The Last Post

Hi.

This is my last written post. It's also the last day I am in Cambodia. I've said goodbye to a lot of great people over the last two days. When I was in SLP for the last day, it felt like a dream.

I don't really know what to say.

Maybe filling everyone in on the last 4 or 5 weeks would be good. So that meeting on the 20th was the last thing I mentioned as being important I think. It went fairly well. Leb Ke and Yousos had some good ideas about how to help the shop get better, and I think Leb Ke will be able to help the guys from TC improve their accounting methods, among other things.

I've been away from the shop for a few weeks though, and things went well while I was gone, in terms of the business. They repaired the Chaly, which you may remember spent months torn down in the shop. They've been able to use it to get back and forth to Tramoung Chrum, which is great. Here is a picture of it, I think it looks cool as hell because all the lights and electronics are stripped so it looks sort of like a miniature chopper. The 'key' is a piece of wire that shorts the ignition, which is cool.


There has been death and birth among the Cham people. Leb Krem, who was the leader of the Tramoung Chrum community, died in a motorbike accident while I was away. He apparently swerved to avoid a dog and crashed. Despite having worn a helmet, he is no longer with us. It is a tremendous loss for TC. He was an incredible man, and brightened my day whenever he came by the shop, despite our relative difficulty in communication. There is a picture of him with a bunch of people in the shop from an earlier post. I may put it up in a new post.

Yousos's wife had a daughter, which is great. She is their first child. He showed me a picture and she looked wonderful and healthy. So that in some small way offset the sadness of Leb Krem's death.

This dog joined the family I was staying with in SLP, although the black one pictured earlier in the blog has vanished. It is hilarious, and very playful. I'm glad to be going back to my dog soon, I miss the companionship animals can provide when they aren't terrified of people.



I went to a formula one race in Malaysia, which was great. There were a lot of people there, despite this hillside looking empty.


Here are some pictures from the shop. It was sad to say goodbye to the TC bros, and especially Sai Ha. He is really an awesome guy, and very smart. He asked me several times how he could get to the United States, and it was hard to tell him that I didn't really know how to help him. I plan on keeping in touch with him over e-mail though. Anyway, here is a picture of the TC bros with a customer who came in to get his oil changed this morning, followed by a picture of all of us outside the shop. We thought the guy taking the picture was struggling, so Sai Ha started walking out to help him. So this isn't the normal 'everyone in a line' picture, but I thought it was the best of the ones taken. We are all smiling.



It is so indescribably bizarre to be leaving Cambodia. I am very excited to be heading back, but this has been a life changing experience, in ways I'm sure I won't fully understand how for a long time.

I'd like to say thank you to a lot of people.

First, to Alan Lightman for coming up with the idea, having faith in my ability to accomplish some semblance of his concept, and providing help and good ideas along the way. To Tom McEvoy and Hal Fried, for putting the Minerva Fellowship together and giving me the opportunity to take part in it. To the Schenectady Rotary Club, without whose generous donation and business advice the shop would have been even more difficult to set up. To my family, who were supportive no matter what, as always. To Leb Ke, Yousos, and Sai Ha, without whom I would have accomplished very little and probably gone out of my mind. They are the champions of Cambodia as far as I'm concerned. To Tony Priestnall, who provided sage wisdom in the area of running a bike shop, as well as a great deal of help with my dirt bike. To Ahti Westphal and Steve Finch, for putting me up and putting up with me on weekends over the course of roughly 6 months in Phnom Penh. To Veasna Chea and Peter Leth, for providing a home away from Home, and for letting me/helping me bake lots of pies in their kitchen. To the Clinton Foundation people for introducing me to Jersey Shore, and for the best Thanksgiving party ever.

I'm missing people. Thank you to those I have forgotten.



P.S. If this post seems ridiculous I'm sort of out of it because I can't believe I'm leaving. So, sorry If it seems discombobulated.

Update^3 and Thoughts on Life Vol. 2

Hi,

So I've been thinking. I tried to break up each section according to topic, but they are sort of interrelated. Also, this ended up being quite long, and has no pictures. Anyway, let's begin.

Section 0: The Current Situation.

As covered in the recent posts, the shop is rough. Morale is low, I'm not really providing a ton of guidance for a variety of reasons, and I'm leaving soon. However, I would like to point out that the shop has a reasonable chance to succeed. I think my previous posts painted an overly dire picture of the situation, and my belief in the shop's potential after I leave has been strengthened. There is enough money left to cover the rent and costs for many more months, probably through the end of the year, which gives the TC guys a fair amount of time to get things in order. One of the TC guys is being trained at a good shop, and will learn an invaluable amount from it about both how to fix motos and how to run a shop. An MIT student is probably coming in the summer, and hopefully she will bring a lot of energy and problem solving ability to the project. In the meantime, to try and deal with the problems the shop is facing, Yousos, Leb Ke, Lee Him, Sai Ha and I are going to meet on the 20th and have a conference of sorts. Hopefully we will collectively come up with some good ways to move the shop forward.

