Phnom Penh tragedy

I don’t really know how to approach writing about what happened in Phnom Penh at the weekend. The thought of suffocating people simply being squeezed off the edge of the bridge and sliding into the water, the police teams searching the river for bodies, the images of the makeshift morgue in the city’s hospitals where unidentified bodies are left uncovered for relatives to search for the missing, and the thought of army trucks leaving Phnom Penh for the provinces carrying piles of coffins are all very disturbing. Outside one of the hospitals there is a noticeboard with hundreds of photos of dead bodies for people to search for missing relatives, and I think this inevitably recalls the photos of the Khmer Rouge victims at Tuol Sleng – death on such a scale becomes not an individual experience but something impersonal and systemitised.

I think I will give a personal account of my experiences in Phnom Penh this weekend, often very close to the centre of the tragedy yet knowing nothing until several hours later. I am aware that this will sound self-centred but, reflecting on the weekend, I feel that I was self-centred, enjoying three days of partying and, at the time of the crush, completely ignorant of what was going on.

All weekend the atmosphere in Phnom Penh was excellent. Three days of boat racing began on Saturday and, although I missed watching the VSO team as I didn’t arrive till late afternoon, it was great to see the other volunteers and watch some of the races from the riverside. While they went for a post-race celebration, I went to meet Chak who, having been given leftover alcohol from a friend’s wedding, had a weekend of parties and heavy drinking planned. This began at his mum’s house where we drank red wine with ice and ate some Cambodian bar snacks, which I’m becoming used to although still not liking very much – duck foetuses (duck eggs that are cooked when the duck has already begun to form), deep fried crickets, unidentifiable bags of meat. I enjoyed chatting to his mum and his Phnom Penh friends and neighbours, one of whom invited me to his engagement party the following day. When Chak passed out at around 8.30, I went back to meet the other volunteers for a few more beers. I was exhausted and drunk when I got back to the VSO programme office where I shared a room with Dave and Ingran.

At 6.20, Chak phoned to tell me to get ready for the engagement party. Perhaps foolishly, I’m assumed that it would be in the evening or the afternoon at the earliest, but I was told to prepare for a 7.30am start. I did as I was told and, after stopping for breakfast, we were on our way out of Phnom Penh along flat straight roads surrounded by rice fields, until we reached the village where the fiancée’s family lived. I was mortified to discover that the party was actually a dinner in which the husband-to-be brought his friends and family to meet his fiancée’s family. It was an embarrassing few hours and I felt terrible to have intruded, but they were very welcoming and genuinely didn’t seem to mind, while having lunch with a bottle of rum and whisky helped smooth things over. Completely drunk by 12.30, we went back to Phnom Penh and slept for a few hours.

I met Danny, another volunteer, for a drink (water) at around 4pm and then, after showering at Chak’s mum’s, we went daa-leing (literally ‘walk-playing’) around town. It was very busy and there were times when we couldn’t move for several minutes. Some people seemed to be enjoying pushing their friends through the crowds although there were lots of children so I didn’t think it was at all funny. Anyway, we had food in a cheap burger place, went to two nightclubs and had lots of fun, and sitting along one of the main streets eating Cambodian meatballs at 1.30, I took some photos of a sleepy, happy, drunken end to the evening.

It wasn’t the end though. We met Chomnit (the friend who had just got engaged) and drifted through the still-busy Phnom Penh streets towards Wat Phnom where we had coffee in a cafe that had two TVs, lots of coffee, board games and about twenty-five customers, almost all of whom were fast asleep. I found it hilarious that so many people would sit sleeping in a cafe at 2am rather than going home, but soon I was joining them and had to be woken up to go back home.

We woke up early again the next morning, bought a mountain bike to take to Mondulkiri, and then enjoyed riding it towards Chak’s cousins’ house where, inexplicably, there was to be another drinking session starting at 9am. His cousins are students in their early twenties and it was really good fun, this time the drink being accompanied by dried squid and small shells that were a bit like mussels. Feeling like I was living a chapter in a Kerouac novel, we went back to sleep in the afternoon before heading out at around 5pm.

