Friday, November 20, 2009
The Guppy Farm In Pictures
It's going pretty well so far. I learned recently that the original fish I had in the tanks were the so called, "fighting fish" that people use to gamble with. (They place bets on which one will win) I learned this when I came back from water festival in Siem Reap and five of the fish were missing, and presumed stolen. Now I have a different kind of fish that does not fight, is much smaller, and probably does a better job of eating mosquito larvae than the fighting fish. It is called boah pram buhl, or "seven colored fish" because of their colorful tails. I wish I could get a better picture of them, but they move too quickly for the camera to focus. I came back from Puok recently with thirty of them, and it seems like they are multiplying already. Maybe next month we can start selling them off to the community.
The blue netting over the water jars is to prevent leaves and other crud from falling into the water, while letting bugs in for the fish to eat. It kind of looks a little haphazard, but I'm working on a new design right now. I'm also hoping to turn this whole back area into a garden somehow.
Boredom
The subject is difficult to write about. Lingering in the back of my mind, I have spent time thinking about writing something about it. But among the abstract, inchoate thoughts that rise to the surface, the one that clearly doubts the project is always the loudest. Really? You want to write about boredom? How boring! The new arrivals in the province are having a hard with it, and ask questions like, “How on earth have you survived here for more than a year?” that have provoked responses from myself that are bland and meaningless. So I suppose this entry to make for that.
It is easy to understand what their situation is like. All people in this situation go through a similar experience. It goes something like this: Imagine for a moment that you are an American living in America. Your life is full of appointments, meetings, presentations, dinners, classes, accompanied by a regular seasonal change and surrounded with friends and family. Suddenly you find yourself in the middle of a small Southeast Asian nation surrounded with unfamiliar people and having none of the things that keep you busy. You also find that life moves at a much slower pace. So what do you do? You can throw yourself into your teaching work, but that is often not the best idea. I did that during my first year, and it really left me too exhausted to anything else. (I am doing much more outside the classroom this year, and I am much happier for it) Apart from work, which may be interrupted by unforeseeable events or holidays for weeks at a time, there is not a whole lot you can do. A lot of volunteers read, exercise, and socialize with people in the market in their spare time, which are good ways to unwind. However, these can only keep you busy for so long. You might wonder what Khmer people do for fun, and why I am not out doing what they do. As far as I can tell, entertainment options in the village for the locals include playing cards, gambling, volleyball, gossiping with neighbors, watching TV soap operas, and consuming huge amounts of rice wine or canned beer. (Sometimes starting as early as breakfast) Since I am good at none of those things, my options are very limited. And so I continually face the prospect of boredom on the onset of a long, hot afternoon.
Consider the example of what I did last Saturday. While Saturday is technically a school day, the Peace Corps largely discourages us from teaching on that day. So it is a day off. I rolled out of bed at something like 8:00. (This is the equivalent of something like 10:45 in American time, way too late) I looked at the pile of laundry near the bathroom door, and said to myself, “No…tomorrow.” Took a bath, dressed, unlocked the door and walked outside into the bright sunshine. From the couple of minutes it took to towel off and walk around, I had already started sweating already. Bought two waffles from the breakfast stand in front of the house and walked down the street to the café. Ordered a coffee and sat down with a book for about two hours. I also started to compose this little letter on the back of some paper I recently found behind my bamboo bookshelf. Mr. Breadman came by at 8:45, and I bought my usual loaf of bread from him. We chatted about the weather. At 11:00 I went down to the market to buy some eggs and tomatoes. The eight-year-old girl who sells them to me always screams with laughter every time I come to buy them, for some reason. Went back to the house and made myself a hard boiled egg and tomato sandwich with a little olive oil I brought back from Siem Reap. The host mother laughed as I sat down at the family table with the sandwich, and asked if it tasted good. We have the same exchange nearly every other day. After lunch I pulled out the GRE book and studied math problems. After this, I went to visit the Guppy Farm for an hour, and started off on a long bicycle ride. Came back at 6:00, showered, dressed, ate dinner, practiced the violin, read a book, took another shower, and finally made my way to bed. And that was my entire day off. It really does not get any better than that.
Everyone who comes and lives in this part of the world experiences boredom of some kind. It is mentioned through all the colonial literature you can find. (Conrad, Orwell, and Maugham describe it particularly well. Kipling never mentions it) The mornings are usually okay. If there is no school, you can wake up a little later. You can also visit the market, go out to breakfast, or lesson plan while it is still cool out. However, the after lunch period is particularly dreadful. There is nothing worse than slowly realizing you have nothing to do until the hour when you have to go to bed. The sun is strong, and it takes a strong amount of will power not to roll up in the hammock and sleep the afternoon off. Some people like the siesta, but I find it dreadful. I feel tired for the rest of the day, and so I relegate the worst part of the day to studying the GRE’s.
