Fairly dull update

Hi,

So I feel like I should make it clear that my crisis is, for the most part, resolved. I have calmed down, and looking back think that I wrote my last blog post at the peak of my anxiety. It was interesting to get people's responses. I very much appreciated the support I received, and was glad that people were able to connect to the emotions I was enduring.

Not much has happened since that post. I came into Phnom Penh with my translator Sai Ha, and we bought an air compressor, which is a fairly serious investment. Part of me hoped that spending a significant chunk of change (about $200) would motivate me towards doing more. As of yet, it hasn't succeeded to the degree I hoped for.

The most important recent news is that the two guys from Tramoung Chrum who are going to moto repair school in Phnom Penh will be finished in two more weeks. I'm quite excited for them to get back to SLP, because we will then absolutely have to open as a business.

My goals for the next two weeks are to build up some parts inventory, get more shelving (for storage and work surfaces) built and installed in the shop, and finally, to enjoy the holiday season with friends in Phnom Penh.

I hope everyone is well, and enjoys/enjoyed Christmas/Hanukkah/New Years, etc.

Ned.

P.S. I don't have any pictures of pies, forgive me. We made a couple of apple pies but used super fine (it was for dim sum steamed buns and stuff) flour, which made the crust powdery instead of flaky, which was odd. So the quest for the perfect apple pie/pie crust is ongoing.

Minor Crisis of Confidence and Other Topics.

PART I

Hi everyone,

It's been a while since I wrote, and things have been sort of weird. I've been trying to teach the 5 guys from Tramoung Chrum but am not really sure how to do so, and am concerned that trying to train them is removing my focus from setting the shop up as a business.

Plus I'm having low-grade Cambodia fatigue.

Things really came to a head when I made some foolish decisions. First, I bought some tools and parts in Phnom Penh that were the wrong ones. This was irritating because they were for very specific functions, and would have enabled moving forward on taking the Chaly apart/putting it back together. The correct ones are not available in SLP, so to not have the right tool can delay action on a certain part of the Chaly for several days. When there isn't something specific to do on the Chaly, there can be a lot of awkward standing around in the shop as I try to come up with something to do/teach.

Then I took the cylinder to another shop to get honed so we could put in a new piston and rings. They did so and I thought they had made it too tight, because the piston seemed to be scratching the cylinder walls. So I had them loosen it up, and I turned out to be wrong. Not a huge deal financially, the work cost six dollars. But since I'm theoretically supposed to know what I'm doing, being wrong was a blow.

Going to this other shop was also really disconcerting because they have so many parts and tools, and everybody seemed to be on top of their game. In other words, they are established and well run. It was very intimidating to think that we need to compete with them, at least on some level. It also raised an issue. If we need to get a customer's cylinder honed, we would have to take it to this shop. So why wouldn't the customer just go there in the first place? We could buy a machine, but teaching myself and others how to use it well is a daunting concept. That may well be the road we end up having to go down though.

Also, It's irritating to go to the shop and be responsible for six people (including my translator). They look at me for what they should be doing, and I don't necessarily know. So I have decided that this coming week I won't teach them, and will try to come up with a plan for how to proceed. I may decide to not teach for two weeks. This is apparently the end of rice harvesting season, so hopefully they can keep busy in TC. I still feel like I am doing them wrong somehow: there is definitely a sense of guilt.

While this decision has made me feel like I am negating my duties and my responsibility to others, It feels right in other ways. When I was growing very uneasy about the shop and the direction we were heading, realizing that I could take some time to develop a course of action without being responsible for the everyday activities of six people immediately calmed me down. So that's why I chose to do this. We'll see how it works out.

Also, Despite this feeling of being wrong, taking action like this ties into something I have had to learn the hard way, which is to become more active in situations I am not happy with. I think a few years ago I would have plodded on in teaching, making myself more desperate to find an immediate solution to the problem, instead of stepping back and working on it from a different perspective. So in that way it's a good thing.

Another part of the reason things have been weird is that I expected it to take a lot longer to make everyone understand the 4 cycles of an engine, how transmissions work, etc. For whatever reason, this turned out to be anticlimactic. I explained it, they got it, and that was that. I don't know how to teach people about fixing things, because It's mostly accumulated knowledge that sort of adds up over time. So if there is an unusual clacking sound in an engine, you can't really say "well if an engine makes this noise, it's this" because people hear differently, the same problem could make slightly different noises in different bikes, etc.

