Hey so its been along time coming but the project went
down with the help and support of so many of you in America and the great turn
out of volunteers. The event took place in Koh Kong down south in Cambodia on
the boarder. Well this place was pretty far for everyone to get to so it was
quite the treck for the 15 volunteers that came out to help however its
considered a beach so many of the volunteers were excited about this most of
them despite being from Cambodia have never been to koh kong so it was an over
all adventure with a work component.
Liz
had the brilliant ideas to get shirts made up so we could look more legitimate
so she had these shirts designed and they came out amazing all the volunteers
loved them! Naturally the first part of the project had to go not as excepted
so that morning me and liz talked to an mtv exit rep who failed to mention to
us that the venue changed which cost us 8 more dollars to have our Cambodian
tent moved to the river side. However this new local was perfect for foot
traffic and getting a variety of age ranges to entices people to draw on the
shirts we did have prizes liz went out and bought some cell phones tennis
rackets etc naturally the real prize was the cell phone. I also might add I
never go the donation of shirts so I had to buy them Khmer market style u r
wondering what this is refer to pictures but I bought 500 random shirts and had
to wash them all by hand for this event my host mom started to pity me after
the first 200 and started to help me =) but we ended up needing about 250
shirts for the event.
We bought a
variety of art supplies hoping the shirts would be really unique and different
this year, which I can say they were interesting however for the most part they
were always done in big groups of 5 or more I guess its just Khmer culture. The
shirts messages were more stop violence vs personal experiences though there
was a few that differed from the normal message. It was cool to see how much
people liked the opportunity to do art work it was fun to watch someone who has
never used spray paint get to try there hand at it lol if you see all the
scissors we bought were used as a stencil for said spray paint they are colors
of the rainbow. All the volunteers also created shirts to show ex of ideas in
hopes they would not all be the same which sort of worked bc I think the using
paints on ones hands was pretty popular and they really liked to use the
Chinese money and chain. Despite me and liz being less that ideal organizer the
event was pretty well executed until it came time for the prizes and it sort of
became a cluster fuck. Instead of us just picking the winner we let the
participants decide in order to do this we wanted them to line up behind the
shirt they thought was the best of course some cheating occurred where one
group would have a lot more people with them but ahh it seemed like the only
fair thing to do bc they really wanted to win. Jentee who has never done work
like this and I thought would be the hardass started to feel sorry for the kids
telling me what will we do when they don’t win bc they all kept asking her if
they were going to be number one. The khmer Eileen across the street from me is
a really quite shy person but she has a knack for education and handing out materials
it was cool to see her come out of her shell and do more ngo work. Some peace
corps staff came out to and liz students it was just a mix of so many types of
people which made the event work so well but to see all these people interact
for a weekend while entertain did become draining. Later in the day mtv exit
remps came over to apologize about the mis communication I think in part bc the
event ended up being bigger then they excepted and we really did help promote
the concert for later that night thought not going to lie I wish they took us
more seriously to begin with. That’s the thing about being a two man ngo with
no name or back up or funding you have to put up with being considered lower of
the food chain I hope this changes for me one day. Another cool thing that
happened was some random guy came while I was at lunch to take pictures of the
shirts and wanted to buy some of them and gave us 30 dollars for the cool idea.
That night what I thought at the time
was the group’s idea to meet up for dinner at some khmer soup place is when
things started to go ary. So a majority of the khmer people that came with us
wanted to go eat dinner as a group and everyone seemed fine with that and going
to get soup however that was not the case bc all the Americas don’t really like
soup including me however bc I thought this is what the majority wanted I just
planned to suck it up go and get food later. This was an issues bc they over
order pots of soup and then I guess they thought even people who did not eat should
pay however khmer culture they of course would never say it directly so instead
certain people where upset sulking my khmer tutor was one of these people. That
night we split up and some of went to the concert club and others got more
food
it was not until the next morning
that I started to realize something was sort of not right sigh what I mean by
this half the group wanted to go to the thai market and the rest wanted to go
to a waterfall or something. We had two cars however bc of the night be4 my
khmer tutor in particular was on his guard to get his way which he is suborned
to begin with but he would not listen to a word I said to him that morning.
People often joke that him and me fight like brother and sister anyways I was
trying to get him to understand we should take one car to each place not to
leave people out but he rushed off and refused. Last night I talked to him
about this cuz I was sort of pissed about his infantile behavior bc at that
point and time he still never mentioned he was pissed. Anyways he realized last
night he was wrong and he was sorry I sort of feel a bit like I don’t know if I
could have changed that situation or handled it better. Looking back though at
that point and time the project was done I was not going to boss people around
or take a leadership role for where people want to go in their free time. Well the
hour they promised they would be at the market was more like 2 and ½ so we did
not go to a waterfall bc of lack of time we went to the resort with the
mangroves and then had a huge sea food lunch with crab etc it was soo
delicious. We headed back at 130 which means we got in really late and we also
had to stop 5 million times on the way back home for fruit and other things for
people to bring back to the village but overall despite some mis communication
and cultural difference I am happy with the outcome of the project and the trip
in general. Peace out from the other side of the world.
 |
| this is how it pretty much was all day for us minus lunch time |
 |
| 2 of liz's students starting there own shirt |
 |
| she let the kids paint her hair jk |
 |
| group effort to make a shirt to win the prize |
 |
| the kid who made this was like 8 he came to late and missed his prize we felt sorry for him and gave him 5 bucks translation of shirt women are gentile and nice so you should not hit them. |
 |
| alot of volunteers like this shirts haha whoever this kid is has a british english teacher love it! |
 |
| hanging up the shirts we like the best for the vote |
 |
| Gender and Development in Cambodia aka GADC has the best eng khmer gender educational stuff ever! this is some of the kids reading the news on pressing gender issues. |
 |
| 500 shirts washed by hand wish i could say i have arms of steal but nope. |
 |
| I think this picture sums up all the types of people that helped make this project what it was! |
PS STAY TUNED FOR THE NEXT PART OF THIS PROJECT ART GALLERY AT METAHOUSE SO EXCITED!
