Money money money

I forgot to post the link to Wat Opot Children's Fund. Just in case you become tempted to donate to the project while reading this blog, check out:

 http://www.wocf.us/donate/

PayPal and checks are good ways to donate and get a tax receipt!

It looks like we've got about a years worth of music lessons from what we've raised so far, but I'm sure they will need materials and instrument upgrades, not to mention visiting artists. What better way to start your new year than contribute to a brand new, exciting program?!

Too short a visit

Friday, December 21

In the morning, we feel successful about the project and everyone is in a good mood. Xander and I spend about an hour in the jewelry store/art room. The children have been making beaded necklaces, bracelets and earrings for a few years now and have gotten really skilled. They are priced low and we figure we can sell them in the US for a higher cost and help sustain the music program further. We leave the store with $100 worth of jewelry and 2 t-shirts. It’s hard to resist keeping a few for ourselves, made by the children we’d been with all week.

I call James from the office and he is still on board with the project and is already thinking about bringing his own band down to Wat Opot as the first stop on their tour. I’m hugely relieved that there is a future in music at the orphanage after all the work we’ve done over the last few months. Finding James was the last (and probably most important) piece in the puzzle.

Xander and I clean up the instruments and put them away, but leave out 3 ukes and jam on “Imagine” with Ya, who still hasn’t gone to school since his injury. It’s finally time to leave and we say a final goodbye to the children before we board the tuk tuk.

After a brief, but tearful goodbye, we are driving down the noisy and dusty roads of the village with Wayne, who is doing an errand in Phnom Penh today.  He enthralls us with gripping stories of his extraordinary life and his time spent in the Vietnam War as a medic. Arriving at the airport, Wayne thanks us for everything we’ve done, but we are the ones who really feel grateful to have been welcomed into such an amazing community.

Breakthrough Day

Thursday, December 20

I wake up early to tune the ukuleles. They go out of tune every few minutes because of the heat and because they are brand new. I eat my breakfast quickly and prepare for the 8am class. I use a permanent marker to label all the recorders and ukuleles with numbers. The first and second graders come in and we sit them down in the front row, assigning each kid recorder. We are strict about not playing while I teach. It must be hard for them, since most of these youngsters barely speak any English. One boy, who I later found out has attention deficit problems, won’t sit still and when I ask him to put his recorder down, he whacks it hard on the desk. We ask him to leave, and Xander ends up escorting him out of the room. Half an hour later he comes back with Melinda, who makes him apologize. He does so in the Khmer way: hands together touching his forehead. Hopefully, he will learn that he must be respectful of the instruments if he wishes to use them.

Discipline of Sa Oun turned out to be a good example for the others and they are focused for most of the lesson. Teaching recorders to first and second grade proves difficult, as their fingers are tiny. After 20 minutes or so, we listened to One Love and I taught them to sing along, using gestures to teach the meaning of the words. This was enough of a challenge for this group.

Teaching the third and fourth graders is much more successful for a variety of reasons: more English skills, better coordination, attention span (all common developmental trends with American children of this age). I normally teach recorder starting with 2 notes only, using call and response. However, I am determined to teach a whole song today, so I push hard. I show fingerings for GABC by rote, then draw fingerings on the whiteboard. Unlike the younger kids, this group grasps the concept quickly, and are soon playing the notes while I point at the fingerings. It takes a while for them to learn how the song goes, but I break it up into fragments and teach words to facilitate rhythm. I notice that one boy, Davit, is learning very quickly and have him come to the front and play to the class. This clearly fills him with pride and suddenly all the kids want their turn up at the front. Class comes to an end and I write down the notes for them on scraps of paper because they are keen to keep practicing.  They borrow their recorders with corresponding numbers until the afternoon session.

Grade 5 and 6 would be next and I’d teach ukulele. The kids in this group are 10-12 years old, but are the size of my 7-8 year olds back home. Pressing hard enough on the strings proves difficult at first. I write the chord fingerings on the board and am surprised by their lack of comprehension for this chart. Xander and I go around to all the kids and show them the fingerings and they begin to understand. None of the students have any problem keeping a steady beat, which I find interesting.