When you settle into a routine, many of the days seem the same. You retreat into the world of books or pirated DVD’s in order to kill the monotony of life. Every couple of weeks, you escape to the provincial town for a little conversation and western food. But even still with this, there are no plays or concerts to attend, no movie theaters to go to, and while going to a bar or nightclub might sound appealing you can only go to a few that are not packed with bored looking prostitutes. Your only real source of entertainment remains chiefly books and DVD’s.
There is nothing that shows you how much your life now is different from your previous one when you talk to people in America. While you have an infinitive amount of time to sit around and swap yarns, they do not. They are Americans! They have things to do, and people to see instead of listening to, “Well this one time in the village…” over the telephone. And it is incredibly frustrating when you realize that.
So how do you keep your mind from going dull? Anything you can. The new arrivals have only just discovered this, and I wish them luck in the weeks and months to come.
It is easy to understand what their situation is like. All people in this situation go through a similar experience. It goes something like this: Imagine for a moment that you are an American living in America. Your life is full of appointments, meetings, presentations, dinners, classes, accompanied by a regular seasonal change and surrounded with friends and family. Suddenly you find yourself in the middle of a small Southeast Asian nation surrounded with unfamiliar people and having none of the things that keep you busy. You also find that life moves at a much slower pace. So what do you do? You can throw yourself into your teaching work, but that is often not the best idea. I did that during my first year, and it really left me too exhausted to anything else. (I am doing much more outside the classroom this year, and I am much happier for it) Apart from work, which may be interrupted by unforeseeable events or holidays for weeks at a time, there is not a whole lot you can do. A lot of volunteers read, exercise, and socialize with people in the market in their spare time, which are good ways to unwind. However, these can only keep you busy for so long. You might wonder what Khmer people do for fun, and why I am not out doing what they do. As far as I can tell, entertainment options in the village for the locals include playing cards, gambling, volleyball, gossiping with neighbors, watching TV soap operas, and consuming huge amounts of rice wine or canned beer. (Sometimes starting as early as breakfast) Since I am good at none of those things, my options are very limited. And so I continually face the prospect of boredom on the onset of a long, hot afternoon.
Consider the example of what I did last Saturday. While Saturday is technically a school day, the Peace Corps largely discourages us from teaching on that day. So it is a day off. I rolled out of bed at something like 8:00. (This is the equivalent of something like 10:45 in American time, way too late) I looked at the pile of laundry near the bathroom door, and said to myself, “No…tomorrow.” Took a bath, dressed, unlocked the door and walked outside into the bright sunshine. From the couple of minutes it took to towel off and walk around, I had already started sweating already. Bought two waffles from the breakfast stand in front of the house and walked down the street to the café. Ordered a coffee and sat down with a book for about two hours. I also started to compose this little letter on the back of some paper I recently found behind my bamboo bookshelf. Mr. Breadman came by at 8:45, and I bought my usual loaf of bread from him. We chatted about the weather. At 11:00 I went down to the market to buy some eggs and tomatoes. The eight-year-old girl who sells them to me always screams with laughter every time I come to buy them, for some reason. Went back to the house and made myself a hard boiled egg and tomato sandwich with a little olive oil I brought back from Siem Reap. The host mother laughed as I sat down at the family table with the sandwich, and asked if it tasted good. We have the same exchange nearly every other day. After lunch I pulled out the GRE book and studied math problems. After this, I went to visit the Guppy Farm for an hour, and started off on a long bicycle ride. Came back at 6:00, showered, dressed, ate dinner, practiced the violin, read a book, took another shower, and finally made my way to bed. And that was my entire day off. It really does not get any better than that.
Everyone who comes and lives in this part of the world experiences boredom of some kind. It is mentioned through all the colonial literature you can find. (Conrad, Orwell, and Maugham describe it particularly well. Kipling never mentions it) The mornings are usually okay. If there is no school, you can wake up a little later. You can also visit the market, go out to breakfast, or lesson plan while it is still cool out. However, the after lunch period is particularly dreadful. There is nothing worse than slowly realizing you have nothing to do until the hour when you have to go to bed. The sun is strong, and it takes a strong amount of will power not to roll up in the hammock and sleep the afternoon off. Some people like the siesta, but I find it dreadful. I feel tired for the rest of the day, and so I relegate the worst part of the day to studying the GRE’s.
When you settle into a routine, many of the days seem the same. You retreat into the world of books or pirated DVD’s in order to kill the monotony of life. Every couple of weeks, you escape to the provincial town for a little conversation and western food. But even still with this, there are no plays or concerts to attend, no movie theaters to go to, and while going to a bar or nightclub might sound appealing you can only go to a few that are not packed with bored looking prostitutes. Your only real source of entertainment remains chiefly books and DVD’s.
There is nothing that shows you how much your life now is different from your previous one when you talk to people in America. While you have an infinitive amount of time to sit around and swap yarns, they do not. They are Americans! They have things to do, and people to see instead of listening to, “Well this one time in the village…” over the telephone. And it is incredibly frustrating when you realize that.
