Cambodia: Global Awareness in Action

The group is at Yale

2009-07-31T10:00:00.001-04:00

We've received word from the leaders that the group has arrived in New Haven, CT. All of the Global Action World Issues groups have settled into the dorms at Yale University and students are preparing to put the final touches on their presentations.

Stoung and Siem Reap

2009-07-26T07:59:00.008-04:00

Hello all,

After nearly a week in Stoung, a village about 50 km north of Kampong Cham, we have arrived in Siem Reap. The hometown of Angkor Wat has a much different feel to it than anywhere we have been thus far—in the course of a day we have gone from being the only foreigners in town to being among the million+ tourists who pass through Siem Reap to visit Angkor Wat each year.

We had a very productive and insightful week in Stoung. As we mentioned before, we had the chance to be the first ambassadors of Western culture ever to have visited the town. Our arrival was met with apprehension by the students there, who didn’t know how to react to foreigners; however, they soon warmed to our presence and were as excited to spend time with us, learning about our culture, as we were excited to learn about their lifestyles. The teaching aspect of our project surpassed our expectations, with the local students (through the help of our translators) asking many questions about our culture, education system, and how Cambodia compares to the US.

For the hands-on projects, we arranged for the re-tiling of one nursery school classroom and re-surfaced another classroom floor with a new layer of cement, smoothing the surface and filling in all the holes that had previously existed. After mixing all the cement for the floors manually, we now have a much greater appreciation for the trucks that do all the hard work for us in the US! Additionally, we re-painted the wooden shutters and doors of all three school buildings, as well as the (previously rust-covered) front gate to the schoolyard. The girls all worked very hard and we are so proud of the work they have done and their consistently positive attitudes and insightful thoughts on Cambodia.

Tomorrow we are off to visit Beng Melea, a temple about 90 minutes outside of Siem Reap which has yet to see any restoration work—this will be a fantastic pre-cursor to Angkor Wat and the other most popular temples in the Angkor Archeological Park, as we will get to see what they looked like when they were first “re-discovered” by Henri Mahout in the mid-19^th century.

We continue to enjoy ourselves and our time in Cambodia immensely—we are developing the details of our Yale presentation this week and look forward to sharing it with you next weekend!

Painted doors and tiled floors,

Jenn & Nate

Lauren shows off one of the posters she made as a
visual aid to her classes on American culture

Local students show their excitement for our visit!

Helping hands hard at work repainting the exterior doors of the school

The finished product!

Kasya, Nate, Katie, and Izzy share lunch together in a local home

Sarah hard at work prepping the classroom floor for a smooth new layer of cement

Natalie and Katie use their muscles to mix cement by hand as they re-surface the floor

Nursery school students in their newly tiled classroom

Sophia, Izzy, Deanna, Sarah, Kasya, Natalie, and Lauren
ready to begin work on the front gate to the schoolyard

Sophia and Kate peek out from behind the freshly-painted gate

Telephone greetings from Stoung!

2009-07-20T20:13:00.002-04:00

This week we are in the small town of Stoung, north of Kampong Thom. There is no Internet access here, so we are asking our colleagues in Putney to type this phone message.

We are quite likely the first real-life ambassadors from the United States to many people in Stoung, as many school children here have never seen Westerners in person. With the help of the school director, who oversees the 780 kids, we have decided on a complex teaching system of rotating our students into the 10 classrooms to provide lessons about hygiene (kids don’t have toothbrushes at home), the environment (trash is often thrown on the ground here), and American culture and professions. The director enthusiastically explained this idea and his aim is for us to present the ideas to the children so they start to think about possibilities for their own country.

In addition to these teaching projects, we are tiling one of the classroom floors, painting the school’s wooden windows and doors, and we’ll hopefully give out toothbrushes (which we will buy for 10 cents each) and tubes of toothpaste (13 cents) to each student. We will also model how to wash hands and brush teeth. Our students have finished their posters and are excited to teach tomorrow. We’ll have internet access when we reach Siem Reap on Friday evening.

