Overall, though, things are pretty easy here, unlike what many think. Take, for example, the time I broke a pair of sunglasses. Actually broke them—snapped the frame in two. In the US I could have spent money to send them somewhere where they would inevitably get lost or I would get told it would cost more to fix them than to buy new ones, and I’d be lucky if I saw them again in a few months. Here, I walk to the end of the road and for 6 and a quarter cents someone welds them together for me in less than a minute.

Our bio-diesel truck broke the other day. The number of parts we needed to replace would mean considering the car totaled in the US. It cost us less than $400 to fix the truck and fix it well.

Overall, it is pretty easy to get things done here. Life is not “hard”.

But then random things happen, like the time an ant colony set up house inside my computer and my screen went black as hundreds of little ants emerged between the keys. The man at the computer shop who fixed it said, “Oh, that again. Ants ate your motherboard too?”  Turns out he was able to fix the computer for a few dollars with a quick clean of the computer innards, and tada! I was back typing away, ant-free, in no time.

Then more difficult stuff happens that makes you depressed, annoyed, angry about being here. . . and all of the rest of the “ease” of living in Cambodia doesn’t seem all that easy any more. A few weeks ago, when I was staying in Phnom Penh with a group of teachers who were visiting Cambodia to learn about development issues, I woke up, and my phone as gone, as were two other phones from the other instructors staying the room. Someone had stolen our phones WHILE we were sleeping. Yikes!

I ran downstairs in my pajamas, upset that I would be losing the phone number I had had for 5 years and feeling strange that someone had been in my room while I was sleeping. I told the men behind the desk that I assumed it was someone with the key to our room, as I know I had locked the door, and they set about trying to find out what happened.

It turns out the guesthouse had video surveillance, and the person who had picked the lock was the prostitute staying with the older Australian man across the hall. When the staff came to knock on the door to try to get the phones back, the Aussie said, “She stole phones?!” then turned to her and said, “That is disgusting.” Too bad we were all too flustered by the situation to tell him that HE was disgusting.

The poor girl. Ugh—it broke my heart. She was clearly not a professional thief, or she wouldn’t have walked over two laptop computers before stealing our cheap and old phones. She let me come into the room and asked everyone else to leave and then gave me back our phones, while crying and holding my feet, saying she was supposed to leave that day to see her sick mother and she needed the money and she was so, so sorry. Sobbing. Both of us. Broke my heart. I told them not to arrest her. The hotel did anyway when she went downstairs. She won’t get a fair trial. It’s Cambodia afterall, and life here ISN’T easy for most. You can buy whatever you want: a computer cleaning, glasses fixing, ANYTHING. . . IF you have the money. If you don’t you will sit in jail, because you tried to steal a phone to get some cash to see your mother. And the man who bought you, the guy who has all the choices in the world, sits there, takes out cash to give to you (as he has been with you for the last few days and owes you money), and then puts the cash back into his wallet and says, “You have been a bad, bad girl for stealing their things!” and walks away.

It’s a pretty freakin’ hard place to live afterall.

Fast Five Profile: PEPY Tours

One of the PEPY riders on her bike for Cambodian based PEPY Tours

1. Who are you?  Brief description of trips you offer

Daniela Papi, Director, PEPY and PEPY Tours.

PEPY Tours offers educational tours where travelers have the chance to learn about development issues and support programs committed to making change even long after the travelers leave.  Our tours of Cambodia and neighboring areas range from bicycle trips and high-end educational adventures to service-learning programs for school groups. The required donation portion of our tour fee supports the ongoing educational programs of our partner non-profit organizations.

2.  How do you define Responsible Travel?

Responsible Travel is a conscious and educated approach to tourism which incorporates learning about and supporting local initiatives and goals in the areas we visit. If we have limited knowledge about an area, it is very difficult to make the most responsible decisions, so the most important aspects of responsible travel are the research stage and the monitoring/follow up sections.  If we want to be responsible, we need to understand the true impacts of the choices we are making.

3.  What does your company do to make sure it travels responsibly?

We are willing to change, transparent about our mistakes and the lessons we are learning, open to suggestions and new ideas, and we work to educate travelers on ways they can improve all aspects of their future travel. Our tours bring travelers to meet with the people and organizations making changes in Cambodia and helps them develop a framework for which to better analyze and understand the issues facing Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and community groups. Our goal is that travelers with PEPY Tours will change the way they give, travel, and live as a result of their trip with us.

