Wednesday, November 23, 2011

How to Drive a Car in Phnom Penh (Part II)

"The traffic code is aiming to provide the prestige and effectiveness regarding to protect the traffic safety, keep public orders/security of the national society, prevent the public properties, lives and advantages of people and State from eventually damages. Globalization, is targeted to educate all people to obey the rules and mobilize them to share in strong opposition to the guilty acts which will breach to the traffic regulations."

Have you ever heard anything crazier?

I think not.

This was on the first page of my little driving manual, right under "the purpose" (as if there needed to be a purpose for a driving manual). This darling booklet included four pages of "rules," four pages of signs, six pages of diagrams, and five pages explaining car parts and various dashboard lights. The English is horrible. Many of the rules and explanations don't even make sense. I rediscovered this when cleaning out recently. I acquired my license in July. It was almost worth coming to Cambodia, just for this experience.

I finished drivers ed in April. However, because of scheduling and visitors, it wasn't until July, I presented myself to my driving school and announced my intention of passing the test. I was given this manual and a photocopy of the written road test, and told to memorize it. This was exam prep, Khmer style. So for about a week, I laid on the cool tile on my apartment floor and memorized the eight page test.

The following week, I drove my moto 45 minutes north of the city to a random outpost where driving tests are administered (ironic that I would have to drive myself so far north, given the reason). I wasn't entirely sure what to expect. One never knows. Asking for specifics is ludicrous. I finally located a Korean looking man, and followed him, knowing I needed to find other foreigners. I was one of three non-Asian in a group of 30 foreigners. We were herded into a room and given the written exam. It was about 80% of what I had memorized. I was the first one done in under five minutes. After waiting over an hour for the result, I was informed that I had failed.

Having failed, I could not take step-two, the road test. I was honestly baffled. No matter how scores were weighed, it seemed unlikely I had failed it considering I had memorized 80% the answers. I suspected this is the step where one greases hands. But I was too proud for that. Maybe I can't drive, but I can memorize.

So I went back the next week, driving in the pouring rain 45 minutes north to this random outpost. There were only about 15 other foreigners this time, including a very old American guy with his super young Khmer "lady-friend." This time, the test was exactly the same as the one I had committed to memory, word for each horribly translated English word. It didn't matter. The test proctor told the very old American guy sitting three feet away from me the answers, pointing to the correct multiple-choice answers on the page.

After passing the written part, we walked through the rain to the driving course for the road test. It had been several months since I had last driven a car and my brain was scrambling to pull up indicators. But I reminding myself that no matter what the outcome, this experience could only become infinitely more hilarious. So with great confidence, I climbed in the ancient white Toyota Corolla (the door barely latched shut) in the pouring rain. Three "proctors" roamed the course while I was driving, barking out orders and corrections. It went well, until I had to make a three-point-turn. That was a failure. It got worse when my parallel parking attempted ended up on the curb.

It was hilariously embarrassing, and the original conclusion was that I failed. But after negotiations between the woman from my driving school and the three proctors, they agreed to let me pass (this is where having relationships and connections in Cambodia truly matters). Incidentally, the very old American guy drove the course backwards (obviously not the sharpest crayon in the box). He passed. Several weeks later, I went back to the driving school to pick up that precious piece of plastic that gives me legitimacy to continue driving.

I had only ever requested that the experience of learning to drive in Cambodia be hilarious. It was just that, completely hilarious, rendering me completely satisfied. The final golden lesson from my darling little booklet is as follows (direct quotation): Be careful in driving is driving art leading us to have always life. 

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

How to Make an FGD Successful.

Before arriving in Cambodia last year, I had never heard of a focus group discussion (or FGD). I don’t know how that happened. I have a university degree in a social science field. But I had never heard of a focus group which is mildly embarrassing. However, now I do and recently I attended my first focus group.

Here’s the story.

I do a lot of monitoring and evaluation in my job. One project was to evaluate a program which involved my partner helping their partner train commune council mediators in family mediation models. Mediation is surprisingly common in Cambodia. However, normally a respected “mediator” simply tells conflicting parties who was wrong and how to fix their problem…which doesn’t always fix problems or work towards attitude changes.

So these 12 mediators went through a six month course on listening, looking for feelings, maintaining neutrality, helping parties generate options, and when it’s appropriate to give advice.

I was part of the follow up team, conducting a focus group to understand how much they’d adapted the training content in their practice. We asked them to share stories, to share what they learned that was useful, what they wish the training had included, and what they might do differently in future mediations.

This involved driving three hours to Kampong Cham Province on a Monday morning. It involved sitting in a floor (knees together, the polite way) and listening to these delightful people tell their stories. It was in Khmer, but thankfully one of my colleagues with impeccable English was there to me. Afterwards, we ate fried rice and drove the three hours back to Phnom Penh.

