Celebrations, frustrations and tragedy

You know how we like to live life on the edge, inveterate risk takers that we are. Well, here's something: since our funds are now over £700 (and that doesn't include the money raised by our two recently recruited cohorts - Tony and Clare) we have decided to put the target up to £1000.  I am sure that with everyone's help, on a downhill slope with the wind behind us we'll get there in the end.

In the meantime, an update on our training. Yes, we finally made it to Limerick. But No, we did not get an almighty drenching. In fact the sun shone all weekend. Much to the delight of our host Bridget, who threatened to kidnap us if it meant the weather would continue to be so glorious. Let's face it, they need something to cheer them up in Ireland right now.

No, not a drop of rain fell from the sky during our brief sojourn, which made for very pleasant sightseeing indeed.



Cliffs of Moher, bathed in sunshine. You couldn't make it up 

In fact we covered over 300km on saturday (in the car that is, what do you take us for, serious athletes?) and although we didn't get much opportunity to hike, we did manage a bit of dangerous thrill-seeking by walking a slippery, unfenced 300m high cliff path and succeeded in putting in some serious fitness training - several hours of dancing with reckless abandon  at Bridget's **th birthday party, which did lead to multiple muscle strains the morning after.

It was EXTREMELY DANGEROUS, cos it says so

It was probably the first time we've danced like that since the infamous Abba and Gloria Gaynor-studded episode at a Cambodian Karaoke bar during our last trip. Which, incidentally was where we met one Bridget Dillon, from Limerick, who was on her second volunteering stint at Grace House when we tipped up last December.

Cambodian Karaoke: Doing our bit for Anglo-Khmer relations

Which brings me neatly back to why we're doing this "half marathon" in the first place...
Apologies for those of you who were expecting something light hearted and, dare I say it, witty from our blog this week, but it would be wrong to gibber on in my customarily frivolous fashion when Cambodia has been the scene of yet another human tragedy this week. 

It seems even more tragic when you know that most of the people attending the water festival where the stampede occurred and almost 400 died were country folk on their once a year visit to the big city to give thanks for the passing of the monsoon and to pray for a good harvest. They don't have many reasons to celebrate in Cambodia so it seems all the more unfair that a normally joyful festival should have ended with such needless loss of life.

Thankfully no one we know was injured, although a former member of Globalteer staff, now living in Phnom Penh had gone out to join the celebrations but luckily was put off by the huge crowds and went home before the tragedy began to unfold.

I wonder if the police are tacitly admitting that they were in some way to blame given the speed with which compensation has been offered to the victims. I'm sure we'll never know what happened for certain but it puts poor Cambodians' lives into sharp perspective when the goverment offer of compensation for a life lost this way is just $1200 or £800.

It only serves to underline that when we say just a few pounds can make a difference to many lives in Cambodia, we really mean it. So if you would like to help out, please go to www.justgiving.com/simonandcolin2 and sponsor us on our half marathon hike - which looks like it may be happening in the snow too...

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Thankfully life for Grace House and those that work there goes on as normal - well as close to normal as it can be.  They continue to set up their vocational training centre but life is not without its challenges. Bridget Cordory sends us this short post this week.

"Alan – Vocational Training Director - has just had possibly the most frustrating week ever!

We have been donated 10 wood turning lathes and scroll saws by a kind Australian man, Issy, who will teach some of the village fathers how to use them to make wooden gifts and souvenirs. The idea is they will then be able to sell them to make a living. These men are unable to undertake heavy manual work due to poor health but have no other skills to rely on to earn a living.  Mums, of course, are welcome to join the classes too!

Vocational training: increasing villagers' chances of earning a living

First shipment of machinery arrived safely and after we paid the duty they arrived at Grace House. But the second shipment is causing problems. Issy had been given 10 computers and apparently it is illegal to import second hand computers. But customs MAY let us have them, as we are a NGO (Non Government Organisation).

Alan and Piseth (one of our teachers) spent 3 days filling in all the forms to prove our status, and duly mailed them off to Phnom Penh only to be told that since the letter to customs was written in the “female” form of Khmer, Dani, our female director, would need to sign the paperwork. So poor Dani had to catch the night bus for a 5 hour trip to Phnom Penh to sign it.

