So I haven't really had an eventful week, but I realized that I haven't talked much about the work I am doing over here. Essentially the program we are working on develops curriculums to teach basic legal rights to Cambodian citizens. Education is limited here and there is not a lot of trust in the legal system or knowledge of basic legal rights, so Bridges Across Borders is aiming to teach what is called "street law", which consists of really simple, interactive lessons on legal rights.
Some of my fellow interns are working on such things as promoting children's rights, awareness of domestic violence laws, and land rights, especially against forced evictions by the government.
As for me, I will be working this summer on editing and reformatting a labor law manual and creating a manual to promote rights for persons with HIV/AIDS.
Right now I am finishing up the labor law editing with my group, so I will talk a little bit about this work. Our manual consists of 10 sections dealing with topics ranging from basic labor rights to special protections in the Cambodian Labor Code for women, children, and plantation workers. The more I research this work, the more I have realized that many workers are not aware of the rights they have which are built into the law and there are a lot of abuses which go on in the workplace.
One of the biggest industries in Cambodia is the garment and footwear industry, which makes all those Gap clothes and Nike sneakers, and also allowed me to buy a pair of Pumas for $12 and 2 Adidas shirts for $10 at the local market. There are a lot of problems in this industry with workers being forced to work long hours without overtime pay, unsafe working conditions, and sexual harassment in the workplace. Further, there is a serious anti-union climate here, and some union organizers have been killed in recent years.
I don't know how much of an impact our work will have, but hopefully it will allow some workers, especially workers in the garment industry, to recognize the basic rights they have to be protected in the workplace and paid a fair wage. There is a small chance we will get to work with some union leaders and garment workers and potentially even teach a class to some workers, but much more of our time will likely be spent on the HIV/AIDS manual, and we will definitely be doing some direct research and site visits for that topic.
Hope all is well back in North America. Good luck to the Senators, hopefully they can come back in the next couple of games. We are having a pretty low-key weekend here after our Angkor Wat adventures last weekend. Best wishes to everyone from Phnom Penh and thanks again for all the comments, facebook posts, and e-mails, I appreciate them a ton.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Sunday, May 27, 2007
Siem Reap/Angkor Wat Pics
Bayon Temple
One of the famous faces at Bayon
Some of the ruins at Preah Khan, my favorite temple because there were no tour groups when we were there
Me and a giant tree amongst the ruins at Ta Prohm
Singing "Summer of 69" at the Dead Fish Tower in Siem Reap
The Ugly Head makes its first appearance in Cambodia at Angkor WatAngkor What?
It is Sunday night here and our group recently got back from a weekend trip to the town of Siem Reap, in northern Cambodia, and more importantly to visit the Angkor temples.
We had 16 interns going on this trip, so we ended up chartering a "bus", which turned out to be a large van. The trip was pretty cramped but we at least had A/C and a good driver who took us around everywhere we needed to go. We made the approximately 5 1/2 hour drive on Friday to Siem Reap, which is basically a tourist town feeding into the Angkor temples. We found a really nice guesthouse for only $7/night (we are getting spoiled really quickly by these cheap prices) and then explored Siem Reap. One highlight: we ate at a great Khmer restaurant called the Dead Fish Tower which featured live entertainment by a Cambodian duo who knew a ton of Western songs. After some prodding from my fellow interns, I was invited up to the mic to sing "Summer of '69." It was a pretty fun night, and I will try to post some pictures soon.
Saturday morning we woke up really early to head to the Angkor temples for the full day. Angkor was the capital of the Khmer empire from about 800 A.D. to 1432. Many of the temples were created by the founder of the Khmer empire, Jayavarman II. They include likely the most famous one, Angkor Wat, which is the world's largest religious building, and Ta Prohm, a temple famous for having appeared in the Tomb Raider movie with Angelina Jolie, a fact we were unfortunately reminded of quite often by postcard sellers and tour group leaders.
It is really hard to describe the Angkor temples. There are quite a few of them, spanning a vast area in the forest. It would take 4 or 5 days to see all the temples, so we were only able to make it to 4 temples, but they were the more famous ones. It was fascinating to see all of the temples, however, and realize that you are walking on ruins that were built well over a thousand years ago. All of the temples have incredibly detailed and intricate carvings and etchings in the stone. One of them, the Bayon temple, has amazing carvings of faces on almost every pillar. It will be easier to see what I mean when I put up the pictures.
