Escapes from Reality

Legislation, Snookeling and Grandparents
It's just a random selection of things...

From Sarah: The title of this blog is just a random sample of some of the diverse activities I have been involved in over the last many months since I last pulled my weight with the blog.

Legislation - as you can imagine, this is work related, and don't worry those of you who have already decided they really must go and paint that fence - I am not going to paralyse you with too many details. Suffice it to say that the Law on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, was finally signed by the King on 3rd July - and 'Hurrah' say all of us! As this law has been in development for about 13 years as far as I can remember (and the few months I spent involved with it did seem to add up to about that), I have had little contribution to make to its content. However, it was developed in a consultative process between Khmers and advisers from many different countries over the years, it was then drafted in Khmer, for all the agonising adoption protocols, and then had to be translated into English. All 14 chapters and 60 articles of it:

The Translation Team:
Mr Lao Veng, Director of Rehabilitation Department, MoSVY
Mr Ngy San, Disability Advisor, MoSVY/AusAID
Mr Thong Vinal, Executive Director, DAC
Mr Mar Channat, Deputy Director of Rehabilitation Department, MoSVY
Mr Vorn Samphors, Deputy Executive Director, DAC
Mr John Honney, Lawyer and Disability Rights Advisor, CT
Mr Von Ton, Project Officer, OHCHR
Mr Ung Sambath, Senior Program Coordinator, DAC
Ms Sarah Jago, Inclusive Educatio Advisor, DAC/VSO
Ms Kheng Sisary, P&O Clnician / Mentor, CT

Enter (see above) yours truly, and our lawyer friend John, a man of startling integrity and commonsense apart from his bizarre quirk of being a QPR supporter. Now, the brightest among you will have spotted the flaw in the idea of me and John (neither of us known for our fluency in Khmer aside from being able to argue over a bar tab (me) and swear imaginatively and vociferously at 4x4 drivers who are trying to knock him off his bike (John), and both being basically illiterate in Khmer script), being of any use in translating from Khmer to English. But that's not it. What we had to do was ensure that the translation was a) grammatically correct English and, more importantly, b) we did not change the meaning from the Khmer in the process of making it read better in English. This was surprisingly tricky sometimes, and made more so by the - ahem - personalities of some (well one actually) of the team involved.

Luckily, up to now, I had honestly never been a victim of hierarchy or sexual discrimination at work. My director & deputy and other colleagues always treat me with the utmost respect, ask my advice on most important (and all unimportant) matters, seriously listen to my suggestions, debate with me about them, accept them or not on their merits, and I had got used to this very pleasant way of working. Now, as my nearest and dearest will attest, I am somewhat of a stickler for detail (some might say of a pedantic nature - I have heard the phrase 'Conan the Grammarian' more than once), and this was my strength in this delicate situation, combined with John's indisputable expertise in legal matters. Between us (as has been proved many times at the bi-weekly pub quiz) we are a formidable team. However, I was now in the bizarre position of being totally ignored by a senior government officer who continually deferred to John. Many times I would make a suggestion or raise a problem with a phrase or article, everyone in the room would listen, nod approvingly, and then Mr. Blank (who had control of the lap top and editing - grr!!) would either totally ignore it or look straight at John and ask him a slightly different but related question. John, like a good chap would say things along the line of, 'well as Sarah rightly says....' and the thing would be saved plus or minus a bit more haggling. His monumental patience was finally stretched beyond breaking point on about day 4 when we were all heartily sick of fiddling about with one of the employment articles which talked very generally about veterans without stipulating any detail. The morning before, I had pointed out how this could be simply reworded in order to avoid a horrible ambiguity that would lead to all sorts of unnecessary sub legislation to guard against it. Totally ignored, and somehow we just lost the will to battle on with it. The next day , the same problem came up with regard to pensions and off they went again... John pointed out in no uncertain terms that I had suggested the solution 24 hours before, 'but none of you were listening to her!' Things improved dramatically after that. Eventually it was done and now we have a wonderful document full of great ideas for improving the lives of PWD which will now take months/years more work on sub decrees to define the broad content and make it of any practical use, not to mention the funds to provide any of the services, but you have to start somewhere. Drop by drop as the saying goes...