We are still waiting for the top man to say Yes or No as there have been 2 days of public holidays due to the Water Festival. So we’ll have to wait until Wednesday or Thursday before we find out if we can have our computers.

You’ve probably already heard that the Water Festival ended in tragedy, with more than 350 people killed in a crush on a bridge. It puts my moaning about computers into perspective."

If you would like to help Grace House continue building a future for their villagers, please sponsor us at www.justgiving.com/simonandcolin2

If you like making love at midnight...

Here it is. This week's installment. On top of all the hard training we are doing we are pleased to report that Colin is doing a school assembly presentation at a teacher friend's school and I have been asked to play duets on the organ at the school's carol concert. We are very touched by the way people continue to help out - We know that there are lots of calls on everyone's money at the moment so big thanks.

I like to think that my constant talk about Grace House has had some influence on my niece's pronouncement that she is going to help out with a charity in Rwanda next year. I'd prefer it if she were going Cambodia with people we know. But it's good to know that even some 16 years olds do want to do some good. Even if she doesn't know where Rwanda is. I suppose it has some similarities with India.

Anyway. On with the blogging, and just in case.... www.justgiving.com/simonandcolin2

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Songwriters have long harboured this perverse notion that getting a drenched by an unexpected cloudburst is somehow good for the soul.  I blame Gene Kelly with his cheerful rendition of “Singing in the rain”. Then there was seventies songster Rupert Holmes likened the pleasures of a late night romantic encounter with walking through a shower in his catchy lyric, "If you like making love at midnight, and getting caught in the rain..."

Rupert Holmes: would you trust this man?

Even 10cc (who are British after all, and given our islands' propensity to rather too much of the stuff should know better), couldn't resist it with the lines "like walking in the rain and the snow when there's nowhere to go" in their romantic hit "The things we do for love". I can testify that there's nothing romantic about donning a scarlet cagoule and hiking boots (not scarlet) and walking six miles through wind, rain and cold on an English November afternoon.

A week of rain and rotting leaves had also turned the towpath into a hopscotch of muddles (that's mud and puddles together, the sum of which is altogether much more dangerous than the component parts) and meant we ran the constant risk of slipping over and hurtling headlong into The Basingstoke, and a near-guaranteed demise from either Weil’s Disease or, hypothermia.

Yes. We are still in England. Limerick is next week, so apologies for those of you who were expecting a soothing combination of craic, blarney and brogue.

But the English weather had taken on an emerald tone anyway, leading to few passersby on whom to test our theory that levels of friendliness are directly proportionate to county of origin. In fact the only people we saw were a solitary (and very muddy) jogger (in shorts no less) and groups of soldiers lurking, or possibly sheltering in the trees as we passed the barracks at Pirbright.

With the gloomy weather, the soldiers in the tees and the constant rat-a-tat tat of gunfire from nearby Bisley Rifle ranges we felt like a couple of stiff upper lip Brits in a black and white war movie.  "Your German is very good" said I, in my best German accent. "Why thank you very much" said Colin in his best Gordon Jackson lilt. Oops. Rat-a-tat tat.

Colin imagines what being a film star might be like....

We snacked at halfway on tomato and olive oil sandwiches. Incongruously Mediterranean, considering the climatic conditions, but as we headed back the rain finally stopped,  the clouds briefly parted and the sun made a welcome, it tardy appearance, low in the afternoon sky.

Goblin stole my sandwich.....or maybe a gnome

Of course walking in the rain can be quite nice in the tropics. Especially after a hot, dry summer. At least it’s warm. And it means there will be crops to survive the next few months. However there is always the risk of flooding if it happens to be a monsoon or a passing typhoon. Thankfully this monsoon and  typhoon season has now passed in Cambodia but life can still be pretty challenging. This week, Bridget has sent us a daily blog from a very hectic, and very emotional week at Grace House

Monday

Wood turning lathes and scroll saws arrived for the new vocational training course. 10 of each, we will teach parents and young people wood turning and eventually set up a workshop to produce bowls from recycled local Cambodian timber.

Interviewed for candidates for a support worker for Brul, our young man with learning disabilities. Asked 2 to return and see who Brul likes. His previous worker has just left to train as a teacher.