So how do you keep your mind from going dull? Anything you can. The new arrivals have only just discovered this, and I wish them luck in the weeks and months to come.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
The Kahtin
Recently, I went to a dance performance at Wat Char Chouk. It was held as part of a kahtin, a ceremony where an elderly woman, a yaye, offers gifts to monks at the wat. From what I understand, the whole purpose of it is to seek atonement before one's final hours.
The ceremony began as a parade down the main street of town. The people involved assembled at the far end of town, near where the road forks in two. They carried several litters of bananas, cooking pots, and two small dark Buddhas carved from jade. A band of musicians joined, clashing symbols and playing the trou-u. Some dancers dressed as peacocks, and together with the large band walked down the main road under the hot October sun. And where was I in all this? I was quietly watching the crowd go by when a man carrying a heavy litter loaded with metal pots asked that I take over for him. Naturally, I took the weight of the wooden beam off his shoulders, and marched towards Wat Char Chouk. The sweat streamed down from my face, and I fanned myself vigorously whenever we took a break. When we reached the gates of the wat, we circled the vihira twice before setting the litter down and going inside. The atmosphere inside the vihira was rather pleasant, for the high ceiling of the building allowed the heat to evaporate. The cool tile floor and the cross breeze from the windows was also welcome. The gifts were placed in a line in the center of the room, and the monks sat in standard formation around them facing each other. The abbot sat at the head with his back to the altar, and beckoned me over to his position before the ceremony started. He asked when I was going back to America, and lit a cigarette as he lamented about the high temperature of the day. I went to go sit back down next to a yaye, who was chewing betel nut and spitting it into a metal cup. An electric fan was finally brought for the abbot, and the ceremony began. The recitation of prayers began, and the people responded with murmurs and prostration when appropriate. When it ended, people began to go outside.
In the courtyard outside the vihira, a dancing troupe was assembled in front of a small stone Buddha. I have seen Khmer dancing in the villages and on display for tourists, and I rather prefer the experience in the village. The people know exactly what they are looking at, and they respond to the story lines of the dance with laughs and jeers instead of vacant expressions and camera flashes. And how nice it is to see what entertainment was like before drunken, loud karaoke and cell phones! An orchestra of xylophones, bells, a reed instrument, and singers sat in front of the Buddha and played behind the dancers. My favorite dance that I saw was the courtship between Hanuman and a magie.
A magie, as a co-teacher explained to me, is a sort of mythical princess. I suppose it is similar to a nymph, or some minor god in Greek mythology. She made her appearance in a splendid blue costume, with a pointed golden crown and a crystal ball. Her movements were languid, and she weaved her hands through the air as if caressing the sides of an invisible snake. Suddenly, Hanuman appeared in a red costume with golden epilates pointed upwards and a splendid expression on his monkey mask. Hanuman, as you may know, is the king of monkeys. His grin reveals mischief, and is often portrayed as a trickster. After making his entrance, he made advances towards the magie. It may as well have been Zeus chasing after a nymph of some kind, although Zeus seemed to have much more luck on his side that poor Hanuman, for the magie rejected his propositions. The orchestra played, and a monk fiddled with an electric light on a bamboo pole. Hanuman tried to place the magie under his spell by a series of finger movements that pushed her backwards, but the magie countered this and returned him to his original place. The crowd laughed at Hanuman’s humiliation, and the king of monkeys suddenly became very angry. He removed a small wooden axe from his belt and waved it threateningly in the air. His actions seemed to frighten the poor magie. In order to propitiate him enough to calm him down, she offered Hanuman the crystal ball that she held in her hand throughout the dance. As soon as he touched it, he became very tired. While he lay down on the ground to sleep, the magie made her escape. When Hanuman woke up, the magie was no longer there. With his efforts foiled, he too made an exit and concluded the dance.
With the entertainment now over, the abbot thanked the crowd and the dancers for coming as everyone shuffled off to dinner.
The ceremony began as a parade down the main street of town. The people involved assembled at the far end of town, near where the road forks in two. They carried several litters of bananas, cooking pots, and two small dark Buddhas carved from jade. A band of musicians joined, clashing symbols and playing the trou-u. Some dancers dressed as peacocks, and together with the large band walked down the main road under the hot October sun. And where was I in all this? I was quietly watching the crowd go by when a man carrying a heavy litter loaded with metal pots asked that I take over for him. Naturally, I took the weight of the wooden beam off his shoulders, and marched towards Wat Char Chouk. The sweat streamed down from my face, and I fanned myself vigorously whenever we took a break. When we reached the gates of the wat, we circled the vihira twice before setting the litter down and going inside. The atmosphere inside the vihira was rather pleasant, for the high ceiling of the building allowed the heat to evaporate. The cool tile floor and the cross breeze from the windows was also welcome. The gifts were placed in a line in the center of the room, and the monks sat in standard formation around them facing each other. The abbot sat at the head with his back to the altar, and beckoned me over to his position before the ceremony started. He asked when I was going back to America, and lit a cigarette as he lamented about the high temperature of the day. I went to go sit back down next to a yaye, who was chewing betel nut and spitting it into a metal cup. An electric fan was finally brought for the abbot, and the ceremony began. The recitation of prayers began, and the people responded with murmurs and prostration when appropriate. When it ended, people began to go outside.