This was Monday, the day of the tragedy, and the streets were very busy. We had a beer in a concert sponsored by Anchor Beer, and the concert being pretty dire, Chak suggested going to Diamond Island, the place where the accident later took place. I had heard of Diamond Island and had mistakenly thought its name came from the rich Cambodian elite who partied there, and this was enough to put me off ever going. Had I realised it was named after its shape and that there was a big free concert going on that night, I’m sure I would have said yes. As it was, we met his cousins again and went somewhere else, where we had a nice time although I was pretty exhausted from the whole weekend and in fact we were all a bit subdued. On the way back after the cousins had left, Chak and I stopped for food. It was around 1am and there was a television showing pictures of a police officer holding a collapsed girl. Not understanding the language and not really watching anyway, I assumed it was an isolated case. When we got back Chak mentioned something about lots of people being electrocuted from the lights on the Diamond Island bridge, but I didn’t really take it in. Perhaps because I was drunk and tired, and perhaps because mass electrocution didn’t seem realistic, I thought it was a rumour that had got out of hand, and fell asleep.

Waking up at 6am, I saw that Jim had phoned and texted to ask if I was okay, and that was when I realised that something serious had happened. Chak had heard more from his friend and told me that there’d been a stampede on the bridge, but still I remember nearly asking, ‘But nobody’s died, have they?’ I didn’t ask, I think because I didn’t want to know the answer.

Four hundred dead was the figure quoted. I cycled to the VSO office to check the internet as I still wasn’t at all clear what had happened, despite being within a kilometre or so of the events. The news was obviously very shocking and so were the pictures. It didn’t occur to me to cycle towards the river although later I wished I had. Instead, after some tea and a shower, I headed to the bus station to catch the bus back to Mondulkiri.

Phnom Penh’s central market was already bustling, the station was crowded with buses pulling in and out of gaps on the side of the road, and the only sign of the catastrophe were the bloody pictures on the front pages of the newspapers that were being sold by street sellers along with bread, chewing gum, sweets. On the bus we passed the Calmette hospital where most of the bodies had been taken; already food stalls had been set up at the entrance. We listened to the news for a while and people talked about where they had been and what they had seen, but within an hour the usual karaoke videos were blaring out and people were settling down for the eight-hour journey. I felt a bit sickened by how uncaringly life was continuing and how I, by taking a bus, was part of the indifferent carry-on-as-normal routine. It wasn’t how I imagined being close to a major international disaster to be.

When I got home it was no longer a major international disaster anyway: the story had already slipped off the main pages of most of the news websites, Will and Kate’s wedding plans taking precedence over the four hundred dead and missing.

Inquests and investigations will follow, and as many have said, Cambodia’s disregard for even the most basic health and safety precautions will probably be blamed, but still what I am struck by is this seeming indifference to a massive tragedy. I am especially affected by this feeling because I was part of it: at the time of the tragedy I was enjoying myself in a bar, and within hours of finding out about the situation I was on a bus out of the city. 

Waterfalls, water and falls

I’ve been meaning to take some photos of the countryside in Mondulkiri because it’s very beautiful and quite different from most of the rest of Cambodia – green, hilly and sometimes misty rather than hot, flat and humid. But I keep forgetting, so until I remember you’ll have to use Google images.

