Morning commute

I took these photos last Friday of my morning commute, it's just taken me a little while to get them up here. Things have been busy around here lately. Friday we met with two men from the Asian Development Bank who have been instrumental in the creation of the draft Law on Education. I'll discuss this with anyone interested after I return home, as not all of the things I have to say are terribly complementary and it wouldn't be nice to post them online. I will say that the Cambodian representative was extremely competent and was able to clearly articulate the pros and cons of compulsory education (which I'd already researched and included in my memo, so nothing new there), and he finally agreed that if we could find a way to get our suggested changes to the Commission of the National Assembly that would be looking at the draft, ADB would support having a debate about the issue.
Yesterday I attended a workshop on Education for Sustainable Development at the Senate. It was primarily for Senate and National Assembly members and was hosted by UNESCO. Kind of interesting, but much less about education than it was about sustainable development. The UNESCO reps spoke very broadly about what the goals of education for sustainable development are, and then there were speakers from the Ministry of the Environment and some Senate members. The highlight was really the coffee/tea breaks. One productive thing did come out of the workshop; we spoke to the head of some organization here (can't tell what Doris is calling it, will have to have her spell it out for me) and he was very interested in the issue and agreed to give our memo (Doris condensed it, but yep, my work) to the leaders of each of the political parties and then organize this meeting tomorrow with people from the Ministry of Ed., and all key players in the issue, to see if we can get a debate going about compulsory education. It's pretty exciting. To tell you the truth, I understand the government's argument (according to the ADB guy) that they shouldn't put something into a law that there's no way they can enforce. But on the other hand, compulsory education is mentioned as a goal in every other Cambodian plan and document on education, so not putting it in the law would be a step back. Okay, enough about all that.
Regarding the pictures....most of obviously of the drive to work. The tower looking deal with the clock in front is Wat Phnom, a Buddhist temple. There's an elephant there, as well as monkeys, that I get to see on my way to work every morning. Then a picture of my driver (he lives near me I think). He's a cool guy, man of few words. He speaks Khmer to me and I speak English and somehow we get things worked out. Then we've got some monks walking down the street (extremely common). And then there's Doris, Savady, Vanny, and me (the legal team) in front of the Ministry of Women's Affairs sign.

What I've been up to....

This week has been a fairly slow, uneventful one. Probably a good thing because I've become an insomniac for some reason. Either I can't get to sleep until 2 or 3, or if I do, I wake up at 2 or 3 ready to go. So I've been just kind of dragging though my days. Maybe it's some sort of really, really delayed jet lag?
I have been working pretty hard all week though with the current work project being this draft education law. All week I've been voraciously reading everything I can get my hands onto about education in Cambodia, and today I'll be typing up a little report on why the new law needs to have a compulsory education requirement. To tell you the truth, after all of my research I've come to the conclusion that while such a requirement is needed, it is also unrealistic to expect the country to meet it. When parents simply cannot afford to send their children to school because 1) they are hit with high costs for uniforms, books, and fees to teachers (who are incredibly underpaid to the tune of around $20/mo. in many cases and for the most part completely unqualified) and 2) cannot afford the opportunity costs of sending children to school who could be working, especially girls who have numerous domestic duties if nothing else. On the costs, for example, it is estimated that private expenditure for having one child in primary school represents 79% of the per capita non-food expenses of the poorest 20% of the population. So now what if you have two children? Choices have to be made, and girls are kept at home. Also, the per capita cost of secondary education is between two and seven times greater than the non-food consumption expenditure of the poorest 20%. So you can see why only 2% of the students in the upper secondary come from the poorest 20%.
This is just one of the obstacles standing in the way. Others include: 1) distance to schools (parents are less likely to want to send girls longer distances as well because of the perceived danger), 2) lack of toilets (seems like a small thing but with 65% of primary schools not having a toilet when girls hit puberty and toilets are shared or non-existent modesty becomes an issue), and 3) pupil-teacher ratios of over 50. So clearly, until some of these obstacles are at least lessened, a compulsory education requirement is not going to accomplish much.
However, I would still argue that it is necessary to put it into the law because it demonstrates the commitment of the government to making education a priority in the country. In addition, it is required by international human rights standards. Also, the Cambodian Constitution has a provision stating that "the State shall provide primary and secondary education to all citizens in publi schools. The citizens shall receive education for at least 9 years." This does not create a compulsory system (although some have interpreted it that way), but shows some level of commitment that should be solidified in the education law.
So that's what I've been up to. Next Tuesday is a public hearing in the Senate that they're calling "Education for Sustainable Development." Between now and then Doris is trying to set up meetings for us with UNICEF (UN Children's Fund), UNESCO (UN's Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization), UNIAP (UN Inter-Agency Program) and ADB (Asian Development Bank) so that we can develop a united front to show at this meeting in trying to get this law amended. The law is currently before the National Assembly, and it becomes very difficult to get a law changed at this stage, as I've discussed previously. So it's pretty exciting and interesting, and that said...I guess I should get back to my work so I'm prepared with something for these meetings. Wish us luck!