A local woman called Soreng visited the office, she is in her early 30’s (she is unsure of her exact age) with 5 children under 11. Her alcoholic husband had left her and she is 3 months behind with the rent. The family had moved here from Battambang (in NW Cambodia) after their house boat sunk. The landlady was coming at 3 pm to evict her so Dani and Piseth (two of the teachers at Grace House) and I went to the house. 

The house was like a cattle shed - brick built with cement floor and a tin roof, there is a bathroom but no water. The family are sleeping on a mat under a mosquito net on the hard floor. The whole place smells as the floor is porous and without water it is impossible to clean. The youngest child is about a year old and runs around naked.  Soreng collects water from a neighbour’s house about 100 yards away.

The landlady did not appear, but we met the children, none of whom have ever been to school, all looking malnourished, in need of a shower and clean clothes.

Tuesday

Grace House was closed today - Independence Day. I put a brief description of Soreng’s family and their predicament on Facebook to see if anyone could help out.

Wednesday

A quiet day at Grace House. Just 4 children to hospital with chest infections and suspected Dengue fever. Donations pledged from ex volunteers for Soreng’s family.  People are so kind

Thursday

Art club at lunchtime run by 2 volunteers from another NGO

Friday

8.15 arrived at Grace House - a family of 4 children had lost their father in the early hours.

This family live next to Grace House in a palm leaf house. During the gales last year the house was blown down and Grace House rebuilt it. At the time Dad and one of the sons lived there. When we had finished the house Mum and the other 3 children moved in together with Mum’s new partner. Dad moved out and had been sleeping in a hammock under a neighbour’s house until Friday. 

Repairing the house after the 2009 typhoon

We visited to pay our respects and made a donation so the family could proceed with the funeral celebrations.  Dad was in his early 40s and had a lung condition. We have been supporting this family with rice for about 6 months.

Friday pm

Soreng came to say her landlady was in Phnom Penh and would be back on Monday.  We discussed her life story and learnt that despite never going to school, she is a very skilled basket-maker. With the donations received we were able to offer her a job teaching basket-making to other mothers at Grace House in the afternoons.

We can’t pay much but it will cover her rent and give her some rice.  We were looking at expanding the bag making into the afternoons, and this has just moved it along. The condition of employment is that the children come with her, instead of running wild, and we teach them basic Khmer.

If you would like to donate to help people like Soreng and her family please go to:
www.justgiving.com/simonandcolin2

Power-walking to little India, and yet more weather blether!

Welcome to this week's update.

Do you remember my bemoaning the fact that Hillary Rodham Clinton's visit to Cambodia didn't get a mention in the British Media? Well get this. I am delighted to report that a later stage of her trip did get into our esteemed press. Indeed. Just days after I posted my blog there was a nice photo of Hillary rubbing noses with a Maori in New Zealand. Glad to see our newspaper editors have got their priorities right.

 If you think that the poor of Cambodia might be slightly more deserving of attention then please sponsor us on our half marathon at www.justgiving.com/simonandcolin2 . Serious bit out of the way - let the blogging commence!

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We have had a request to stop writing about balmy autumn days and romantic canalside walks as it reminds Bridget from Grace House of her pre-Cambodia Days when she and husband Alan owned their own narrow boat. Of course, in Cambodia there are lots of boats, and a good job too, as rather than our civilised temperate climate with its four rather benign seasons, Cambodia has just the two really. Hot and dry or hot and wet. And the wet is seriously wet, hence a nice narrow boat could come in handy.

But I digress. The reason we continue to walk along the canal (sorry Bridget) is because I have a very nice book, an atlas of British Waterways, and one of its irresistible features is that it has mile markers all along the canals, so you know exactly how far you have walked. Which makes it a hell of a lot easier to plot your progress than using a streetmap and a piece of string. Map

geek? Moi?  

A canal, not dissimilar to "the Basingstoke"

Not wishing to harp on too much about the weather, (which obviously means I am going to) I was reminded on Monday morning of just how hideous our little 13.5 mile walk might be. A washout journey to work in the freezing cold took 2 hours instead of the customary 1, and left me convinced that I had lost all my toes in the severest case of rapid-onset frostbite known to man.

Now a five hour walk in those kind of conditions would be a serious challenge, even for hardened survivalists such as we. Sort of Hare Grylls types, if you will.