During lunch, I decide to change the afternoon schedule so that I don’t have first and second graders and instead have more time with the others, who are making progress. I begin the afternoon sessions by explaining that only the very hard workers will have the chance to perform in the concert this evening, to set the atmosphere of high expectation.

For both recorder and uke groups, we review the song, then I split them into small groups to practice, and I tell them to teach and help each other out. I’m interested to see how this will go, as Melinda told me that teachers in Cambodia have no teacher training and therefore don’t use strategies like group work. In fact, most teachers only have 6^th grade education. Starting out in their groups, they mostly just sit there; some practice alone. I intervene and prompt the more talented kids to help the ones having trouble and slowly, the peer teaching begins to take effect.

At 3pm, we are left with about 20 children who are preparing for the concert. This is pretty good given how little time they had and how hard we’ve been pushing them. We gather everyone into the theater to practice. Some older kids are milling around in the hall waiting for dinner. They’re interested in our instruments and try to take a ukulele from one of the kids. After finally getting everyone on stage and focused, this is the last thing we need, and Xander firmly tells him to leave. It reinforces that there is something serious and worthwhile happening here. We have about four run-throughs of the song, then exhausted and more or less satisfied, we tell the kids to put their instruments away and come back just before meditation.

Two kids in particular, Sam Nang and Davit have been working hard all day, and even joined extra classes. We want to reward their dedication, so we get them just after dinner to practice a duet for the end of the performance. At 6:30, some of the kids put on nice shirts for the occasion and come asking for their instruments. Sam Nang is visibly nervous and tells me he doesn’t want to do the duet anymore. I tell Xander to talk to him, since they seemed to have gotten close in the last few days. Xander encourages him and he agrees that it’s just stage fright.

The 15 or so children left in our committed group assemble on stage. They are focused and ready. We have the recorders and ukes play separately at first, which sounds pretty rough. Playing all together gives some semblance of the song; recognizable if you’d heard it before. Some of the kids were laughing because to them, it didn’t sound like much. Melinda stopped them to make a point about how impressive it was that they did this all in one day. At the end, the duet was performed, followed by a huge applause. Pride filled the stage.

After the meditation, Wayne says he has a special song to share and that it would be okay to sing along. It’s Bob Marley’s ‘One Love’. I am touched by the tribute, an appropriate end to the day. Some first and second graders are doing the actions I taught them and singing along. Everyone in good spirits, some of the kids who didn’t have the chance to perform ask if they can learn now and we have an hour and a half session in the classroom before bed. One high-schooler wants to learn the Titanic theme song on recorder, which he plays me on his flip phone. Sam Nang, who has been following us around since we arrived, knows it is our last night and he stays up with us until we go to our rooms. 

A very exhausting day

Wednesday, December 19

This morning, I wake up early before my alarm, at 6 am. I am excited for what the day will offer. Xander has been up for a while already, sipping his instant coffee, waiting for Wayne to get up and administer the medicines. Twice a day, all the kids who have HIV line up to take their anti-retroviral cocktails of between 2 and 4 pills at once. The medicine has been supplied to Wat Opot by the Global Fund, and distributed by Doctors Without Borders since about 2004. The medicine is now being distributed by the Cambodian government.

I wander over to the kids who are getting ready to go to school, in their uniforms and fed. They rise at 6 am each day, and school starts at 7. I join Jenny and Ben (2 of the volunteers) in walking the kids to school, which is just down the road, behind Wat Opot. Srey Maov holds my hand as we walk. Since a child already holds my left hand and I have my water bottle in my right, she takes my bottle into her other hand to free mine up for her to hold. I find this very touching. Her smile is just as luminous as 3 years ago and I wonder if she remembers me.

