Advising you say....

Merry Christmas! It’s been an interesting month since my last Blog. I am definitely feeling more at home here in Samroang now and things appear to be falling in place little by litte. I even missed Oddar Meanchey a little when I was away.

Manny has also left to return to the Philippines, I certainly had mixed feelings seeing him going. I learnt a lot about CDA from him and he is a nice guy. However being the sole “Neak Smak Chet” (volunteer) will probably be a good thing in the long run - even though we work in very different areas there was always going to be overlap in such a small organisation. Manny built up their respect over two years and I have to work double quick time to prove my worth – without rushing - a constant conundrum!

We had a great leaving party and it was nice to see people letting their hair down and it’s always a good opportunity to show a different side of yourself. I even attempted some Khymer dancing in the name of cultural integration:




Advising: When sitting on my sofa in the flat in Maida Vale reading my placement documentation reading my new job title my eyes skimmed over the word advisor in my unnecessarily complex job title to get to the juicier parts (microenterprise, NTFP etc) and then to find out where the hell Samroang Commune was exactly! Six months later and over two months in to work it is a small word which really impacts upon my time here.

Being an advisor is a slightly strange experience in that although I go to all the necessary important meetings and the staff and director will come and ask my advice on a wide variety of things from irrigation to contracts (as well as microenterprise etc) they don’t actually have to listen to me! The work that we conduct with VSO is all about building the capacity of the individuals/ organisations that we work with as well as the communities that they are trying to help and not actually managing a project yourself. This does put me in a strange position where I do advise on project management and I have facilitated discussions/ meetings on strategies and timeframes but it is not down to me to actually implement these things, the vast majority of the time anyway (I may actually run one or two training sessions direct to the community).

Added to this complexity is my relative youth – age and respect is still very important here. Though being a barang you are often seen as exempt from traditional social structure (which is why western women can drink) but I do have to be careful advising people who are older and in positions of power. In Khmer culture it is very important not to lose face so I do a lot of “what an excellent idea” we can build on that by.... However, as is the way with life people do not always listen (and of course I can also get things wrong!!) Also there is the constant language barrier, I have to be extremely careful that ideas are not lost in translation as they have been a couple of times already.

There have already been a couple of times I’ve had to refrain from saying I told you so but so much is learning by doing – do I have the ability to step back enough to watch things unfold – I’m not sure that I do but I guess that I will have to try my very hardest. Leting go has never been a strong point of mine.

I can stress the importance of time frames and planning and design and facilitate meetings where we draw up great(ish) plans – but if they don’t do it (or come to the meeting) then there really is very little that I can do about. I can also give training on certain things but I need the idea for these trainings to come from the organisation themselves – I am not a consultant employed to tell them what they are doing wrong, it is a longer process building in capacity for self awareness and assessment of needs but there are lots of reasons that make that difficult which I will go in to on another day!



We had an audit of our OXFAM accounts by an independent auditor last week and I think it’s fair to say that CDA are going to learn a lot from it. Though we haven’t had the full report as yet some of the initial findings were, well worrying to say the least and I think there will be a lot of things that we can learn from this. I’ll keep you updated when we hear the results but it certainly changed the atmosphere at work for a few days.

I still have massive ups and downs. I try and remain positive at all times at work though I think that my frustration at some things does appear occasionally. Although at least they know I care and I think I am making small inroads. Most of what I want to do we have budgeted for and put vague plans together for in 2009. Although this leaves me treading water on the NTFP side of things at the moment I have been putting together some training on things that we have identified together, including Value Chain Analysis which I really hope I can convince them to do but there are the obvious time and budget restraints but I hope we can do a version of this anyway.

Anyway on a social note it was great to have Rachel here at the wkd and been nice to have a few people round for dinner in the past week – makes the place seem a bit more homely. I’m looking forward to Christmas Sarah (fellow VSO volunteer) is visiting and we have both a German Xmas on the 24th at Julianas (she has just arrived to work for Malteser from Germany and she is lovely) and the 25th at ours so although I’m working it won’t go completely un-noticed. It will be my first Christmas out of the UK though and it definitely won’t be the same without my family but I’m looking forward to it nonetheless. Then I’ve got a meeting in PP and then heading to the beach for a couple of days will be good to see a load of VSOs and having a bit of a party – have to get these things out of my system before heading back to the headache that is work and the quiet that is a Friday night in Samroang...

Water Festival and back to reality

So it feels like I’m settling in to Samrong a little more now and day to day tasks are becoming a touch less stressful to complete. We are having a bit more fun in the market and trying out what we can and can’t cook well or at all!

A few weeks ago we had a few days off for water festival so Em and I packed a small bag each and head down to PNH – took us about 11 hours down there and then 9 to get back so wasn’t too bad. The reason for our visit was to take part in the boat race which is integral to the celebrations of the water festival and I must say that it is definitely one of the highlights of my time here so far. You can see what the boats are like above - although that is in Samrong on the lake outside my house! Actually taking part in the was great fun and we provided much amusement to the Khymer boats who take it very seriously indeed. The actual races are head to head and it is fair to say we were pretty well beaten – we were also beaten by two of the boats from the race behind – however that is better than VSO did the year before.