Seeing all of this stuff was great, but unfortunately we picked an extremely hot day to visit Angkor. We were all sweating from the moment we left our guesthouse, and there was no respite from the heat until finally a rainstorm hit at about 3 PM. As well, a couple of the temples, especially the Tomb Raider temple, were absolutely flooded with tour groups. This was really annoying because the groups would be taking pictures of everything in sight and generally clog up the temple. However, there were a couple temples we got to where there were virtually no other tourists around. When we had a chance to sit and take in the temple in peace and quiet, we could begin to appreciate how amazing these places were and are.
I'm not sure anything else I could say would do this trip justice, so I will post some pictures soon of our trip. We went out again last night in Siem Reap, although we were also overrun by other tourists in the bars and restaurants there. We had a very long drive back today to Phnom Penh, all of us exhausted but finding it difficult to sleep in the cramped van. All in all, however, we had a great trip and some of us are already starting to plan our next excursion!
We had 16 interns going on this trip, so we ended up chartering a "bus", which turned out to be a large van. The trip was pretty cramped but we at least had A/C and a good driver who took us around everywhere we needed to go. We made the approximately 5 1/2 hour drive on Friday to Siem Reap, which is basically a tourist town feeding into the Angkor temples. We found a really nice guesthouse for only $7/night (we are getting spoiled really quickly by these cheap prices) and then explored Siem Reap. One highlight: we ate at a great Khmer restaurant called the Dead Fish Tower which featured live entertainment by a Cambodian duo who knew a ton of Western songs. After some prodding from my fellow interns, I was invited up to the mic to sing "Summer of '69." It was a pretty fun night, and I will try to post some pictures soon.
Saturday morning we woke up really early to head to the Angkor temples for the full day. Angkor was the capital of the Khmer empire from about 800 A.D. to 1432. Many of the temples were created by the founder of the Khmer empire, Jayavarman II. They include likely the most famous one, Angkor Wat, which is the world's largest religious building, and Ta Prohm, a temple famous for having appeared in the Tomb Raider movie with Angelina Jolie, a fact we were unfortunately reminded of quite often by postcard sellers and tour group leaders.
It is really hard to describe the Angkor temples. There are quite a few of them, spanning a vast area in the forest. It would take 4 or 5 days to see all the temples, so we were only able to make it to 4 temples, but they were the more famous ones. It was fascinating to see all of the temples, however, and realize that you are walking on ruins that were built well over a thousand years ago. All of the temples have incredibly detailed and intricate carvings and etchings in the stone. One of them, the Bayon temple, has amazing carvings of faces on almost every pillar. It will be easier to see what I mean when I put up the pictures.
Seeing all of this stuff was great, but unfortunately we picked an extremely hot day to visit Angkor. We were all sweating from the moment we left our guesthouse, and there was no respite from the heat until finally a rainstorm hit at about 3 PM. As well, a couple of the temples, especially the Tomb Raider temple, were absolutely flooded with tour groups. This was really annoying because the groups would be taking pictures of everything in sight and generally clog up the temple. However, there were a couple temples we got to where there were virtually no other tourists around. When we had a chance to sit and take in the temple in peace and quiet, we could begin to appreciate how amazing these places were and are.
I'm not sure anything else I could say would do this trip justice, so I will post some pictures soon of our trip. We went out again last night in Siem Reap, although we were also overrun by other tourists in the bars and restaurants there. We had a very long drive back today to Phnom Penh, all of us exhausted but finding it difficult to sleep in the cramped van. All in all, however, we had a great trip and some of us are already starting to plan our next excursion!
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Wat Phnom Pics
Here are a few pictures from Wat Phnom, the most famous temple in Phnom Penh. Wat Phnom is actually the supposed founding place of the city. The legend is that in 1372 Lady Penh took a floating tree out of the Mekong river, which inside had 4 statues of Buddha. She then built a phnom, which in Khmer means "hill" and a small temple (or "wat") on the hill. So, the city is named after the hill (Phnom) and its founder and creator (Penh).
The view from the top of Wat Phnom.
Me in front of the Wat.