Back at breakfast, we eat a meal of omelette, ramen and rice and it tastes delicious. Melinda has made strong, black coffee, for which I am grateful. After breakfast, I go get the instruments from my room and take them to the playroom, where Melinda suggests we keep them. There is one key for the outer playroom and another one for the inside playroom and you need one to get to the other. I have the key for the inner playroom only, and I need someone to open the outer door for me each time. I decide to stay put in there for the whole morning, so I don’t have to lock it again.

 Kids begin trickling in. The kids whose teachers don’t show up wander back home and seize the opportunity in the playroom. At first, I get about an hour with 2 high school-aged kids. Ya, age 16, has a split lip with stitches because another boy slashed it with a razor blade he was using for an art project in art class. He claimed it was accidental, during a pretend fight. One of their favourite pastimes is watching boxing on tv when no one is watching them. The culprit was sent away for a few days to show that you never use weapons at Wat Opot. Apparently he has a distant Aunt in the village. He called Wayne asking if he could come home and when he returned, he apologized to Ya and the entire community during evening meditation.

I enjoy teaching Ya and Tao Nang as they pick up chords very quickly. The volunteers join in and soon we are all playing Bob Marley’s ‘One Love’, and ‘Ode to Joy’ together. More of the smaller children come in just before lunch and I am quickly overwhelmed by them reaching to grab the ukuleles and chanting their refrain “me? me?” right into my face, while I try to teach another. I go get more instruments out, but quickly realize that the playroom is not a conducive environment for effective group teaching. They have some fun playing around and I try to encourage peer teaching, but mostly they are interested in exploring the instruments in their own way. Miraculously, nothing has broken or gone missing when I do a check before lunch, and I ascertain that they have passed the durability test. Ukuleles and recorders were a good choice.

Exhausted by lunchtime, I eat, then take a shower for relief from the intense midday heat. The shower is a large basin of cold water, with a bucket you dip into the water and douse yourself with. The sudden, heavy stream of cold water on my head is a shock to my system, but I feel instant relief.

I head back to the playroom and find a bunch of kids watching a movie. They are also hiding from the heat. I gather some plastic cups to try and teach the cup game to anyone who’s interested. It’s a difficult game, challenging the coordination of even my 6^th graders back home. A few of the young kids are the only ones interested in leaving the movie, so I give it a shot. They are surprisingly coordinated and follow me intently. This game would go over really well here and I wish I’d brought some cups with me as I can only find 4 in the kitchen.

I take a new approach and bring a bunch of recorders out to the gazebo. It’s now about 1pm and school starts again at around 2 or 2:30, so there are many children grades 3-6 hanging around. About 10 kids are interested in learning recorder and I line them up in the gazebo. I haven’t tried any organized lessons up till now and I take a stab at classroom management. With Xander’s help, I make them put their instruments away if they cannot listen and take turns. We figure this will reinforce that it is a privilege to be using these instruments.

This works great for a while. We lose a couple of kids who can’t be bothered with paying attention and the remaining 8 are focused and want to learn. It’s going well, until a group of smaller children, ages 6 or 7, come and want to join. I tell them they will have to learn another time since we’ve already started. So, they just sit and watch, but eventually become too distracting and, since we’re outdoors, distractions are unmanageable. The session ends as I let them practice what they’ve learned and I work one on one with some of the talented kids on jingle bells. They go back to school, and I hope I haven’t made them late for class.

At dinnertime I ask Melinda if there is a classroom I can use tomorrow, for more organized lessons. As luck would have it, it turns out that on Thursdays, there are no elementary school classes and I can use the classroom all day tomorrow. It even has a door I can close! Melinda says I can schedule “music school” for the day, hourly and by grade level. This is fantastic news. I schedule the day and announce it at evening meditation. The kids are all excited and take note of their music class time slot.

Grades 1 and 2 recorder	8-9 am
Grades 3 and 4 recorder	9-10 am
Grades 5 and 6 ukulele	10-11am
LUNCH BREAK	11-1pm
Grades 1,2,3	1-2pm
Grades 4,5,6	2-3pm
All together	3-4pm

I am hoping to teach ‘One Love’ and have a performance on Thursday evening. I get ready for bed, feeling excited about a structured teaching environment for tomorrow.