Minty toothpaste and no litter waste,

Nate and Jenn

The Week in Review: Phnom Penh

2009-07-20T20:12:00.002-04:00

Hello all,

We have had such an action-packed week in Phnom Penh that we didn’t have a chance to update the blog to let you know what we’ve been up to until now. We started off the week by working with the organization Cambodian Living Arts (CLA), which was started by our friend Arn Chorn-Pond (with whom we met on our first night in country). The non-governmental organization (NGO) provides Khmer music, dance, theater, and other traditional performing arts.

We also visited and toured the facilities of Tourunesourire D’ensant, which helps children who are forced to pick trash from the dump by paying for their schooling and providing additional skills training education in one of 25 different professional vocations; Fair Fashion Cambodia, a clothing and accessories design company that provides rescued sex workers with a fair wage and skills training in the garment industry; and Digital Divide Data, a social enterprise organization which combines the business model of an IT data entry corporation with the kind of social goals often found in non-profit organizations such as ongoing skills training, medical benefits not usually offered in Cambodia, and recruitment of staff from underprivileged backgrounds.

We also spent several afternoons at Aziza’s Schoolhouse (a small 2 classroom school that offers supplemental schooling to some of the poorer students in the capital). Whereas some families cannot afford the books, uniforms, and school fees to send all their kids to school, Aziza’s Schoolhouse seeks to alleviate the burden on these families by providing additional classes in English, health education. and vocation-specific skills. We danced aerobics with Aziza’s students alongside the nightly crowds at the Olympic Stadium, and even brought three of them along with us as translators during our time spent at the orphanage in Kampong Cham and the village school in Stuong! We will all have the opportunity to support Aziza when we meet at Yale as our girls will be selling t-shirts that they designed in collaboration with the Aziza students as a fund-raiser! Bring your checkbooks!

NGOs and fair-trade clothes,

Jenn and Nate

The Killing Fields

2009-07-14T11:59:00.003-04:00

Yesterday we visited the Killing Fields, a grim reminder of Cambodia's tragic modern history which still lingers in many people's memories. While there we had the girls jot down some of their thoughts and emotions, which we collected and later shared at our evening meeting. We thought we'd share their responses with you:

• “I want to remember the Killing Fields not only because of the souls that were lost, but for remembering this in history. If we forget why the Killing Fields are so quiet and still, we might make the same mistake.”

• “I thought that the heavy grey sky and constant winds appropriately set the scene for the historic sight. The piles upon piles of skulls, each with holes where the eyes should have been, seemed to all be staring at me when I entered the memorial building. Afterwards, while walking through the grounds, I felt the intensity of the number of dead.”

• "What shocks me is that the events that took place here were so terrible and senseless, yet so much order and planning went into them. The Killing Fields are a sickening reminder of the evil that one group of humans can inflict upon thousands of others with full awareness but no conscience.”

• “It is hard to believe that we are in the place where so many people were brutally murdered. I can’t even begin to imagine how the people who were brought here felt. It is hard for me to imagine the individuals whose skulls are stacked here. I wish I could learn more about each person who suffered through this terrible mass murder.”

• “Today I saw the teeth still attached to a skull, and a button from a man’s shirt sitting on top of children's bones. Being at the Killing Fields makes the horror stories from the Pol Pot regime seem incredibly real to me. It’s upsetting and terrifying but I’m glad we came here because I think that it’s very important to be aware of the horrifying realities, past and present, that are all over the world.”

• “I can’t quite grasp that we’re here, at the Killing Fields, where thousands were murdered for the most horrible reasons. It makes me want to do something, to turn back time maybe, or to meet the families of those who were killed and do my best to understand their grief.”

• “I wasn’t sure what to expect but being here has made me more interested in the stories of the genocide. Seeing all the skulls was the most shocking because it shows you exactly what people went through. I’m glad I got to be here and see the Killing Fields and I think people should come if they can.”