Also, in my previous post I said fairly negative stuff about not caring about the shop, not wanting to deal with it, etc. This is an expression of an emotion, and not an accurate representation of how I am approaching the project. I don't know if this was clear to people, and would like to say that I do care. I have spent 8-ish months trying to make this work, and really do want it to be successful.

The reason I wrote that is that I am stressed out of my damn mind. Trying to sell my dirt bike has been something of a nightmare, and I can't get it out of my head. It's sort of a subtly overwhelming thing. I plan to never be in the position of rushing to sell a vehicle again in my life. I'm also really concerned about having no money when I get back, and the related issue of finding a good job. Also, I'm nervous to have to talk about this experience in front of lots of people, and trying to do something approaching a good job before I leave. And really, Cambodia has worn me down. Living here is not easy.

Section 1: The Blog, Employers, and Conclusions About Me.

There are a few big things I have come to conclusions on. One is that two character traits I consider extremely important, and that I hope to exemplify, are honesty and perseverance. I am confused about my track record on the latter, and am concerned about it. This blog is really honest, maybe even to my detriment, because I have been honest about my failings and frustrations. I'm concerned that potential employers will read my accounts of being really tired of Cambodia, and 'not caring', etc. and think I would be an unworthy employee because I am lacking perseverance or they would just have a generally negative impression of me due to my not-always-positive language.

While thinking about that problem, what I should do about it, and why it has even come about, this is what I realized: generally, when I write on this blog, I have very strong feelings about the situation I am in, and my writing expresses that. So way back when I wrote about my crisis of confidence, I was at a peak of freaking-out-ness, and that blog post is practically frantic. Similarly, when I wrote the recent 'update' post, I was pretty depressed about what was going on, and disappointed in myself for not making this shop totally successful, etc. I think that post may have come across fairly negatively. Really, this blog is a bizarre cross section of me at my most confused and frustrated. It makes me feel better to write about it, but man .... I'm afraid what people who don't know me and haven't wrestled with similar issues must think when they read it. Especially if they are considering whether or not to pay me.

I don't want to edit anything though, because I think it's important to accurately represent my thoughts, however fleeting the exact ones I write may be. And despite being in a somewhat better mood now, the underlying issues are true. The shop is in a tricky spot. Since that post, I have found reasons for the shop being in a weak position that are not my fault, which has made me feel less terrible. For example, the TC guys haven't exactly been taking initiative in the running of the shop. They don't seem to be working their butts off, as I had hoped they would, to make the shop successful.

The human mind is extremely good at rationalizing though, and I can't decide If I am just finding ways to make myself feel better, or if I this is a legitimate point. A counter to the above point is that they are acting the way I am, and being somewhat detached. So I don't know what the truth is.

Summary of this section:
I consider honesty and perseverance important. I know I am honest, but cannot decided how I score on perseverance. This problem is oddly magnified in my blog because I write in it when I am at an emotional peak. I'm concerned that people reading this blog, especially potential employers, will have a negative impression, but I don't want to edit things to put myself in a more positive light.

Section 2: What's Important in Life?

I have been trying to read "Irrational Man" again, which is a summary of existentialism by William Barrett. There are some incredible ideas in there that I would like to quote in the blog. But basically, the point I have gotten out of this second attempt is that man is lost, and we look all over the place for things to make us feel fulfilled. From what I have read, Barrett seems to be making the point that this is because our view of the world has shifted, starting with protestantism. When religion was denuded of its rituals and more 'mythical' attributes, which I think also coincided with science and 'rationality' becoming a more powerful force, Man began walking the road to today's sense of isolation.

This is because rationality is limited, and it cannot explain the world. Barrett uses examples such as Godel's incompleteness theorem's, which use logic to prove that an arithmetic system cannot prove itself to be true. Barrett makes this a broader explanation of logic/rationality being unable to explain itself, let alone everything else.

*Warning - this next paragraph could be totally wrong. I don't have the book with me, and am sort of winging this*

So Barrett says man turned to rationality to explain life, the world, etc, and it hasn't really worked out. Despite our impressive knowledge of math and science, and out ability to make incredible things with it, we have removed ourselves from the realities of life by making life an abstract, rationalized process. This process failed us, and we are lost. We don't really have mystical guiding forces as we did before rationality, and rationality turned out to defeat itself. Barrett uses modern art as an example. His view is that Art represents how people think, basically. So when people viewed the world from a mystical standpoint, and rationality seemed to be working out well, artists portrayed the world as sensible in the form of realism and 'classical' art. That started breaking down though, and people began deconstructing everything. I don't know the whole progression, but we have classical stuff, then weird stuff like cubism that distorts "reality" and makes it 2D, and finally we get to sharks in tanks of formaldehyde, canvases painted one color or seemingly randomly decorated with splashes of color, etc.

