Rambo

Sorry for the lack of updates this past week, but things have been so busy I just haven't had the time. Tomorrow is the annual Women's International Group Christmas Bazaar at the Intercontinental Hotel and we've been frantically trying to prepare enough stock to sell. Two knitters from Toul Sambo, Vireak and Koun, joined us in the workshop for the week to help out. This was great not only because we needed the extra hands, but because it demonstrated to the trainers how far their students had come.

I had been in contact with Hagar for a few weeks, trying to meet with them to and hire a couple of their students. Hagar is another local organization that uses the social enterprise approach to help women from difficult (often devastating) backgrounds get back on their feet. I met with two of their graduate students and hired them on the spot. They both have training in sewing and work experience in this area, but were keen to try working with knitted items instead. They won't be doing any knitting, focusing on assembly instead.

Finally, I have to write about the latest addition to what is a plethora of massage options in Phnom Penh. One of the greatest things about living here is the availability of cheap, amazing massage. The options are almost limitless. You can go to a fancy spa on the riverside and have a 25$ Swedish massage, go to an arty French-run spa for an Indian head massage for 10$ or, one of my favourites, pay only 5$ for an incredible, stress releasing accupressure massage at Seeing Hands (massage by the blind). There are countless foot massage places, upscale spas and everything in between. There are 5000 riel (1.25$) massage places galore, but they only specialize in massaging a certain part of the male body... And then today I saw this:


I don't really know what to say... Rambo, massage by man. The man himself? Obviously not. Another man that is buff like Rambo? Or is the massage so violent and dangerous that it can only be described as Rambo? Is Rambo massage a new style of massage that will slowly become popular with time? People will walk out and show their cuts, bruises and other abrasions and say, 'it hurt, but man do I ever feel refreshed now that he stopped beating me.'

This, uh, spa, is only only meters away from our apartment. Will it become my new favourite? Will I get to know each and every masseuse and choose a favorite? Will I ever actually have the courage to give it a go?

I think I'll send Yeng first.

Graduation

Yesterday we had a very informal graduation ceremony to give the TS knitters certificates of participation as well as the completion bonuses from sponsors. Mony gave each knitter a grade based on how well they knit, attendance and attitude and this was marked on their certificates. I also finally had a translator with me, so I'll be able to send out more info on your knitter to all sponsors this weekend.


We had planned on having a small party to celebrate the end of the training, but unfortunately, we received terrible news just as we were leaving town: the community where Tyna and Rofi live was ablaze. They quickly returned home to check on their families. We were too worried to stay at Toul Sambo too long and returned as soon as we could in case there was anything we could or needed to do. The blaze, which went on for most of the morning, destroyed over 200 homes, most of them being wooden. Everyone from CK was lucky, though, and their homes were spared. The houses next door to Rony, who now works from home, was burned down, but hers was not. Relief!

Welcome, 18 new knitters

Yesterday was our last day of training at Toul Sambo. That's a total of 15 training days spread out over a month and the results are fantastic! Today I went back to the community with Mony to talk to each of the knitters (I finally have a competent translator) and they were all pleased with the training and what they had accomplished. Several of them said they really enjoyed the training because it gave them a chance to sit together in a relaxed atmosphere and talk while learning. Others were, of course, looking forward to earning an income.

The very good news is that Mony accepted over 60 finger puppets that had been knitted during the training. There are more still to be collected but they had not yet been mattress stitched together. Knitters at Toul Sambo will do all the knitting and stitching minus stuffing the head, putting on the eyes and attaching the head to the body. That will be done at the head office for consistency. About 5 of the knitters are still not confident with mattress stitch and Mony, Tyna and Rofi are going back out on Monday for a day of training on this.


On Thursday we'll give each knitter a certificate of completion and have a small party to celebrate the hard work of all the participants.

100 hundred hats

Sorry for the lack of updates. More to come soon, I promise. I'm flat out busy with everything here, but soon...

In place of any local news, I direct your attention to this: http://onehundredhats.blogspot.com/ . It's one woman's quest to knit 100 hundred hats in one year, all to be donated to charity. Her hats are all beautiful and knit with love for those who could use a little extra warmth in the winter.