Hey so its been along time coming but the project went
down with the help and support of so many of you in America and the great turn
out of volunteers. The event took place in Koh Kong down south in Cambodia on
the boarder. Well this place was pretty far for everyone to get to so it was
quite the treck for the 15 volunteers that came out to help however its
considered a beach so many of the volunteers were excited about this most of
them despite being from Cambodia have never been to koh kong so it was an over
all adventure with a work component. Liz
had the brilliant ideas to get shirts made up so we could look more legitimate
so she had these shirts designed and they came out amazing all the volunteers
loved them! Naturally the first part of the project had to go not as excepted
so that morning me and liz talked to an mtv exit rep who failed to mention to
us that the venue changed which cost us 8 more dollars to have our Cambodian
tent moved to the river side. However this new local was perfect for foot
traffic and getting a variety of age ranges to entices people to draw on the
shirts we did have prizes liz went out and bought some cell phones tennis
rackets etc naturally the real prize was the cell phone. I also might add I
never go the donation of shirts so I had to buy them Khmer market style u r
wondering what this is refer to pictures but I bought 500 random shirts and had
to wash them all by hand for this event my host mom started to pity me after
the first 200 and started to help me =) but we ended up needing about 250
shirts for the event. We bought a
variety of art supplies hoping the shirts would be really unique and different
this year, which I can say they were interesting however for the most part they
were always done in big groups of 5 or more I guess its just Khmer culture. The
shirts messages were more stop violence vs personal experiences though there
was a few that differed from the normal message. It was cool to see how much
people liked the opportunity to do art work it was fun to watch someone who has
never used spray paint get to try there hand at it lol if you see all the
scissors we bought were used as a stencil for said spray paint they are colors
of the rainbow. All the volunteers also created shirts to show ex of ideas in
hopes they would not all be the same which sort of worked bc I think the using
paints on ones hands was pretty popular and they really liked to use the
Chinese money and chain. Despite me and liz being less that ideal organizer the
event was pretty well executed until it came time for the prizes and it sort of
became a cluster fuck. Instead of us just picking the winner we let the
participants decide in order to do this we wanted them to line up behind the
shirt they thought was the best of course some cheating occurred where one
group would have a lot more people with them but ahh it seemed like the only
fair thing to do bc they really wanted to win. Jentee who has never done work
like this and I thought would be the hardass started to feel sorry for the kids
telling me what will we do when they don’t win bc they all kept asking her if
they were going to be number one. The khmer Eileen across the street from me is
a really quite shy person but she has a knack for education and handing out materials
it was cool to see her come out of her shell and do more ngo work. Some peace
corps staff came out to and liz students it was just a mix of so many types of
people which made the event work so well but to see all these people interact
for a weekend while entertain did become draining. Later in the day mtv exit
remps came over to apologize about the mis communication I think in part bc the
event ended up being bigger then they excepted and we really did help promote
the concert for later that night thought not going to lie I wish they took us
more seriously to begin with. That’s the thing about being a two man ngo with
no name or back up or funding you have to put up with being considered lower of
the food chain I hope this changes for me one day. Another cool thing that
happened was some random guy came while I was at lunch to take pictures of the
shirts and wanted to buy some of them and gave us 30 dollars for the cool idea.
That night what I thought at the time
was the group’s idea to meet up for dinner at some khmer soup place is when
things started to go ary. So a majority of the khmer people that came with us
wanted to go eat dinner as a group and everyone seemed fine with that and going
to get soup however that was not the case bc all the Americas don’t really like
soup including me however bc I thought this is what the majority wanted I just
planned to suck it up go and get food later. This was an issues bc they over
order pots of soup and then I guess they thought even people who did not eat should
pay however khmer culture they of course would never say it directly so instead
certain people where upset sulking my khmer tutor was one of these people. That
night we split up and some of went to the concert club and others got more
food it was not until the next morning
that I started to realize something was sort of not right sigh what I mean by
this half the group wanted to go to the thai market and the rest wanted to go
to a waterfall or something. We had two cars however bc of the night be4 my
khmer tutor in particular was on his guard to get his way which he is suborned
to begin with but he would not listen to a word I said to him that morning.
People often joke that him and me fight like brother and sister anyways I was
trying to get him to understand we should take one car to each place not to
leave people out but he rushed off and refused. Last night I talked to him
about this cuz I was sort of pissed about his infantile behavior bc at that
point and time he still never mentioned he was pissed. Anyways he realized last
night he was wrong and he was sorry I sort of feel a bit like I don’t know if I
could have changed that situation or handled it better. Looking back though at
that point and time the project was done I was not going to boss people around
or take a leadership role for where people want to go in their free time. Well the
hour they promised they would be at the market was more like 2 and ½ so we did
not go to a waterfall bc of lack of time we went to the resort with the
mangroves and then had a huge sea food lunch with crab etc it was soo
delicious. We headed back at 130 which means we got in really late and we also
had to stop 5 million times on the way back home for fruit and other things for
people to bring back to the village but overall despite some mis communication
and cultural difference I am happy with the outcome of the project and the trip
in general. Peace out from the other side of the world. 
It’s never too early to think about the Third Goal. Check out Peace Corps Experience: Write & Publish Your Memoir. Oh! If you want a good laugh about what PC service was like in a Spanish-speaking country back in the 1970’s, read South of the Frontera: A Peace Corps Memoir.
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