Well, if I didn't have this darm dissertation to finish, there is a lot more I could be doing, especially this weekend! Today is the Photowalk, which is this really cool concept where people get together on the same day in different cities all over the world, walk around, and take pictures. Here is a link to the website in case anyone wants to learn a little more about it: http://worldwidephotowalk.com/. I wasn't able to sign up for the one in Phnom Penh, but I knew someone who was. So, I was going to meet them at the riverfront and take pictures along there for a while and then go to the Central Market, which I haven't been to yet. I really wish I could do all of that, but I HAVE to get this last chapter of my dissertation finished this weekend. And, I am trying to squeeze in a drumming performance at Sovanna Phum tonight, and then there is the lecture series at Monument Bookstore tomorrow. Sigh!
Now, to go back in time a little....
On Thursday I went to the fabled Street 240, which is right next to the Royal Palace. It was a trick getting there because the moto driver didn't know the Royal Palace (in English), so I had to figure out the words in Khmer. It was something like wiang (I know that is not spelled right!). Once there, I met someone at a tailor called Friends International, which helps train poorer people how to sew and do tailoring work. She picked up a dress that she had made, and I dropped off my fabric to have made into a dress. We will see how it turns out! I hope it looks okay because the fabric was expensive!!! It was $30 for 3 meters, which I know is a lot. But, I really really liked it and it was helping a good organization, so I don't feel very bad about it. The dress itself will only cost $15 to have made, and that money goes to a good cause, too. I just hope it turns out okay because the fabric is really nice, and I would like to be able to wear it! Oh, and we just brought in pictures of what we wanted and they figure out how to make it. How cool is that?
From there, we walked up the street a bit to someone's store. It actually is a very interesting story. This person was here on a Fulbright last year and was studying traditional fabric and sewing techniques (or something like that). Then, just a week ago, she opened her own store on Street 240. I am not sure if it was part of the initial plan of the Fulbright project, or if it was something that just evolved over time. Everything in the store is made from recycled or organic (maybe??) materials, and she hires local people at fair wages to do all the work. She is leaving in a week or two to go back to the US and someone here will be running the store. She will just come back a few times a year to check on everything. Isn't that neat? I can't remember the name of it right now, but I'll include it later!
On that same street I stopped in this really neat quilt store called Mekong Quilts:
http://www.mekong-quilts.org/. Like almost every other store targeted at visitors, it is designed around a good purpose - to teach poor women in a certain province how to sew and quilt and allow them to earn a living for their families. Though it might seem weird that so many places do this (just seem to offer skills and a job), that really seems to be what is needed here. There are a lot of stores and jobs and people doing things, but there also are a lot of people who just seem to sit around or try to earn money selling a few things, but can never sell enough to really earn any money and change/improve their position. So, in a sense, just offering jobs like this is a needed opportunity for many people. I would imagine that it especially is so in the provinces where most people are farmers. And rice farming looks like a pretty intense job....
Back to the quilt store, they have AMAZING quilts!!!! The king size ones are around $170 and the queen around $160, and they are beautiful. They also have a lot of baby-sized quilts for $50, and yes, I bought one. Not for a baby, but just because it is so nice. It has these little scenes of traditional, rural life on it, and I love it! It was a lot of spend on something, but it was very nice and definitely much less expensive than anything like that would cost in the U.S. And, it was all hand quilted whereas in the U.S. so many of the things are quilted by machine now. Besides, after making that one baby quilt for one of my friends (and looking forward to making another one when I get home from Cambodia....), I certaily can appreciate a nice quilt! I think I would have charge around $50 for my quilt, and it was nearly this nice or intricate! There is another quilt I am thinking of getting (queen size).
Not this color scheme, but the style is just so pretty. We'll see. I have some time to decide (of course there is one with the colors there right now that I like!).
After the shopping, I headed back to the dorm. Instead of having the advanced class in the evening, I invited a few guests to the dorm. Two people who go to college with my sister are in Cambodia this summer working a project. One of them is from the US and the other is from Cambodia, and they stopped by to tell the girls about what they are doing and, especially, how the one person was able to go to a college in the United States. I think it was interesting for them, and it was nice to hear about their project. They were travelling to the provinces and telling high school students how to apply to college in the US, and they had published a book that the one from Cambodia had translated from English (about the struggles of a rural girl to attend college - placed in Thailand but the same story for girls in Cambodia). He left 5 copies of the book with the dorm, which was very generous!
Sheesh, I am sorry I don't have pictures for any of this! You'll just have to read all of the text for now. I don't even have any pictures to put up later for this section!
Friday:
Yesterday I really just stayed around the dorm and worked on my dissertation. For the last three days or so, I have been waking up with a sore throat and needing a nap pretty early in the morning, so that has been slowing me down a bit. Still, I was able to take notes on a lot of articles and add a few more pages to my chapter. In the afternoon, I did go with one of the girls to the Russian Market so that I could get the sequal to the Fantastic Four - the girls loved the first one and really wanted to see the next one. I also got Bolt because it is just an awesome movie! Maybe I will even bring that one home with me. We'll see. After some more work on my dissertation, I had class withthe intermediate students and then had the advanced class. I also looked up some online study materials and practice tests for the IELTS and TOEFL, GRE, GMAT, MCAT, LSAT, and GRE and sent all of that to everyone in the dorm. I am not sure how they will be able to take the required standardized tests in the US in addition to the English exam and prepare their applications all in time for a December deadline. I am trying to encourage them to look at schools in Australia and England and other places that only require the English exams. I just hope that something works out for all of them because they are so smart and have worked so hard!!!
Awww, as I am sitting here typing this, one of the girls brought me this thing with coconut and beans that I like. We were trying to find one at the Russian Market yesterday and couldn't. Yay! I am going to eat it now!!
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