In the courtyard outside the vihira, a dancing troupe was assembled in front of a small stone Buddha. I have seen Khmer dancing in the villages and on display for tourists, and I rather prefer the experience in the village. The people know exactly what they are looking at, and they respond to the story lines of the dance with laughs and jeers instead of vacant expressions and camera flashes. And how nice it is to see what entertainment was like before drunken, loud karaoke and cell phones! An orchestra of xylophones, bells, a reed instrument, and singers sat in front of the Buddha and played behind the dancers. My favorite dance that I saw was the courtship between Hanuman and a magie.
A magie, as a co-teacher explained to me, is a sort of mythical princess. I suppose it is similar to a nymph, or some minor god in Greek mythology. She made her appearance in a splendid blue costume, with a pointed golden crown and a crystal ball. Her movements were languid, and she weaved her hands through the air as if caressing the sides of an invisible snake. Suddenly, Hanuman appeared in a red costume with golden epilates pointed upwards and a splendid expression on his monkey mask. Hanuman, as you may know, is the king of monkeys. His grin reveals mischief, and is often portrayed as a trickster. After making his entrance, he made advances towards the magie. It may as well have been Zeus chasing after a nymph of some kind, although Zeus seemed to have much more luck on his side that poor Hanuman, for the magie rejected his propositions. The orchestra played, and a monk fiddled with an electric light on a bamboo pole. Hanuman tried to place the magie under his spell by a series of finger movements that pushed her backwards, but the magie countered this and returned him to his original place. The crowd laughed at Hanuman’s humiliation, and the king of monkeys suddenly became very angry. He removed a small wooden axe from his belt and waved it threateningly in the air. His actions seemed to frighten the poor magie. In order to propitiate him enough to calm him down, she offered Hanuman the crystal ball that she held in her hand throughout the dance. As soon as he touched it, he became very tired. While he lay down on the ground to sleep, the magie made her escape. When Hanuman woke up, the magie was no longer there. With his efforts foiled, he too made an exit and concluded the dance.
With the entertainment now over, the abbot thanked the crowd and the dancers for coming as everyone shuffled off to dinner.
Friday, October 30, 2009
The Guppy Farm
I suppose this all started in early June when I purchased a guppy to live in the water tank of my bathroom. Something needed to be done about the mosquito larvae living and breeding in my bathroom, and I was considering several options about how to get rid of them. Larvacide was supposedly easy to get from the health clinic, but getting the right amount in the water tank was tricky business. Too much was dangerous to one’s health, and too little was ineffective. Putting some netting over the tank to prevent bugs from getting in and out was another thing I could have done, but it would have been really hard to keep it from tearing. Luckily, a PCV in the neighboring Pourk district told me that he found a place that sold guppies. I had read that guppies could be kept in water storage tanks to eat the mosquito larvae that breeds in them, so I went to Pourk one afternoon to purchase one.
The shop was a little ways off the national highway, and was hard to find if you did not know what you were looking for. When I finally found it, I met the owner just as he was finishing lunch. I explained that I looking to purchase a guppy, and he smiled as he told me to wait a few minutes while he finished lunch. He was a rather charming man, with large eyes and a propensity to laugh in a way that seemed almost crazy. His dialect was also rather strange, and I maybe understood half of what he told me. When he finished eating, when we went behind his house into the interior of his shop. The entire place was filled with ceramic water containers, potted plants, vines, makeshift ponds, and glass tanks. He kept over a dozen kinds of fish there, and I watched him as he went around and tended to each of them. Finally he asked what fish I wanted to buy, and I picked out one that was inside an empty glass bottle. After I paid, I said goodbye and jumped in a taxi to go back to Angkor Chum.
When I returned home, I started asking around if anybody knew about the benefits of having a fish live in their water containers. Not surprisingly, very few people knew about them. Then one day as I was puttering around the town, I came up with a brilliant idea for a project. I could start a guppy farm at school! Students would be placed in charge of taking care of the fish, and everyone would learn about the dangers of mosquito born illnesses such as Dengue Fever, Malaria, Japanese Encephalitis, and a whole range of others that are just simply awful. We could then sell the guppies we raise, and distribute them to people in the town. Brilliant!