4.    Tell us about a successful initiative.  And an unsuccessful one – what did you learn?

We used to bring people to visit a variety of programs in Cambodia, including model orphanages. Our trips were supporting these orphanages through on-going funding, so we felt that the chance to visit the place where their money was going would be a great way to connect travelers to their local impact. This view was too traveler focused, as even if it would increase fundraising potential, the cost of bringing groups of foreigners into a home which is supposed to be a safe-haven for children is not a responsible practice and should be replaced by less voyeuristic fundraising initiatives.  We did not have any direct incidents as a result of bringing travelers to these orphanages, but we felt that we were contributing to a growing trend of orphanage tourism which we believe is, overall, very harmful to both the children and to efforts to reduce corruption in Cambodia.  If donor dollars can be linked to orphanage tourism, then more and more fake orphanages will continue to be created as business, as we see here in Cambodia.

In the first few years of offering tours, we used to indulge the travelers and our own desire to “give back” on our tours through tangible ways.  Most people feel more connected to a project if they can physically “help” – paint something, build something, “see results”.  The problem with this mindset is that most of the actions travelers are contributing involve giving things away to people or building items, not building people.  We have learned that what Cambodia needs most is capacity building among leaders who are looking to improve their own lives and that things like teacher training and skill building will do more to improve education than building schools.  If we continue to only offer travelers ways to give back physically, we will teach them that improvements are equated to developing infrastructure but not a nation of people.

For the last few years we have taken the time to expose our travelers to these ideas and concepts through reading materials, educational activities, and sharing our previously incorrect assumptions and mistakes.  Travelers now leave our trips better able to support sustainable on-going projects designed to leave Cambodia and Cambodians better equipped to improve their own country rather than fostering a continued dependency on outside support.

5.   What’s some advice you can offer to travelers wanting to travel responsibly?

Read up before you travel. Do NOT give money to any organization you do not know and have not researched. To do your research, speak with people working in a similar sector in a nearby area as they will have more honest feedback about a groups work than their own website will offer.

As one of our NGO partners said, “You have to earn the right to leave your money in this country.”  If we all recognize that we, as individuals, DO NOT HAVE THE POWER TO FIX THE PLACES WE VISIT by giving money away, we will have less negative impacts of funding corrupt and ill-planned programs. Sustainable changes take long-term efforts and need to last much longer than a short visit to a new place on vacation.  By finding the people and programs committed to finding ways to make long term change, your money will go much further than giving it to a child-beggar on the street. In fact, perhaps that child would not be begging in the tourist area you are visiting if it was not profitable to do so. By cutting off that funding stream to the “pimp” who possibly rents that child out per day as a beggar and redirecting it to on-going programs supporting the needs of children living on the street, you will likely have a much better impact on the places you visit.

Our focus is really on encouraging travelers to be socially responsible. The media and public relations campaigns from large tourism corporations are full of green travel tips, such as conserving water and energy, recycling, using refillable water bottles, and making sure your hotel is doing everything they can to conserve. These are certainly important things to work on. At that level, though, the entire social aspect of sustainability is just missing.

If you are looking to volunteer abroad, ask a lot of questions about how they choose their partners, monitor their impact, and what mistakes they have made. The most responsible groups will offer you transparent and honest answers to those questions.  Ask about how your specific program was designed.  I have asked English teaching volunteer programs which travelers pay a significant fee for why they have chosen to offer English teaching as their volunteer opportunity when they seem to always be scrapping to find NGO partners as the response has been “That is what travelers are looking to do.”  Do we want our impact to be designed for YOU, or designed to fit actual needs? If we want to fit actual needs, then sometimes we need to be willing to do the less glamorous jobs, have less opportunities to visit orphanages and pet children, and be satisfied that we are indeed doing good rather than “getting a rewarding experience.”  It shouldn’t be about us.  If you want to be comfortable, have fun, and get to play with kids, go to an amusement park.

If you want to know more, visit the PEPY Tours website.

About WorldNomads.com

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Maybe that is what Cambodia needs? Or is that a less-linguistically-inclined-centric thing for me to say?

As my comment was not  a review of the area, it was not approved, so I am posting it here.

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I am writing in response to a post stating that one way to give back to Siem Reap is by visiting orphanages.

I beg to strongly disagree.

