When I'm 56

I spent four days over the Easter weekend in Hong Kong. It happened to be Sushma's birthday while I was there (b. 1956 = 56 years old in 2012). After breakfast, Rajni and I chatted with Sushma about what she wanted to do on her birthday. High tea? No. Yum Cha? No. A boat ride from Aberdeen to one of the outlying islands? Okay. Not great.. But okay. 


We jumped on a bus but before we reached the pier, the bus stopped in front of Ocean Park. Rajni said, 'Oh! You'd get in free today coz it's your birthday.' Sushma paused, thinking.... Rajni asked directly, 'Do you want to go?' Sushma's face lit up and she said,'Yes!' 


So we spent the day at the amusement park. (And I've posted two amusing photos to prove it.)


I noticed that just across the street from Ocean Park there's a 400m running track. I brought my gear just in case so when R&S enjoyed a late afternoon tea, I ran laps in comfortable 22 degree weather. When I'd finished and changed into street clothes again, Rajni wondered out aloud how long it might take her to run a lap? With both of us in jeans, we discovered it was 3 minutes and 13 seconds. 


I hope that when I'm 56 I am open to discoveries and have fun friends who are willing to hang with me at an amusement park to celebrate another year of life!

National Girls U13s

Sometime in 2011 I bought this T-shirt for Srey Nit when she makes a National Football Team. She's only 11 so I thought it might take a couple of years? Last week, however, I received news that she was been selected for the final tryouts for a new National Girls Under 13s team! 


I was sure that Srey Nit would be excited, but when I brought this amazing news I kept hearing, 'Maybe I can't go...' After some gentle questioning, I discovered the reason for her reluctance. Srey Nit studies Grade 3 for a few hours each day and spends the rest of her time pulling carts across the border. She was worried that if she went away for a few days, her younger siblings might not have enough to eat. So I've pretty much bribed her family with cash for each day she's away this week. 


This morning we drove 115km by moto to drop her off with the other players. (It was 4.5 hours on the road, 6 hours including meeting some of the coaches etc.) We started at the office by trying on helmets until we found one that Srey Nit could wear (even though she has never worn a helmet and thought it was a bit weird!). Then we made a stop at two of the universities in the capital of the province, looked at the spelling of the word university and stopped at the gate for a while "because maybe one day you can study here?" We played some super fun maths games like calculating how many km's we had done so far and calculating our estimated arrival time. (Yeah.. I gotta get over worrying about pulling her out of school for four days!)


I don't know what to do if she makes the team. I probably can't keep paying her family for every lost day of cart pushing. Still hoping and looking for freedom! :)


PS I've been on holidays for a couple of weeks. Highlights and photos to come! 

Ping Pong Party

Simon performing a song he wrote in Khmer.. after less than a month in the country! (He won the crowd over with sophisticated lyrics such as 'I like rice.. I want to eat rice.. Have you eaten rice yet?!')

No hint of stage-fright when these girls got up to sing!

A drama based on the Good Samaritan story.

A short speech from Coach Chanty!

'Hengaroo' leading games.

I learned another new 'cool' English phrase to use for an informal closing ceremony or finals event: a 'stop party'.

Last weekend we held a small stop party for the twenty kids who have been playing ping pong every Saturday afternoon. For these guys, the important thing doesn't seem to be the activity. They just enjoy being together, playing and learning. I enjoyed being a guest at their event.

Sometimes small is good...

Yesterday we received a call from World Vision (yeah.. okay.. I'm naming names!). They told us about an elderly couple who are taking care of their three grandchildren, aged 9, 7 and 4 years old. Their old house has completely collapsed so the village leader arranged temporary shelter in an empty shack. World Vision asked if we could help with food and housing.

We discovered that the parents of the children are working in Thailand. At first they sent money back, but now there is no money coming through. None of the children have ever been to school. Instead, all three kids collect rubbish for recycling in order for the family to buy food.

Our staff visited this morning, bought supplies after lunch and returned on a moto this afternoon with:

25kg rice

12 cans of fish

30 eggs

1 bottle of soy sauce

1 bottle of fish sauce

500g salt

500g sugar

500g garlic

...plus a few small gifts for the kids left over from our Ping Pong closing last weekend (pens, notebooks, balloons & candy) and US$30 for the family to buy additional food and medicine that they need this month.

While talking with the grandparents, they said that the Cambodian Red Cross also came recently to interview them and take photos. But neither World Vision nor the Cambodian Red Cross were able to help with their basic needs. I don't know the details... maybe they don't have a budget line for something as tiny as 30 eggs and 500g of salt.