Friday afternoon here in the office

I've been trying to be productive, but it's a little crazy in here today. I think we have a bit of a "while the cat's away" situation going on. Suzanne is the boss here, and it's her house and cat I'm "sitting." All week there's been quite a bit of non-work going on around here. Pizza parties, random strangers hanging out, talking and laughing. Okay, I'm really just trying to justify why I'm blogging instead of working right now.
This week has been filled with meeting new people. Tuesday I met with the German legal advisor to the Senate, and he was great. He is a law professor in Germany, primarily in Constitutional Law. We spoke about what the role of the Senate is here in Cambodia (really quite limited as they get laws after the National Assembly and we've already seen how much the National Assembly does) and what his job is here, which seems to consist of quite a bit of much needed capacity building. I'm going to be reading over some articles for him that he's writing for this Encyclopedia of Public International Law that is being put together. Professor Miller is also contributing to this, seems to be a worldwide effort.
Wednesday morning I had a top secret meeting that I can't talk about, but I just want you all to know I'm attending top secret meetings :-) We were somewhere we weren't supposed to be, talking to people about things we're not supposed to be involved in. Okay, I guess it's really not too top secret, maybe just semi-secret. I got to contribute some of my research and ideas on a law to a UN agency and then they're going to put together some pressure groups to try to get some changes to the law implemented. The Ministry just can't be seen to be behind the changes.
Then Wednesday afternoon I met with someone from the International Organization on Migration to discuss issues relating to human trafficking and sexual exploitation in Cambodia. It was really interesting, as much for the information on that as for the general information about working in development and working in Cambodia. The man has been in Cambodia for something like 10 years (also knew a lot of the people from Moscow who've worked over here) and had a lot to say about going into development work.

Thursday I had lunch with the legal specialist from the World Bank. We talked more about broad concepts of how to best go about development and legal reform. Instead of trying to change the whole system to fit to western ideals of "best practice" he thinks we should work with what is the current situation in Cambodia and find ways to just make little changes to make it more equitable. Maybe not indicative of World Bank's approach, but interesting. He's worked a lot on labor reform, land issues, and umm, some third issue I can't remember. So we talked a little about the land issues and how people tend to want to use conciliation methods instead of the courts to deal with conflicts.
Today I had lunch with someone from GTZ who works on land management issues and has been in country for 9 years. He has been very involved in that conciliation system here and we talked about that some. Pretty much an Alternative Dispute Resolution approach that utilizes the local officials instead of the courts. He also shared information on the frustrations associated with working in a place like this, not the least of which is the foreigners who are all out for their own gain.
This is something I've noticed here as well. I was expecting to meet more people who were here because they want to make a difference, change the world, etc. Maybe they started out that way, I don't know, but what I see is that for many people here these are just jobs like any other. Cooperation with other agencies in an attempt to create positive change is often sacrificed for personal gain. And maybe everyone does want to make a difference but they think everyone else is out for personal gain and so they get frustrated and a little less likely to cooperate. Chicken and egg problem. Or it could just be all the different ideas about the best approach to a problem coming into conflict and people wanting their way to win. I'm really not sure though. It does seem to take a different sort of personality to make it here for a long period of time though, that seems clear.
Anyhow, that's been my week. Oh, and I got a Thai massage on the 4th as my little Independence Day celebration. This weekend I'm just going to stick around the house and read law review articles (people trying to get onto law review have submitted papers that we have to grade and rank to determine who gets invitations to join) and get some other errand type things done. Hope everyone is doing well.

