(4) Chapters of life behind me! :)

We've just made it back from a week in the village... and it has been an FANTASTIC time so far. I can't wait to share more!

-BUT- it's almost midnight and in also very exciting (HOPE/UNION-aside) news...

Here's where I was about one (long, persevering) year ago...

And today.... here I am now, - finally & OFFICIALLY putting 4 chapters, 140 pages, and 40,685 words behind me and living the long-awaited day of talking about my thesis in the past tense!! 

Hmm.. I wanted to upload it so you could (if you were so inclined!) download it to read... but unfortunately, I can't remember my Shaw webspace password which I haven't used for years. I also haven't used my Shaw email for years to be able to receive the forget-your-webspace-password email. Darn.

Well, what can you do! If you want to read my thesis, send me an email, and I'd be more than happy to send it to you!  :)

**** AHA!  I DID IT!! ****
You can download my thesis here if you want to read it!  (Thanks to Jon McKenzie for helping me figure it out!)

More to come about our UNION team/trip soon!

xoxo
Rainbow

U.N.I.O.N

I've now switched gears to our UNION Program - our Cambodia 2010 UNION team arrived on Sunday, and after a day in Phnom Penh visiting two museums to put our work in context of Cambodia's dark history with the Khmer Rouge regime & genocide... we are now in Pursat, ready to head into the village.

Among other things, we will be helping to construct a school:

We'll also be visiting some families with bio-sand filters, seeing how awesome they are, and helping the families with carrying water from the river (a trip they make 6-7 times a day); visiting some farmers with a dry season rice crop ready to harvest, and helping to harvest; and a water well project (which to date, HOPE has constructed over 700 of, in Cambodia!) that gives clean water for up to 4 families that live far from a river/water source, and helping to mix up some cement and make the foundation for the water well; and visiting HOPE's orphanage in Pursat for children without families. And some other things just for fun. Which I won't say now, in case my team is reading my blog, and I said they would be surprises. :)

Why are we doing all this?

To Understand Needs In Other Nations and see how we can come alongside.


Want to join us next year? :)

.

Story time 2: Water buffalo and lots and lots of rice!

I'm running out of time - I'm off to the airport in a half hour to pick up the UNION team for "Part 2" of my time here - the Cambodia 2010 UNION Program!  BUT- because I probably won't have the chance after this, I wanted to just put up a few project monitoring/evaluation pictures now!

What's this?

It's a rice plant, ripe & ready for harvest! :)  And actually... it is one among many - a whole FIELD - of rice plants ready for harvest!!

But - you might ask (or maybe not, I wouldn't have until I got here!!) - why are there rice plants ready for harvest at the beginning of the wet season? Doesn't that mean it has been the dry season with no rain in the last few months when crops can't grow??

Why yesss that's exactly what it means! BUT- thanks to HOPE's Dry Season Rice Farming Project, farmers are not only harvesting rice once a year at the end of the wet season... but THREE times a year, twice of which happen during the dry season!


How???  Well, here's a seed bank that HOPE has built - where they have grown a special variety of rice that is able to grow with less water, and in less time (3-4 months, instead of 6 months). HOPE has given these seeds to some farmers, and provided irrigation (pumping water from reservoirs and canals to flood farmers' fields) and training for better rice growing! (Organic, non-chemical fertilizer & pesticide, planting only 1 seedling instead of 4 clustered together like the traditional practice, etc.)

Farmers working the field, now busy planting rice seedlings for the wet season harvest.

So... there is now lots and lots of rice!! This one committee of dry season rice farmers (below)lent me their time for a very jolly group interview. They are also so happy! Why? Because now they can feed their families year around - they have enough, and even excess to sell to the market for some income - something they never could do before! 

Checking in on 'food security', I asked them if they are also eating more variety in their food since joining the project 2 years ago.


Farmers: Of course! Why not! I want to have delicious food!
Me: Haha... so, what is delicious food? :)
Farmers: Some more pork, some more meat...  Before, my family eats only 1 small piece of meat for 2 meals if we can have meat. Now we can have 1 big piece for only 1 meal!
Me: Do you think it's funny that some barangs (foreigners) like to only eat vegetables?
Farmers: Only vegetables!! How can that be delicious??

Haha. Anyways, I'm really running out of time. So I should go! But here's a family that received a water buffalo. Project beneficiaries really took such good care of their water buffalos, making sure it was fed, and had water to cool off. This lady said she even helps bathe it like she would bathe herself!

Something from our interview that made me smile - when first got the water buffalo, she was concerned that there were so many mosquitoes around, that she spent 4000 Riel (about US$1, but quite a bit for a poor family!) to buy a mosquito net to put around the buffalo, but then  net got torn down very fast because it got all caught up in its horns. Sad day. But so cute. :) So now instead she burns something close to the water buffalo so the smoke keeps the bugs away. 

Alrighty, I'm off to the airport! 

xoxo

Rainbow

Story time: Water+

So many stories - where to start (and finish!)? Well, I can start with one very awesome project I visited maybe... the "Bio-sand filters"!