PNH was packed full of people and for the vast majority of the time there was a great atmosphere and it was nice to meet up with people and see how there placements were going. Which leads me on nicely to work...

It’s been back to reality (with a slight bump) since the fun of PNH and it’s been hard work. There is obviously a lot I have to learn about CDA and the work that they have done/ do in community forestry and it has been really interesting. It is a bit of a disappointment that my work will be a lot more office based than I thought. They are used to having a volunteer that isn’t in the field as much as I will need to be for my role but I think that I have stressed that in my broken Khymer enough times. I did get out to the villages a couple of times this week and it is really helping me to formulate a plan of how best to move forward as you need to really understand the situation before moving forward with things. However frustrating that may be for the eager new volunteer!

Unfortunately the forest is not in its healthiest state in Odar Meanchey and you have to go quite far to get to reasonable sized areas – so it is a far cry from the likes of Rattanikiri and Mondulkiri from what I hear. That does make it even more important that the remaining areas are protected both for the people whose livelihoods depend on these areas and the animals and plants that live in these areas.

I am definitely getting more involved and advising on strategies and proposals has been a mainstay of my time here so far (as well as a fair bit of editing) – I guess there will be an element of “chasing funding” but that is the reality of a grass roots level organisation trying to expand its programme. We have been working on several proposals and one of these from Action Aid includes the potential of a 10 year partnership if you successfully complete a 1 year pilot project to satisfactory standards. Although not within my particular area of expertise the potential for long term stable funding would be a welcome addition to CDA – as long as they don’t rest on their laurels and become dependent on one donor!

Weekends tend to be very quiet (though last wkd I had a stressful day meeting Action Aid) with lots of reading etc. However this weekend I am off to Prenut Pre as Leonie (fellow VSO volunteer from ICT) and JP (her boyfriend) are having a party! Although a long way to go my social calendar isn’t exactly full so I didn’t think I was in a position to be turning invites down!!

Settling in to Samrong

So after two months of moving around I have finally moved in to my house with Emma in Samrong, what a relief. On Sunday we had the most horrendous journey and it took us over 12 hours from PNH. The guy tried to rip us off and we had to go a long way because the quick road from Sisophon wasn’t accessible but we got there – albeit over 12 hours later.

Anyway – it was great to get here and despite a few problems they appear to have done a really good job on the house and the Kitchen they built us on the back is very nice. It feels nice to have a space to call your own. So after a few hours kip I got up at 6 for work at 7.30 (had to sort out keys and a few things).

After a brief stop off at the office to say hello to everyone and generally show my face I actually went to observe some training which has been conducted by ZOA. Although I have covered the content before and was not in need of the training, it was interesting to observe how the training was delivered and the type and level of the questions being answered.

There was a session on participatory tools (which is my kind of thing) so it was interesting to me to talk to the NGO’s taking part and working in the area to see their reaction. Interestingly there had been a few organisations who had been on training but had not used this in the field. My extra discussions seemed to point to a lack of understanding at how adaptable “PRA” or participatory techniques can be in general. It seemed to be difficult to highlight the fact that there is not a simple equation to find which tool that you should use. Time seems to also be a massive issue here as NGO’s chase more funding and fulfil their commitments – establishing M and E from the beginning is therefore very important as a lot of work has been done but I only have a vague idea of how successful it’s been.

Anyway, since then I have been spending a bit of time in the office and I had a really positive meeting with our director and although it will no doubt take me a long time to establish myself I hope that it can be done. Reading documents (particularly anything technical) is a good way to go but it is so important to talk to people. The level of English is better than I thought and between that and my Kamai I think that we can muddle through! And although I tried to read everything thety gave me more and more documents seem to appear that would be useful for me! I am planning to spend a lot of time in the field over the next month or two to observe the work of CDA on “the ground” – but due to the fieldwork being the other side of the province this week and some of the staff I will be working with being in training I don’t think that I‘ll get in to the villages till after the water festival.

Samrong is so remote and identifying markets and opportunities here is severely limited by transport – it is bad enough from here to either Sisophon or Siem Reap but if you factor in how remote some of our areas are it is going to be a massive challenge – but more on that to come!

Back in Kampong Cham

So we have managed to find a house and it is beautiful – it is too good for a volunteer to live in but it is cheap as chips. I am sharing with Emma which is great and will mean that I shouldn’t get as lonely as I thought I might do. We have an amazing view of Samrong ‘lake’ from our really massive balcony and it’s going to be great for having parties on – I guess we’ll have to make some friends!! It feels great to have it sorted anyway and I’m excited about the prospect of getting up there.

As well as the two VSO’s and Tito (ZOA) there are also quite a few NGO’s in the area with the international ones including International Child Support, Malteser and Les Enfants Mekong so there are a few people to meet and get to know and hopefully we can begin to co-ordinate some of the projects to avoid any overlap and learn from each others successes and failures.