• “Coming to the Killing Fields brings an even stronger feeling that Cambodia deserves so much better. How something so horrible and ugly could happen to a group of people who are so nice and welcoming in such a beautiful country is a mystery. I can’t possibly grasp how an event like this could happen without intervention for so long, or how someone could kill for absolutely no reason. Being here makes me even angrier that the genocide in Cambodia is not widely taught in the US.”

Yale Information

2009-07-14T11:16:00.002-04:00

Hello family and friends,

Yale is less than three weeks away! This will be the final communication from Putney before the end of the program, and we hope that it will provide you with plenty of information as you prepare for your time at Yale University.

Presentations and Picnic

The final presentations will be held on Saturday, August 1st at Sudler Recital Hall at William Harkness Hall, 100 Wall St, New Haven. Global Action students will attend all of the presentations. Please plan to arrive a few minutes early so that we can keep to our tight schedule; your child will meet you there. The presentations are each approximately one hour long and will take place the following times:

9:30 AM: Welcome
10 AM: India
11:30 AM: El Salvador
2:30 PM: China
4 PM: Cambodia

Presentations will be followed by a picnic for families and the entire Global Action community at Timothy Dwight College. We hope you will join us!

How to RSVP

If you plan to attend the presentations and picnic at Yale, please RSVP by email to putney.gaia2009@gmail.com by Friday, July 17. Please note your name, your son/daughter’s group name, and how many there will be in your party (do not include your son/daughter in that number).

Communication with Putney

All communication with Putney from July 30 to August 1 should be directed to our Yale office:

Office Line: (203) 436-1577
Cell Phone: (561) 504-6325
Email: putney.gaia2009@gmail.com

Travel to/from Yale

Each Global Action group has chartered private buses from the airport to Yale University on July 30. While at Yale, students and leaders will be housed at Timothy Dwight College, 345 Temple St. (at Grove St.), Yale University, New Haven, CT.

We hope that families can arrive to Yale in the morning of August 1 and stay in New Haven that night. There will be group presentations and a final picnic on August 1, though the programs do not end until the morning of August 2. Students should be picked up from Timothy Dwight College on August 2 between 9 a.m. and 12 noon. (Putney will provide transportation to the local airport and train station for students that are returning home on their own.)

In the information we have sent to your digital locker, you will find directions to Timothy Dwight College, a list of area hotels, and a customized map including parking information that you should bring to Yale with you. Yale has also provided us with a user-friendly online map at http://business.yale.edu/map.

We look forward to meeting you on August 1st!

The Playground Project: 72 hours in photos

2009-07-12T14:55:00.004-04:00

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, we are counting this entry showcasing our work at the orphanage as a 11,000-word essay. We hope you enjoy it!!

Kampong Cham

2009-07-12T14:50:00.003-04:00

Sosedai! (Hello!)

We have had an unforgettable, touching and productive past few days in Kampong Cham working at an orphanage. We bought trucks of sand; sparkly, new swingset chains; blue, red and yellow paint; metal tubes and wooden beams for the monkey bars; a wooden board to reinforce the see-saw; bricks to keep in the sand; and tires to bury as child-friendly trampolines, all to improve the playground. In addition we made a food donation and provided for four truckloads of soil to improve the quality of the garden, where the orphanage is beginning to grow food to feed to its residents.

Our first day was eventful and we had the instant gratification of seeing a complete transformation with the addition of sand. The playground was dilapidated and had practically become a swamp. Buried tires are common in Latin American playgrounds but somewhat of an anathema in Cambodia, so imagine the looks we got when we proposed to dig holes in the sand for tires! Once they were in, however, we couldn't keep the children off of them!

We had help building the monkey bars and painting the goal posts, working side-by-side with everyone, big and small, from the orphanage. At the same time we found an opportunity to teach a pair of English classes to a group of the younger kids and a group of the older kids. All of our girls volunteered to teach and did a fabulous job without needing much of any direction from their leaders. On our last day we took a field trip with all the children who weren't in morning classes to Nokorbachey, an Angkorean era temple that houses a modern temple inside.