View from the outside of Wat Phnom.
An elephant available for rides at the bottom of Wat Phnom.
The view from the top of Wat Phnom.
Me in front of the Wat. 
View from the outside of Wat Phnom.
An elephant available for rides at the bottom of Wat Phnom. Phnom Penh Celebs
Just a quick story about last night: Bridges Across Borders threw all the interns a party last night at Talkin to a Stranger, which was a nice time. But, after that, a few of us decided to go out to a club to try and dance or maybe find some karaoke. We ended up at the Gold Star club, which was just off the Riverfront, the touristy section.
Anyway, lo and behold, we were the only white people in the bar. We felt a little unsure at first and didn't recognize any music, but then "Sexy Back" by Justin Timberlake came on and so we hit up the dance floor. Immediately people were looking at us and a bunch of people came over to dance with us. It was a pretty young crowd, probably mostly Khmer teenagers, but they clearly found us pretty interesting. Even better, I was the tallest person in the whole place!! We hung out for a while and heard quite the interesting mix of Western songs like "My Humps" and "I Wanna Dance With Somebody" and Cambodian techno songs. It was quite the night out...we felt like celebrities!!
Besides that adventure, we have still been doing orientation for the last couple of days. We are getting more and more adjusted to the work we'll be doing, but I think everyone is getting a little tired of the orientation work. Luckily we decide on our groups tomorrow and the topics we will be focusing on and then get to work on Tuesday. I am excited to get going and start developing some real lessons.
I heard this morning that the Senators made it to the Stanley Cup Finals!! Let's Go Sens!!
Anyway, lo and behold, we were the only white people in the bar. We felt a little unsure at first and didn't recognize any music, but then "Sexy Back" by Justin Timberlake came on and so we hit up the dance floor. Immediately people were looking at us and a bunch of people came over to dance with us. It was a pretty young crowd, probably mostly Khmer teenagers, but they clearly found us pretty interesting. Even better, I was the tallest person in the whole place!! We hung out for a while and heard quite the interesting mix of Western songs like "My Humps" and "I Wanna Dance With Somebody" and Cambodian techno songs. It was quite the night out...we felt like celebrities!!
Besides that adventure, we have still been doing orientation for the last couple of days. We are getting more and more adjusted to the work we'll be doing, but I think everyone is getting a little tired of the orientation work. Luckily we decide on our groups tomorrow and the topics we will be focusing on and then get to work on Tuesday. I am excited to get going and start developing some real lessons.
I heard this morning that the Senators made it to the Stanley Cup Finals!! Let's Go Sens!!
Friday, May 18, 2007
Getting Oriented
Today was our first actual day of work, the first day of a 4-day workshop to get us oriented to what we'll be doing as interns with Bridges Across Borders. While we had to suffer through a number of icebreakers and introductions, today was useful in getting a sense of exactly what we will be doing here.
Basically our main job is to develop interactive lessons in what is called "street law." Street law is basically a program run by Bridges Across Borders to teach basic legal concept to the average Cambodian citizen, especially citizens living in rural areas. The lessons generally utilize a number of interactive teaching methodologies besides the basic lecture format, including role-playing, visual demonstration, games, songs, and other ways to really make the legal concepts stick.
The lessons will generally be in areas of the law that will be important in the day-to-day life of Cambodians. So, there are some existing lessons in topics such as family law and the law of battery, but we will be mainly working in 5 different areas: property/land rights, housing rights, children's rights, domestic violence, and rights for persons with HIV/AIDS. I'm not sure which area I will be working in yet, but I should find out soon. I am pretty excited to have the chance to do this. One of my least favorite things about the law is its inaccessibility to the average person, so this is a good way to try and simplify things and make the law easier to understand for people, especially for people in a country without a strong legal tradition. Hopefully we will also get the chance to see some of these lessons being implemented and put into practice later on in the summer.
Thanks for all the comments and support so far...while I am physically on the other side of the world, I still feel quite connected to everyone at home and in N. America through the wonders of the internet, e-mails, and blogs!!!
Basically our main job is to develop interactive lessons in what is called "street law." Street law is basically a program run by Bridges Across Borders to teach basic legal concept to the average Cambodian citizen, especially citizens living in rural areas. The lessons generally utilize a number of interactive teaching methodologies besides the basic lecture format, including role-playing, visual demonstration, games, songs, and other ways to really make the legal concepts stick.