Which really, is a fancy name for a simple (but effective!) water filter, made of a concrete cylinder, with a removable steel 'pot' with holes at the very top, followed by layers of coarse gravel, finer gravel, sand, and very fine sand. 'Bio-sand', because it's all natural, and people can clean out their filters and collect more sand just from the river when needed.

Families collect (dirty) water from the river, and keep the water in the big cisterns (which you can see behind the filter) to settle for a few days, then, when they need clean water, they can scoop water from the cistern, and pour it into the filter. The water makes its way through the filter, up through a tube inside at the end, and through the spout - CLEAN, CLEAR, and SAFE to drink (and cook with, and bathe with, and wash dishes, etc with)! :)

Simple? Yes! Amazing?? YES! :)  At what cost? $50.

 What's more amazing is what clean water means! It means for the families no more getting sick from typhoid, cholera, fever, diarrhea, fever, stomach aches and vomiting that drinking unclean water brings. When I talked to the families, they told me that before having the filters, the family got sick at least a few times per month - at least every two weeks...  Sometimes the illness was very severe - one family of eight lost one child to typhoid before the filter. Another pointed to one little boy running around and laughing, and said that he had almost passed away the last time he was ill.

How many times have they gotten sick (from water-related illnesses) since receiving the filter? -  NONE -  None!! Not one time!!

The families I talked to were so happy. Their eyes light up when they talk about their filters, and say how different life is from 'before'. They tell me how proud they are to know about diseases with water that they didn't know about before, and of being able to care for their families better. They tell me how their neighbours come to pour their water through the filters, and they are happy to share. 

And what does clean water really mean? It means that they have the time, energy and health to be able to do other important things like farming, to produce food that their families need. It means children can spend more time on their studies. This is the family (grandma, with some of the kids) whose little boy almost died from illness before - and now he's alive and well and full of smiles. :)  I didn't get to meet the mom and dad and some of the other kids but they were out in the fields planting rice... because they can! :)

More tangibly, families estimated that they had to spend somewhere between US$50 to $100 per month added up of each time they got sick, for private nurses' visits, medications, or visits into nearest town to go to the hospital  and the hospital fees. I was shocked. How on earth did they pay for these fees before? They looked a bit sad, and told me, they sold animals, they sold veggies, they sold 'everything'. They took loans (which often put them into debt), paid in their own labour...

What have they done with the money that have saved? Two families I talked to had saved up and bought an oxcart, like this one, which can help them with farming (to carry seeds or rice seedlings to the field for planting, for harvesting, etc).

I asked them what they might do with the money they continue to save or earn from more farming. They look excited as they reply. One family wants to build a water pump by the end of this year, which will save them the 6-7 trips they still have to take each day to the river to collect water. (How far is it? How long does it take you? One woman replied: Oh, if you are slow, it takes you 30 minutes each time. But I am happy, I run!). A family wants to have a pond to raise fish - they will save money to pay someone to help dig a pond and get the fish.

It's not 'just' water. That's why I've said Water+. It's + so much more. These families aren't worried about just surviving today anymore. They aren't selling everything they own and need to make a living, to live through the crisis of being sick today. They all have HOPE and ideas for the future.... all because of one filter... that cost just $50 to construct!! That's $50 pretty darn well spent if you ask me!

... food for thought - or, maybe, it could be really food, for real families in need :) - where's your next 50 going?

xo
Rainbow

Barely 'barang'

I can almost get away with being local here... not a 'barang'. Maybe at first sight anyways :)  Actually, when I've been doing the project visits for the interviews and Ly introduces me that I'm visiting from Canada, I'd say 4 out of 5 times, they'll say, OH but you look Khmer! It's kind of nice! No more Mzungu! every where I go like in East Africa, or Gringa/Chinita! like in Latin America!

So, I can almost slip through the streets and markets unnoticed... it's just when I open my mouth (or, stare a little blankly with a big plastered smile when someone talks to me) that I'm given away.

I'm trying to learn more Khmer... after a while, how do you do, please and thank you stops being fun enough to get to know people! 

On the bright side, for now, I always get to have a bit of a surprise from the time I order to see what's actually going to end up on my table, if I'm not with Ly. Most people don't actually order off the menu, but just tell the waiter what they want to eat and they'll make it....  Yesterday I did pretty good. I ended up with some rice noodles in soup, with cooked cabbage and some chicken that was pretty tasty. Today, I thought I ordered noodles with some veggies and mushrooms (what I was going for yesterday, actually, but got flustered and so looked at a menu and pointed to the cabbage and chicken and asked for some noodles) - and I did get noodles (stir fried), did get some veggies, no mushrooms, but some beef and a fried patty of some kind which turned out to be an egg inside. Not bad. :)

Tonight's dinner was less successful. I tried to order some rice, with veggies and mushrooms... and got a bowl of beef balls in broth with some spring onion pieces. Dang - something got lost in translation. Oh well. At least Chinese food has similar beef balls that I grew up having every now and then, so the floating squishy greyness didn't throw me off too much. :)

I haven't tried the Edible aquatic plant bong fish

or the Fried chicken internal

or found out what the Poak Cooked Phoroughly with Mom Soy is... 

