Friday, October 28, 2011

Color Change

In response to a reader's suggestion to switch from the high contrast black background with white writing, I've switched the color scheme up a bit. I don't normally read the blog....I just write the posts! What thoughts on the new design - easier on the eyes? or does the white text just need to change?

muchos love-os,

Ashraf

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Fixing the Broken Things

"As a tornado, I have bestrewn your house with the broken clutter of your past life."

A real bicycle mechanic A.K.A
 "the wheel deal"
We've been privileged enough to stay at GEMS international school, in the topmost floor, in my friend Prema's room. We've also been given the opportunity to do things like borrow her bicycle. Unfortunately, the bicycle broke. The back tire just straight-up stopped moving! Not being adept in the fine art of bicycle repair, I asked many of the friends here at CORDE what I could do with such a broken cycle. I was directed to a repairman nearby. "How lucky!" I thought to myself, "providence has smiled upon me!". Alas, twas not so. The repairman turned out to be a motorcycle repairman. You'd think that that'd be alright, and that, working with the motorized big brother of little bicycles, he could fix mine. The reality is, you make less money fixing bicycles, and he had a motorcycle that he was repairing. So he clanged around a bit with some tools, loosened this, tightened that, poured oil on stuff. No dice. The wheel wasn't moving. Realizing that repairing my bike would take some time, he promptly dismissed me. ! At this point, the bike was still not repaired. So I held up the back, and directed the front, and walked it back halfway to CORDE, then, frustrated with the pace, and the general situation, I hoisted the bike over my head, and hustled back to the office.

Now, there's this cafe called "1.5 street Cafe", which has been sharing its space with a bike tour company called Soksabike, a play on the Cambodian greeting, "Sok Sabai?" It was at this producer of delicious coffees, that providence really did smile on me (and emily, and the bike?) since Soksabike was testing out a new bicycle mechanic, we were invited to bring our broken bike for him to test his skills. Emily directed the bike and I held up the back end so that it could roll, and as a humorous spectacle of two, we paraded our way through the park, across the bridge, and down three blocks to the 1.5 street cafe. The mechanic diagnosed, deconstructed, replaced, souped-up, and re-constructed the bike in like 20 minutes. It was magical to watch. Allah be praised, Prema's bicycle works again (in time for her return)!


Peanut butter sandwich and an orange-banana shake
There's a look of pure joy on the face of Emily Rushdy (pictured left), as she spreads and eats a delicious snack, reminiscent of the food in her homeland. French bread with peanut-butter, and something akin to an Orange Julius, purchased from the White Rose restaurant, just two blocks away from our house. Though still speaking very limited-to-no Khmer, we've managed to befriend the White Rose family (who recognized me from 2 years ago), and occasionally drop by their restaurant for a fresh shake. Oddly, at a time when Emily was enjoying a very familiar food, I looked up from my seat, and got a feeling of absolute strangeness! It's as if I just woke up in the restaurant, and everything was new. the tables, the people, the language, the music, the t.v., the street and buildings outside, all seemed completely unfamiliar....then the feeling dropped off, and everything was normal again. Quelle etrange!

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Hustlin' and Bustlin'

Friends, Romans, Countrymen!

Em and I are (still!) getting used to the organization and pace of life out here. While no single activity feels like it is proceeding very quickly, there's still a feeling of hustle and busyness around all our doings. On the 15th we went to the Feast of Knowledge (‘Ilm), on the 16th and 17th I attended an international seminar on the eradication of poverty (at which Malaysian and Indonesian presenters and academics formed the majority), on the night of the 16th Emily and I attended a meeting with the Counsellor from Myanmar, Myint Zaw Oo (who is a sweet and cheerful soul), on the night of the 17th we attended the closing ceremony of the seminar, and on the night of the 19th, we attended a celebration of the Birth of the Bab.

Whew.

Em getting ready to go the Feast
Let's start with the Feast. For those of you who might be wondering, "the Feast" is an institution of Baha'i community life - we get together, pray, consult on the affairs of the community, and have some time to just socialize and get to know each other. Our trip to this feast was particularly exciting, because we piled 6 people into a tuk-tuk, and traversed the treacherous, pot-hole laden road to the Baha'i Centre. I say "pot-hole laden", when in fact the road is, in sections, an accumulation of pot-holes which are attempting, unsuccessfully, to form a road. On several occasions, we had to drop a few people out of the tuk-tuk so that it's mighty .5 horsepower engine could navigate the terrain.

The experience was intensified when we arrived at the Baha'i Centre, and found it submerged in darkness. I was sure that we had collectively got the wrong day or time until someone spotted a few people walking in the distance in the property. So we went in, quickly discovering that the power was out, and that the feast was going on in the dark! It was pretty fun actually, everyone who had flashlights on their cell-phones used them to light up the current speaker or poster presentation. Finally someone brought some candles and a potted plant (in which they "planted" the candles), and, as they lit the first candle, the lights returned. Glorious.

I think I'll just add the meeting with the Counsellor in here. He emphasized a few topics with the youth, chief among them the importance of service to the community, and of having purity-of-motive. The discussion around these themes was interesting, and had some hilarious translation mishaps: there was a translator from English to Khmer, but the Counsellor's English was a bit hard for the Khmer translator to make out, so one of the youth ended up acting as an English-English translator. In the end everyone got to hear and to speak, so all was good in the house.