The lessons will generally be in areas of the law that will be important in the day-to-day life of Cambodians. So, there are some existing lessons in topics such as family law and the law of battery, but we will be mainly working in 5 different areas: property/land rights, housing rights, children's rights, domestic violence, and rights for persons with HIV/AIDS. I'm not sure which area I will be working in yet, but I should find out soon. I am pretty excited to have the chance to do this. One of my least favorite things about the law is its inaccessibility to the average person, so this is a good way to try and simplify things and make the law easier to understand for people, especially for people in a country without a strong legal tradition. Hopefully we will also get the chance to see some of these lessons being implemented and put into practice later on in the summer.
Thanks for all the comments and support so far...while I am physically on the other side of the world, I still feel quite connected to everyone at home and in N. America through the wonders of the internet, e-mails, and blogs!!!
Thursday, May 17, 2007
More Pics
We saw a real elephant at Wat Phnom today, pictures to come. In the meantime, enjoy this fake elephant shrubbery from the National Museum.
Good example of the French-style architecture in Phnom Penh.
Typical market street, just off the Riverfront
Statue of Buddha at a wat in Phnom Penh. This is where an older Khmer man blessed Jenny and me with holy water and had us put incense sticks in front of the Buddha.
Independence Monument, around the center of the city.Tuol Sleng
It is definitely hard to describe this sensation, but there is a noticeable undercurrent of influence from the Khmer Rouge genocide still felt in this country. I think it certainly underlies the work we are doing here and obviously much of the development and social work in Cambodia as well.
This undercurrent was made even more clear to me upon visiting the Tuol Sleng Genocide museum here in Phnom Penh. The museum is actually only about a 5 minute walk from the volunteer house and right next to one of our new favorite restaurants in the city, the Boddhi Tree.
Tuol Sleng was formerly a high school, but when the Khmer Rouge took over in 1975, they turned the school into a detention, interrogation, and torture facility known as S-21. There are varying reports as to the number of people who were detained at S-21, but they range from about 12,500 to 20,000. What is clear, however, is that only 7 people who were detained at S-21 survived.
The Khmer Rouge detained people from all walks of life, including farmers, engineers, teachers, and students. Many diplomats and officials under the former regime were held and tortured, along with their entire families. Generally the people were held at S-21 and interrogated, and then transported to the Killing Fields for execution.
Today Tuol Sleng has been turned into a genocide museum, but it is unlike any other historical museum I've ever seen. Unlike some other museums commemorating traumatic historical events, this one was incredibly stark and felt very real. It was very easy to picture the former high school classrooms being used for torture. Each room was essentially kept as it was during the Khmer Rouge regime, with one bed in the center of the room with just a metal frame and various instruments of torture around the room. Most rooms had a gruesome picture of a detainee in the room. However, the most chilling part of the museum for me was a room displaying the mugshot pictures of many people who had been detained at S-21. It is very hard to stare into the faces of often very young-looking people who were captured and tortured for no reason besides the fact that they held a certain position in the old regime or that they were considered "intellectuals" by the Khmer Rouge.
Clearly the process of trying to digest the impact of the war and the genocide on this country will take a long time and likely will not be completed during my few short months here. Nevertheless, I am already thinking about how a genocide must affect a country. I wonder what Canada would be like today if we had experienced a genocide within the past few decades. And I wonder what the long-ranging after-effects of current Western interference with foreign countries will be. It is worth remembering that the Khmer Rouge rose to power following the American invasion and secret carpet bombing of Cambodia, which killed an estimated 250,000 people. Despite this horrendous intrusion onto the country, the western world turned its back on Cambodia after the Khmer Rouge came into power. Will that happen again in Iraq or Afghanistan?