We cannot turn back the clock though, and return to a more 'mystical' world view, and he doesn't advocate trying to do that. I haven't gotten to the point where he advocates anything, really, It's still information presentation stage.

What this makes me think about though, Is how to find meaning in life. It basically seems like people find meaning from whatever they spend their time on. This is most commonly a job and a family. I have normally rejected finding meaning from these sources, because they seem like external validation. It would be nice if life meant something innately, and people didn't have to run around searching for things that make them happy, or occupy their time enough.

This is my thought - maybe it's not really very original, but here we go. People have moved beyond the need to survive, and that is, in the end, the meaning of life. Surviving is our most important job, with creating offspring and doing our best to ensure their survival being the next step.

I don't really know how I feel about this though. Survival (from my perspective i.e. lucky enough to be born where I was and into the family I was, obviously there are plenty of people for whom this is not the case) is not really the issue anymore. It is unlikely that I will starve to death or be speared in a war with a neighboring clan/tribe/etc. The issue becomes finding a way to occupy our lives. In the past, the jobs I have had haven't occupied my life enough to fulfill this need. I think I just found the satisfaction gained from doing a good job at something rather empty in the end. I enjoy working, and doing a good job at things, but then I think about what I have done, and it never seems 'important'.

Like back in the day, you and your family were starving. You kill a deer, and feed your family. You survive to maybe kill some more deer. Life makes sense. For the things that don't make sense, you have a bunch of gods.

Designing machine parts, repairing a fence, pumping gas, etc? Pretty abstract in comparison. You do this sort of random stuff, and you earn money, which is a fabricated means to store the ability to buy or own things. God is Dead, and has been dis-proven. Mysteries of Life? Don't think about them, just go buy some Duct Tape. Or watch one of 80000000 TV channels. Or read the news, which I can personally guarantee you will occupy your mind.

Who thinks about this crap anymore? I do, but I'm being broken. I want a job now. I want to design random mechanical doo-dads and earn money so I can spend it on other mechanical doo-dads and some land that really doesn't belong to anyone. I'm not sure I have the willpower to accept a life of survival. This is kind of depressing. I am being absorbed by modern life, into the womb-like embrace of a life of distraction.

Maybe that's the problem, Humans have lost their will to survive, and exist to be placated and fed soft drinks. Wall-E wasn't the future, it's now. Modern Art doesn't make any G damn sense because life doesn't. And nobody seems to care, or they have somehow, mysteriously, found meaning in their life despite it's essential emptiness, and the fact that it is built on fabrications of man, which efficiently distract us from reality. But it's okay, because reality doesn't really make sense any more, and the earth has been deconstructed and abstracted into a parody of life.

Sigh.....

Section 3: Um, I'm going back to the shop now.

I don't know what I'm going to do there, but I'll try and encourage the TC bros to know what they are doing.

Stunningly, I have run out of things to say at the moment.

Take Care.

Ned.

Brief update on the update

So today at the shop has been pretty frustrating. A kid came in to get his oil changed, which was good I guess, but when that was done Lee Him left,and I didn't know where he had gone. Also, Mr. Jiht kept going and coming, while Mr. Sovann is apprenticing at another shop. So for a while there were no TC guys in the shop.

Sai Ha told me that the guys are talking about moving the shop again, which I don't think is the right thing to do, as I have mentioned in the blog before. I think we just need to do a better job at the current location. This was reinforced by several occurences today. One was that a customer came to the shop while Mr. Jiht and Mr. Lee Him were gone. They left before Sai Ha was able to find Mr. Jiht. Sai Ha kept saying 'this is very bad'. I agree with him. The shop has a lot of problems right now.

Yesterday I spoke to Yousos, who works for the Harpswell Foundation, and he got pretty intense. He has seen the shop and is frustrated with what's going on. So he proposed that He, Leb Ke, and I all meet at the shop and talk to the TC guys and try to have a problem solving session. I think this is a very good idea, and told Yousos it would very good if we could make it happen before April.

That's what's up.

Ned.

Update

Hi,

I didn't realize how long it had been since I updated the blog. Some interesting stuff has happened, and I also have a bunch of pictures to illustrate some of what has been going on. This first picture is a delicious cake thing that Sai Ha's mom made for me, which was very nice of her. These cake things were made in abundance because of some Cham celebration, sort of like a new years thing. People made towers of these things, hung money from them almost like Christmas ornaments, and brought them to the local mosques as offerings. I went to a mosque to get some lunch, and had to wear a pink and white scarf on my head, which was kind of ridiculous. Please refer to the horrendous picture of me.



They killed a cow or two for this party, and I actually sort of wanted to see that, weirdly. I have never seen an animal be killed for food and feel like it's something I should do. This idea is probably from reading Michael Pollan and other food-authors. Accountability for what you eat and all that.