...but I'm sure I'll be well-fed anyhow.

More soon... :)

ឥន្ទនូ ~ Rainbow, in Khmer script.. :)

Everybody's got a water buffalo

Everybody's got a water buffalo
Yours is fast but mine is slow
Oh, where do you get them I don't know
But everyone's got a water buffaloooooo.................

 

That's the song that's been running through my head all day, haha, since I got to visit HOPE's projects this morning for a water buffalo program that lends a water buffalo to a poor family to take care of, until it gives birth to a calf that the family can keep for farming, and then the mama water buffalo is returned to HOPE to be passed along to another family.

So actually, maybe everyone doesn't have a water buffalo... BUT, some families in need have gotten one now from HOPE! and maybe one day, everyone (who needs one) will have 'got a water buffalo'! :) I'll be working on the report this afternoon and share more soon!

Just a couple nice pictures for now! :)

Cows... the close, non field-ploughing, but less water-needing, cousins of the water buffalo

My smorgasbord stash of fruit that's been my breakfast the last couple days once Ly found out how much I liked fruit. She also cut me some orchids from her garden to keep in my room at the hotel! She takes good care of her barangs (foreigners)!

 
Me, posing in front of the HOPE office sign, like a newbie staff would. :)

More to come..

xo
Rainbow =)

HOPE in Pursat :)

'm now in Pursat Province, Cambodia, about a 3 hour drive from Phnom Penh... where HOPE works!  Here's our office in town:

 HOPE's been working here since 1991. It's one of the poorer and less developed provinces of Cambodia, with up to 70 or 80% poverty rates in some areas (and that's why HOPE works here). But, as I am seeing - and hope to share soon - many lives are really changing incredibly!

And, it is beautiful!

 

It's wet season now - ie, for me, flash duck-under-cover-quick torrential downpours in the afternoon. And for farmers, the most important growing season in the year, especially for rice, the main crop. Here's some farmers working hard to plant their rice seedlings.

I've been spending my mornings going to visiting & interviewing families that have been involved with some of HOPE's projects, and spending my afternoons going through the interviews, talking with the HOPE staff and organizing it all into (hopefully!) some kind of coherent project evaluation report! It's been a lot of learning & working on the fly, and staying up a little late and waking up a little early, but it's been, really, awesome to see and get to hear families' lives & stories.

A couple more pictures:

Driving around to do the site visits with R-L: Ly (HOPE Cambodia Director), Bic (HOPE staff) and Pheap (Ly's husband, director of another NGO doing the dry season rice farming project).

Ly's been working with HOPE since 1995 and seen so much change in her country since even those 15 years ago. She is an incredible woman (so are the other staff). I'll ask her if I can share her story on my blog sometime.

In the meantime...: sharing the road with water buffalo :)

What I thought was amazing was that this long 2 or 3 km road for travel / dike for creating reservoirs of water for rice farming was first built by HOPE in the 1990s! It naturally eroded a bit, and then got significantly destroyed by some serious flooding in 1996, and had the Cambodian government along with some UN funding for repairs... but to be driving along that road for awhile that seemed to stretch on forever, seeing the water-filled farms on each side (needed for the rice paddies), and be able to get to the farmers far into the countryside... on a road made by HOPE... was pretty darn neat. :)

What I've been thinking most as I've been meandering through HOPE's projects - big scale like this road, or big, to an individual family - is that, wow, I'm somehow connected to all this grand, amazing work. I don't take any credit for it... I mean, I was barely alive in the early 90s when the road was built, lol... even now, working with HOPE, it's not like I had anything to do with these Cambodian families' lives changing due to their new clean water filter that I just first read about in the project report 2 days ago.. but somehow I'm connected to it now. It would keep rolling on without me, I also realize - I'm not an essential part at all of this picture. But, the neat thing is, that kind of I am. Or, I can be, with what I do with HOPE. Right now, I've just got an official HOPE hat on (should I be so privileged?), writing a report which really doesn't change much for the families I met today.

This simple water filter (I'll share more later) I saw today that cost $50 to build and is actually, really, saving a whole family from typhoid and other waterborne diseases? It's amazing! I had nothing to do with it! BUT- the one that doesn't yet exist that can change the lives of another whole family? I can be a part of that one. And actually so can you - anyone who cares to. You don't need to work for HOPE. You don't even need to come on a UNION trip (though really, you should! ;) ).  Development (good development) is so much more than money... but it takes money keeps the wheels spinning. We make a lot of it. We do. A heckuvalot. What makes a life of a difference for a family here is so very small.

More stories to come soon (hopefully I'll get the chance soon-ish)... They are the stories of what I've incidentally (for lack of a better word right now) found myself a part of... they are good ones. :)  Hope you'll like 'em too. 

xo
Rainbow