It’s been a good few weeks. We have a cat in order to kill the mice that are living in the walls, floors and ceilings. I was a bit worried for the first few days because it spent about two hours chasing a plastic peg thinking it was an animal, so I did wonder whether we’d accidentally got ourselves a bit of a special cat. But two days ago it emerged triumphantly with its first mouse, so that’s good. I’ve also started running with Jeltje who knows lots of lovely routes, so that’s been good. We briefly took up volleyball, probably Cambodia’s most popular sport, because Chak was keen on getting two tall Europeans to join his team. After two fairly embarrassing sessions (the neighbour asked at one point if we were playing volleyball or just practising throwing the ball into the bushes), Chak hasn’t mentioned playing again, so I think he may have changed his mind. Another friend called Hong has invited me to play football, so at the risk of repeating the experience of joining Tremp’s football team when in Spain (billed as the new young striker from Liverpool and substituted off after four and a half minutes) I will be making my debut soon. We’ve also had lots of nice dinners and I have a few friends to do language exchanges with, including one (Hong) who is a bit keen and turned up at 7.15 last Sunday morning. Jeltje and I have also started having Khmer lessons which is good, as for the first few weeks here I barely spoke any Khmer and was beginning to forget what I’d learned in Kampong Cham. We’ve also seen some really excellent teaching, including one class with 73 students where the teacher did group reading (one book between 12), had the whole class absolutely under control and completely engaged in the book.

A different but equally good lesson involving drama.

And now to this week’s ill-fated ‘team building’ expedition to a waterfall in rural Oreang district. The VSO team – Jeltje, Daniel, Chak, To and I – stocked up on barbecue food and headed off across narrow dirt tracks through metre-high grass over some beautiful hills and forests. We had barbecued beef and vegetable skewers dipped in a delicious black pepper and lime sauce (try it – lots of pepper and the juice of a few limes) and played cards. 

At around 2pm To left, with Chak confident he knew the way back. About an hour later the weather seemed to be turning, so we packed up and left too. Within five minutes it was raining and our bikes were sliding all over the place in the mud. Not having driven in mud before, I was the first to fall but actually all of us fell off a few times in the afternoon, even Chak and Daniel who are very experienced in motorbiking. Luckily, there were three bikes between four (Chak having left his in Phnom Penh), so being the least experienced I went on the back with Chak. The rain was unrelenting and the paths were sometimes unpassable, so Jeltje and I spent a lot of the time pushing one of the bikes which was very tiring and even then we were sliding in the mud. Spirits remained high until it became clear that we were completely lost, the tracks were petering out into nothing, and it was four-thirty, leaving us with just an hour of light left. At one point we saw what looked like a proper road a few miles across the valley, and in the absence of any kind of path we were seriously contemplating going directly across the steep hills and thick forests to get there. It was looking like we might have to spend the night outside in the rain in the middle of the forest, and it struck me then that there is no safety net in Cambodia – no mountain rescue, no emergency number we could call, no mobile phone reception anyway, and not even a house in sight anywhere.

At this point I thought taking a photo might cheer us up. It didn't. 

We decided to take the path in the opposite direction which soon became wider and looked a bit more promising, although it was still very slippy. We were all relieved when the path emerged onto a wide road with a sign for the Vietnam-Cambodia border, so we took the opposite direction as the weather became dark and misty. Although the road was wider, it was still very difficult at times (I was on the back with Chak so I didn’t have to drive) and it was worryingly long – at one point we joked, half-seriously, that we might have ended up in Vietnam and were now heading further and further away from the Cambodian border.

Finally we emerged onto the tarmac road and were soon coming into Sen Monorom, just in time to fill up with petrol and get some food. I think it was only then that we realised how cold and soaked we were, but it was a great feeling to be back home and safe, warming ourselves with hot tea and soup. 

So, another week another adventure! We also now have a five-day weekend so we are heading to Phnom Penh to meet up with some volunteers and celebrate the water festival. I will also be stocking up on teabags!