The killing also interested me because it's basically a religious sacrifice, and I just read a book called American Gods by Neal Gaiman. It's a novel about how when immigrants came to the U.S. they brought their gods with them, but forgot them over time, so now the gods are weak and pissed off. Anyway, it was a good book, and was interesting because the concept of religion being so important that we would sacrifice animals (and even people, I guess) is so out there to me, but these cows were being sacrificed, and there were these cake-tree things with money in them, and it really registered that religion exists in Cambodia beyond the American sense of religion, which seems to mostly have become about God giving everybody money.

Also, a note on butchering. I'm fairly sure that people just hit dead animals with knives in arbitrary places. Chickens get chopped up with all their bones in place, and when you eat beef you get larger chunks of chopped up bone. That's what the picture of food is supposed to show. It's odd. Eating meat that is on whole bones in much easier, although I have eaten bone here which I never have before. Like in soup, chicken bones get fairly soft and can be chewed up. I ate a chicken neck a month or two ago, which was pretty tasty. Cartilage and other weird joint stuff that used to freak me out is pretty normal now, also.


In life news, it appears to be puppy season and the puppy population around my house has exploded. This little dude assaulted me at the bottom of my stairs one morning, and was chasing my feet around, generally being impossibly cute. One of his siblings also has been around, It makes me happy to pet dogs that enjoy it. Adult dogs here are, for the most part, extremely suspicious of people, and not down with affection. It isn't really surprising, given the way they are treated though. Even the puppies are messed with. I watched a really nice Khmer guy I know grab two by the scruff and hold them face to face with each other to make them fight, and an old woman picked one up by the front legs, looked at it briefly, then lowered it from one front leg until it was about 2 feet off the ground, then dropped it. This is like a two month old puppy! They get cuffed about, and the jaws clamped shut by hands until they cry, etc. etc. It sucks to watch. Anyway, until they don't like people I am enjoying being nice to them.


It's also puffy seed pod harvesting season apparently. The family I live with has a storage area that is full of these seed pods, and they take the fluffy stuff out and pack pillows and mattresses with it for extra income. It's fairly comfortable to sleep on, and is extremely soft. I don't know what it is, but it would be neat if you could make cloth from it. I included this picture so that hopefully some one can identify the plant.


Moving on to the shop.... I came back from my week off to see this giant pile of dirt by the entrance to the shop, and two cistern things installed inside the shop. I was pretty angry, because A) they are actually sewage tanks, and I don't understand why you would put that in the space you are living in, and B) they left the tops of the tanks sticking out like 6 inches! I (through Sai Ha) asked why they hadn't been dug in deeper so the tops where flush with the floor, and the guy who did the work said they are harder to pump out if you do. Considering the one at my house is completely buried, I was ready to tell him he was full of it, and go the whole flip out route. But I didn't want to deal with the repercussions, and to be honest, I'm just tired of dealing with the shop.


To expand on that last sentence, I am really ready to leave. I am tired of stressing about so much stuff, and being responsible for the success (or lack thereof) of this business, and all kinds of other stuff. I just want to go. Fortunately, I don't really have a ton of time left, so my wish will soon be granted.

Being perfectly honest, the shop will almost definitely not be making enough to support itself when I leave, and I don't know if it will in the near future. I'm going to pay the rent for 6 months after I leave, and leave the TC bros money to buy parts and cover other expenses, but I have a somewhat dim outlook on how the shop will fair after I go. I'm fairly certain that a student from MIT is going to come here and do some work over the summer, and hopefully she will be able to take the skeletal timbers I have put in place and build a better functioning business.

The two main problems are that I have essentially lost my motivation to make the shop better, and I also am having trouble of thinking of ways to add to the business. It's sort of a chicken vs. egg thing, like did I lose motivation first, or did I lose motivation because I don't know how to improve the situation. I haven't come to a conclusion other than not really worrying about it. I'm too focused on leaving, trying to sell my dirt bike, thinking about how to get a job when I get back, etc.

The trip to Malaysia for the F1 race in April looks like it may pan out though, which is a bright spot. There are no F1 races in North America anymore, so I really want to make it to this one. Should I be taking time off when the shop is kind of in a fragile place? Probably not. But I'm stubborn and feeling selfish, so I'm going. I still haven't left SLP or Phnom Penh, and am bitter enough that If I don't see Angkor Wat or anything else in Cambodia, It's unlikely that I will regret it.

Hope everyone is well. In case you couldn't tell, I'm looking forward to coming back and seeing people, but in the meantime I very much appreciate the support of the people who have been reading the blog and those who have been commenting. Thank you.

Ned.

Good News, and tentative travel plans

Hi,

So I have some good news, which is that the shop actually seems to be sort of running. It's not making a lot of money, but they have a trickle of customers who apparently have not been scared off by mistakes that have been made. It seems somewhat consistent. So I guess I really over-estimated the impact our previous gaffs made.

