Vlady Fresh

A surprising number of folks have asked what we did for Christmas this year. Here’s the scoop…

On December 15 we had an InnerCHANGE Christmas party at some teammates’ house in Phnom Penh. It was a blast! We sang songs, Anita shared a Christmas devotional in Khmer, we ate delicious food and played all sorts of games. The kids were even given candy canes at the end!

Since Silas is at the age where he might start remembering things, Anita and I decided to be more intentional about developing family traditions. Accordingly, we made the putting up of our Christmas tree on December 16 a big deal. Specifically, we decided to let Silas & Cassia do as much of the setting up as possible. Since the tree is only 24 inches tall though, I thought they might be disappointed. Thankfully, they thought it was the bomb. Maybe they were just thankful it was better than the 18 inch Christmas tree in our office downstairs.

The morning of December 19, a crew of 7 showed up to prepare curry for our Christmas outreach the next morning at the Prison. I never would have imagined how much work goes into preparing food for 700 people. They worked straight through the blazing mid-day heat and into the night. At 2:00 AM I woke up and heard them still working outside. When I saw them the next morning they hadn’t slept at all.

Our staff arrived by 6:00 am on the 20th and everyone pitched in with last minute preparations. By 7:30 we had packed up the truck, motos and car and were off to the prison. Our event consisted of dances, music, short speeches, and an explanation of the meaning of Christmas. Afterward we delivered gift packs (with soap, shampoo, detergent, toothpaste, and toothbrushes) and curry with baguettes to each inmate in their cell. In the very last cell I met an inmate who was 8 years old.

The morning of the 22nd we, along with our friends from Malaysia, boarded a bus for a 10 hour journey to Ratanakiri in North East Cambodia. There we stayed in an Eco Lodge where Anita claims to have seen a six inch spider and where the mosquito nets served to protect us from giant fire ants as much as the mosquitoes. On the 24th our friends gave Silas and Cassia some Christmas gifts. Cassia didn’t know what was going on but Silas was enthralled by his jet plane and phone/car/robot transformer. Aside from that, we spent our two full days in Ratanakiri exploring waterfalls, swimming in Lake Yak Loum, and eating Swedish meatballs, schnitzel and mashed potatoes.

Christmas morning we woke up early, not because the kids wanted to open presents but, because we had to catch the 6:00 am shuttle to the bus station. We boarded the bus by 6:30 and sat down to eat our Christmas breakfast of baguettes and bananas. The ride began with the showing of the only movie I’ve seen that is worse than Zoolander, “The Mad Monk“. That was followed by 8 1/2 hours of Khmer karaoke at the preferred Cambodian volume which is PAINFULLY LOUD. Somewhere along the road we decided to have lunch so we busted out with the Malaysian “Red Meat” jerky. A little later the bus broke down for half an hour and later still I had an episode of diarrhea with the associated cold sweats, dizziness and weakness. Thankfully, I took pepto, had Silas pray for me and felt better within 15-20 minutes.

We arrived home a little before 5 pm. Trakouen, our helper / nanny, prepared pasta for dinner and had baked carrot bread AND banana coffee bread because she was bored while we were gone. God bless her! We ate dinner, put a candle in a cupcake, sang happy birthday to Jesus and then moved on to the gift opening. Silas & Cassia opened up the gifts they received from their grandparents and family in America. Again Cassia didn’t know what was going on while Silas reveled in childhood bliss. Finally, after bathing, we watched “How the Grinch Stole Christmas!” and went to bed.

Every morning our Sunrise staff have devotions, part of which is a reflection on a scripture reading. Last week we read Exodus 8:1-11, regarding the plague of frogs that God brought upon Egypt. As usual, the question was asked, “Meeun avay klah dial jahp arohm?“, which loosely translated means, “Is there anything here that spoke to you?”

Being quite a heavy passage to meditate on in the morning, I wasn’t surprised that our staff were more pensive than usual. After a few minutes of silence one of the house moms spoke up and said, “Am I the only one wondering why this is considered a plague? I mean, come on, it’s free food!”

Laughter errupted all around followed by the swapping of frog recipes. “I REALLY like grilled frog legs! They’re much better than chicken.” “Oooh, have you ever had frog soup, now that’s really good, but you have to know how to make it.” …

A few days ago I sent an update to our prayer supporters sharing about One Laptop Per Child (OLPC). In response, a good friend asked, “I was wondering what you think are the primary benefits of this program and why we should support it. Why not, for instance, support building libraries with computers? It sounds like a worthy cause, but I also wasn’t sure what YOU thought were the reasons why we should support it.”

I’m so glad she asked! Here are 7 reasons why I’m excited about the OLPC program … at least at this experimental stage. Please feel free to critique my arguments since I always appreciate having my thoughts challenged by others.