A day at the spa

Yesterday I took a day away from the hustle and bustle of Phnom Penh (again) and went to the lovely Raffles Hotel Le Royal-a $260-2000 a night hotel that is absolutely amazing. The speaker at the workshop I went to last Thursday is a professor at Eastern Kentucky University, and she was staying at this hotel and invited me to come swimming. So I spent the day laying by the pool (FINALLY got a little bit of sun) and then hanging out in the spa. Then we had some beers in the Elephant Bar. It was really nice to spend a little oasis time after constantly being around traffic, yelling people, and dirt.
I also moved in to my new house yesterday. I will be there until Suzanne comes back on the 20th, and I think it will be really great. Really nice rooms, an exercise bike, huge garden area with hammocks, maid to do my laundry--everything a girl needs. And I found out yesterday that the Irish Pub I'd been staying at is apparently some sort of mercenary hang out. Figures I'd be attracted to a place like that. There were always all these very sketchy looking middle aged men sitting around at the bar, guess that kind of explains that. Not sure what Irish mercenaries do in Cambodia, but probably better I don't know.
Later today I'm going to go pick up the pants I had made. For $5 you can have pants made, and then I got a whole suit for $30. Hopefully the clothes will all turn out nice, but they should because I gave them my favorite suit and favorite pants to use as models. Okay, time to get back to work.

Lions and tigers and bears!

Actually, I'm afraid I missed the lion. Didn't see it at all. But in its place were elephants, monkeys, deer, birds...yep, I finally made it to the wildlife refuge.

The things I do to bring you people some pictures, it's insane. Caught the bus this morning with no problem and it dropped us (thankfully a French couple was also making the journey) probably 4 or 5 miles from the place. There were no tuk-tuks like Lonely Planet said. Just a couple moto drivers who spoke no English other than to say $6 each. Yeah, right. We started walking and they dropped it to $4 for all of three of us. They dropped us at the gates and then it was still quite a hike in, but we got some good quality exercise. It was also GREAT to get out of the city.

And the sanctuary itself was pretty cool. Once again, these are animals that have primarily been rescued from traffickers and poachers. As you can see from the pictures, there were a ton of different animals there. I've even left off many pics of smaller creatures. And most of the animals were within touching distance, or, as with the deer, you can actually wander through their pens. Even the tiger was within touching distance if you tried hard. I read the signs to learn about the harms that befall these animals in the wild, but I'm afraid my memory of the names of the creatures is quite lacking. And I tried to put labels with the pictures, but my blogging abilities are equally lacking I'm afraid. Sorry.

As we were leaving though it started POURING rain and we got thoroughly soaked, especially on the moto ride back to the road. Then we stood there in the rain for about 45 minutes waiting for the bus to come, but it all worked out just fine and I'm back safe and sound. Tomorrow I'm moving into another house, a woman from the GTZ office will be gone for 2 1/2 weeks and asked me to housesit and feed her cat. I'm kind of excited about having a kitty around, not quite Chey and Maggie, but something anyhow.

Theater of Absurdity

This is the term my boss frequently uses when referring to things in Cambodia, and I found it very appropriate. Not only for here; I think it could be equally applicable to several events that have occurred throughout law school as well, nights at the Garden in particular. But it is particularly applicable to the way in which the legal system works here. It is understandable that things cannot simply be plopped down by international donors and expected to work. It has taken "developed" countries decades to do the changing of mind sets, education of the population, etc. that will be needed here. When your entire education system (including all of the educated) was wiped out just 30 years ago, it takes some time to rebuild. But it leaves you currently with extremely uneducated persons, even those who have completed their law degree.

For example, they have been trying to organize a legal team for the Ministry of Women's Affairs for months. A woman named Savady is the head of it, and there were two girls who worked for the team. And then Doris is kind of the advisor of this team, but of course in practice she is the one working directly with the Minister. These two girls, who both have their law degrees, would rather cut and paste and stuff envelopes for the GTZ project. So they refuse to do any legal work, and get salaries (very small ones though) from both the legal team (Ministry) and GTZ. So the Minister has recently hired two new girls to work on this legal team with Savady and secured a room on the third floor for them to work in (we're currently on the first floor). Savady has decided that it is a violation of her human dignity to have to walk up three flights of stairs and refuses to work up there with the rest of the legal team. She has said that she will simply not come to work if that's where she has to work.

Now, one might logically say, that's fine, don't come to work. We'll find someone else to take your job who wants it. Problem: she's CPP (ruling party) and our Minister is FUNCINPEC (opposition party); therefore, if she isn't accomodated she can cause the Minister even bigger problems on bigger issues, effectively blocking her from being able to accomplish anything. So she stays, and nothing gets done with the legal team. This is just one example of the ways in which politics and lack of intelligence get mixed in with everything here.