Here is the long awaited photo of the sign, which is looking pretty snazzy. You may note the drawn in shock on the right hand side of the sign. This is to indicate that they can take suspensions apart and repair them. I don't know why we didn't include that when the sign was designed, because I asked a couple times what we wanted on it. At least it's being advertised now. Also of note in this picture is Route 5, the major road that goes to Phnom Penh, in the background. As you can see, we are fairly close, and therefore have a reasonable amount of traffic that goes by us when people turn off route 5 and go to the market.

Here is another picture of the sign, and on the left side of the picture you can see a customer's vehicle. This guy was in getting a new piston. In the next picture, you can see the parts taken off this vehicle on a mat by the feet of the guy without a shirt on, whose name is Mr. Sovann. On the right, behind the water barrel, is Mr. Lee Him. Standing on the left is Mr. Jiht. I surprised them while they were eating lunch to take the pictures, so in the first one they are looking a little confused, and in the second one Mr. Sovann is laughing out of embarrassment I think. Mr. Jiht actually looks sort of annoyed.


So yeah, the shop is kind of working out. I am taking this coming week off, and I left them some money to pay for any parts and stuff they need. Sai Ha and I came up with a very basic accounting system that I will check out when I get back, to try and figure out how well they are keeping track of money. I don't know when they will be earning enough money to pay the rent, buy parts, and have enough left over to get food, but at least we seem to be gaining momentum.

I think I will pay 6 or so months of rent up front before I leave to give them breathing room on starting to earn enough. Another big development was that they seemed to realize they needed more experience, and agreed that one of them (Mr. Sovann or Mr. Jiht) should apprentice at another shop in SLP. So we came to an agreement with a very successful shop nearby that will allow one of the guys to work there (for a fee) and therefore give that person a lot of good, guided experience. The other guy will work at the shop, doing whatever jobs they can, and then learn from the apprenticing guy when he is done, or after hours.

Let's see..... I guess the only other thing is that they briefly talked about moving the shop to a different, smaller town, because there was only one mechanic there and they thought they could get more customers. But I think the opportunity for the business to grow in SLP is quite good, and hopefully now that one of them will be apprenticing in town they will want to stick it out. This is another reason I will pay rent for several months after I leave, to keep them in SLP.

That's all the shop news. I think I'm sort of running out of things that I feel capable of doing at the shop. I don't want to put myself in the position one of my friends is in. She started a store that employs khmer women to design and make clothes and bags and stuff. It is incredible, and she is making enough money to support the shop and her staff, which is just fantastic. However, she is basically the head decision maker, and It could be difficult for the business to continue if she leaves, which puts her in a difficult position. I'm hoping to stay independent enough of the shop that when I leave it will basically be totally seamless. This can leave me feeling kind of awkward in the shop though, because I'm pretty ready to move on and they seem capable of taking care of stuff when I do.



So. My time in Cambodia is drawing to a close. I am starting to plan trips outside of PP and SLP, which is fantastic. During this week off I may go to Siem Reap to see Angkor Wat and Nate and Lyndsay (the fellows at global child). I may go to Bangkok for the weekend sometime soon. I'm trying to figure out if It's feasible to go the Malaysian Grand Prix (a formula one race) in early April, and I'm planning a trip to Vietnam and China in mid-late April. So things are looking up in terms of travel. In conclusion, I wanted to add these photos I took of the sunset. These were taken on the way into Phnom Penh. I rode my bike, which is a three speed beach/city bike and was totally inappropriate for the adventure. I'll try to post a picture of it, and its hilarious stickers. The trip was 54 km and took me about 4.25 hours. Slow, painful, and I really only did it out of foolish stubbornness, but it will be a good memory. And I quite like these pictures. Here they are.

So that's the scoop. Hope everyone's been well. Take Care.

Ned.

I don't know what to call this one. Just an update, I guess.

Hello everyone.

I'm in Phnom Penh with Sai Ha, picking up more parts and tools.

I broached the idea of having the mechanics go get more training from another shop, it didn't really go over that well. There was approximately zero enthusiasm for it. I'm not sure they totally understand what I am proposing, because they thought it would be just like the school they went to, which isn't what I am aiming for.

So I'll bring it up again in a few days, maybe go to another shop and try to explain it to the owners, in the hopes that they would understand and take my guys on. Basically I want to pay to have them employed at another shop, where they can learn from someone who knows more than I do.

Anyway, despite the troubles getting that idea across, and my fear about the shop not getting customers because of the piston debacle, all is not lost. Apparently the shop's reputation is not as damaged as I feared in my semi-panicked state. Today another person is coming to get their piston replaced, so we'll see how that goes. There were other customers coming in over the weekend as well, one to get an oil change and one wanted to get his suspension fixed.

I'll update soon, and try to get a picture of the sign up as well.

Take Care.

Ned.

Semi-Bad News Bears, but with some Light at the end of the Tunnel

So last week, when the shop opened, was probably the most stressful time of my life.

Unfortunately, it wasn't the kind of stressful that is good because so much good stuff is happening, more like stressful because I'm concerned that the fledgling reputation of the shop has been severely damaged.

I'll try to explain the situation.