First two weeks in Mondulkiri

I’ve now been in Sen Monorom for two weeks. They have been very good and I feel quite settled already. Following the tradition we started in Kampong Cham of naming everyone after what they sell (fish lady, beer lady, noodle man etc), I’m happy to report that I have settled on a very nice vegetable lady who has a friendly child and husband, an expensive UHT milk man, a bread and fruit lady, an egg and banana lady (shops often sell quite a random selection of products, and for some reason bananas are never sold in the fruit stalls) and a fish man. It sounds silly but it’s actually quite nice to buy from the same people, as you get to know them in a way, although that knowing is mostly them laughing at you and you laughing as well to pretend you’ve understood what they’ve said. Being laughed at is something I’m getting used to: the other day a woman pointed to my bag of tomatoes, said ‘tomatoes!’ and started laughing, which I couldn’t understand at all until I realised that people tend to buy green tomatoes, so my red ones looked as silly as buying mouldy bread or brown bananas. Anyway, I now have a kilo of respectably green tomatoes.  

Having been here over two months, it’s probably about time I mentioned work. As I had been warned, work has been quite slow, especially as the beginning of a VSO placement is focused on meeting people and building relationships rather than launching into activity too quickly. It’s been a useful fortnight, though: I have visited most of the schools in the district I’m working in, and have a few more to see this week. Jeltje, another volunteer who’s working in the same schools on improving teachers’ capacity, has been here a year already so I have tagged along with her, which has actually been very helpful because I have been able to join her in lesson observations, to see some of the things going on inside classrooms. I think it’s too soon for me to make any conclusions about teaching in Cambodia, but I was struck by the scarcity of resources and how this places huge limitations on teaching techniques – it’s very difficult for a literacy lesson, for example, not to be teacher-led when there is only one copy of the book for the whole class.

As well as visiting schools and meeting school directors, I have attended quite a lot of meetings and workshops, including the annual meeting between VSO and the Provincial Office of Education to review the partnership between the two organisations. It was very useful to have that meeting so early in my placement as it has given me a fairly clear idea of what they want my work to consist of. There is no finalised plan yet, but one of the things we discussed was supporting the creation or development of groups such as School Support Committees (similar to a PTA, I think) and Student Councils that can take responsibility for organising and implementing school improvement projects. It’s not necessarily what the school directors want, I think, as they are understandably focused on immediate needs such as fixing wells and rebuilding roofs, but if they function effectively, such groups can help the schools become self-supporting in the long-term rather than reliant on hand-outs from NGOs. Anyway, we’ll see what happens.

In terms of social activity, Sen Monorom has proved itself surprisingly good fun considering it’s a town where everything is closed and silent by 6.30pm.  Apart from last weekend which was a bit lonely because Chak and Jeltje went to Phnom Penh and it rained all weekend (I read three books!), there’s been lots going on. It’s a small group of volunteers in Mondulkiri (Jeltje, Daniel and me, plus Chak and To, the translators) but a very friendly and sociable one, so we’ve met up many evenings for food, and yesterday some of us visited a nearby elephant project.

Chak, too, has been great in inviting me when he goes out with his friends, all of whom are very welcoming although I do wish I could speak the language more fluently, or at all, even. Last night was particularly good: we went in a big group to a town in the next district for what looked like a wedding party – lots of immaculately-laid tables with delicious food, a massive sound system and people dancing - but turned out to be a birthday party for a one-year-old child! I’ve never seen so much alcohol at a child’s birthday party, nor so few children, so I think it was more of an excuse for lots of people to meet up, eat good food and get drunk. I was the only foreigner there which was nice but also dangerous, as everyone found it hilarious to make the foreigner down all his drinks. I felt a bit like I was a 13-year-old being made to drink by a group of irresponsible 17-year-olds, and felt a bit ashamed of being in that position, but it was good fun and after about the eighth beer they were right: it was hilarious, although I was aware that it would stop being hilarious if I threw up over them. Luckily it was only beer which Cambodians drink with ice, so it was quite diluted, and we were downing small glasses rather than pints.  That was fortunate as losing face is a big thing in Cambodia, with people careful to avoid anything that would make themselves or others publicly embarrassed. I definitely don’t think I’d be able to recover my lost face very easily if it was dribbled with beery vomit.

Anyway, in my reluctance to write too much about my impressions of work before I feel like I’ve spent enough time there, I’ve once again made it look like I’m on a year-long holiday. I’m not, honestly!