So after a week I returned to PNH with a lot of reading and preparation to do alongside ICT. After a few days training on first aid kits, establishing yourself in the work place etc. We have returned to Kampong Cham to get on with the Language. In PNH I also had the opportunity to meet with Community Forestry International who were very nice and are currently funding some work with CDA. They have there own Non Timber Forest Products (NTFP) Team and I think that we could well organise some training with them as they seem to have materials etc in place.

It’s nice to be back in Kampong Cham and I was quite surprised that I actually quite enjoyed language class yesterday. However I am still a long way off being able to communicate properly as they find my accent very hard to understand despite my best efforts. However some of it ios beginning to make a bit more sense and hopefully it will all click in to place at some point. To be honest I really just want to get up there and get cracking as although I have agreed to do a couple of things for them and have a massive amount of reading to do it’s frustrating not actually being in the house yet etc. However I know when I get there I will miss all the VSO crew etc so I will just have to enjoy it and make the most of this time as possible.

Today has been a good day off - cups of tea and pool by the Mekong River - good stuff. Going to ride out to an éco village' when the sun dies down too - then back to the Khymer tom!!

Finally In Samraong

It has taken me a while to get to post anything but I'll briefly explain what I have been up to over the past few weeks.

After arriving in Cambodia after our night flight we spent 6 days in Phnom Penh orientating ourselves with the city and VSO Cambodia as an organisation. Whilst this was not always rivetting it was important so that we could function within VSO as an organisation. Phnom Penh is also relatively well developed and is a nice intermediatary stage at which to adapt to life in a new developing country. It allowed us time to take a cyclo tour around the city as well as visit the markets, the royal palace and the genocide museum. The Khymer Rouge was so recent and I am only begining to see the effects that this period in recent history still has on the Cambodian people.

We then moved on to Kampong Cham which is a small little town on the Mekong where we quickly started our Khymer lessons with the wonderful Dara. Languages have never been my strongpoint but English is still not widely spoken here, particularly in the older generation and if I am to be effective I will need a reasonable level of Khymer. The lessons are going OK and the Grammar is not as complex as Spannsh, however I have never found languages to be particularly logical as they always have exceptions to the rule etc etc. However with Dara's help I am making some progress. However all the sentance constructions seem to be based around drinking Whisky with Dara or visiting my "sweetheart!!". Not sure I will need either of those but I am sure I'm getting somewhere anyway.

After two and a half weeks in Kampong Cham my little brain couldn't take anymore language and we set off excitedly to reach Samraong where I will be working. A few of us got the bus up to Siem Reap (The Bantear Meanchey lot stayed a night there) then Emma and I managed to negotiate transport up to Samraong. There is no bus up to Samraong and it involves negotiating a space in a shared taxi - unfortunately we couldn't find a taxi so we ended up getting a lift in a pick up (though we had seats we weren't in the back!!). It took us about four hours (on top of the 5 and a half to Siem Reap). The further we got the more and more remote everything seemed and it was a relief when we finally arrived.

Samraong is very small, although because space isn't as big an issue as some areas everything is really spaced out and so it is quite hard to establish exactly how big it is. We met with two of the volunteers currently here (as well as Tito who works for ZOA). Manny who is currently working for CDA and will be leaving soon after I start work, he has had a slightly different role but has been working hard with CDA. The other VSO volunteer Rosheed (sorry for the spelling!!) is working for a health NGO.

Yesterday I went to the office and finally saw where i will be working for a year, I will try and post pictures soon! It is a small area and resources are tight and I wont even have a desk but there is a communal work area. We had a welcome meeting and it was nice to be introduced to everyone and to talk about the exciting prospects of the year ahead, which I will go in to in greater depth later.

Today we went out to meet one of the community forestry groups. I wasn't expecting to play such a large part in the meeting but through an interpretter and my pigeon Khymer we managed to communicate enough. I was just trying to be polite and make some initial forrays in to discussing non-timber forest products and income generation. It appears that there is a great potential and I look forward to findng out more and meeting more communities. On a side note the Cambodians I have met have by and large been kind, smiley and happy people with a genuine warmth. I am still seen as a novelty as you dont get many Barangs up here! Choruses of Hello! follow you everywhere. Anyway this is quite a hefty post so I will try and follow this up with a post soon discussing how the house hunting (so far proving very difficult ) and the rest of the week in Samraong goes before returning to Phnom Penh.

Good bye

Today I leave for Cambodia for a year to work for a Cambodian NGO called the Childrens Development Agency. They are a community based natural resource managemnt organisation. I am apparently going to be mainly looking in to non-timber forest products and sustainable income generating activity but I guess I'll only find out what it's like when I actually get there. I will try and keep this updated as often as possible! Apparently I have internet in the office but I guess it will depend on how slow it is. Anyway, hopefully I'll post soon!!