Yesterday I visited the new National Assembly building, it's absolutely amazing. There's some hope (on my part if nothing else) that this new building with make the Parliamentarians feel like they have some power. The system is set up pretty well with a PM, elected parliament, senate elected by commune councils that are elected by the people. But in practice the PM, Hun Sen, pretty much rules everything. A Vietnamese leader who was recently visiting the country stated that it is important for Hun Sen to drop down because changes in leadership are necessary. This is coming from a Vietnamese leader! And not surprisingly, Hun Sen had a cold while that guy was here and wasn't able to visit with him. It's an interesting dynamic all around. And the story with the new National Assembly building is that the original bid was put in by a friend of the CPP (maybe a friend of Hun Sen's). Sam Rainsy, who is the leader of an opposition party and a parlimentarian got someone to put in another bid that was $20 million less. That contractor "disappeared" and his company withdrew it's bid. Kind of like Halliburton, only people play with AK-47s over here.
Just a few examples of things that occur in the theater of absurdity.

I have failed in my mission to provide an entertaining entry

Hello all. Things have been a little sparce around here lately, what with me not doing too much worthy of reporting. Yesterday I decided it was high time I do something more newsworthy, so I pulled out my Lonely Planet and discovered that there is a wildlife sanctuary about 35 miles south of here. It is sponsored in part by WildAid, an organization I once read about and fell in love with immediately as they are kind of a Greenpeace meets CIA operation. Very proactive in going out and stopping traffickers and poachers in this area. Anyhow, this sanctuary is animals who have been saved from such traffickers and poachers, and while I guess it's more like a zoo it's quite nice to see (according to LP). This sounded like the perfect place to get some pictures that would bring some life back into this blog. Not to mention that I'm more than ready to have some new scenery.
So it seems you can take a moto there, but the thought of 30 miles with a moto-dop was not terribly appealing. The LP recommended catching a bus to Takeo and then just getting the driver to drop you off there. So I got up ready to go this morning (after a late night at a party, more to follow) and headed down to the Central Market--the rumored home of buses. I asked a few people where the buses were, very proud that I had learned the word for bus, and everytime the crowd of 10 or so aggressive men who had gathered around would say "no buses" or "no buses to Takeo" or "only by taxi (moto, van, tuk tuk, take your pick here depending upon what the guy drove)." This went on at numerous places as I walked all around the outside of the Central Market, which is a great big dome building housing zillions of vendors selling anything and everything. I went up a few streets, finding more people who just insisted no buses to Takeo. I found one taxi driver who spoke decent english who stated that, while there was a bus to Takeo, it would not let me off at the sanctuary. But he would, of course, be happy to take me for $30. Growing angrier by the minute at all the people around me I decided perhaps it would be best to retreat and just go hire a moto from the Okay Guesthouse to take me there (I'd checked into this and it would just be $10). So I get a motodop to take me home and we end up on some random street, go a few blocks and low and behold, buses. And as we drive by, the Takeo bus pulled out in front of us. Had I been industrious I would have hopped off and ran after the bus, but I was a bit in shock. To top it all off, my motodop guy went completely the wrong direction and it took me 30 minutes to go the 5 minutes to my house. I even gave him names of all the things around my house in Khmer and he seemed to understand. But that is a specialty of some Cambodians (and Thais)...don't want to lose face by admitting they don't know something and before you know it you're in some new province. Then we got in a fight over how much money he should get because he used so much gas. Grrrr. So, my deepest apologies, but there are to be no tiger pictures this week.
I am instead going to spend my day packing up stuff and shopping (more browsing) at one of the big markets. Tomorrow I'm moving to a guesthouse/restaurant called Rory's Pub. Always had a dream of living in an Irish Pub some day.
Last night I met up with Tim and Agnieszka, the Aussie couple I met at the World Bank workshop. They were heading to a house party of some friends of theirs and invited me along. We had a few beers at their place (I kind of nursed one, still not 100% healthy), and then headed out to the house shared by 4 or 5 volunteers. I'm pretty sure that by the end of the night every volunteer in Phnom Penh, and nearby provinces, under the age of 30 who was out last night passed through that party. It was insanely packed. Finally met some of the U of Mich. folks, but only one of the law students. I ended up hanging out with these three med students from Toronto who are working at the Children's Surgical Center. They're going to be my new neighbors at Rory's, have an apartment right next door, so hopefully I'll be seeing more of them. Really interesting group of people there last night, and it was great to get to mix and mingle a bit. Well, I'm off to do my retailing, and I promise that next weekend I will try to do something that will shock and amaze, with good pictures.