First, I was under the impression that the guys who went to school had learned enough to be able to fix moto's on their own, well. This was sort of foolish, becuase no one who gets out of any school is going to immediately know what they are doing in a job. It takes a fair amount of practical experience to really know what you are doing.

Secondly, I thought that if we got customers, everything would work out. I was so focused on that it prevented me from thinking about the fact that we weren't totally ready for customers. This may just be my extreme lack of experience in running a business coming to the fore. I don't really know how to do this, I just do what feels correct. Sometimes it's wrong, and having some promotions to bring in customers was probably overzealous.

So this is what happened. I said we were going to give the first 10 customers five dollars of free work. Once word got out about this, too many people wanted in. We didn't work slowly enough, taking time to really focus on doing a good job. We just tried to get through customers, which I guess is a natural enough reaction to having many people want work done very suddenly.

Once we went through those 10 people, I said anyone who got over 4 dollars of work done would get a free oil change. At this point I was still trying to get customers in so we could get some experience, and didn't realize that we were probably doing damage to ourselves by not doing a good enough job. I've really only come to that conclusion after having 3 or so days to think about it.

Things came to a head when one old customer who I recognized from my trips to TC came in, wanting a new piston put in. I had been working from 8 AM until that point, which was about 1:00PM, and needed to go to lunch. The customer wanted his bike done by 4 PM, which I didn't think was going to happen. Before I left for lunch, I told the guys that we should wait until the next day, because 2 hours was not enough. They said it was fine, It would take half an hour. I did not push it.

Unsurprisingly, this turned into a huge debacle. I will spare everyone the technical details, but the bike would not run well when we finished putting it back together at about 6 PM, and the old man was pissed. He had to keep leaving and coming back because the engine would die, and eventually decided to leave the moto at the shop over night and get it fixed at a different shop the next day.

I was totally crushed. I couldn't really handle what was happening, because I felt like I had predicted it, but had been unable to head it off. The feeling was akin to being locked in a car that was driving itself off a cliff, with no way to stop it. Just utter, stark, dread. I have since resolved to be more forceful in my avoidance of disasters I see coming. Actually I learned the lesson pretty quickly. Like while we were trying to fix the piston, another customer came up to us wanting some broken bolts removed from his forks. We didn't have the tools, and I said we couldn't do it. One of the guys called his teacher for advice, but it didn't lead anywhere, and I pretty much sent the customer on his way with my apologies. So hopefully as I learn things like this will be avoided more easily.

Anyway, back to the story. The next day, I got to the shop, and the customer had already taken his bike to a different shop. He called Lee Him, our shop manager, to tell him to have our mechanics go to this other shop to see what they did wrong. The other mechanic was willing to teach them how to avoid the mistakes they had made.

They wouldn't go, which was extremely upsetting. There is definitely an ego thing at play here, where they were sure that the problem was X, and not their fault. They were wrong, but I don't think they wanted to admit it. In Asia, losing 'face' is a big deal. Anyway, that afternoon no customers were coming in so I left and did all my laundry for about 3 hours.

The next day, I told Sai Ha he and I were at least going to go to the other shop to find out what went wrong. At this point, the TC guys decided it would be okay to go, and the other mechanic told them what was wrong, which I didn't totally understand because the explanation was in Khmer, and Sai Ha doesn't really know how to translate technical stuff very well. So I'm not totally sure how helpful it was to go after the fact, but hopefully the TC guys learned something.

All in all, It was an extremely difficult week. When 3 hours of doing laundry by hand seems like a vacation, the rest of life is no party.

After thinking about it for the weekend, I have come up with a few ways to try and salvage the situation.

The principle factor in being unable to run the shop now is the lack of experience all of us have. I know what to do to some extent, and would be comfortable doing some repairs on my own bike, but at a MUCH slower pace, too slow to be practical for business. Also, I don't know how to teach through the language barrier effectively, and how I do things is different from what is done here. Doing things differently, while sometimes a very good thing in the U.S., is not practical here, or at least is not within my time frame.

So our biggest problem is lack of experience.

Our greatest assets are availability of funds and about 11 weeks.

I think to solve the problem I am going to try and pay to apprentice the guys at a shop in TC, so that they get hands on experience that includes good oversight and teaching from someone who speaks Khmer and knows how to run a business. If this sounds like throwing money at a situation that I don't otherwise know how to solve, it isn't that far removed. But it's the best idea I have come up with, and it has a chance to work.

I may alternate the guys every day or couple of days so that one of them is in the shop in case we get the odd customer looking for an easy repair, while the other one can learn the harder stuff at an established shop.



So that's the status of things. The shop opened, which was exciting, but we were totally under prepared and now I'm trying to salvage things and move the project onward.



I would like to express how nutso this project has been. I can't decide If it should make me laugh or cry. It feels like warfare, long periods of not much going on punctuated by short bouts of overwhelming intensity. Without a doubt, it has been the greatest challenge of my relatively short life. I have heard so many stories of people being here for a long, long time, and failing to make business or NGO type things work out that I don't really feel so badly about what I've gotten done. As I said to one friend, I have exceeded my own expectations, and really whatever happens from here on out is bonus points.