The opening ceremony with some traditional khmer dance,
Performed by the students of UBB
 The RENPER seminar on Poverty Eradication was very interessant. I attended it with a colleague from CORDE, and we heard about some efforts by universities to become involved in achieving/contributing to the first of the Millennium Development Goals, and some of the problems and solutions found by local NGOs. I actually found the presentations of the local NGO's, thought fraught with terrible English, to be most relevant and insightful. There were also some interesting presentations about the role of small-land holders, and cool technologies like Aquaponic systems. In general though, the presenters shared a framework of poverty which sees the poor as "a bundle of needs", and greatly de-emphasizes the latent capacity of individuals and communities to contribute to their own development. There were a few presentations that stood out, and recognized the importance of capacity-building as an important first-step in the development process. Either way, I learned a lot, and asked a lot of questions, and met a lot of people, and had a great time doing all three.
RENPER closing ceremony dinner...I got 3 chopsticks,
So LUCKY!!!!

The closing ceremony had a dinner and dance, and all the presenters and attendees received gifts from the host (the University of Battambang). Emily and I had a good time hob-nobbing with local and foreign academics, and Emily got a chance to speak to to a few who research Early Childhood Education. We got compliments on our khmer dancing, and our "revolutionary" re-interpretations of traditional khmer forms. Tres Bons.


Finding a plain sheet is actually impossible in Battambang...as far as we know. We went sheet-shopping, only to find that nobody has sheets. I mean, they have bed-sets, comprising a fitted-sheet, 2 pillow cases, and 2 bigger pillow-cases, but no plain sheets. We even explored really light blankets - no go. After some frustration, I just decided to get two big pieces of fabric ($4), and get them sewn together ($.50). Voila! A sheet! We may have to travel to Phnom Penh to outfit ourselves when we move into our new home...or just get into designing our own stuffs. :)

Em and I in the Baha'i Centre
Two nights ago we went out for dinner to say goodbye to some visitors form Malaysia. One is the sister (Sue-Mei) of our housemate (Sue-Fang), and the other is a friend (Ashwini). We went again for the large buffet BBQ/soup-ish meal, where you cook-up whatever you want however you want. It's a little bit pricier than your normal meals out ($4.5), but well worth the added fun of cooking stuff over a coal-fired BBQ. Unfortunately, we enjoyed ourselves too much to even remember to take pictures.


Last night we attended the celebration of the Birth of the Bab, which was hosted at the Baha'i Centre, and again required a treacherous and trying tuk-tuk ride (we could probly walk it next time). We brought our projector and small speakers to the event, and projected lyrics for a song, and played music for a game, and just generally had a good time. The organizers did a great job, managing to tell the story of the life of the Bab and involve everyone in the activities somehow transcending the language barrier without a need for excessive or constant translations.

Oh yeah, it's also been raining and flooding a lot.

What a week!

Kids in Em's afternoon class, learning about the family
Celebrate Su-Fang's Birthday
We've done a ton in the last week - Em teaching, and I, learning. Em also did some learning about teaching, and as I've been discovering about marriage, this means that I did too. :)

With a bunch of people
Our days start at about 5:45am, the same time when the pagoda's start blasting their tunes. I'm not sure if it's a call to prayer kind of thing, but I'm starting to be able to distinguish the voices of the different monks, and some of the different tunes that they play. Em works by 7, me by 7:30, we break for lunch at 11:00, start again by 1, I finish by 4:30, and Em by 5.


Then we have evenings, where we do various things, like this:
Far from mystery-cult-worship, this is a snapshot of a game called
 "shocking!"

You can't really see it, but we hooked up our little BENQ
 projector, and watched a pirated version of the smurfs

The Streets were PACKED during the water festival



This was the fruit of several attempts to capture the sporadic fireworks

We sat upstairs to see the river and check out the scene

People in the streets

I bought two more low-cost lacoste shirts

P.S. the week got so busy that I couldn't even finish this post! Instead of completing it, i'm posting, and writing a new one on what's happened since then! :)




Saturday, October 8, 2011

We found a place!

Front of the house
Our search is over (for the next 6 months)! After looking around at a few different places, and gauging what kinds of places are available, we found two things: 1) there are places that are affordable (~$100-150), but either in need of work, or open to the outdoors, and 2) there are places that are expensive ($250+) that we felt comfortable in. We ended up choosing to sacrifice other expenditures to stay in a place that was $300, that we bargained down to $250 (and got the owner to throw in a few upgrades including a fridge, and mosquito netting!).

So, having found a place, we are now relaxed, and able to focus on our crazy new lives. There's a lot to do at both CORDE and GEMS, and Emily and I are discovering exactly what those things are, and how we can make contributions. our jobs have also converged a bit: I'm assisting a group to test and edit an English Language Learning program - and Emily's teaching an English class, so....of course I'm getting her to test out the materials! :) It's exciting to be testing, creating, and editing curriculum! It's only been a week, but we've both learned lots about language acquisition, and a few different approaches to the learning of language, and how people can develop the ability to "listen with comprehension", and "express their thoughts". Oddly enough, I also have an old book of Umberto Eco's here that I brought with me last time I came to Cambodia. he talks a lot about semiotics, and the link between language and cognition. I sometimes feel like I have serendipity on speed-dial. Heppy times!

Please enjoy more shots of the home and the signing:
Front yard, view from the front door
signing with my thumb!



Navy and I signing, Navy helped us find the place