Cokoon in Cambodia

Back from the Back of Beyond

2007-09-18T20:57:00.000-07:00

I'm back from the Wild East, and very happy to be back in the city (even though I was very happy to leave it five days ago!) I think I am a city boy at heart now, though I was brought up in the country, so now if I spend more than a couple of days in small, remote places, I start to get withdrawal symptoms.

It was also a pretty tiring, though very successful, four days of meeting people, visiting villages and NGOs, and being bumped, battered, baked on the back of motorbikes. The roads in Rattanakiri are rather poor.

I think I met most of the missionaries in Banlung, quite a few of them in one to one meetings, then I got to meet the rest at the Saturday evening regular missionary gathering, which was a very pleasant affair that included a few worship songs I've never heard of before (which is always fun), an internet radio sermon from John Piper (author of desiring God), and then some cake and chinwagging afterwards.

The main outcome of my many meetings and much question asking is that I think it would be possible, and of benefit to the communities, to design a range of stuff that uses the traditional woven fabric of the different ethic groups in Rattanakiri (which have exotic names like K'vet and G'jok), and the next step is to sort out my ideas for what kind of stuff could be made, and follow up some leads with some people I met who could be good suppliers of the fabric. There's also someone, one of the missionaries' wives, who might be interested in taking on the whole of my main contact who can follow up these leads and maybe design some stuff as well, but that's just a possibility at the moment. Either way, I feel like I achieved about as much as I could in the time I had (which was two days more than I initially planned), and we'll have to see what develops from here. There'll be some photos of the trip going up on facebook soon, plus do take a look at the Hill Tribe fabric album if you can, which will have some additions soon, and let me know which of the designs you like best and any ideas you have for what could be made with these fabrics...

...I'm finishing this off a couple of days later. It's Wednesday, and I haven't really had a day off for 10 days, so I'm gonna take it easy today, perhaps with a very long solo lunch in the air conditioned and pleasant surrounds of Cafe Yejj.

Time is ticking away, only 10 days left, so I need to focus my efforts now on building relationships with the 4 or 5 groups I might be building a long term business relationship with, and I need to get all the samples, photos, and info from them I need before I leave. 10 days should be enough though, it doesn't feel too rushed.

And I'd better get on with all that now...a rather short blog this time I know, but the photos are more fun anyway, so keep an eye on my facebook profile, as they'll be quite a few more going up over the next few days.

Bye for now,

Dan :o)

More Shennanigans

2007-09-09T23:35:00.000-07:00

It's been another brilliant week learning about lots of different stuff. I haven't got long to write the blog for this week (I've gotta go with my friend Haley to a party at her house with the family she's staying with to save her from a certain Cambodian chap who's taken a fancy to her). So I'll just have to quickly tap out some of the highlights.

I had a great meeting with the two co-managers of Rajana handicrafts on Thursday, where I got to see around their workshops in the Phnom Penh office and learn a lot about the history and ethos of Rajana. It was started by South-east Asian Outreach (SAO), a missionary and development group set up in Cambodia several decades ago (not sure when exactly, I intend to find out), and from it's humble beginnings in 1994 it has now become one of the most well-established fairtrade organisations in the Cambodia. It has been fully independent of SAO since 2000, and is fully k'mai run, with a mix of Christians and Buddhists working happily together (for example the female co-manager Nimul is a Christian, while the male co-manager Sabay is a devout Buddhist). So it's quite a different animal to In His Steps, an explicitly christian and church-based ministry run by a missionary couple, but is still a group I would like to work with, as God is definitely at work there in what seems to be a very inclusive and supportive work environment

Rajana makes an impressive array of products, and works with many families out in the provinces who produce a lot of the products that Rajana sells. This week I'll be making a trip to Ratanikiri, Cambodia's Wild East, where the roads are terrible, elephants roam the hills, numerous hill tribes speak numerous different languages, and, joy of joys, it actually gets cold at night! Rajana a few producer groups out there, some of which are hill tribe groups weaving their traditional fabrics which Rajana uses for many of its products, including some rather cool trousers which I've bought some pairs of, and am interested in sourcing from them, as long as there is a market for them in the UK! I've uploaded some photos of the hill tribe patterns onto Facebook (under Hill Tribe Fashion), and photos of the trousers style I'm talking about, so any comments would be much appreciated.