That being said, I really want to leave a functioning shop when I depart.

I'll keep everyone updated. Thanks for your comments and good wishes, they mean a great deal.

Take Care.

Ned.

Second Post of the Day.

2 posts in a day! This is a record.

Here are some pictures of the shop. This first one is the two guys who went to vocational school. This probably seems like an impressive picture, but this was one of the more frustrating repair sessions.



This second picture shows the new workbench, the shelves, and some of the parts we have. Also of note is that large blue barrel on the left. It's many gallons, and has kept the water turning off from being a crisis, which is good.

Quick Update

Hello!

So things are moving along. I have some pictures I want to post but they remain on my camera, and will have to wait until another time.

Some cool stuff is happening though, so I thought I should write about it.

A. We've had customers at the shop. This is really both a blessing and a curse. The former because technically, it means I have fulfilled my goal of starting a shop. This is a great, semi-magical/astonishing feeling. The latter because for some of the customers, we have been less than ideal mechanics.

Several of the repairs have gone quite smoothly, which is fantastic, but a couple have been semi-disastrous. They took a long time, we left out a part on one guys moto, etc.

The guys from school aren't as well prepared as I had hoped, so it's going to be an interesting 3 months until I depart, trying to get them squared away for the future.

Fortunately, they seem to work pretty hard, which is critical. Hopefully as we all get more experience, they will work more smoothly and consistently, and we won't destroy our fledgling reputation.

Also under this group of "A" should be that we bought some more shelves and have a very minimal and basic inventory of parts, which is cool. These will be some of the pictures I throw on a later post.

B. We finally named the shop and a sign is being made. We are "The International Moto Shop."

Leb Ke suggested the friendship moto shop, but this seemed like we should all be wearing tie die t-shirts and flowy cotton yoga pants, and being really groovy. I decided against that because yoga pants aggravate me.

Sai Ha suggested the forever moto shop, which I was hesitant to approve, it sounded like a sequel to Highlander or something else involving immortal people.

I couldn't think of anything besides the Tramoung Chrum moto shop, but the guys from TC shot that down because they were afraid if they did a bad job it would reflect poorly on the whole village. So that was out. This was sort of unfortunate because i had always assumed we would name it that, and It was annoying that this reasoning was so pessimistic. I tried fairly persistently to use that name to encourage doing a good job, so as to ensure the name of TC would not be slighted, but they weren't having it.

Finally, the sign maker suggested international, and we all agreed it seemed excellent. So we went with it.

C. My bicycle got stolen about 30 minutes ago. Broad daylight. Pretty lame. Generously and somewhat oddly, the thief declined to take the rubber bungee cord in the bikes basket, and placed it on the ground before riding off. I was sort of baffled by this. It would be like stealing a car, but leaving all the contents inside the car on the ground where you stole it. Anyway, my naive optimism about the impossibility of my bike being stolen is gone.

D. I have three months left! I am alternately very pleased about this, and confused about what to do before I go. I'll be traveling with my sister for a few weeks in April, which makes me feel like I shouldn't travel now. But I don't want to be annoyed with myself for missing opportunities. Also, returning to the US is going to be bizarre.

Traffic laws, what? Hot Water? etc.

Also connected to this is the search for a job. So I'll go ahead and capitalize on my audience. If you know anyone who works at an engineering firm, please ask them if they need an entry level engineer with lots of odd skills. I would be most appreciative! Thank you kindly.

OK.

That's the story. Hope everyone's well.

Ned.

26 days is a long time

Why Helllllooooo There.

It's been quite a while.

Forgive me this transgression, I wasn't feeling very inspired. I was concerned that my grumpiness would transfer to the blog, which wouldn't really do anyone any favors. So I decided to bide my time.

So - Alakazam! Scheherazade! Other semi-magical sounding words! - the blog is re-born! Not that I have incredibly exciting things to share, but I'll try to fill in the rather large gap since my last post with some tales of derring-do and general information.

Let's go back in time to December 21st. I think at this time I was preparing for Christmas, which involved a few parties. I had decided to take off between Christmas and New Years as a vacation. One of the parties was at a friends house, and there was a lot of good food, but I was the only person who did not speak fluent Khmer. There was a synthetic Christmas tree though, and presents for the little kids, making it feel fairly Christmas-y.

Then, on Christmas day, a bunch of people went on a boat ride on the Mekong River. We also had a post boat ride party at a friends apartment that was a real highlight. We made some Dark & Stormys which were quite delicious.