That same night we had a huge party with discoteque-sized speakers blaring Cambodian dance music (popular now are substituted Cambodian lyrics to the tunes of "Beautiful Girls" by Sean Kingston and "Maria" by Blondie!). Our girls shared tears with the local children as they said goodbye, and continued to shed tears on the tuk-tuk ride back to the hotel.

In one of our discussions, our students revealed that while they expected to teach the kids, they had not expected to learn so much from them. Khmer words and phrases are slipping off their tongues now, and they are sporting gifts the children made such as rope bracelets, and insects and spectacles made of grass. We also examined the effects of short-term visits (such as ours) to places where loss has been experienced by the residents already, but all unanimously believed our presence had been overwhelmingly helpful and valuable to the kids.

Today, we have arrived again in Phnom Penh, dubbed non-governmental organization (NGO) capital of the world, where we have visited the Royal Palace and met with ChildSafe, an organization that works to protect children who beg or work on the streets by providing social services and educational opportunities. We will continue to talk with and learn from many organizations under our umbrella of "Challenges for Children." Tonight we will ask our students to identify their individual projects which they will get to develop in the coming weeks.

Cambodian monks and dance party funk,

Nate and Jenn

An Evening with Arn

2009-07-07T12:47:00.006-04:00

Today concludes our exciting first full day in Cambodia! We began with a hearty breakfast and then a cyclo (pronounced cee-clo) ride around the capital, Phnom Penh. We hired a cyclo company that offers cyclo drivers - the poorest of the urban poor - a liveable wage as well as several services and educational programs for free. Here is Nat on her cyclo:

One of our stops was the Royal Palace, which we will enter and explore the week after next when we return to Phnom Penh.

Then we tried the cyclos out for ourselves. Building momentum was not easy! But we got the hang of it. The drivers were surprised but quickly bore smiles, thumbs up and peace signs for the pictures.

We had our in-country orientation at a beautiful Cambodian/Thai restaurant, Khmer Surin. Here we are anxiously awaiting our mouth-watering meal of such ethnic dishes as fish amok, stir fried vegetables, tofu satay, curry, spring rolls, banana flower salad and rice:

We performed skits, showing what to do and what not to do in Cambodian culture. For example, the head is the most sacred part of the body and should never be touched, while feet are considered base and should not point out when seated. Never lose temper in public; patience is a virtue. Throwing is rude and gifts are opened in private. Shoes come off at houses; Buddha images are treated respectfully. Flatter when possible, the Khmers love it; boasting is disliked. Beckon people with the palm down, never point. Touching of a monk or his robes by a woman is strictly taboo. Here are some students performing a skit:

After exchanging travelers’ checks and enjoying a bit of free time, we were off for the main event of the evening: a visit with Arn, who was featured in the PBS documentary, “The Flute Player.” Our van couldn’t pass the road, which due to rain had become increasingly muddy and slippery, so we waded a quarter mile in the mud and wondered if we would ever see Arn! When at last we made it to his house, Arn welcomed us and spoke passionately against the prostitution of very young children in his country while he outlined his new projects. He is producing a music video featuring a talented singer, a poor woman Arn has practically adopted along with others he most generously shares his house and food with. Arn explained that Cambodia has practically no contemporary music of its own, so its people, who listen to Thai or American or Chinese music have little of their own identity. Arn is changing that by introducing and “rising up” a woman who writes her own new Cambodian music, something unknown in Cambodia. Whereas all Cambodian love songs or videos end in tragedy for the woman when her boyfriend leaves, Arn’s video will be the first to show a different outcome.

“Who cares if you leave me for a job? That’s ok,” she sings.

Tomorrow we go to Kampong Cham where we will be engaged in many activities; internet, while available, will not be as easy to come by - we apologize in advance for a likely 4-5 day gap in this blog.

Our girls are adventurous, curious, positive, happy, eager, warm, polite, caring, self-sufficient, and here for all the right reasons. They are everything we want in a group and we are ecstatic to be spending the next month with them. Each one is amazing and unique.

