Observation Trip to Cambodia's Northwest I am working with the Cambodian Disabled People's Organization (CDPO) as an advisor for their deaf programs. To learn more about what is going on out in the field, away from their main office in Phnom Penh where I spend most of my time, I went to Banteay Meachey Province, in northwest Cambodia near the Thailand border. It was a four-day trip and was quite an experience! Come back here to get more information and comments on Banteay Meanchey, CDPO's work there, and the travel itself. There's a lot I want to say and quite a few photographs I'd like to post here so it will take a few days for the full report.

Monday, 5 March 2001 Sinoun, a hearing interpreter and teacher of the deaf, and Narin, a young deaf woman, and I went by taxi to Sisophon in Banteach Meanchey Province which is in northwest Cambodia, near the Thailand border. National Highway 5 goes from Phnom Penh through Battambang, then to Sisophon, and then on to the Thai border. It is the major land route into Cambodia, traveled daily by huge double-bottom trucks bringing all sorts of goods from Thailand and chewing up the road in the process. This picture shows a section of NH 5 to give you an idea of the state of the infrastructure in Cambodia. This is one of the sections which I would describe as partially paved, a label that would fit about 40% of the highway. Another 40% is not paved at all. The other 10% is actually in pretty good shape although it has no lines, no culverts, no signs, etc. The day did not start auspiciously. I was told to meet the taxi at the CDPO office at 6:00 AM, but when I arrived the guard was just waking up and there was no sign of the others. They showed up at 6:40 AM, but it turned out we didn't leave until 8:10. Never did find out why. They had told me there would be three of us plus the driver in the taxi, a Toyota Camry, for the 180-mile trip, but when we did leave the office, we drove to Central Market where the taxis operate from, and we picked up two more people! The taxi drivers are known for their kamikaze style and the roads are unbelieveably bad so it was not a pleasant trip. We stopped for lunch at dusty--I mean REALLY dusty!--set of roadside stalls after a couple hours. At that point all the rules they tell you in orientation about not eating from dirty plates, not eating the ice, etc., all go out the window. Later in the afternoon, there was a stop on a lonely stretch of road for a bathroom break, and there I saw my first landmines in the wild. The one pictured here was marked but was deteriorated so that it was no danger. Several more marked mines in the area were a grim reminder to look closely when going into the bushes to pee. I made a point to look for water buffalo tracks and tried to step where they had gone first. We finally arrived in Battambang at 3:15 PM, let out the other two passengers, and then the three of us from CDPO kept on going to Sisophon, closer to the Thai border. It took another 1¾ hours to get there so altogether we traveled about nine hours to cover about 200 miles. At the end of the trip each person is exhausted and literally bruised and battered from banging against the windows and frame of the car as we bounced through what looked like bomb craters for most of the trip.

Tuesday, 6 March 2001 Today started off in Sisophon in a restaurant full of government officials and NGO workers eating breakfast. A common practice in Cambodia is for bureaucrats to check in at the office and then go to a restaurant for breakfast for a couple hours. Then we went to the CDPO office near our hotel to await the deaf people coming for their once-a-month literacy class. There were no deaf schools in Cambodia's history until three years ago so almost no deaf person over nine or ten years of age has ever been to school. CDPO come to Sisophon one day a month to teach the alphabet, some vocabulary, some phrases, and some numbers to about 15 deaf people, mostly children. This picture shows the deaf students gathering outside for the national anthem. Click here for more photographs of the deaf classes in Sisophon. Scenes from a day in the life of Sisophon Deaf children and adults learning in a once-a-month class Some sort of procession passing the CDPO office. These musicians were followed by more costumed people wearing antlers. Most houses and buildings in Cambodia have spirit houses, places where the spirits who originally owned the land can now live Sisophon is incredibly, permanently dusty. A major form of transport is horse carts. Next door to the CDPO office is a private tutoring center, just benches set in a dusty shed Across the street from the CDPO office, several young men worked in a steel fabrication shop