Last Day, Productive Trip

I'll be standing in line at the Siem Reap International Airport in about 12 hours waiting for the first of 3 flights to get home. This is the day for last-minute shopping, indulging in the local culinary delights, and tying off loose ends. Here's the summary of activity for 2015:

• Taught 2 classes at the Provincial Teacher Training College for the week of July 20-24
• One Train the Trainer course focused on helping staff improve their computer skills and address administrative challenges
• One Overview of Office course focused on helping about 30 students start using Word, Excel, and PowerPoint for when they teach classes
• Distributed flash drives to all students with a variety of English eBooks and some Khmer books. All textbooks at high school or college level.
• Replaced the PC at Bos Kralanh village (Mr. Sok's house in particular) which was beyond it's useful age with a new laptop
• Recognized our 2015 and 2014 graduates with a "Graduation Party" at the West Baray. Sought out those who couldn't attend and ensured they were congratulated for their achievements. This is unusual in Cambodia and important to reinforce this program.
• Started a comprehensive list of Building Cambodia Activities in a format easy to display on a Google Map
• Researched the quality and supply of mosquito nets manufactured in Cambodia and determined that locally sourced versions are reasonable. 
• Researched the situation of children living at the prison and determined that their policy recently changed. There are no children there any more, only one baby recently born. There might still be opportunity to help here, but it will be different than initially expected.

Another good year!

Sending Off for a Dear Friend

Today Deanna heads back to the US. She's been working here for about 5 weeks on various projects. That's actually a short trip for her, but since last year she wasn't able to make it this is not bad.

We're helping her to do last minute shopping, tie off on projects, double check the bags, and generally get ready for her flight. It's the 11:45pm red-eye to Korea so she's in for a long journey home.

I wouldn't be surprised to see several people show up at the airport to give her a proper farewell. Well done Deanna, thanks for another productive year!

An Incredible Presentation

The Provincial Teacher Training College in Siem Reap serves a very large area of the country. Prospective teachers come here to study on a two year course before heading back to their villages as a certified teacher. The work we do here is very much "train the trainer" for highly motivated people.

Friday was final exams for the second year students, but somehow they arranged to have a full ceremony for us in gratitude of the work we did this year. Gifts were presented to us, words of thanks, and even a well done rendition of "You Lift me Up" by a student! I returned the favor by giving each member of my computer class a USB flash drive with ebooks and training materials. 

I love the wells, toilets, PCs, and other tangible items we establish. The personal training we do is equally important!

The Map!!!

Check this out!!!! I'm still making usability edits, we have more locations to add, and these just represent physical items. We will also add locations and times when we held class. More to come!

Full version here

Class Class and More Class

The past couple of days have been jam-packed with classes and project work. I normally try to buy training books for my students and distribute them for later reference. This time around I'm going with flash drives. I was able to download a significant number of free ebooks, but that means copying them a few at a time. My assembly line worked from left to right. It only took a couple hours and helped identify a few bad ones that I'll need to return.

Another recent advance: The price of a laptop is now less than the price of a desktop setup. In prior years it was always cheaper to go the desktop route. This is going to be a great step forward as they can keep it cleaner and easily take it into town if there are problems.

Selfie Sticks, Giant Spiders, and Typhoon Room 102

Lots to report. I think I figured out what happened this year. That unusual increase in Western style, sense of disconnection in the eyes of the locals, and seeing the first Khmer child who is most definitely not suffering from malnutrition and might need to watch it was embodied in the aluminum telescoping rod I saw in the hands of way too many people:

I hereby declare 2015 the year of the Selfie Stick in Cambodia. 

Everyone has a smart phone and they aren't afraid to use it. It's no longer a symbol of wealth. Now they appear to be a necessity. My fear for the rise of narcissism is tempered by how that tool could help change life here for the better. It's possible to educate through that thing if we can just upgrade our castle one more level. I just need a minute, hold on.

In other news, I killed a giant spider in my room. I think he was about 2 inches across, maybe 3. It wasn't pretty, but I got the job done. Unfortunately one of his relatives arrived to plot revenge I assume. Last night I fell asleep seeing him in a corner of the room and woke up with him gone. Not too thrilled about that.