Having lived in Cambodia for over four years, my opinion on visiting orphanages has gone from encouraging it to abhorring it.  Recent research has shown that the number of orphanages in Cambodia has tripled in recent years with the majority of those “serving” kids who are not orphans at all.  There are some groups standing up this movement to encourage support for whole families rather than removing children from their parents, but in many of the worst cases, the poor practices are not from lack of foresight but instead from fraudulent intentions to start.

Orphanages that keep kids in squalor and can attract tourists on a daily basis are able to bring in far more funding than they choose to use to support their “orphans”.  The practice of keeping kids looking needy to bring in more income is highly linked with donor visits to orphanages and with increasing travelers’ philanthropy in the area.  Sometimes “doing  good” can cause harm, and the practice of visiting orphanages which you have not properly vetted, and which have not properly vetted you, can be a harmful practice.

People have asked me “What is a good orphanage I can go visit today?”  And my answer is always: “Any orphanage where they will LET you visit today, un-planned, is likely NOT a good orphanage.”

Keep these things in mind when visiting Siem Reap, or any developing country.  There is so much to see and so many great projects to support which, can provide more direct benefit than funding the often corrupt orphanage network in Cambodia.  Overall, if you want to see temples, learn about history and culture, are looking for an adventure, and want to meet people who are working hard to improve the future for their next generation, Cambodia is the place to do it.  Just don’t trust all orphanages to be the best choice of your additional support.

It would probably make a lot more sense if we stopped using the title “volunteer” for positions where people are getting paid.  The result is that I have met Cambodians who say “I want to be a volunteer when I grow up.”  Hmmm… do you think we are spreading the wrong message?  Volunteers in Cambodia are getting paid more than local staff.  I think we need to redefine this word.

Let’s get some misconceptions out in the open before starting to discuss “international volunteering” as there is a lot of confusion and sometimes a negative perception surrounding those words.

Some misconceptions are that:

-         “Volunteers” are people who are willing to give up any forms of luxury

-         Those doing international aid work can be equated with a martyrs and comparisons should be drawn to Mother Teresa.

-         Having the word “volunteer” is a title is a substitute for “not qualified to do my job”

-         Whatever a “volunteer” is doing must be adding social value by virtue of their title

-         Someone with “volunteer” in their title is not being paid.

As you can see from these assumptions, there seems to be two opposing camps of stereotyping surrounding perceptions of volunteers.  Many people react as if international volunteering is akin to martyrdom.  I’ve heard people say, “Volunteering abroad, that’s like Mother Theresa stuff, right?” There is an idea that international volunteer work can only be done by the rare type of person who is willing to give up all forms of luxury.

The other extreme reaction to the word “volunteer” in international aid work usually comes from people working somewhere within the spectrum of philanthropy work. Some people working in foreign aid see those volunteering abroad as naive, ego-driven or ineffective use of resources draining both time and money away from the “real work”.  Many look at those with “volunteer” in their title as if it were really saying “unqualified-to-do-my-job.”

These somewhat opposing views of volunteering abroad must be based on some truths for them to exist so strongly.  Those viewing the aid workers as if they are making large sacrifices might either have done some volunteer work in the past themselves which felt like a big sacrifice to them or perhaps work in a job they feel they “need” to do to make money to keep the lifestyle they are accustomed to and they view volunteer positions as opportunities which would require giving some of those things up.

Those working in development might have seen or had to work with volunteers whose lack of skills or short-term commitments had decreased the efficiency of their organization’s work.  They might have worked with one too many volunteers interested in the experience to “build their resume” who was less interested in doing the jobs that needed to be done and more interested in having fun in a new country.  These stereotypes might be based on individual’s experiences, but it doesn’t make them truths.

How we define “volunteering” is also now in question.  There are “volunteers” who get paid for their work, like the “UNV’s”, the UN Volunteers, who get paid a fraction of what they would normally charge, though often still make salaries which are multiples of that of their local counterparts.  Other payments also come in the form of post volunteering stipends, like in the Peace Corps.  There are “volunteers” who PAY for their experience, either through a volunteer placement agency or with a development program direction. And then there are “volunteers” who do work and don’t get paid, like the parents who volunteer to come to school and help set up for their children’s next school play.  As in all areas of life, one of the factors of the extreme sensitivity to the word “volunteer” is the money, or lack their of, involved.