Sometimes it's good to be a small NGO that can respond to a couple of grandparents. We'll go back at the end of the month to talk about their housing situation.

Olympic Marathon Selection A Joke!

Hiroshi Neko and Hem Bunting.

The Cambodian Olympic Committee have selected a Japanese-born comedian to run the marathon in London.

They have rejected Cambodia's fastest distance runner, Hem Bunting, and named Hiroshi Neko for the 42.2km event. Neither runners have met the 2:18 Olympic B-standard qualification but the Olympic rules allow countries that have no qualified athletes in any track or field event to enter one male and one female athlete in a special exemption. If the Olympic Committee wants to choose an athlete to run the marathon, it seems like a no-brainer: select the fastest runner! Instead, they picked the man with the money.

Let's do a quick comparison of these two athletes:

1.Hem Bunting is the national record holder for the marathon in Cambodia. (2:25:20 in Vientiane, 2009.) Hiroshi Neko isn't.

2. Hirshi Neko has never beaten Hem Bunting in a race. In the 2010 Siem Reap Half Marathon, for example, Hem Bunting won the event in 1:10:11 while Hiroshi Neko finished third in a time of 1:16:00.

3. Hen Bunting was born in Stung Treng, Cambodia, the second of nine brothers and sisters. He lives and trains in Phnom Penh. Hiroshi Neko was granted Cambodian citizenship in November 2011. As recently as last year, he was wearing a JAAF bib in the Toyko marathon (Japan Amateur Athletics Federation).

4. Looking back, Hem Bunting represented his country in the 2008 Beijing Olympic games. In the same year, Hiroshi Neko was jogging his first ever 42.2km event in Toyko, finishing in 3:48:57!

5. Looking forward, Bunting is already leading, training and influencing the next generation of Cambodian runners. Ma Viro is the country's second fastest long distance runner. Is it a surprise that he is also from Stung Treng? Viro and Bunting are both runners and friends. When Cambodia needed a representative for the 2012 Hong Kong marathon, they chose Ma Viro.

6. Bunting encourages me when I'm at the track! In November last year I competed in my first ever triathlon. The day before flying to Thailand, I did a short track session at Phnom Penh's Olympic Stadium. Bunting happened to be training at the same time so we did a few laps together while he warmed up. He asked about my upcoming race and even let me beat him over a 400m loop. Bunting encourages men and women, young and old, when he is training at the track in Phnom Penh. I've never seen Neko at the Olympic Stadium when I've dropped by for a training session.

Right now Hiroshi Neko is celebrating his amazing selection in the Cambodian Olympic team. Through his charity, Cambodia Dream, he has given financial gifts to the Cambodian Olympic Committee. Meanwhile, Hem Bunting has finished three months of training in the Kenyan rift valley to prepare for the Paris marathon on April 15. He has relied on private sponsors to cover all his expenses.

It may seem unlikely, but I hope that Bunting runs his fastest marathon ever and pulls out a sub 2:18 time in Paris! Surely this would give the selectors something to chew over with their rice and pork breakfast?!

Right now young Cambodian athletes are not being motivated to persevere in order to represent their country at the highest level in sport. The current message is, 'poor countries with poor athletics programs allow wealthy foreigners to steal other people's Olympic dreams'. Sad.

On the road

Today's Cambodia Daily reported, 'Two Dead, 15 injured in Traffic Accident in Pursat'. Last Friday night a man and an infant died, and 15 others were injured, after a Toyota Camry collided with a home-made truck on National Road 5.

That's the problem with home-made trucks. That's the problem with speeding Camry's.

Last weekend I did the 300km round trip to Siem Reap by moto. The highways were shared by cars, trucks, tractors, motorbikes, bicycles, kids walking home from school and the occasional stray animal. Some of those vehicles average around 120-140km per hour. Primary school children walk at about 3km per hour. Trucks break down and drivers put down branches to warn other motorists of the danger until they can make repairs and get going again. At night time many home made vehicles don't have back lights. That's why, as my friends Andrew & Whitney noted on their blog on March 11, 'accidents happen'.

Photos of overloaded, overcrowded trucks, tuk tuks and motos make an interesting souvenir book. However, we need to remember that every day in Cambodia, 4 people are killed and 100 people die on the roads, making this the second 'disaster' after HIV/AIDS causing loss of life and livelihood.