To do this, however, I need help getting water storage containers to raise the fish in. I pitched the idea to the staff of an agricultural NGO named ADRA, which had a branch office in Angkor Chum. The staff at the office told me to talk to the Siem Reap office, which in turn told me to talk to country director of the whole NGO. It was a classic case of, “Oh, you better talk to my supervisor,” all the way until I got the email address of someone who could take responsibility for a project. I promptly wrote him a very nice letter about what I wanted to do:
[To the Director of ADRA,
My name is Adrian Stover, and I am a United States Peace Corps volunteer currently living in Angkor Chum district, Siem Reap province Cambodia. I am writing to you to discuss a project I am developing at Angkor Chum High School. As part of a dengue and malaria prevention and education program, I am working on developing a “guppy farm” located on the grounds of the school. Guppies are currently being used in many parts of Cambodia to control the mosquito populations that spread malaria and dengue fever. The small fish are placed in water tanks, and eat the mosquito larvae that breed in them. This prevents many mosquitoes from maturing into adults, and reduces the amount of mosquitoes in a certain area. This practice has shown to be very effective. According to the August 2007 issue of Health Messenger magazine, “A recently completed study in Trapeang Kong commune, Kampong Speu province, found that adding a few guppy fish to water storage containers resulted in 80 per cent reduction of mosquitoes in the commune.” If this technique was applied to the community of Angkor Chum, it is possible that the same effects could happen and could cause the rate of dengue fever to go down.
What I propose to do is to procure several water storage containers, some fish food, some guppies, and start a “guppy farm” of sorts at Angkor Chum High School. The high school is an ideal location for such a project because it would allow the students to learn about the project. Selected students would be trained on how to take care of the guppies on a weekly basis, and would continue the project long after I finish my term of service. When enough guppies have bred, the school can sell them to students or community members as a way of paying for the food and making money for the school. There is also a spare bulletin board at the school that could be used to display information about the fish, the project, and the benefits of having guppies in the water tank.
I believe that a “guppy farm” project would be a great venture between Angkor Chum High School, ADRA, and The United States Peace Corps. Thank you very much in consideration for my request. I look forward to hearing from you soon.
Sincerely,
-Adrian Stover]
Two weeks went by, and still I heard nothing from ADRA. I was not too distraught because I was working on the World Map project at the time, which was keeping me busy. However, this NGO was one that I really wanted to work with. Through several visits to the ADRA office in Angkor Chum and Siem Reap, I finally tracked down the phone number for the country director. After a few days of trying to get him on the phone, I finally managed to speak to him about the project. He said it sounded very interesting, and said that he would talk to the staff about it.
The following week, I made an appointment to meet with someone who could take charge on the ADRA side. They agreed to donate some concrete water rings, as well as a few posters about Dengue Fever and the dangers of mosquitoes. By the end of the week, I had four concrete water containers in the area behind the school office and some large glossy posters. And so I went about setting up the guppy farm.
The way the current system works is this: There are four water rings in use. Two of them are used for breeding, and the other two are used as a nursery for the baby guppies. The breeding rings contain two female guppies and one male, which invites a snicker from even the oldest person who works at the school. (Maturity levels are non-existent here) When it looks like a female guppy is going to give birth (you can tell by the swelling in her abdomen), she is moved to another ring where she can produce the offspring. After she has given birth, she is moved back to her original ring. The danger in keeping her in the same ring as her offspring lies in the fact that she may be inclined to eat her children. (Nature can be very cruel) Without a system like this in place, the whole purpose of producing guppies would be lost. It took me a little while to figure out what was happening to the baby guppies when they disappeared, but once I figured out what was going on I put this system in place.
Once I figured how a breeding system would work, I recruited six students from one of my English classes to help care for the fish. I held a training session with them during a Thursday afternoon and made a little pamphlet about how to take care of the fish. I explained how the fish needed a bucket of fresh water everyday to replenish their oxygen supply, and we organized a schedule for a different student to do this on each day of the week. One student also volunteered to feed them twice a week.
Right now the students are completely in charge of taking care of the fish, which is exactly what I wanted. Hopefully they will teach others, and this project will continue long after I have left for America. The people at the school have been very supportive of the project, and I think the students really enjoy it. I have posters hung up on the wall near the water rings, so that people interested in learning about the fish can read about them in Khmer. I am also in the middle of building a small garden around the water rings with flowers and gravel walkways. It should be done by the end of the year.
All that’s left for us to do is to figure out how to sell the guppies to people in the community, and for how much. But so far, this is one project I have done that has been more successful than I thought it would be.
The shop was a little ways off the national highway, and was hard to find if you did not know what you were looking for. When I finally found it, I met the owner just as he was finishing lunch. I explained that I looking to purchase a guppy, and he smiled as he told me to wait a few minutes while he finished lunch. He was a rather charming man, with large eyes and a propensity to laugh in a way that seemed almost crazy. His dialect was also rather strange, and I maybe understood half of what he told me. When he finished eating, when we went behind his house into the interior of his shop. The entire place was filled with ceramic water containers, potted plants, vines, makeshift ponds, and glass tanks. He kept over a dozen kinds of fish there, and I watched him as he went around and tended to each of them. Finally he asked what fish I wanted to buy, and I picked out one that was inside an empty glass bottle. After I paid, I said goodbye and jumped in a taxi to go back to Angkor Chum.