Our economies are built on trade, and when we switched to using money as a standard means of exchange (perhaps thinking seashells or camels would run scarce some day) we might have also lost some of the give and take that comes with valuing a certain experience or good.  Now is seems that we too often rely on looking only at the price tag of something to judge its value.  When we think something is cheap, or expensive, we compare the item with what we would willingly pay for it, but rarely is our value comparison in terms other than money.  We might hear, “Wow! I love books about arachnids.  I would totally pay like $50 for that photo book!”  We almost never hear, “I want to buy that spider book from the family book shop down the street.  What steal!  I would wash their dishes and cut their lawn for 2 months to buy it.”

In many areas of life, talk of money causes a visceral reaction, so some of the issue people have with volunteering, could really be a money issue.  “Is having this person here good use of our money, or are they unskilled and taking more time than they are giving?” “She would have made MUCH MORE money if she was doing this job at home.”  “They are PAYING the company for this experience!  And the company is keeping a LARGE portion of the money, and adding very little value to their experience?  Don’t they see they are being sold something where they are making money for a tour company, but not necessarily supporting the local programs?”  These are all things I have heard, said, or thought while working in aid and educational and service tourism in Cambodia.

So, potential volunteers of the world, and potential critics/supporters of volunteerism, let’s remember that, just because people are volunteering abroad does not guarantee negative nor positive impacts.   Let’s start using the word “volunteer” as defined in the dictionary so that we can preserve the honor of those people who give their time willingly and for “free”.  They might not get paid in money, but they surely get a lot out of their experiences or they wouldn’t choose do them.  Good for them for remembering that not all payments come in the form of money.

I would have agreed with Alanna at some points a few years ago. Many of our current staff or visiting donors did, before they arrived here. The post is clearly written from someone who is looking at this idea “computers in the developing world” from a theorist standpoint, reading the media available to her written in her developed country of choice, and who has not had much (or any?) interactions with these computers in the areas where they were designed to be used.  In effect, she’s saying bananas don’t taste good and are of no use to humans when eating those she bought in her local 7-11, having never tried one off the vine in Honduras.

I understand where she is coming from, I have shared her opinions in the past, and still share her opinions when it comes to what appears to me to be wasted non-applicable technologies being introduced in a non-sustainable way.   I see where she is coming from, but I still think she is very wrong. Perhaps if she were here, her opinions would be different. She and I might agree that buying computers and solar is surely not “sustainable” for Cambodia, that teacher training or support to get increased government action to improve education would be better uses of money. We might agree that the computer is in its nascent stages and there is a lot to be improved. We might agree that a great TEACHER is the best way for kids to learn, and a green machine can’t replace that. But if she came her, she might change her opinion that these green things can’t, won’t and aren’t changing the world because indeed, they already have.

Here is a reply I wrote to this blog but since the replys don’t seem to be showing, I’m putting it here:

Note: For anyone using XOs out there: we had someone come in and do a research project on our XO program who helped to match the Cambodian curriculum with XO programs and come up with learning ideas. If you want to learn more about this, contact us at PEPY www.pepyride.org

I think this is a very myopic view on the potential for change OLPC has started. If you had looked at the Apple2e computer I used when I was a kid maybe you would have only seen the basic programs I was using and not see what is possible today. We use the OLPC laptops in Cambodia and when I look at them in use, I see my Apple2e. It’s very basic now in some ways, but that’s the point. It’s opensource. The people in the places that are using these can, will and are developing better and better programs for it.

I have been to the schools the Negropontes sponsor in Cambodia, which was our impetus to apply for laptops through the give-one-get-one program. Spend a day in one of their schools, and I guarantee you will change your mind, at least in terms of the potential for change, based on these tools.

If there was no word “laptop” in the name, they would have gotten a lot less press, but naming it a “learning tool” would have been a more correct choice and perhaps saved them a lot of criticism. It’s not a “laptop” meant to replace what you and I are working on. It is a tool for kids to guide them through their own learning – when their teachers don’t show up, when there is a huge differentiation between levels in one class, when there are too many students for one-on-one instruction.

I don’t agree with Nicholas Negroponte that any child can pick one up and know how to fix the inside. I do agree with Alanna that, for the best learning environment, you need a great teacher or ideally facilitator, but that is the same for anything you are learning. I have seen in our students and the other OLPC programs we work with in Cambodia, that these tools are inspiring children to lead themselves into areas of education that they are not given access to in their normal government classes.