I am glad to report that Saturday's training session was not dampened by inclement weather. However, it was rather short as we were due to entertain that evening and hadn’t done any shopping. In fact it was a mere sprint of five miles. It took us east from Woking on the Basingstoke canal, a route which is altogether more bucolic than the westbound one through previously mentioned urban wasteland and al fresco drinking dens. Which only serves as a reminder of how broken Britain really can be. Hampshire's gentility was but a distant memory, our friendly greetings met with thinly disguised suspicion rather than an eager and welcoming smile.

I think it could be because Colin was wearing a Nike hoodie. Hug a hoodie? I don’t think so. I mean, would you embrace Colin down the canal?

Snack attack: But would you hug this hoodie?

We stopped again at the half way stage for a sugar fix. Ok, we didn't really need it after just 2.5 miles but those fine little traditions are so hard to shake, like tiffin and dressing for dinner (too much Downton, possibly). A banana and myriad fortune cookies. I'm not saying that we ordered way too much food from the Chinese takeaway the night before, but I can't think why else they would have delivered enough fortune cookies for a family of 6.

Anyway, the words of wisdom were not entirely inspiring. "If God lived on Earth people would smash his windows" was curious enough though. If God lived in Woking there's a strong chance people would smash his windows too, and it would have nothing to do with being God. My second effort was a bit more promising though. "Your first love is still thinking of you". Of course Music was my first love, and it will be my last. Which begs the question: can music actually think?

Onwards we went, dicing with death as we sneaked past a Great White shark. I know, you couldn't make it up.

Great White: The Sheerwater shark

And as we were short of time we had to incorporate a trip to the Indian Supermarkets on Walton Road for some ingredients. Little India might be more apt a name for this exotic area of town, there are so many authentic Indian shops, but we've decided to call it MG Road, as every major Indian town has one. Not "MG"  as in the hairdressers' sports car, but as in Mahatma Gandhi. All that aside, you would be amazed what you find in these shops, and I mean amazed.

Woking's very own MG road harbours all manner of culinary delights

We'd hope not to find one of these floating in that soup 

Five miles completed, and once again no rain. Next week we are in Limerick (now this is starting to sound like Countryfile...), for the 40th birthday of one of the volunteers we met in Cambodia. So, West of Ireland. November. I'd say the chances of a spot of soft weather were pretty good. At least there will be a good pint of Guinness waiting for us at the end. Slainte!

And one more sneaky plug www.justgiving.com/simonandcolin2

A visit from Hillary Clinton and a very spooky training hike....

So, Hillary Rodham Clinton has nothing to do with our fundraising or our training, and no she didn’t pop in to visit us in Woking for a cup of tea and a macaroon. She did, however pay a visit to Cambodia this week, visiting the Angkor Wat temples near Siem Reap (which is where Grace House is located), and The Genocide Museum in the former Khmer Rouge detention centre in Phnom Penh known as S-21 or Tuol Sleng.  It was Duch, the director of S-21 who was recently sentenced to 19 years for his part in the torture and murder of 17,000 people during the genocide of the1970s.

I only mention Hillary’s visit as it doesn’t seem to have got any mention in any of the UK media, despite some very important dialogue with the Cambodian Prime Minister about the $445m that Cambodia still owes the US and the forthcoming trials of other Khmer Rouge Leaders.

If you don't have time to read the blog but would like to sponsor us please go to www.justgiving.com/simonandcolin2

Anyway, back to training:

Having got a thorough soaking whilst walking to a local hostelry on Friday evening, we were banking on the accuracy of the “dry and sunny” forecast for Saturday and our 8 mile training hike. Dry would be good, sunny would be ideal, but rain of biblical proportions was not on our wish list. However, as we set off on Saturday lunchtime, the heavens opened and Friday night's weather made a very unwelcome reappearance. Undeterred, we pressed on. We would hardly be able to bail out on December 3rd if the weather was against us so perhaps a bit of wet weather training would actually do us some good.

As luck would have it, it didn’t take long for the rain recede. We soon left the drab and grey of Surrey and drove into the warm brilliance of North Hampshire.

