in our apartment. We invited them over after dinner and they were so excited and overwhelmed when they arrived to se that we had set up a nail station, a hair station, bought snacks and magazines, things to do crafts, etc. They never even leave the centre or sleep in each other's houses, so this was BIG for them! They loved getting all made up and taking loads of pictures with our digital camera. The next morning they all had to wake up at 5am to do chores, but the time spent away, even just for one night, was a treat for them and we loved doing it!

In between teaching (they begged us to add a night class, which we did, on Tues-Thurs nights) and playing with the kids, we ventured out into the local village and the market there. On our first trip, they insisted that a security guard come with us. How could we possibly go alone? We were women and we didn't speak the language! They were just trying to be sweet and protective, but that was the first and only time we got an escort. They learned quite quickly that we are very independent, and also that we did a lot of shopping for the kids which none of the security guys seemed very interested to attend to. By the end of our time there, the locals knew us and we went to the market all the time. We were so "local", that we started drinking their iced coffee... which is basically espresso poured into a dirty plastic bag filled with ice from the local vendor with a straw sticking out of the bag! Sooo good!

For the first time since we arrived, we left the centre to head back into the city with Yee, to join her and her friends from Burma on a boat trip on the Sap River (we had great Burmese food on board, including tea leaf salad) and then we went with her to a party thrown by a member of her salsa class!

Our next trip out of the centre was to a village about 45 mins away. We were accompanying Rithy (a Director at the centre) and Dita (a German doctor, cousin to Micheal, who is the founder of KKEV) to see some children that the village elder said should come to live at the centre. We sat on the dirt road with the elder and the family as a young woman explained, in tears, how she was no longer able to care for her niece and nephew. The parents of these 2 children had died within 6 months of each other, so they went to live with their aunt. But the aunt was living in a hut on the side of the road, had one baby and another on the way, and was about to be evicted from her home by the government who was widening the road. She was sad to have them leave, but knew that it would be best for them as they would finally get a chance to be in school (neither child had attended school). It was so sad to see this and we were on the verge of tears when suddenly Rithy yelled "Dita. Dita! Wake up! Are you asleep?? Get this man some coffee!" Yes, that's right... the doctor actually fell asleep while this woman was pouring her heart out to us. It was at once the funniest and most inappropriate thing we had ever seen! We documented the facts about these children and before we left, we went to see the house of three other children that had just come to live in the centre a few days ago from the same village. We met these kids (one girl, 2 little boys) and saw them playing in the centre just before we left. When we saw where they were living just a few days before - in a smoldering hot tin shanty literally built on top of a garbage dump - we were horrified. Their mother was there and didn't even ask how they were doing. The village elder suspected she was a prostitute and may have HIV, and the young girl had raised her 2 brothers by herself. The children in the centre still need many things and the situation there isn't perfect, but to see where they have all come from makes you really believe that they are lucky to be where they are now. We were so happy to be able to help even a little bit in making these kids lives better.

Marissa and I were supposed go back to the centre and drive into the city with Yee and the 2 office girls, Bopha and Petra. Since we were longer than we thought in the village, we just went right into the city with Rithy and Dita. We were at a restaurant, going through the painful process of trying to help Dita edit a word document (German English to Regular English is not easy to translate!) when Rithy got a call from Yee. Yee and the 2 girls had been arrested by the Cambodian Military Police and were being held at the station. Dita and Rithy left right away. We thought that it was just a traffic charge, but this turned out to be a major drama that illustrated how corrupt the Cambodian police are. The very very short version of the story is that the police knew that the centre was being funded by foreign money, so they staked out Yee's car for a while, then pulled the girls over, planted drugs, and arrested them. They told them to either give them a crazy sum of money or they would all be in jail for at least 6 months before they could even get to a trial. In the end the police ended up getting $15,000 US which will likely come out of funds that should have been used for the centre children. The women were threatened and they tell us that they could have charges laid on them again at any time. They are all still scared. we were SO LUCKY that we were not in that car. Who knows what could have happened to us with drug charges on our heads? It was also lucky that we were there at the centre when this occurred (I know Dave doesn't agree with this!), as it allowed us to be there for the children when the majority of the upper management staff at the centre were away in the city dealing with these problems. Very interesting to see the other side of a culture that we have really began to fall in love with....

L to R: Us teaching; The girls at the slumber party with us; the girls checking out the nail and makeup area; Us on a boat with Yee and her (slightly sullen!) Burmese friends.