When I returned home, I started asking around if anybody knew about the benefits of having a fish live in their water containers. Not surprisingly, very few people knew about them. Then one day as I was puttering around the town, I came up with a brilliant idea for a project. I could start a guppy farm at school! Students would be placed in charge of taking care of the fish, and everyone would learn about the dangers of mosquito born illnesses such as Dengue Fever, Malaria, Japanese Encephalitis, and a whole range of others that are just simply awful. We could then sell the guppies we raise, and distribute them to people in the town. Brilliant!
To do this, however, I need help getting water storage containers to raise the fish in. I pitched the idea to the staff of an agricultural NGO named ADRA, which had a branch office in Angkor Chum. The staff at the office told me to talk to the Siem Reap office, which in turn told me to talk to country director of the whole NGO. It was a classic case of, “Oh, you better talk to my supervisor,” all the way until I got the email address of someone who could take responsibility for a project. I promptly wrote him a very nice letter about what I wanted to do:
[To the Director of ADRA,
My name is Adrian Stover, and I am a United States Peace Corps volunteer currently living in Angkor Chum district, Siem Reap province Cambodia. I am writing to you to discuss a project I am developing at Angkor Chum High School. As part of a dengue and malaria prevention and education program, I am working on developing a “guppy farm” located on the grounds of the school. Guppies are currently being used in many parts of Cambodia to control the mosquito populations that spread malaria and dengue fever. The small fish are placed in water tanks, and eat the mosquito larvae that breed in them. This prevents many mosquitoes from maturing into adults, and reduces the amount of mosquitoes in a certain area. This practice has shown to be very effective. According to the August 2007 issue of Health Messenger magazine, “A recently completed study in Trapeang Kong commune, Kampong Speu province, found that adding a few guppy fish to water storage containers resulted in 80 per cent reduction of mosquitoes in the commune.” If this technique was applied to the community of Angkor Chum, it is possible that the same effects could happen and could cause the rate of dengue fever to go down.
What I propose to do is to procure several water storage containers, some fish food, some guppies, and start a “guppy farm” of sorts at Angkor Chum High School. The high school is an ideal location for such a project because it would allow the students to learn about the project. Selected students would be trained on how to take care of the guppies on a weekly basis, and would continue the project long after I finish my term of service. When enough guppies have bred, the school can sell them to students or community members as a way of paying for the food and making money for the school. There is also a spare bulletin board at the school that could be used to display information about the fish, the project, and the benefits of having guppies in the water tank.
I believe that a “guppy farm” project would be a great venture between Angkor Chum High School, ADRA, and The United States Peace Corps. Thank you very much in consideration for my request. I look forward to hearing from you soon.
Sincerely,
-Adrian Stover]
Two weeks went by, and still I heard nothing from ADRA. I was not too distraught because I was working on the World Map project at the time, which was keeping me busy. However, this NGO was one that I really wanted to work with. Through several visits to the ADRA office in Angkor Chum and Siem Reap, I finally tracked down the phone number for the country director. After a few days of trying to get him on the phone, I finally managed to speak to him about the project. He said it sounded very interesting, and said that he would talk to the staff about it.
The following week, I made an appointment to meet with someone who could take charge on the ADRA side. They agreed to donate some concrete water rings, as well as a few posters about Dengue Fever and the dangers of mosquitoes. By the end of the week, I had four concrete water containers in the area behind the school office and some large glossy posters. And so I went about setting up the guppy farm.
The way the current system works is this: There are four water rings in use. Two of them are used for breeding, and the other two are used as a nursery for the baby guppies. The breeding rings contain two female guppies and one male, which invites a snicker from even the oldest person who works at the school. (Maturity levels are non-existent here) When it looks like a female guppy is going to give birth (you can tell by the swelling in her abdomen), she is moved to another ring where she can produce the offspring. After she has given birth, she is moved back to her original ring. The danger in keeping her in the same ring as her offspring lies in the fact that she may be inclined to eat her children. (Nature can be very cruel) Without a system like this in place, the whole purpose of producing guppies would be lost. It took me a little while to figure out what was happening to the baby guppies when they disappeared, but once I figured out what was going on I put this system in place.
Once I figured how a breeding system would work, I recruited six students from one of my English classes to help care for the fish. I held a training session with them during a Thursday afternoon and made a little pamphlet about how to take care of the fish. I explained how the fish needed a bucket of fresh water everyday to replenish their oxygen supply, and we organized a schedule for a different student to do this on each day of the week. One student also volunteered to feed them twice a week.