We started near Greywell tunnel on the Basingstoke canal, famous for its large colony of bats, a sort of “bat tunnel” if you will. But despite our high hopes, for the next three and half hours of very strenuous flat terrain walking there was no sign of the 1970's superhero, or his enthusiastic sidekick (although we did hear what Colin reliably informed me was a real robin singing away in a copse in the autumn sunshine).

Clearly with no superheroes around there would probably be no dastardly villains either and very few hazards to exaggerate, in order to make out that our training regime was highly risky and we therefore deserved everyone's sponsorship money even more. We did see a bloated carp floating on the surface of the water. Industrial poisoning? Possibly. And we saw what was almost certainly an escaped crocodile or alligator. It turned out, most surprisingly, to be a log. I swear you couldn't make it up.

But, joking aside, the Hampshire stretch of the Basingstoke Canal was the antithesis of the urban decay of the Woking stretch. The sound of crows, the smell of wood smoke, and the colours of autumn floating into the glassy canal were straight from the pages of a romantic anthology. A strangely dressed man, in plus-fours and gaiters, tightly buttoned waistcoat, tweed jacket, and a pair of highly incongruous orange sunglasses strode out of the undergrowth like an extra who had accidentally wandered of the set of the next series of Larkrise to Candleford. Unless of course he was a ghost. In broad daylight.

A canalside walk can be very strenuous...

At the half way stage we stopped for a welcome sugar fix. Jam butties and two leftover fortune cookies from the night before. Colin's told him that his next fortune cookie would be “more interesting than this one” (yawn). Mine, on the other hand said that I would become the parent of someone very famous. Given that is highly unlikely to happen naturally, barring sordid arrangements involving a turkey baster I can only assume that I am destined to adopt a Cambodian orphan, who will turn out to be the next Japanese-style piano playing prodigy to take the classical music world by storm.

Colin enjoys as an energy giving jam butty

And that was as spooky as it got. Well-dressed families with well-behaved chocolate labradors stood to one side to let us stomp past with a smile and a polite “good afternoon”. Well-fed cattle chewed the cud next to well-groomed horses in well-kept water meadows. Everything was very genteel.


So, apologies for failing to fall in the canal, sustain injuries or be abducted by aliens, but there's no getting away from it, there is a lot to be said for a spot of fast walking along the towpath on a bright October afternoon. As we neared the end I suddenly spotted a flash of electric blue darting along the water. And then again. It was a kingfisher. The first time I'd ever seen one in the wild in England. Then we did almost break into a run, which was a real shock to the system. Time was marching on, It was getting dark, and we hadn't put enough cash in the pay and display machine. Oh the excitement of living on the edge. Just call us the dangerous brothers.

Simon imagines what it might be like to be exhausted

In Cambodia, the monsoon rains have receded, and the floods have dried up making it possible once again for the children to get to Grace House and for the staff of grace House to get out to the villages to help those in need. This week, Bridget tells us about one of the elderly women whose life they have had a chance to change for the better:

“Yesterday “Granny” visited Grace House, just to say “hello”. With a baby on her hip, a toddler clinging to her skirt and a big toothless grin, Granny is a tall elegant lady whose poverty is only defined by her clothes. She often pops in for a chat. In the UK she would be coming for coffee but here it is just to natter. The problem is my Khmer (Cambodian) is almost non-existent and she speaks no English at all, but we get by with the help of smiles, nods and some translation.

Granny is my age, mid fifties, but looks at least 70. Her life is hard. Her daughter has abandoned her 5 children, all aged between 1 yr and 12 yrs. Granny looks after them. A few weeks ago Mum took the baby away returning her a week later with bite marks on her arm, Granny was very upset. I think it is just as well I did not understand the names she was calling her daughter. 

Just to make her life more difficult her eldest son has now left his 2 sons with her too. So Granny now has 7 children under 12 to raise with little money and only the support from her youngest son who lives with her.

All the children except the youngest 2 attend Grace House. We support the family with rice and have installed a well for clean drinking water and a toilet.  Pek, the son, manages the Grace House vegetable garden and we pay him a monthly wage for this. Granny just gets on with life, never complaining, and always with that toothless grin on her face. She is fast becoming my heroine!”

If you would like to sponsor us and help Grace House continue supporting the children and their families please go to www.justgiving.com/simonandcolin2