Building Momentum

Another work week at CSSD has come to a close and it’s almost frightening to think that we only have three full weeks left. I did not prepare myself for the time to slip by so quickly.

Early on Monday morning, we held our first English lesson of the internship. We began with the alphabet, describing both phonetics as well as proper ways of writing the letters. The staff was eager to learn and I was happy to see that even those who were well-versed in the alphabet benefitted from the phonetics lesson. On Tuesday, we completed the alphabet review and went over both the long and short sounds of the English vowels. For the rest of the day, I could hear the staff shouting “Ah!” “Uh!” “Ih!” as they practiced on their own and laughed. It never occurred to me before that the short vowel sounds really are quite amusing when screamed out loud – another lesson that only the animated and cheerful CSSD staff could have taught me. The English lesson on Wednesday was more focused on building vocabulary as we discussed feelings and acted them out. It’s funny to see how those who understand a word right away describe it to their peers: the explanation for “scared” became “Jackie with bugs!”

In parallel with the English lessons, Chenda and Rottanak also began giving us impromptu Khmer lessons after lunch breaks. We learned key phrases to navigate Phnom Penh (like “Tlai ponman?” for “How much does it cost?” or “Bot chueng” for “turn right” among others. Now we seem quite impressive to our tuk-tuk drivers!). We also began learning the alphabet, the numbers, and common items around the kitchen. The Khmer alphabet strikes me as much more complex than the English alphabet, with dependent vowels and subtle differences between consonants that I can really only pretend to hear.

On Thursday, Chenda and Samphee approached us about writing a form for proper reporting of what goes on when the Peer Facilitators or IPC staff go to community. After much debate, we titled the form “Community Visit: Activity Reporting Form” and made fields for the CSSD staff to report such things as the date and location of the visit, the number of participants, the discussion tools used, the topics discussed, the level of engagement of the participants, memorable occurrences, and suggestions for future discussions. Chenda has always said that although CSSD staff are very strong in their outreach work, they are weak in properly reporting it and have little to show at the end of the year in comparison to all that they have actually accomplished. We hope that proper implementation of this form will improve accurate reporting and perhaps strengthen both the qualitative and quantitative facets of the argument that CSSD does meaningful work.

After the discussion about reporting, the power went out in the office. Mr. Chanthan explained that the demand for electricity in Phnom Penh exceeds the available energy, so power is periodically cut off to balance supply with demand. The government claims that this problem will be completely resolved by next month.

After sweltering in the heat for some time, Mr. Chanthan suggested that we return to our hotel early for the day. We seized the two extra hours of daylight that we had from our early release to explore Phnom Penh by bike! We weaved our way through small dirt roads, traffic jams, busy intersections, and chaotic roundabouts. We swerved, snaked, raced, and abruptly braked. We pushed boundaries and challenged ourselves as the trip continued into the rainy night.

When we were sufficiently lost, exhausted, and soaking wet from rain and sweat, we took tuk-tuks to the riverfront and treated ourselves to dinner. I am both proud of myself for continuing the ride and amazed at myself for thoroughly enjoying every minute of it.

The survey was fully translated to Khmer by the end of the week and on Friday, Mr. Chanthan led a discussion to review the questions with the entire staff. Together, the staff made changes to improve the clarity of the questions and ease of use. Corrections were made according to these suggestions and the Khmer version of the survey is now complete! Over the next few weeks, it will be implemented in discussion groups. The current momentum of this project is really exciting to experience –  I hope that it will continue into the latter weeks of our internship as well.

– Nabgha