Right now the students are completely in charge of taking care of the fish, which is exactly what I wanted. Hopefully they will teach others, and this project will continue long after I have left for America. The people at the school have been very supportive of the project, and I think the students really enjoy it. I have posters hung up on the wall near the water rings, so that people interested in learning about the fish can read about them in Khmer. I am also in the middle of building a small garden around the water rings with flowers and gravel walkways. It should be done by the end of the year.
All that’s left for us to do is to figure out how to sell the guppies to people in the community, and for how much. But so far, this is one project I have done that has been more successful than I thought it would be.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
The Beginning Of The School Year Speech
This is the speech I made last week when the flood water went down enough for the students to assemble in the front yard of the school. I wrote it in English, gave it to my counterpart to translate into Khmer script, and then spent a week wrapping my tongue around it. It went pretty well, although a student in the front row fainted during the middle of it. He seemed okay afterwords when he was resting in the school office, but maybe he had not eaten for a while. It kind of threw me off for a little bit, but I recovered nicely with a joke that my Khmer accent was too strong. Anyway, here is the speech...in English.
I wish to welcome you back to school! I hope that you study hard this year and become intelligent and useful members of society. I am speaking to you today in Khmer for many reasons. First I wish to thank the students who helped create the world map last month. With their hard work, they helped to create something beautiful that the whole community can be proud of. [Hold For Applause]
I have been in Cambodia for fourteen months. I will leave to go back to America in ten months. I will not return to Cambodia for many years. I want my time in Cambodia to be productive, and I wish to help the people of Angkor Chum as much as possible. Because I have only ten months left, I ask that you help me. Study hard in your English classes, come to the events and classes that I organize, and learn from me as much as possible. Many schools in Cambodia do not have foreign English teachers. You are very lucky! Use this opportunity while you still can, and you will be rewarded with knowledge.
Perhaps you have seen the fish in the concrete rings behind the school office. These fish are part of a mosquito control program. These fish eat mosquito larvae, which live in water containers across Cambodia. If everyone had fish in their water containers in Angkor Chum, there would be fewer mosquitos and less disease like dengue fever. I ask that responsible class monitors from grades 10 and 11 help me take care of the fish. We will feed them, clean their tanks, and sell them to people to put in their water storage containers. When I leave for America, it will be their responsibility to take care of the fish. Together we can defeat the evil mosquitoes and destroy disease! [Applause]
I also ask all students to respect the fish. Do not throw your trash into their homes! Respect them as you would respect your own family.
For students who enjoy learning English, I am going to start a new class this year. It will be in the library, and it will focus on reading books. I have many books from America that I want to share with you, and reading books will help you learn English more than English for Cambodia or New Headway books. It will give you new ideas and knowledge. I once met a Cambodian doctor in Phnom Penh. He told me that he was able to become a doctor because he could read English, and he was able to read many books. If you can read many books, you may become a doctor just like him.
In November, after the water festival, I will also try to present a special Cambodian Film Festival for all students in Angkor Chum. With the help of a local NGO, I will present to you movies about Cambodia. Two will be in Khmer, and one will be in English. They will all be about Cambodia. I ask you to come and watch these movies, and discuss them.
As many of you know, I like to study Khmer. However, my Khmer is not very good and I need help learning it. Peace Corps is going to give me a test in Khmer, and I am afraid I will not pass it if I do not receive help. I am looking for a responsible student to help me learn Khmer. I will need to study written Khmer and spoken Khmer. The Peace Corps will pay a certain amount of money each month to a student, if you are responsible and a good teacher. I cannot teach English to this student during these classes, you must be a good Khmer teacher. If you are interested in becoming my teacher, please find me and tell me.
Again, I hope that you have a successful year, and I look forward to seeing you in class.
I wish to welcome you back to school! I hope that you study hard this year and become intelligent and useful members of society. I am speaking to you today in Khmer for many reasons. First I wish to thank the students who helped create the world map last month. With their hard work, they helped to create something beautiful that the whole community can be proud of. [Hold For Applause]
I have been in Cambodia for fourteen months. I will leave to go back to America in ten months. I will not return to Cambodia for many years. I want my time in Cambodia to be productive, and I wish to help the people of Angkor Chum as much as possible. Because I have only ten months left, I ask that you help me. Study hard in your English classes, come to the events and classes that I organize, and learn from me as much as possible. Many schools in Cambodia do not have foreign English teachers. You are very lucky! Use this opportunity while you still can, and you will be rewarded with knowledge.
Perhaps you have seen the fish in the concrete rings behind the school office. These fish are part of a mosquito control program. These fish eat mosquito larvae, which live in water containers across Cambodia. If everyone had fish in their water containers in Angkor Chum, there would be fewer mosquitos and less disease like dengue fever. I ask that responsible class monitors from grades 10 and 11 help me take care of the fish. We will feed them, clean their tanks, and sell them to people to put in their water storage containers. When I leave for America, it will be their responsibility to take care of the fish. Together we can defeat the evil mosquitoes and destroy disease! [Applause]
I also ask all students to respect the fish. Do not throw your trash into their homes! Respect them as you would respect your own family.