We had several challenges. First, observers coming and going during the session (there should be no observers). Second, there was a tight time constraint (we ran out of time). Third, 12 people is really too many (should have had two groups). Finally, the space was long and narrow so people on one side of the room could not hear the other side. My team noted these as important considerations for future FGDs.

A unique challenge to Cambodia is that no one wants to make anyone else look bad, and no one wants to cause you to lose face. As a result, people will tell you what they think you want to hear. This is an added dynamic when people are in large groups, speaking about their experience working with your organization…they will tell you everything was great even if they loathed the very core of you existence. Knowing this, most the FGD involved posing scenarios and asked people how they would respond, “if your son was skipping school, what would you do?” Shifting attention away from yourself helps, but there is always a chance that the data isn’t accurate because people are only telling you want you want to hear.

In general, the FGD facilitator should,
  • Paraphrasing to find key strengths
  • Maintaining confidence and neutrality
  • Ask open-ended unbiased questions
  • Move the conversation along
  • Encourage everyone to speak
  • Help the group understand that no answer is correct, all ideas are valued

Part of my responsibility with this focus group is the analysis. Over December, I’ll be going through transcripts looking for trends, themes, and lessons learned, and understanding how we can improve our training to better meet needs for people like these Kampong Cham mediators.

A personal goal is to facilitate an FGD. It might not happen in Cambodia. In fact, it would be very rare for this to happen in Cambodia. But one day…such a nerdy little life goal…it’s on the bucket list. 

Thursday, November 3, 2011

How I can't Write about Mud.

Sitting with my dear friends Michael and Lisa in Prey Veng last Saturday night, I posed Lisa this question. “What will I blog about this week?” She had just updated her blog about Mud. Her street is a mud pit from the flooding and I had even hosed down the muddy shoes outside the house that day. In fact, all of Prey Veng Province is muddy from the record 10-year flooding. Naturally, I had to think of something equally enthralling to blog about. I can't write about mud because I haven't experienced mud like Lisa has. I have to reflect on my own experiences, or perhaps I can reflect on the experiences and stories of those around me.

Just the night before I’d heard stories from another colleague who’s teaching macroeconomics at a rural Cambodian university. He has great stories, about eating dog, kicking dogs who attack him while jogging and playing ping pong with a professor who skipped classes to beat him at ping pong.

Then there was the Danish lady in Prey Veng province doing her PhD research on domestic violence and battering in rural Cambodian settings. We discussed the data she had collected in her latest focus group about perceptions of rape. The data was fascinating; our reactions to said data were shock and horror.

Which reminds me of another interesting person. She’s Italian and volunteering as a monitoring and evaluation consultant with an NGO that does similar work as my partner. We swapped challenges and tools for M&E and then I learned about her, how she’d just completed her PhD in historical anthropology (which is about when my ego crashed), and she’d just decided against getting married and was moving to Cambodia long-term. Completing a PhD and then entirely switch careers, interesting.

Thinking of my partner organization, I consider the interesting donor visit from Friday. Two people from our one donor organization and four pastors came to understand about peacebuilding and the overall partnership. They were Australian, and they were absolutely enthusiastic about talking with me and our director. In normal life, I normally have to keep conversation flowing, but this time I scarcely had to ask one question at all. The enthusiasm and excitement about our work was all the encouragement I needed. 

Still thinking of my partner organization, I was asked Friday if I’m going to wear a traditional Khmer outfit to a colleague’s wedding at the end of November. I deflected (because I don't wear sparkles), and asked her if she had obtained her attire yet. She replied that she got obtained all her wedding dresses, though she won’t be going the customary 13 or 14 bridal outfits. Then I was asked how many outfits American brides wear. “Just one, sometimes two, but it’s often very expensive,” I respond. They were not impressed.

Of course this could not top my favorite Cambodia interaction of all time. I walked in late a staff lunch at my partner organization the weekend after an unusually short haircut (it was definitely short). A male colleague saw me and commented, “Grace, we haven’t had hair this short since Pol Pot time. Have you been to Toul Slang [Genocide Museum] and seen the pictures of the girls with the short hair? You look just like that.” It was futile to explain I was going for “Amelie” from the French film “Amelie.” I felt very insecure, and probably went very red before repeating my standby line of self-defense..."it’s different in my country.”

I cannot believe how delightfully surprised and blessed I am to meet such fabulous people who share pieces of their lives with me, and who's stories sometimes intersect with my own life. However, you don’t have to live overseas for similar amusement. You just have to be live your life.