On a rather more immediately practical note, Sokhim and I have developed a set of leaflets designed to assist teachers in identifying children with visual, hearing, motor, intellectual or speech disabilities in their classrooms, together with practical tips to aid in learning, assistive devices and any other interventions that may be accessed in their areas. The idea was enthusiastically embraced by the Ministry for Education and relevant funding organisations and the leaflets have been published and are ready for distribution. We will be delivering an initial training session soon and then the plan is for provincial VSO education volunteers to make sure that this is rolled out within the districts - this is always the tricky part. There is plenty more work stuff I could relate but I dare say it's time for a cup of tea by now!

Malaysia: A proper holiday, albeit we still can't seem to manage more than 9 days at a stretch. Still - out of Cambodia and not back to UK! In September we spent one night in KL, took a bus to Malacca for 3 nights, another to the opposite coast for one night and then an early boat to Tioman Island for 3 nights and then flew back to KL and next day back to Phnom Penh. Those of you with access to my facebook profile can see lots of nice photos there - don't think anyone has yet though... so here are a few which give a tiny taste of the joys Malaysia has to offer:

Malacca has a fascinating history and was the centre for the Baba Nyonya, the distinct racially mixed group descending from the very wealthy Chinese merchants who settled here in the C19th and married into the local Malay nobility. There are some gorgeous family homes preserved and open to the public to look around, but maybe not for much longer as family pressures to divide up the heritage mount through each generation, and the nationalist Malaysian governnment doesn't seem that bothered about the past. It will be a real shame if all that is lost and impossible to recreate once those family treasures are dissipated. This is the interior of a Chinese Malay teashop where we spent a very pleasant couple of hours chatting to the charming proprietress while she decided on which teas were the best for us to try and gave us a fascinating insight into the whole tea culture - quite different to the rather overstylised Japanese tea ceremonies we are more familiar with:

Tiomen (the island where South Pacific was filmed) is delightful, it does not seem to have been developed much since the prophesies of doom in the Lonely Planets etc from 10 years ago.

Mainly because, short of someone spending billions razing half of the island and concreting it over in order to provide a bigger landing strip (bigger being the only adjective possible in comparison to the back garden sized plot presently used which is barely adequate for getting to KL and back by White Knuckle Airways), it is just not possible to get enough tourists there to warrant building big hotels or whatever places usually do to become fouled up. You have to walk everywhere once you land at the jetties in each bay - the locals ride kids' bikes or little motorbikes with carts attached.


This is our hut over the sea with jungle directly behind through which we had a pleasantly intrepid hike for about 50 mins, with lots of stops to gaze at monkey families, black squirrels and various birds and plants, in order to reach the red gold sands of blissful Monkey Bay. Perry took this picture of his footprints going just the one way to prove the point! I am somewhere in the very top end of the beach, probably grappling with my snorkelling gear:

We had the bay to ourselves, apart from one couple walking through, for the entire afternoon. I finally learned to snorkel under Perry's inexhaustible and patient instruction and am now seriously hooked.

The next day we rather regretted using up the whole of on trekking over the waist of the island to the east coast. We had to get a taxi back as the hike was far longer than we were informed, although neither of us are dawdlers; we simply had to rest a bit when we got to the other coast and would have become trapped in the jungle after dark on the way back. The next day we had the whole morning before having to leave, but the sea was too rough for snookeling (see notice below) after a big storm in the night. 3 nights was not near enough - we will return, maybe not for a year or too, but we will! Sadly I feel skupa driving (see notice below) will remain an unexplored pleasure for me.

Captions for this next photo please. The prize will be a 20x10 glossy framed print of the photo:

Second prize will be two copies of the photo, third three copies and so on...

Okay I was lying about not talking about work any more. Funding proposals. That's it.

Meet the Grandparents On October 18th - to quote Margaret Thatcher - we became a Grandmother. To Felix, a delightful little chap who we got to meet a mere 10 days after his arrival, which wasn't bad going really. I stayed for 3 weeks, Perry for 2, but in that 2 weeks an unbreakable bond was forged by dint of Grandad's big shoulder and chest being a top favourite site for some peace and quiet when young Felix was feeling tetchy. Here are a couple of photos of us with him at the time. He's probably sitting up and demanding 3 course meals by now, but that's what you get for sneaking in a year before your Grandparents were scheduled to be around a bit more!



I was going to add photos and some description of the Ankor Wat Half Marathon (10k for some of us) in early Dec., but this entry is being weird and not letting me add pictures and I am losing the will to live - so will start a new blog with that.... bye for now

VSO is a leading development charity with almost 1,500 skilled professionals currently working in over 34 countries. VSO's unique approach to international development is founded on volunteers, working together and with local communities to fight poverty and achieve lasting change. If you want to learn more about VSO, please visit www.vso.org.uk