The Baker Evens jumped into their "new" 1988 blue Corolla, packed their belongings into a large moving truck, said good-bye to Phnom Penh and made the 4-hour journey to Kampot, our new home.
Looking Back
August 9 - Chris' thesis defense has been postponed until further notice. Two hours before I was to defend my thesis I received a phone call from my advisor saying that one of the defense panel had made comments regarding my paper that the rest of the panel did not understand, and that he was away at a funeral so he couldn't be asked for further clarification. So my defense is on hold. I'm pretty sad about this. I was very much looking forward to defend and celebrate with my class-mates the end of our studies. The good news is it is now tentatively planned for Oct 6.
August 9 - 12. The Christians for Social Justice hosted almost 60 community leaders so they could come to Phnom Penh to address their complaints of forced eviction and land grabbing with a number of key government ministries. Samantha and I hosted 16 people from 2 different communites. One, a fishing/forestry village that is at risk of losing valuable forest resources because of land development, and another village
that was horribly evicted by military police several years ago. I wrote a reflection for the Sojourners web blog here (http://blog.sojo.net/2009/08/14/10919/).
August 11-19. Mark Smith, the Executive Director of InnerChange (also former Cambodia team director) visited us. This was the first time in a year he'd visited Cambodia. We travelled down to Kampot to show him where we'd move to and let him get a better feel for our vision for moving to Kampot.
August 24-25. I (Chris) attended the first of a series of four workshops on Conflict Coaching. This session was devoted to understanding a model of reconciliation and some practical skills for coaching people or communities towards reconciliation using Marshall Rosenberg's work on nonviolent communication.
August 26th. We (finally) moved to Kampot. We, and team mate Hayden Sewall, packed all our belongings into two moving trucks and headed down National Road 2 to Kampot. Preparing the house has been a lot of work - we're painting the interior, and as Isaac has a love for water we've fenced all the way around the house to keep him from jumping in the many deep ponds that surround us. Kampot itself is a welcome relief from the urban dust-bowl of Phnom Penh. We are surrounded by rice fields, hills, mountains and rivers, and the ocean is just 20 minutes drive away.
As I write, it's been raining for 4 days straight and now our house is flooded in the kitchen and bathroom. The water has risen at least one metre over the last four days, much more closer to the river!
August 31st. I began “meeting” with a personal coach via internet phone to help me develop a clear work plan over the coming months. I'm particularly working on interviewing key organisations and communities in Kampot. So far we've “met” twice and it's already helping me keep to task, despite the craziness of moving house.
September 4th. I met with the local community infrastructure organistion Samakhuem Theang Thnaout or STT for short. Over the coming months I will meet with different groups and individuals here in Kampot particularly working on land rights issues. It is striking just how few organisations there are compared to the capital city.
Looking Forwards
Over the coming weeks and months I will be interviewing NGO's, networks and communities to better understand Kampot (city and province) and see how I can best support their work for land and natural resource rights.
Samantha is hopeful of connecting with other young mums and join a play group. There is a rumour of a pre-school starting later next year, which is very exciting. In the mean time she is also researching home schooling options for Patrick to start Prep at the beginning of next year.
Samantha continues to support the Sunrise project in Kompong Cham. It is now another 3 plus hours away, so it will take a good 5 – 6 hours to visit from Kampot. However, board meetings will mostly be in Phnom Penh making it easier.
All the team have arrived to Kampot. We are each busy setting up house and finding our place in Kampot, weathering 5-day rain storms and floods. Kampot is stunningly beautiful and I think once the water settles down we will be very glad to be here. We are looking forward to discovering God's plans for us as a team here. There are a number of lifestyle issues we need to settle – how to buy meat at the local market. We can't stop by the Thai/Western supermarket any more. Meat is hung on a hook and the seller cuts off whatever you want. Also, getting out cash is more complicated than we hoped. None of the ATMs work on our cards so we may need to set up a regular wire. Little things like this that take up time before we can really feel totally settled.
September 21-22. Chris will attend the second module of the Conflict Coaching seminars in
Phnom Penh.
September 24 – October 3. Chris will travel to Malaysia to attend training on a tool called Responding to Peace Practice developed by Mary Anderson and colleagues. He hopes to use this tool in his work in Kampot, particularly as an analysis tool to see how well a project or activity is really achieving it's aim for building peace. This trip is fully covered by the peace network Action Asia and in return Chris will be secretary at their leadership meeting following the training.
We also plan to work out how we 'do church' in Kampot. There is no English-speaking congregation in town, but many Khmer-speaking churches. The Catholic church holds a time of meditation at 6:30am each morning and we have chatted with some new friends about maybe meeting together for prayer and bible study. Of course, our team continues to meet regularly for prayer, planning, and supporting each other.
Well, this has turned into a much longer 'in brief' than originally planned. Partly because I'd left so much time since the last one as packing up for Kampot took all our attention and time. We appreciate you being on the journey with us!
Peace,
Chris Baker Evens.
September 21-22. Chris will attend the second module of the Conflict Coaching seminars in
Phnom Penh.
September 24 – October 3. Chris will travel to Malaysia to attend training on a tool called Responding to Peace Practice developed by Mary Anderson and colleagues. He hopes to use this tool in his work in Kampot, particularly as an analysis tool to see how well a project or activity is really achieving it's aim for building peace. This trip is fully covered by the peace network Action Asia and in return Chris will be secretary at their leadership meeting following the training.
We also plan to work out how we 'do church' in Kampot. There is no English-speaking congregation in town, but many Khmer-speaking churches. The Catholic church holds a time of meditation at 6:30am each morning and we have chatted with some new friends about maybe meeting together for prayer and bible study. Of course, our team continues to meet regularly for prayer, planning, and supporting each other.
Well, this has turned into a much longer 'in brief' than originally planned. Partly because I'd left so much time since the last one as packing up for Kampot took all our attention and time. We appreciate you being on the journey with us!
Peace,
Chris Baker Evens.
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