Speaking of last night, I could have sworn that I heard a massive thunderstorm come through. Massive rain of biblical proportions. It was enough to wake me up (and realize the spider had moved), but I was too tired to care so I turned over and went back to sleep. When I woke I got out of bed with the unusual feeling of cool water surrounding my feet. There was at least a half inch of water throughout the room (it's all tile). 

I figured that rainstorm had gotten under the door or there was an odd slant to the building. They're not quite done with construction after all. I slowly determined that no, it wasn't rain by my acute powers of deduction: "Hmmm... it's wet in my room and not wet everyone else in the entire town of Siem Reap."

A pipe fitting had burst in my bathroom. What I thought was a typhoon coming through was just the sound of water flooding in. I hope it carried away the spider.

Something turned a corner this year

Every year I marvel in the growth. It's uneven, just like in nature. Some parts seem to thrive while others continue to struggle without reason. 

But this year... something seems different. I know my way around this town as well as some locals. I can even tell you when streets change name from one to another at some arbitrary intersection. On this trip I find myself struggling more often than usual. Many shops have moved or revitalized, bad roads converted to good roads, and signs of future growth abound. I sometimes feel lost for a moment and then realize "No, I'm not lost, there's just a lot more new things around."

A few examples:

• Upon walking off the plane I entered the new immigration and customs building. It's massive and reasonably modern. I thought they just remodeled?
• Streets that were under basic construction last year are now being finished as divided boulevards. 
• I saw a coming soon sign for a Courtyard Marriott. Seriously.

This isn't a bad thing, it's just a little disconcerting. It feels like we reached some invisible milestone. I wish I knew what it was so I could raise a glass and celebrate appropriately. Instead it looks like my recognition will be spent standing on a sidewalk wondering if I took a wrong turn, only to spot a familiar landmark and crack a smile.

Research Day

I started the morning off with some email, lots of German freeze dried coffee (Tchibo, it's the best and I can buy it here), and helping my colleague Deanna with some unusual computer problems. It appears that Time Warner's email service for subscribers is arbitrarily blocked in some countries. She had no trouble with it in Europe, but here it's obviously being filtered. We found a workaround for it thankfully. 

After that excitement, we got on with the work of researching and networking. Our friends at Teuk Saat (that's Khmer for Clean Water) Organization met with us for lunch. We will indeed get to 96 wells this year. They were also helpful in giving perspective on the Mosquito nets from 3 years ago. Apparently they were very good quality and even with all of the expenses I had to pay out of pocket we ended up with a very competitive rate. It's possible to buy nets here in Cambodia but the quality isn't quite the same. They aren't bad, just not premium level. 

For my computer classes starting Monday, I thought I would jump into the modern age. Instead of distributing paper books on Office, Photoshop, and other applications I'm going to hand out USB flash drives. They should help the future teachers with their work a lot more than dead trees.

That was a lot for day 1

The first day in Cambodia is normally a slow-paced, jarring experience as your body tries to make sense of what you just put it through. The sun is up at the opposite time, you're hungry but not sure about it, and sleepiness is around every top of the hour.

This time, I had to fight it hard. I had meetings at the Provincial Teacher Training College (PTTC) to coordinate work for next week, needed to check into the New New Riverside, and even worked in an introductory class in the afternoon at PTTC to refine the topics. 

Somehow I made it through the day and enjoyed about 10 hours of uninterrupted sleep. We will probably spend some time going to villages and doing more assessments for activity next week. 

Oh, did I mention it was the New New Riverside? Our wonderful hosts are putting the finishing touches on their new hotel. It's not ready for guests but they were nice enough to let us stay with them during the construction. The building practices here still amaze me, as evidenced by the way they do work between two balconies by carefully placing a ladder held only by some thin rope...

Year 11 Here I Come!

This year has been an incredible amount of travel. Several trips to California, one to Wisconsin, and two to India. I now sit in the airport waiting for the first of three flights to get to Cambodia. I'm thrilled that I can still dedicate time to this wonderful cause to help great people.

I will do some of the usual this time around: Check on computers, teach a class at the teacher training school, and connect with friends and colleagues. New tasks include follow up on the mosquito nets, reaching out to other NGOs, and checking on the situation at the prison where apparently there are a large number of kids there living with their incarcerated parents. I hear they don't have access to educational resources so we need to investigate.

Expect a smattering of blog posts until later in the week when I settle into a routine.