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
1st Set of Pics
Me at a Wat (temple) in Phnom Penh
Big temple at the Royal Palace
Picture of the King at a temple close by the Royal Palace
Average busy intersection in Phnom PenhExplorations
So I had a excellent blog post, pictures and all, ready to go this morning, but when I went to post it, the entry disappeared, and of course I hadn't saved it. I got mad and left the computer room, which was also about 150 degrees, adding to my discomfort. Anyway, the wireless isn't working this afternoon so I will write up some experiences from yesterday and then post some pictures this evening. Of course, all of this is irrelevant for you, since it's about 5 in the morning, and I assume no one will be checking this for several hours, except of course for Stringer, who checks my blog every 5 minutes for updates, or Professor Sugunasiri, who has been known to answer e-mails at about quarter of 5 in the morning.
Anyway, I woke up yesterday morning feeling pretty refreshed and so decided to explore the city with 2 interns, Jenny, from Vancouver, and Francisco, from Mexico City. We decided to walk to the Riverfront area, which is the main tourist part of town.
The first two most striking things about Phnom Penh are the humidity and the traffic. We are just starting the monsoon season here, so temperatures are actually not as bad as they were in April, when it was generally 40 degrees celsius each day. But, it is still incredibly humid, so you basically start sweating as soon as you wake up in the morning. Once you start walking outside you immediately notice the traffic, mainly because if you didn't, you get hit by a motorbike.
The roads are essentially filled with motor scooters, called "motos" here and you can't walk two feet without someone asking if you need to hire one. I have no idea how the city supports so many moto taxis. The slightly more expensive form of transportation is called a "tuk-tuk" which is basically like a rickshaw being towed by a moto. These vehicles seemingly obey no discernible traffic laws. Motos cruise on both the right and wrong side of the street and there are really no stop signs or traffic lights, everyone just sort of glides into the intersection and avoids everyone else. Remarkably, this seems to work OK, and I haven't witnessed any accidents just yet.
Anyway, we eschewed these options to take a quite sweaty 45 minute walk through the city. Along the way we stopped at a couple of "wats"or Buddhist temples. The most famous one, of course, is Angkor Wat, a few hours away, but there are many in Phnom Penh. They have pretty incredible architecture and a lot of Buddha statues. At one wat we were taken inside a little pagoda by an older Khmer man, who proceeded to bless us with some kind of holy water and gave us incense sticks to place in sand in front of the Buddha. Of course, he could have been saying "Stupid white people, you are so gullible" over and over, but it sounded good to us.
Closer to the Riverfront we visited the National Museum, which I will post a picture of tonight. The museum is mainly filled with statues of the Buddha, some of which date back to the 6th century. The statues are beautiful but you can get a little bit Buddhaed-out at times, kind of like being in Italy and seeing 8 million Madonna and Child paintings.
Jenny and I also checked out the Royal Palace, which is also pretty impressive. The palace is actually made up of a number of wats, pagods, and other statues and buildings spread out over a big big property in the middle of the city. Again, it is easier to see this than for me to describe it, so I will post pics tonight.
We also took in the Riverfront street, AKA Sisowith Quay. This is a pretty Western area, filled with a lot of Western-style bars and restaurants. Interestingly, there are no western chains here, no McDonald's or Burger King, which is kind of a relief actually. You will be happy to know that Coca-Cola has made its way to Cambodia. It is nice to see a small, scrappy company like that break into a foreign market for once....
Last night we met a few of the other interns who had arrived yesterday, had dinner at a Khmer/Thai restaurant and then drinks at an Australian-run bar called "Talkin To A Stranger", a name I loved. There we met Holly, a very cool woman from Boston who runs a harm reduction clinic in town. In her words, she works with Khmer ex-cons deported from the United States after 9/11 to try and prevent HIV among heroin addicts in Phnom Penh. We are going to visit the clinic next week, so that should be pretty interesting.
So that was my day!! I apologize for the extremely long post. I will try to post more frequent, shorter entries in the future. Tonight I will get some pictures up from yesterday and also maybe write about our visit to the Tuol Seng genocide museum after I've had a chance to digest what I saw there a little bit.
I hope all is well in North America. Let's go Senators and Suns!!! (by the way, for those of you who think I'm roughing it, there is a tv in my room here with about 60 channels, including ESPN International and CNN. I watched part of the Golden State-Utah basketball game this morning LIVE!!!! Hockey coverage is unlikely though)
Anyway, I woke up yesterday morning feeling pretty refreshed and so decided to explore the city with 2 interns, Jenny, from Vancouver, and Francisco, from Mexico City. We decided to walk to the Riverfront area, which is the main tourist part of town.