1. Infrastructure: The OLPC program doesn’t rely heavily on infrastructure. If the web is available, the XO laptops can take advantage of it. If it’s not, that’s fine too. The laptops are able to create mesh networks on their own, without the need for the Internet. So school children can communicate, collaborate, and share without the need for telecommunications infrastructure. They also use nominal amounts of electricity as compared to regular laptops and desktops which will help not to overload already stressed out electrical infrastructure.
2. Environment: Environments like Cambodia severely shorten a computer’s lifespan. This is due in part to the heat, in part to the dust, and in part to insects which love to climb around inside computers. OLPC laptops are engineered with this in mind and are built with less parts, and without the parts that break most often, so they are more suitable for this environment.
3. Theft: If a country is saturated with the same product, it should (hopefully) be less tempting to steal. Typical computers, especially laptops, are very tempting to steal but, if every child in Cambodia has one already, it might be less of a problem. The XO laptops’ unique design and color are also deterrents to theft or redirection into the black market.
4. Pedagogy: Children are natural learners and have an amazing ability to learn by doing and playing. Giving a child their own laptop enables him/her to become comfortable enough with it that they can play with it, tweak it, and learn how it works. I’ve seen the alternative (training adults how to use specific programs like Excel) and it is amazingly ineffective. This method produces automatons who lack intuition for how computers work and are afraid to try something novel with software that they use every day.
5. Liberation: Cambodia is addicted to Microsoft. Unfortunately, it can’t afford this addiction since one legally licensed version of MS Office costs a year’s salary. There is also the ethical problem of piracy. Cambodians are forced to buy pirated software because legal software cannot be found. (I wrote Microsoft to ask them if they had an authorized reseller in Cambodia and they told me the closest reseller was in Thailand.) In addition to the economic and ethical problems with using Microsoft software here, there is a linguistic problem. There is a complete Linux distribution entirely in Khmer but MS doesn’t sell an OS or even a program for Khmer. There are additional technical problems surrounding the typing of Khmer script which I won’t get into here except to say that MS is again holding back the development of computer literacy while Linux would allow it to quickly accelerate. All of this relates back to the OLPC program because the XO laptop uses open source software, which for numerous reasons in addition to those mentioned above, is the only real option for Cambodia’s future.
6. Population: There are only 14-15 million Khmer speakers in the world. Even if most were literate (they are not) and wealthy enough to purchase textbooks (they are not), it would be a challenge to find ways to print teaching materials in a cost effective manner. Using E-books, like the XO, allows for the rapid dissemination of new books, information updates, etc. It also eliminates the economic waste of books ruined due to flooding, consumption by insects, etc. Not incidentally and leading directly into the following point, the small population size makes it a manageable size case study.
7. Ideal Case Study: While there are poorer countries in the world, it’s unlikely that many are less educated or have a writing system less well adapted to computer use. If the OLPC program can produce some quantitatively measurable educational success here, then I think it is fair to say that it could have success anywhere.

Whoa, I’ve convinced myself that this really is a good idea. I’m going to buy an XO laptop today. =)

WARNING: This entry may contain more information than you ever wanted to know about my private life.

Living in a place like Cambodia means that we need to maximize every opportunity we have to spend time in developed countries. Since, by any estimation, Singapore would be counted among the most developed countries, we had a laundry list of tasks to accomplish. The first was medical (I wanted to get “snipped”), the second was academic (I had to take the GREs), the third was social (we wanted to catch up with friends), and the fourth was our desire for a “civilization fix”.

From the start I knew that the getting all of these accomplished was going to be difficult and that some compromises would be needed. The biggest problem was that the hospital insisted that I get snipped at the beginning of my stay so as to have enough time for a one week follow-up appointment.

My troubles began with my first bout of diarrhea the first night in Singapore. The next morning I did my best to hide my diarrhea from the hospital staff for fear that they wouldn’t perform the surgery if they knew I was sick. I was successful and, just 24 hours after landing in Singapore, was snipped. As I rested in the recovery room, reality kicked in and I began thinking, “What have I done? I have to take the GREs tomorrow!”

That night was interesting to say the least. I felt like an elephant had stepped on my crotch and was still having bouts of diarrhea. I was glad when I was finally able to go sleep. I slept remarkably well until about 2:45 when Silas woke up crying inconsolably. I felt his side of the bed and realized it was soaked. After a while Anita figured out that water was leaking from the ceiling. Between one thing and another, I wasn’t able to go back to sleep until after 5:30.

I woke up a bit late, took too long at breakfast, and foolishly took the subway rather than a taxi. By the time I arrived near the test center, I was already 10 minutes late. It took me an additional 20 minutes to hail a cab and get to the test center. When I arrived at the test center, the staff informed me that I was late and made me sign an affidavit of sorts stating that I arrived late due to my own stupidity. They checked my ID and wanted to rush me into the test room but I protested because I felt yet another episode of diarrhea coming on. Thankfully I only had to go to the bathroom once more during the test.

There must a God in heaven because I was able to perform rather well on the GREs despite have a vasectomy 20 hours earlier, struggling with diarrhea, and having a stressful and sleepless night the night before.

When complaining about these events to Anita afterward she reminded that it could have been much worse. She said, “Hey, you were the one who wanted to come here during Ramadan. So in addition to getting snipped, having Big D, and have the water pour from the ceiling while you were sleeping, you could have been dehydrated, hungry, and physically exhausted too!”