Arriving at Wat Opot

Tuesday, December 18

James arrives promptly at 9:30 am in good spirits. We chat the whole 2 hours and he seems impressed with our ambition and by Xander’s MIT education. He calls us the ‘Double A Team’.  He tells us a bit about SE Asian politics and feels that Cambodia is on the rise. The near 2 hour hot and dusty drive passes quickly.

Wayne, the orphanage director, greets us at the gate with Sam Nang and Sa Oun, 2 children who aren’t at school because their teachers didn’t show up. This time of the year in Cambodia is rice planting season and teachers often need to help out at home in the rural areas. Sometimes they only show up a couple of days in the week.

Wayne seems happy. He’s grown back his hair and beard since my last visit and seems relaxed and happy for visitors. We get the full tour with James. Lots of development has taken place in the last 3 years: new dorms, new craft rooms, a pig pen, more murals.

We eat lunch and I’m pleased to observe James and Wayne getting along as I know this is a prerequisite for his potential future employment at Wat Opot. James and I get out our ukes and start jamming in the gazebo. Kids gather and I see that James shines with the kids…Wayne is also paying attention to this. He teaches them the C chord and practices steady beat. He remarks how quickly Nac Toe (age 8) shows steady beat… “he has the nack!”  We play for about an hour, with kids of various ages coming in and out. The kids are back for their lunch time break from the heat. Finally, James has to catch the bus home, so he leaves after chatting to Wayne about some possible ideas for the music program. At dinner, Wayne says “if anyone can do it, James probably can” and I know he’s in.

The air feels lighter around Wat Opot this time. Melinda, who joined Wayne at Wat Opot in the last 2 years has made a dramatic difference and lightened the responsibility for Wayne. She makes light and cheerful conversation at dinner and there is an air of optimism.

Every evening after dinner, there is a mandatory meditation for everyone. Volunteers sit on stage with Melinda and all the kids sit in straight lines in the theatre. It is a time for daily announcements, then a song is played “Breathe into your quiet center”, sometimes another song of Wayne’s choice and then a few minutes of silence. The whole 20 minute ritual is quiet and most of the kids, ages 2-19, are focused.

After our evening’s meditation, we present the instruments. I open the box and show them how to take them out safely and carefully put them into their cases. I do a recorder demo and get a wild applause. Excitement is in the air! I invite children onto the stage to join in the unwrapping ceremony most are respectful with the instruments. We take the box with all the instruments (12 ukuleles and 20 recorders) to our dorms so we can make sure they’re all together and keep track of them.

Xander and I bring out a couple ukes to sit outside and do some pre-bedtime practicing and see if there are any older kids around. Leak, a 15 yr. old boy, comes with his phone and sings along to a pretty song in Khmer. He has an amazing voice! I remember him well from my visit 3 years ago as a very sweet boy, who always wanted to be near me and spoke excellent English, even then. He apologizes for not remembering me. I’m not that surprised, as Wat Opot gets many volunteers that stay anywhere from a weekend to 9 months. Naturally, his song has the standard 3 chords common to most pop songs, so I can show him how to play it pretty easily. He practices for a few minutes, then loses interest/gets sleepy and goes to bed.

 The older kids here have serious talent, but often don’t take much interest in volunteer programs. They’ve grown up with foreigners coming and going all their lives, so the novelty has worn off. I’m hoping James will have the opportunity to offer a class for the older kids and tap into their talent. Maybe his routine visits will offer them the stability and trust they need.

Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Monday, December 17, 5pm

The air feels good here; less humid than in Bangkok, where we spent a day acclimatizing. We get scooped up by a tuk tuk driver, who drives like a maniac. He’s a real hot rod. We pay $12 for our terrifying 45 minute drive to Madison Music, where we’ve planned to buy the ukuleles. Our driver pulls the classic trick of telling us we only asked to be taken to the street that the shop is on, and we’d need to pay another $2 to get all the way to the actual shop (which ended up being only 2 more blocks). Totally worth it though, not to be dropped off in the middle of nowhere with our heavy packs.

The store owner, Mr. Heng, looks like he’s in his early 20’s and speaks good English, but doesn’t seem friendly. He gets his assistant (maybe his wife?) to help us. The walls are lined with ukuleles and guitars, and we try out a few of their ukes. They have $50 China made mahogany ukes that sound decent and some cheaper ones with Angry Birds painted on them.

 I call James for backup. James Speck is an expat who lived in Singapore for 20 years, and now lives in Phnom Penh, where he works in TV and advertising and teaches ukulele on the side. He tells us he much prefers teaching these days and is thinking about making more time for it. I found James online a few months earlier, by searching for ukulele teachers in Phnom Penh. He has been an enormous help to me in planning the project. He put me in touch with Madison Music, which saved a huge hassle of transporting instruments all the way from America or even Thailand. I planted the seed early on that I was looking for someone to continue teaching music at the orphanage on a regular basis after we launched the program and he’s been thinking about it.

James arrives within 15 minutes of my call. He is surprised to see that we are well on our way to negotiating a good price. He didn’t really know that much about me and I hadn’t told him I’d been in Asia before. He suggests that I get at least a few Angry Birds as beater ukes for the younger kids, and I agree it’s a good idea. I look at some $5 tuners specifically made for ukuleles. Xander gets fully into haggling, which I gladly watch from the sidelines. He’s doing really well for a first time Asia traveler. I see that they aren’t very sympathetic and remember that I haven’t mentioned the cause. I discuss with Mr. Heng that they are for an orphanage in Takeo and that I’m donating them and his entire persona relaxes. He thought I was buying 12 ukuleles for myself. It turns out that he’s involved in similar outreach projects around Phnom Penh and he ends up throwing in the tuners, picks and some strings for free. He even phones his buddy who might know of a music teacher in Takeo Province… he does not.

All said and done, we spend $500, which we feel darn good about! James agrees to join us to Wat Opot in the morning for a day visit. He’ll meet us at our guest house and ride with us on the tuk tuk with Mr. Huit who is now employed as the driver of Wat Opot. Exhausted after our crazy first day in Cambodia, we eat at our guest house and walk to the palace (2 blocks), where there has just been a vigil for the Khmer King. We witness a street fight, and hustle back to our room.

Background to the Project

Since finishing my degree, I have wanted to make a difference through music. I just didn’t really know how or where. I visited the Wat Opot Community (AIDS orphanage) in Takeo Province, Cambodia on a 6-month trip around Asia and saw a lot of potential in the arts, but little resources or know-how.

Finally, in my fifth year of teaching, it struck me to involve the kids that I’m currently teaching at the German American International School (Menlo Park, California) in a music outreach project. This is the first private school I’ve taught at and the kids are very bright and motivated. They do all kinds of community service projects, but often don’t feel much connection or relevance to their lives. By starting a new band program last year, it is apparent the kids are really excited to be a part of something that they can feel enriches their day to day lives. Drawing from their new passion for music, I engaged them in a project that would make a big difference in the lives of others. They learned about the orphanage and wrote letters to the kids. We held a Play-a-thon to raise money to buy instruments and made posters to advocate for our project. Our school community and families raised over $5000 in 4 months. The next step was actually getting to Cambodia.

Flights to Asia are expensive at Christmas time and 2 weeks was not much time to justify 20 hours of travel each way. Also, Wayne suggested that the best time to come would be early December due to their hectic schedule surrounding Christmas. I decided to take off the last 3 days of school so Xander and I could get there and make the most of our time. Another expensive decision, but totally worth it! The first week of our trip would be dedicated to Cambodia and the project, then we’d still have almost 2 weeks to relax and climb in Thailand.