Finger Puppets for Christmas

With the training coming to a close at Toul Sambo next week and about half the knitters there ready to start knitting for us, we're ready to take orders for finger puppets! These will make great Christmas, or any occasion, gifts for kids and adults alike. One friend even suggested that they might make good USB drive cozies!

The way to order is to send me an email and I'll send you a PayPal invoice for the total amount, including shipping. Once we've received payment, we'll prepare and ship your order asap.

If you are in Canada, however, and can wait until December, I can ship the puppets to you from Canada at lower cost that shipping from Cambodia. If you're in the GTA we can even get them to you directly. Just send me an email and we'll discuss the options.

Have a look at the order form below (click on the picture to see it in full size).There are three options for shipping as follows:

1. Regular mail via Cambodia Post: This is the cheapest option, but the slowest. It can take anywhere from 2 weeks to 2 months to get to you.
   
2. Express Mail Service (EMS): This is much faster but more pricey. Package will arrive within 1 week depending on where you are.
3. TNT: The fastest and best service similar to FedEx or UPS. You get a tracking code and you can follow your package all the way to your door through their online tracking service. Package arrives in 3-4 days.

Prices are listed below for orders of 1, 2 and 3 or 4 sets of puppets. You may need to click on the jpeg to see the prices more clearly.

Knititng patterns for everyone

As I wrote earlier, many of the knitters can not read or write. Interestingly, all the male knitters can read, while only a few of the women can. This is a reflection of how wider Cambodian society values women and education. Many, including professionals and those at the Ministry of Education, are quick to say that poor people do not value education and that this is the reason why so few send their children to school or support them past primary level. Others, who've worked with poor communities and in the education sector, know that this is simply not true. Poor people value education very highly and are eager to send their children, all of them, to school. They both understand and value what it can mean for their future to have educated children. However, informal and unofficial costs are prohibitive for the poorest of the poor and they simply don't have enough money to send them to school.

Unfortunately, girls are the ones that get less chances in poor families. If a family can send a child to school, and only one out of a handful, that chance will usually go to a boy. Not because boys are thought to be smarter, but because girls help more at home. They wake up earlier, do more chores and go to bed later. They do the housework, cooking, fetch the water, they feed the animals and take care of the younger children. Why send a girl to school when she has so much to do at home?

So this is why most of the female knitters can not read. One positive change in the community from past to present, is that all the children are going to school. In all the time I have spent there, all school age kids are gone until 11. Both boys and girls, all primary age, are studying and from the brief discussions I've had with community members, they want to keep it that way. I was worried that some families would want to pull children, especially girls, from school to work for us (which we would not allow), but not one family asked to do that.

Since early on, I worried about how illiterate knitters would work without being able to follow patterns. Initially, the trainers, and everyone at the community, said they could get help from others to read and follow the patterns. I was never happy with this. Both Yeng and I recognized that this is a short term solution to a bigger issue. I think the trainers think we're overreacting to the situation, but without being able to complete the work on her own, a knitter just isn't going to be independent. There will always be the risk that someone is not available to read the pattern or that tension in the household means she can't get the support and help she needs. All disempowering.

So, welcome to chart reading 101. I thought we'd try to present the simpler puppet patterns in a chart. There are only 5 symbols, knit, purl, knit2tog, kfb, and the same symbol for cast on and bind off. We started with the hippo pattern and for many of the women, they caught on quickly. A few were still asking again and again what to do next. I encouraged the trainers to keep referring them to the charts (they are too quick to simply give the answer) so they get used to following them. Srey Mao, who I worked with, got it right away and told me when I was trying to help her (with a bit of shut up tone), "I got it." What was nice was to see two knitters who can't read, Thyda and Thy, bent over one of the charts later in the morning, helping each other out.

We'll have to see how they go, but I think this might be the solution!


And for no reason other than it's painfully cute, a picture of Stinky sleeping in a helmet...

First puppets from Toul Sambo

Yesterday, the trainers went out to the community armed with plastic eyes, tapestry needles and coloured thread. Each knitter got to make up one or more of their finished puppets to keep for themselves or their children. I went this morning and some of them were wonderful! See photos below:

Finally for Lena: your knitter, Touch Chayron with her first monkey.

Ven Thy and Chan Thyda.

Soy Srey Neang.

Sin Soeun and Noun Soka.

Krouch Koun, and the best monkey of the lot.