For students who enjoy learning English, I am going to start a new class this year. It will be in the library, and it will focus on reading books. I have many books from America that I want to share with you, and reading books will help you learn English more than English for Cambodia or New Headway books. It will give you new ideas and knowledge. I once met a Cambodian doctor in Phnom Penh. He told me that he was able to become a doctor because he could read English, and he was able to read many books. If you can read many books, you may become a doctor just like him.
In November, after the water festival, I will also try to present a special Cambodian Film Festival for all students in Angkor Chum. With the help of a local NGO, I will present to you movies about Cambodia. Two will be in Khmer, and one will be in English. They will all be about Cambodia. I ask you to come and watch these movies, and discuss them.
As many of you know, I like to study Khmer. However, my Khmer is not very good and I need help learning it. Peace Corps is going to give me a test in Khmer, and I am afraid I will not pass it if I do not receive help. I am looking for a responsible student to help me learn Khmer. I will need to study written Khmer and spoken Khmer. The Peace Corps will pay a certain amount of money each month to a student, if you are responsible and a good teacher. I cannot teach English to this student during these classes, you must be a good Khmer teacher. If you are interested in becoming my teacher, please find me and tell me.
Again, I hope that you have a successful year, and I look forward to seeing you in class.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Same Same But Different
I suppose that I am due for an update, aren't I? The truth is that there is nothing really to report. The flood water has gone down enough for everyone to get to the classroom buildings, and classes have started. Mr. Nou and I are again meeting ten minutes before the start of every class to discuss what we are going to teach, and the students are learning in the same steady pace. Yesterday in 11B we discussed transportation in Cambodia: pickup-taxi, motorbike, airplane, remork, horse, bicycle, elephant, water buffalo, that sort of thing. I had the students compose a brief essay that answered the questions,"If you could visit any place in Cambodia, where would you go? How would you get there? What would you do there." A student named Sohpaul asked me if he could get to Battambang by lion. I told him this could only happen if the lion was of the flying kind. Sure enough, his essay began, "I would like to visit Battambang to visit friends. I would get there by riding a flying lion." Genius.
The monsoon rains are coming at night now, which means the rainy season will end soon. The rice has grown very high recently with all the rain, and I'm sure some farmers will have a good harvest. The main road down to the national highway has been washed out in some places, making the journey down there more arduous than before. A taxi ride to go anywhere now is similar to that of a bean being shaken around in a tin can, and guess who's the bean? The mere thought of it renders me immobile. Besides, I just received a giant collection of George Bernard Shaw plays from the floating library in Phnom Penh, and I would rather just plow through those.
Life continues on. I continue to teach and work in the school garden on Saturdays and Thursdays. I have a small project there which I will write about once I have a more complete story. I often wonder how people in America are doing at this time of year, but then I have to remind myself that they are more than likely having busy American lives doing who knows what. They cannot probably imagine that this life is far more interesting and exotic than their own. Exotic, yes, but interesting? You have to understand that when the bizarre becomes familiar, it ceases to be bizarre. For example, I am looking forward to enjoying the start of water festival in a few weeks. Surely you have a three day carnival to celebrate the changing direction of a major river in your country, don't you? But then again, your country has infrastructure. That must be terribly exciting to move around in! Trains, buses, mass transit systems, roads not clogged with cows or goats, what a wonderful image.
But then, who exactly is looking at whom?
The monsoon rains are coming at night now, which means the rainy season will end soon. The rice has grown very high recently with all the rain, and I'm sure some farmers will have a good harvest. The main road down to the national highway has been washed out in some places, making the journey down there more arduous than before. A taxi ride to go anywhere now is similar to that of a bean being shaken around in a tin can, and guess who's the bean? The mere thought of it renders me immobile. Besides, I just received a giant collection of George Bernard Shaw plays from the floating library in Phnom Penh, and I would rather just plow through those.
Life continues on. I continue to teach and work in the school garden on Saturdays and Thursdays. I have a small project there which I will write about once I have a more complete story. I often wonder how people in America are doing at this time of year, but then I have to remind myself that they are more than likely having busy American lives doing who knows what. They cannot probably imagine that this life is far more interesting and exotic than their own. Exotic, yes, but interesting? You have to understand that when the bizarre becomes familiar, it ceases to be bizarre. For example, I am looking forward to enjoying the start of water festival in a few weeks. Surely you have a three day carnival to celebrate the changing direction of a major river in your country, don't you? But then again, your country has infrastructure. That must be terribly exciting to move around in! Trains, buses, mass transit systems, roads not clogged with cows or goats, what a wonderful image.
But then, who exactly is looking at whom?
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