Another highlight of this week was my first proper trip out to a Cambodian village (I can't believe I never did this when I was here last!) My friend Tola, who was working for the Cambodian Labour Organization when I was here last, invited me to come with him to Silk Island on Saturday and visit his step brother and step sister and their families out there. Once we got there (which involved a boat ride to the island which is in the middle of the Mekong river, and much bumpy motorbiking), I spent most of the time just sitting around and not understanding much of what was being said, but it was a visually fascinating trip at least, even if I had a play the passive smiling foreigner most of the time, a role I'm fairly used to. We took a stroll round the village, met some of the silk weaving families and watched them at work, met many smiling children (who found me well worth staring at of course), and even came across a rather incongruous party tent complete with pumping music and middle aged Cambodians dancing around a big table. Couldn't quote work out what that was about, but we decided to move on fairly quickly (it was way too hot for dancing) before the beckoning (and arm tugging!) ladies could draw us in. Anyway, enough said, I think, I'll let the photos (Cambodia Village album on Facebook) speak for themselves.

I know that's only two highlights I've given, but sadly I've run out of time already. The quick summary of the rest if that it's all going really well, and God is continuing to bring things together in a most impressive way. There's also been plenty of food for thought as I've been listening to different people talk about their experience of Khmer culture, of the church here, and of the challenge of doing holistic mission in this country. The big prayer request for this week is that my trip to Ratanikiri (from Weds to Sat) goes well, and that I get the many things I have to do before Weds (including getting the designs for the silk tops to everyone who might be able to make them) done.

Thanks to all of you who've been reading this blog and supporting me in your prayers. It's great to know there's people praying for me back home.

Dan :o)

Life in the Penh

2007-09-03T21:05:00.000-07:00

I'm coming to the end of another jam-packed day of meeting people, learning loads, and taking copious notes so I don't forgot it all.

Once again, God orchestrated my meeting just the right people without me having to do much at all. At 10:45 this morning as I was settling down on the sofa to do the things I'd planned for the morning, Alison (I'll explain who she is later) mentioned that she was just about to go and visit Jinny and Eric, who are missionaries who as part of their ministry have a fairtrade business, selling stuff through people who come on short term placements and then take stuff back with them to sell. Just the kind of people I'm looking for, I thought, so I ditched my morning plans and went along with her.

I'm so glad I did. Jinny an Eric's ministry, called In His Steps (http://www.in-his-steps.org/), seems fantastic, and just the kind of group I've been looking to work with and source from. They have a bewildering array of different products, a lot of them made from the recycled rice bags like some of the stuff from Hagar Design that I currently sell. I've set up a Facebook album of the collection, so look up the In His Steps Collection if you'd like to take a look, and please let me know what you think of them, I'd like to get as many opinions as possible about what would and wouldn't sell in the students/young adults market.

I'm hoping to have an opportunity to join Jinny and Eric in some of the work they do with orphans, widows, HIV/Sufferers, and many other poor and social outcast groups, to learn more about how they work to meet people where they are at, serving them practically and faithfully, and sharing Jesus with them when they're ready to hear. It's also great to hear that they are really committed working with the local k'mai church where possible (they recently baptised 27 new believers and have connected them with their local k'mai church), and also that they focus their time on training up a core group of cambodians who then go out and minister to their own people.

Anyway, I'd better leave some space to talk about other stuff...like where I'm staying. Another sweet piece of divine provision, I had a number for a lady called Connie who responded to my request I put out on the ICFinfoflow (an info loop for the church I was at when I was here before). But that number wasn't working when I arrive, so I ended up staying with missionary friends of my friend Haley (who I met when I was here in Cambodia last, and who is here now as well) for a couple of days, while I found somewhere else. Then I get an email from a lady Ruth, who had a spare room, and that's where I am now :o) Ruth is the founder of Daughters, an unique NGO that is doing something rather amazing, providing a day centre where women who are working in the brothels can come to relax, receive health care, and get vocational training so that they can, if they choose to (and are able to) leave the brothels and work with Daughters in either their sewing, jewelery making, or iced flower making projects. Many people told Ruth that this kind of model couldn't work, the brothel owners would never accept it and would have her killed etc. But it has worked, and God has provided in some pretty miraculous ways. Check out the website http://www.daughterscambodia.org/ if you wanna know more. I'll be visiting the centre at last tomorrow, so I'll have plenty more to say in my next posting.

