Last few months

Having celebrated Happy Marry Christmas last blog, it is time to reminisce over Happy International New Year!

It was decided that DAC would finally have a 'retreat' (like all good team building NGOs do in order to plan things, discuss future direction etc.) except we've never even actually got round to discussing or planning a retreat before... It would be at what is known here as International New Year and at the beach in Sihanoukville. Suffice it to say we got there eventually.

A convening of the senior management team discussing budgeting strategy for the forthcoming year.

Leadership skills - a practical demonstration.

The serious consultative session gets underway

As you see, Perry was kindly included in the DAC invite, and a fab seaside fun time was had by all. The two of us stayed on for the weekend and met up with Susy and Vic on New Years Day. I think in this picture they had currently been awake for about 48 hours, which is why they need Perry to lean on.

Samphors and I putting the final touches to the funding proposal to the UN which has taken up a good deal of time and thought over the last half of the year - hope it's accepted, won't know til after I leave which is a shame.

My close colleague and friend Sokhim with his lovely family at the birthday party of another friend's daughter. The look on the childrens' faces is the stock one of bewildered shock at a barang pointing a camera at them.

The last get together at Snow's bar of most of the remnants of the dream team that descended into Cambodia on 4th March 2008. Bit browner, (except David who mysteriously retains his ethereal paleness, to be fair I don't think I've often seen him in daylight hours), but no less loopy.

March 3rd. Training in Ratanakiri on the leaflet we developed to help teachers identify children with disabilities in their classrooms and offer some advice and tips on improving access to learning. This was in the Provincial office of Education in a province which is still densely forested and largely inaccessible. As was the room.

It, as you can see, is completely filled with monumentally heavy wooden furniture which was impossible to move and made it a very difficult to do anything once the participants were sat down. It was a complete analogy of Cambodia really - a lot of education money will have been spent at some point in making these public office rooms look, well...officious, and a hell of a lot of precious timber has been, and still is, chopped down to carve into vast pieces of furniture, pillars, giant elephants (to replace the extinct ones) and - most ironic of all - twisty complicated tree type sculptures!

This, on the other hand, was a couple of days later in Mondulkiri, where the Provincial Office was much more adaptable and our session far easier to facilitate. Which is also a fair reflection of how there is progress as well as frustration, and why we shouldn't make blanket generalisations.

For those of you interested in where your snacks come from, this is a cashew nut, on a tree in Ratanakiri, where they are harvested. A most peculiar nut as it grows outside the fruit, which turns yellow then red and is vaguely edible (very drying to the mouth though. The nut grows underneath and gets smaller and grey brown. It then has to be cooked for 8 hrs apparently before being safe to eat. I'm surprised they are not more expensive than they are as there are not that many on a tree.

No, this is not a random photo of Exmoor, but of a woodland stream in Mondulkiri, which is a most beautiful province with mile after mile of rolling hills filled with forests of what look like deciduous trees, birches, pines and so forth.

I was lucky to spend the afternoon after the training here, accompanied by Jeltje and her assistant Chak. I had a great time sitting on the back of his motorbike on the empty red dirt roads, admiring the lovely scenery, taking photos and wondering how the hell they all cope in the rainy season when the whole place turns into a giant red mudbath.

Back to snacks - this extremely large tarantula was one of the (as yet unfried) snacks on offer at one of the the stops on our epic, and much doubted by more experienced folk, one day trip between Ratanakiri and Mondulkiri.

Needless to say I declined the temptation and Remy and I bought delicious pineapple, pomelo and bananas.

Sokhim however is clutching his bag of prize crickets carefully selected from the barrel below.

'Delicious and protein rich' ...

...and you know what he's quite right. Crunchy, chewy and prawn like, cooked in garlic, salt and chilli. Mind, you could cook quite a few things like that and they would probably be edible too.

Although these 2 Eastern provinces are next to each other, it is impossible to get between them directly except through the jungle on dirt bikes. Not an option for those of us not used to such intrepid forms of transport and also carrying a load of workshop materials. We were told by many people that it couldn't be done in one day, but obstinacy prevailed and, after being told that the bus for which I had ordered tickets was 'already broken' (phew! not half an hour after we started and were left stranded in impenetrable jungle then), I sourced a minibus back to Kratie and a taxi to Mondulkiri. Actually I asked our guest house manager and he sourced it. I find that most things can be sourced if you ask people and make it clear that you will pay a reasonable price for what you need.

So, a long day, but thanks to the recently built very good road on the last leg, not a bad journey. Those of us of a cynical disposition do wonder why a certain large country to the east would spend billions of dollars on a superb road which only goes to a heavily forested border province with no other resources and then into Vietnam. I expect it is to make it easier to export all the rubber from the plantations that are replacing the stands of pine trees on the highest hills. Except that I've seen those plantations and unless rubber trees grow at a phenomenal rate, once the rains start in a couple of months there is going to be an awful lot of bare red soil sliding down those hill sides...

This is a project in Kampot in the south which I visited with my colleague Chan, who has recently taken responsibility for our committee on children with intellectual disabilities. As a group, these are undoubtedly the most disadvantaged and misunderstood people in Cambodian society, where anyone with any disability is generally regarded as either a burden or to be pitied or reviled, rather than helped to get on with their lives. Another generalisation, but consider the attitudes to disability 50yrs or so ago in UK and it's not dissimilar. Anyone who is interested in the subject - this is the title of an excellent and very accessible report from one of our organisations last year, just type it into Google - Toward a Cooperative Approach; Hagar Report 2009.

Claire in the photo is a VSO volunteer with a background in special education who has formed a good relationship with this particular UK based NGO, EpicArts. They run a community based performing arts project for young people with disabilities, many are deaf. They do a really wonderful job of spreading the message throughout the country at events and workshops, that people with disabilities have many abilities and a lot to offer. A young man with Down's syndrome was attending the centre, but was not really having his needs addressed. With support from Claire, the Peace Class was set up which provides a space for 2 different age groups of children and young people with intellectual disabilities, and their families, to learn some social and life skills. Chan and I spent a wonderful morning in the class. The class has no funding itself and is very worthwhile supporting, the teacher could do with an assistant for a start. We shall be supporting the class in a small way once we get back to UK, anyone who is interested in any of the great work of this dynamic and extremely effective small organisation, here is the link http://www.epicarts.org.uk/cambodia/

Well, this being Cambodia, it is Happy Khmer New Year tomorrow and I'm off to a yoga retreat for 4 relaxing days in the beautiful Kampot/Kep countryside. Then 4 more days of work and, due to the fact that I have a lot of leave left untaken, that is the end of my placement with DAC and VSO.

This still being Cambodia, this is me, Seka and Reaksah at my farewell party, 2 weeks before I actually leave DAC. Reaksah is the 3 year old grand daughter of our driver and cleaner who comes with them to work every day. She stays all day and is a little sweetie who has learned to run errands between our little rooms and calls me Yay (Granny) Sarah (pronounced as do all Khmer people like Hurrah!) And that's the last picture you'll see of me in a hammock I promise!

That was the penultimate blog from us. There will be one more, set up to publish on the day we leave - 15th May. So long Cambodia, and in the words of Douglas Adams, 'Thanks for all the fish'...and much more besides.

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