Unfortunately the day after Christmas I got really sick, and not because of too many Dark and Stormys. More like mildly delusional, super out-of-it sick. So I went to the hospital. Turns out I had a fever of 101.something measured in my armpit, and was quite dehydrated from uh, expelling water in an impolite fashion generally associated with bad food and developing countries. Nevertheless, this was a better experience than I expected (I hate hospitals, and especially emergency rooms) because the wait time for the ER was about as long as it took for me to write my name down, and the room I ended up spending the night in had a flat screen TV with cable, and a private bathroom with hot water. Taking a hot water shower was absolutely glorious.

One thing that really irritated me was doctors asking me If I wanted various tests done, while I had an intense fever and at about 1 AM. It wasn't really my best decision making mindset. Plus I was under the impression that I was going to be taken care of at the Hospital, and was irritated that I had to think about whether a Salmonella test was cost-effective, and If I wanted some kind of intestinal pain killer/spasm reducer that I didn't really understand. For the record I said yes to the former and no to the latter.

Anyway, A night of IV saline and antibiotics later, I was feeling well enough to vacate the hospital. I think the antibiotics crushed my immune system though, because I have been sick off and on since then.

Sadly though, this reduced my vacation to seemingly endless days of feeling terrible, watching movies, and reading the NY Times. More importantly/unfortunately, it prevented me from going to the coast for a new years party with some of my friends who work for the Phnom Penh Post. Considering that in six months I haven't been anywhere except Phnom Penh, Sala Lekh Prahm, and Tramoung Chrum, I was tremendously excited to go to this party.

Alas, it was not to be, but such is life.

So let's see. In the two weeks or so following new years, I've uh, done.... um.... yeah. Not a lot. I went back to the shop on the 4th to try and get things somewhat in order, but there was no water, and the guys from TC said they wanted to go home because it's expensive for them to live there, and that's exacerbated by not having water. (more on water later) Also, I haven't been sure how to proceed with teaching for a while, so it's not like I was revealing fantastic secrets that would overwhelm the expense of living in SLP.

The two guys who were going to vocational school in PP have finished it, and went back to TC on the 10th to spend a week with their families. Actually, some cool news on that front - This past Friday I went to TC and hung out with them and their families. It was really cool. They are great guys, and they get along with Sai Ha (translator), Lee Him (shop manager) and I quite well, so I have high hopes for our working well together. This Tuesday, we will all meet at the shop and hopefully start a new phase of progress.

Progress would be good, because in case you couldn't tell, the shop has been sort of a mess for quite a while. This has been really frustrating. I don't feel guilty about it anymore, I just want to start making things happen again. I think having the team together finally will help.

Other things that in hindsight were very difficult to deal with included the rice harvest, which made me not transition into life in SLP very well because I spent so much time in PP, me getting sick several times (including the hospital trip and other less severe bouts of illness) and the *&@#^*(#@&#&(* water not working in the shop for a month.

Not having water in the shop is so frustrating. None of the neighboring shops have water either, but they don't need it as much. When several people are living in the shop, they need a lot of water to cook, wash stuff, and bathe. It's also very difficult to work on motos because you get pretty filthy and then can't wash up, and washing parts also becomes more difficult. The guys don't want to live there because it gets really expensive to buy water, etc.

I'll just leave it at that. It's been frustrating. I actually didn't realize just how long the water has been off until I was walking around TC with the guys, and Sai Ha pointed it out to me. It's back on, and will hopefully remain so. To hedge against future lack though, I think I'm going to buy some massive barrels which are sort of pricey at $17 each (Sai Ha discouraged me from buying them once already, because he thought it was too much money) but in reality are way worth the ability to store large quantities of water. In any event, everybody please cross your fingers and say a prayer/wish that the water stays on.

Other, not necessarily important, things in Life -

1. I haven't read any really good books, but i did approach my longest book read record with Ken Follet's The Pillars of the Earth, which was 983 pages of predictable plot movement and carboard-y characters. But it did keep my interest, and I want to read the sequel. This may be because the books are so good at keeping my mind occupied for great lengths of time.

2. Ironically, I'm way better informed about the US now that I am in Cambodia. I think I need to stop reading the NY Times though, because it's such a time suck.

3. This is a long time to be away from one's family. I'm mostly worried that my grandfather will die before I get back, and I won't see him before he passes. I wanted to write him a living eulogy thing, but only got this sentence done - " As the shadow of your mind's degeneration eclipses your knowledge of who I am, the fundamental way you influence my life becomes more readily apparent to me." He really is a champion, and sadly I don't think he would really understand just how much he means to me any more. He's basically my hero/role model in many ways, and I feel especially connected to him because physically we are weirdly similar. Like I fit into his suit coats as if they had been made for me.



Well that's pretty much the scene. I feel like there are other things I want to write about but don't really remember what they are.

Hopefully I won't let the blog languish for so long in the coming weeks.

Oh - I applied for a couple of interesting engineering jobs. One of them is particularly cool, and involves electric motorcycles. So I'm hoping that goes well.

Also, I come home in about 3.5 months. That is 14 weeks. Not so long. I can't decide how to feel about this.

Take Care everyone, and Happy 2010.

Ned.