The word “lesson plan” is evil in the constructivism world of Papert followers and the child-led learning model of OLPC. No “how-to” guide is not an accident but was planned. I agree with Alanna that for most people, who have been spoon-fed their knowledge all their lives, they are not capable of making the leap and learning on their own. In a place like Cambodia some of the most educated young people I know are used to that: they teach themselves all they want to learn via the internet. We have found those people make great facilitators for the program and we don’t follow all constructivist methodologies in our classroom, in fact we brought a researcher in to observe and analyze lessons our teachers had developed and to turn those into “lesson plans” (gasp!).

If you really believe “But it’s not going to change the world, or even affect it all that much.” you have not made all of the connections to all of the ways it already HAS changed the word. It has some of the newest technologies in environmentally friendly parts, screen visibility in bright light, battery life, mesh-technologies, etc etc… and all of those things are ALREADY changing the world as others take them and continue to improve upon them.

Here in Cambodia, there are groups of young Cambodians who meet regularly to translate OLPC programs into Khmer. The new versions we just got have Khmer script and we are now using Scratch in Khmer as well. Walk into a classroom where we work and see older students teaching younger students how to read Khmer via the animated Khmer testing program they designed themselves, and you will change your mind a bit. Talk to our computer teachers, young Cambodians who taught themselves how to use the XOs, and yes, they will tell you there is a lot they don’t understand, but they are effecting change. You can’t see that from your office, but I can see it here. It’s just the start! Each new version of the XO we get is better and better and will continue to be.

If you want to learn more about what we are doing with Scratch on the XOs or about the “lesson plans” our team developed to match the Khmer curriculum, contact us at PEPY www.pepyride.org

You can see what I wrote on the link above or here below. I would love to read your thoughts as well.

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There is a program I really respect in Nepal called “READ Global”. They “build libraries” – but it’s much more than that. The process they use is what makes them exceptional. When a community approaches them to build a library, they must also provide an idea for an income generating project that fills a need in the community. For some places it might be to rent the under-library area as stalls for a market and for others it might be converting a tuk-tuk into an ambulance and charging a small fee for the service of a ride to the hospital.  READ helps them start the income generating project and once it is running on it’s own and making income, they build the library, buy the books and train the teacher.  Then it is up to the community based organization (CBO) to manage the income generating project well and continue to bring enough revenue in to fund the librarian.  In this way, the project can go on without READ in the future.

This relates to your post because, guess what… the system doesn’t work so well in Cambodia. READ hasn’t tried it here yet (though they have considered it and have opted for other places first),  but other groups have tried similar things, and yet it typically hasn’t work well here.  Why?  In my mind there are two major factors.  One of course being the Khmer Rouge legacy – people don’t trust each other and sometimes they trust only their families so the whole CBO concept is difficult when it comes to shared resources, people are still living for today and find it difficult to invest in the future, and there is less value put on education (both from the Khmer Rouge destruction of education and the fact that there are few signs that education really does produce financial results for families).  The other reason I think it doesn’t work so well, is that LIBRARIES are not high on people’s priority list, in part because of value for education, but even more so because there are OTHER needs.  Like you said, why do people want to study math when they don’t have food on the table?

We are skipping steps here in Cambodia, trying to build libraries and education when rural communities want to find ways to build economies.  I think it needs to be a two prong approach – supporting the older generation with capacity building and new or improved skills and then connecting them with opportunities to use those skills to improve their livelihoods while also providing education to the younger generation to be able to improve their lives and their country in other ways.

That being said, physics education IS needed for those who get to that level.  There are places where it WON’T go down so well, where people can’t put value on physics when it means disregarding the work that needs to be done to get food on the table, even if they are school aged children.  But then again, there are places where it will work well.  The “poorest people” might prefer other skill building than physics, or might be in a place where that is beyond the schooling level they will achieve for the majority of students in this generation, but there are some who will and your skills can support them.  As I put in some of my other posts on voluntourism, I don’t think having someone like you come into a place to teach students, especially if it is for a short time, is the best use of your skills.  Instead, if you came in and taught TEACHERS, and helped them improve their ability to pass on those skills, that would be fabulous!

If you are coming through Cambodia, I know some high school science teachers who would love to learn from you!

I hope those thoughts and the thoughts on my blog are useful.  I would love to further engage in this discussion with you or any others who are interested in this topic, so please write back any time!

Best,
Daniela