Our champion knitter, Ven Vireak.

All this is very good as we have a handful of orders for Christmas and will need more knitters soon. Hopefully, we get more orders to we can keep purchasing from the TS knitters and keep them working. I got some of our smaller items into Baitong Restaurant yesterday. They support several other NGOs and social enterprises and have a small shop area at the front of the restaurant to display items such as honey from Mondulkiri, baskets from Battambang and pepper from Kampot. All good projects, all providing jobs.

Oh, and the website looks better organized (www.cambodiaknits.com) but the links are still AWOL and I want to put more information on it over the coming week. I also hope our graphic design guardian angel in Amsterdam gives us some advice...

Website Drama

Deep sigh. Of frustration, not relief.

We decided a few days ago we need to get he website up and running. Only been thinking about that for months, but of course, there is always something else that needs to be done...

Yeng and I thought that if I did a nice layout in Pages it would easily export to HTML and make a nice start to a website. If only life were so easy. The layout went completely wonk, no links, pictures too small, just all wrong! Why is this so complicated and frustrating!?

This is what it should, and hopefully soon will, look like:

5 days can equal 7 days if you want it to

A story of misunderstood logic, if you can call it that.

So this morning, Bunda came to the house and gave us an envelope with an announcement of the 7 days ceremony for her aunt's death. She had spent all of Thursday night last week taking care of her aunt, so I assumed that the aunt had then, unfortunately passed away on Friday, later in the day. Bunda had been really tired and fell into a deep sleep and we sent her home to get some rest.

So when I saw the 7 day ceremony flyer, I assumed that the ceremony must be this coming Friday or later since, clearly, her aunt was still alive this time last week, until at least Friday. We were given the flyer as a way to ask for a contribution, which is normal and fine. I was just saying to Yeng that we should give Bunda Friday off and wondered how much cash we needed to give her. He then told me that the 7 day ceremony had been today.

I scratched my head, confused.

"But Bunda was taking care of her aunt on Thursday night..." I say.
"Yes," husband replies.
"So she was alive 7 days ago?" I continue.
"Yes. She died on Friday," the reply
"Um, so shouldn't the 7 day ceremony be on Friday then," say I, utterly dumbfounded.

And then, "they can choose when to hold the 7 day ceremony."

It was one of those I-don't-know-how-to-even-start-to-respond-to-that moments... Why call it a 7 day ceremony if it doesn't actually have to be 7 days after. Why a 7 day ceremony if it canbe 4 days or 9 days???

Anyone out there, reading this, if you are Khmer or have lived here for a long time and understand this, please help me to.

Water Festival at night

One post about the Water Festival just isn't enough. Below are some photos from last night. During the day, most PP residents opt to watch the races on TV but in the evenings, everyone comes out to the riverside for the festivities. All the streets for several kilometers around the Royal Palace are closed off to traffic and it is one of the few times Cambodians walk. And walk they do! Up and down the riverside are people from all walks of life and from around the country. There are concerts, games, food stalls, vendors, performances, music and fireworks every night.


These boats float up and down the river and each one represents a major institution. There is the crest of the Royal Palace, Ministry of Defense, National Assembly, Phnom Penh municipality and so on. There is one for the Ministry of Justice which we joked should have exclamation points on either side of it... This year there was a new float for the Ministry of Tourism's Kingdom of Wonder campaign, but it was so ugly I couldn't even force myself to take a picture of it. the one pictured here is the Ministry of Defense and has two intertwined Naga's (7 headed snake monsters) spitting out a stream of water.

This afternoon the races ended and all the big wigs, including the King were at the main podium to cheer the winners. Yeng told me there is a special formation at the very end of the races, where all the boats, or all the winning boats, or just a lot of boats, gather in front of the King. This is to depict Jayavaraman's Royal Navy as it entered the ancient Khmer kingdom to win it back for the Khmers. As well as celebrating the changing the of the direction of the river, the festival is also connected to the naval war which put King Jayavaraman VII into power and marked the beginning of the most successful period of the ancient Khmer empire. Bas reliefs at Angkor Wat show the beloved king on the bow of a ship, riding into victory.

If all goes well, I'd love to enter a Cambodia Knits team next year or the following year. There are a few all female teams and I think we'd kick butt!!