There are many other people I've been meeting, and many more that those people have said I should meet, one contact leads to another and another :o) I won't bother mentioning all of them, suffice to say that it's all going really well, and the main problem is just finding time to process all the information and prioritize all the people I could meet and places I could go.
I'm also really enjoying relearning k'mai (their word for their language and nationality, tho internationally they are either Khmer or Cambodian), me and Haley are having lessons with an excellent teacher, and I've got a great textbook to work from, so this time I'm doing the whole thing a lot more efficiently than last time! I think having learnt a couple of other languages in the last few years has really helped to, they say the more languages you learn the easier it is to learn another one.

As for my general feelings about being back here, it's a bit hard to process really. In one way it all feels quite unreal, because I've just dropped in out of the sky, and then I'm flying out again in a month. It just seems too easy, traveling is meant to be rougher than that, at least it was last time around. But this time I'm here as a businessman, not an ex-student in search of a home and a calling. The familiarity of it all is quite strange as well, like a big box with all the sights, sounds, and smells of Phnom Penh was sealed up in my head the day I left on the 27th of December 2004, and was opened again as soon as I stepped out of the airport.
But although it's familiar, I am very much the outsider. You feel your foreignness here more than anywhere else I've been. I don't know how much I'll be able to penetrate through that barrier in this short space of time and get a clearer understanding of the world through their eyes.

Anyway, I'd better wrap this up for now. I got some more thinking, praying, and planning to do before it's time to sleep then get up for another intense day in Phnom Penh.

Bye for now,

Dan :o)

2007-09-02T21:05:00.000-07:00

Here's a few photos of me and my people. The first two are from Ruth's little Elim Pentecostal church that I went to last Sunday, with a very jolly Northern Irish pastor called John.

Bottom left is Alison (from the UK!), who is interning with Daughters, and Chantu, Ruth's adopted daughter.

And finally, a comedy shot of me, one of my favourites cos it kinda looks like I'm melting...just one of my many supernatural powers...

I've arrived!

2007-08-28T06:31:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone,

It's good to be back. Phnom Penh is still really hot and really smelly, but now there is even more traffic and insane driving. Some of the roads a like a hot, stinky, organic flow of motorbikes weaving and honking, and occasionally crashing (just coming back from the airport we got held up because someone had just been hit and was lieing in the road. Fortunately his friends had enough to pay the ambulance so they would take him to hospital. Not many things are free in this country)

But as I was saying, it's really good to be back. I'm still in that dazed state, just soaking it all up again. Today me and my friend Haley received a comprehensive and fascinating tour of several of the projects and businesses of Hagar (www.hagarinternational.org), an NGO that does amazing work rescuing and restoring vulnerable and exploited women and children. It's great what kind of treatment you get if you're a potential business client :o) I'll be going back to their clothes factory later on in my trip to see if they could produce a range of silk clothing for Cokoon (designs courtesy of the one and only Jemma Ewins)

Tomorrow I'll hopefully be getting myself a digital camera, if I can summon the courage for an epic haggling match in the central market :o) Then the stream of photos can begin, some of which will no doubt be appearing on this blog.

So do come back and check this blog in a few days. I'll be posting a written summary of what I've been up to at least once a week, plus photos uploaded as and when.

Prayer requests are:
That God weaves everything together so I meet all the people I'm meant to meet. Things are coming together nicely, so please pray that this continues.
That I don't get to hung up about relearning the language, since I know I'll be tempted to. There's only so much you can learn in a month, and there are always translators and cambodians who know english available. My main focus must be on meeting people, learning from them, and making connections.
That I don't get too busy. I need time to soak in God's presence every day.

Peace be with you all,

Dan :o)