Until soon,

Nate and Jenn

Rambutans and Tuk-tuks

2009-07-05T19:02:00.004-04:00

Our group arrived in Phnom Penh this evening, after a long flight with lots of in-flight entertainment selections and some incredible scenery as we flew over Canada, Alaska and the Arctic Circle. (See photos below of the arctic bay! What a view!) It was an epic plane ride-- due to the route that we took, it never became dark outside. The students were as excited as they were tired.

We met Jenn outside the airport who immediately introduced us to such mouthwatering tropical fruits as tamarind and rambutans, and we will soon try the jackfruit, dragonfruit, mangosteen, sapodilla. En route to the hotel, we cruised through the local traffic of tuk-tuks, monks on motorbikes, and city parks full of aspiring badminton players out for a Sunday evening game.

The food on the Hong Kong-->Phnom Penh leg of the flight left a lot to be desired, so we satisfied our bellies with a round of steaming bowls of hand-pulled noodles at a bustling local restaurant before collapsing in bed.

We have a city tour tomorrow morning--on cyclos!--before a group meeting and discussion about the month ahead. In the afternoon we'll head about 15 miles out of the city to the house of Arn Chorn-Pond, the protagonist of the film 'The Flute Player', and the founder of Cambodian Living Arts, an organization with whom we'll spend several days while in country.

Until next time!

Nate and Jenn

The group has arrived

2009-07-05T18:57:00.000-04:00

We've received word from the leaders that the group has arrived in Phnom Penh.

Meet the trip leaders

2009-06-17T09:35:00.000-04:00

2009 Cambodia leaders: Jenn Brown and Nate Marcus

JENNIFER BROWN: Wesleyan University, B.A., East Asian Studies and Government. While at Wesleyan, Jennifer spent a semester during her junior year studying abroad in China. Upon her return to campus, she directed an outreach program for grade school students in Connecticut, introducing them to East Asian culture through hands-on learning activities. After graduation she worked for a small non-profit in Washington, D.C., researching U.S. foreign policy in Asia. Jennifer spent a year working in Beijing as a Princeton-in-Asia fellow at a local travel company, designing educational student travel programs throughout China. Most recently, Jennifer has been working as a tour leader, taking small groups on cultural journeys throughout Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and China. In her free time she enjoys running, eating local food, and playing frisbee. This will be Jennifer’s third summer with Putney. She was part of Putney’s Excel China staff in 2006 and 2007. Jennifer is fluent in Chinese and proficient in Spanish and French.

NATHANIEL MARCUS: Middlebury College, B.A., Political Science. Nate spent his summers in high school in Spain traveling, taking classes, and working in a tile factory. While in college, Nate served for three months teaching English in a Costa Rican school, living with a host family, and building a community center. Nate studied abroad with Antioch College's Buddhist Studies Program in Japan, where he lived in several monasteries. For three summers Nate taught high school Spanish at the immersion Concordia Language Villages in Minnesota, and he taught high school Spanish for one year at the Marianapolis Preparatory School in Thompson, Connecticut. He now leads semester trips with LEAPNow and Carpe Diem Education to Central America and India. This will be Nate’s fifth summer with Putney. He has led Language Learning programs in Spain and Argentina and a Community Service program in Ecuador. He is fluent in Spanish and proficient in Portuguese.

Welcome!

2009-06-03T10:29:00.001-04:00

In order to keep parents updated on the progress of their child's Putney program, from time to time over the course of the program, the trip leaders will post an update on this blog. We hope that the occasional updates will keep you informed about the activities, projects and successes of the summer, as well as comfort the usual worries in sending a son or daughter to a far-away place.

You should expect leaders to post blogs no more than once per week during the program. We feel strongly that the leaders' first priority is the students and the program. The reasons for infrequent updates will be the very busy schedules of our program leaders as well as inconsistent internet access at Putney's various destinations throughout the world. Please know that any important issues on the program will be discussed and resolved with leaders and parents by phone, not through the blog.

We suggest that you subscribe to the blog during your first visit so that you will receive e-mail notifications at the end of the day whenever a new update is posted. To subscribe, enter your email address under 'Subscribe via e-mail' on the right-hand column of the blog.

Have a fantastic summer!