The first two most striking things about Phnom Penh are the humidity and the traffic. We are just starting the monsoon season here, so temperatures are actually not as bad as they were in April, when it was generally 40 degrees celsius each day. But, it is still incredibly humid, so you basically start sweating as soon as you wake up in the morning. Once you start walking outside you immediately notice the traffic, mainly because if you didn't, you get hit by a motorbike.
The roads are essentially filled with motor scooters, called "motos" here and you can't walk two feet without someone asking if you need to hire one. I have no idea how the city supports so many moto taxis. The slightly more expensive form of transportation is called a "tuk-tuk" which is basically like a rickshaw being towed by a moto. These vehicles seemingly obey no discernible traffic laws. Motos cruise on both the right and wrong side of the street and there are really no stop signs or traffic lights, everyone just sort of glides into the intersection and avoids everyone else. Remarkably, this seems to work OK, and I haven't witnessed any accidents just yet.
Anyway, we eschewed these options to take a quite sweaty 45 minute walk through the city. Along the way we stopped at a couple of "wats"or Buddhist temples. The most famous one, of course, is Angkor Wat, a few hours away, but there are many in Phnom Penh. They have pretty incredible architecture and a lot of Buddha statues. At one wat we were taken inside a little pagoda by an older Khmer man, who proceeded to bless us with some kind of holy water and gave us incense sticks to place in sand in front of the Buddha. Of course, he could have been saying "Stupid white people, you are so gullible" over and over, but it sounded good to us.
Closer to the Riverfront we visited the National Museum, which I will post a picture of tonight. The museum is mainly filled with statues of the Buddha, some of which date back to the 6th century. The statues are beautiful but you can get a little bit Buddhaed-out at times, kind of like being in Italy and seeing 8 million Madonna and Child paintings.
Jenny and I also checked out the Royal Palace, which is also pretty impressive. The palace is actually made up of a number of wats, pagods, and other statues and buildings spread out over a big big property in the middle of the city. Again, it is easier to see this than for me to describe it, so I will post pics tonight.
We also took in the Riverfront street, AKA Sisowith Quay. This is a pretty Western area, filled with a lot of Western-style bars and restaurants. Interestingly, there are no western chains here, no McDonald's or Burger King, which is kind of a relief actually. You will be happy to know that Coca-Cola has made its way to Cambodia. It is nice to see a small, scrappy company like that break into a foreign market for once....
Last night we met a few of the other interns who had arrived yesterday, had dinner at a Khmer/Thai restaurant and then drinks at an Australian-run bar called "Talkin To A Stranger", a name I loved. There we met Holly, a very cool woman from Boston who runs a harm reduction clinic in town. In her words, she works with Khmer ex-cons deported from the United States after 9/11 to try and prevent HIV among heroin addicts in Phnom Penh. We are going to visit the clinic next week, so that should be pretty interesting.
So that was my day!! I apologize for the extremely long post. I will try to post more frequent, shorter entries in the future. Tonight I will get some pictures up from yesterday and also maybe write about our visit to the Tuol Seng genocide museum after I've had a chance to digest what I saw there a little bit.
I hope all is well in North America. Let's go Senators and Suns!!! (by the way, for those of you who think I'm roughing it, there is a tv in my room here with about 60 channels, including ESPN International and CNN. I watched part of the Golden State-Utah basketball game this morning LIVE!!!! Hockey coverage is unlikely though)
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
A Good Day For Beginnings
Well, it's after midnight and I am finally settled in Phnom Penh after one of the longest days ever...approximately 30 hours of flying time starting 6 AM on Sunday. I got into Phnom Penh at 10 PM on Monday night. Anyway, I need to go to sleep, but I will say that the city seems nice, a lot of French-style architecture. It is quite humid but apparently the "hot"months are over and we are entering the cooler monsoon season. I am staying at the Bridges Across Borders volunteer house with about 5 or 6 other interns and I think a few other BAB volunteers and workers too. The house is also the main BAB office so it's where I will be doing most of my work. I am a little overwhelmed, unsurprisingly, but also really excited to be here and get going. We don't start orientation for a couple of days so tomorrow I plan to explore a little bit with some of the other interns.
Time for bed...
Time for bed...
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