I guess the guys from Car Talk should be exempted from that statement, since they regularly identify problems from the most ridiculous re-enactments of car noises. But they have quite a bit more experience than I do.

Anyway, my method for fixing things is to isolate where the noise/issue is coming from and make an educated guess about what's going on. Then, If a customer approved, take that area apart, and look for the worn and/or broken parts. Then repair or replace them.

It's basic and complicated at the same time, and to really make these guys understand it, they need to do it. That was the goal with the Chaly, but with seven people (including me) in the shop, and one small moto, there isn't really that much to do. This is exacerbated by not having any parts, a small collection of tools, etc.



PART II

So I'm feeling a bit lost and guilty right now. I can't decide if spending weekends in Phnom Penh is helping or hurting that. Being in Phnom Penh a fair amount makes me feel like I'm not doing a good enough job on the shop, but having a social life is kind of a sanity saver.

Also, I recently received some praise about how well things were going. This generally makes me uncomfortable, because I become scared of disappointing people who have been pleased by my past actions. Somewhat absurdly, this makes it more difficult for me to do work. It's like a holding pattern, or mild mental paralysis.

It goes like this:

1. praise leads to fear of disappointing the praiser(s)
2. fear of disappointing leads to reduced ability to do work
3. Reduction in work output leads to guilt
4. Guilt increases fear of disappointing others
5. return to step 2

It's bizarre to understand this about myself but not know how to defeat it. I have gotten better over time, and I guess that's all I can ask for. Strangely, writing about it knowing that other people will read it makes it easier to deal with.

I don't know if people are interested in my self-analysis, but I imagine other people wrestle with this stuff as well. Sometimes it's nice to know that you are not alone. It seems fairly pertinent to this blog, because I think the function of my blog is to tell people what it's like to be out here. Sort of like a public journal.

I also see the blog as my anti-resume. Applying to educational institutions, jobs, and other things that are even vaguely 'corporate-y' is such an outrageous process it infuriates me. Trying to condense why I would do a good job or am an interesting person onto a few pages of paper is just ... I don't even know. It's like trying to explain why the universe exists by drawing a small picture. The complexity of the issue is so far beyond the medium you are conveying it on as to reduce it to a total caricature that does zero credit to it's source. So on the blog, I can describe myself more fully, for better or for worse, and feel that I am at least doing my existence justice.

Plus, because there is so much competition, everyone tries to present themselves as being miraculously perfect. This potentially makes me more angry than the resume issue. Life is messy, people are messy (myself included, as you may have guessed from my random self-analysis) and it seems very disingenuous to portray yourself as actually knowing what you are doing.

Although it's probably necessary for things like engineering. I mean, if your going to design a bridge, you should know how to. And I guess you need a resume that objectively reflects that.

Maybe my anger is just me being bitter because my resume is underwhelming. I just really don't like pretending to know what I'm doing or what life is about, and feel like at this point, my resume should basically say "I am trying to learn. When I care about things I do a pretty good job at them. I am applying here because I care about this. So please help me learn more, and let me do some good work for you." The fact that so many people would not take that statement seriously is upsetting. But the great hope is that people exist who do understand how something like that more accurately represents life, and is therefore more valuable than a bunch of bullet points starting with verbs and a list of "achievements". The second part of that hope is that I find those people.

Or more precisely, some more of those people, because I think this fellowship was started by people who understand that feeling, and I am grateful for them giving me the chance to come here, and make mistakes, and learn about life. Even if my resume and GPA are not stunners.

Well.

This wasn't quite where I intended for this post to go, but I feel a hell of a lot better. Hopefully I didn't just freak everybody out.I'm listening to A-Punk by Vampire Weekend and smiling uncontrollably right now. I guess this is catharsis by writing. I'll end the whine fest now, try to stop worrying so much, and see what happens.

Take care everyone. Hopefully I'll have good updates soon. There is a Christmas party this coming weekend that I'll probably be baking for, so expect more pie pictures.

Ned

Shade House

So on weekends when I come back to Phnom Penh, I stay with a friend of mine named Ahti. He's an architect and has been working on a Shade House project for the people of Tramoung Chrum. It's a very interesting project, and I wanted to help do some work on it. So this past weekend, Ahti, Leb Ke, Alan, and I went to TC to start building the shade house. The point of this structure is to reduce the brutal sun of the dry season and the battering rains of the rainy season to allow more fragile plants like tomatoes and green peppers to grow.

It's basically a 45m long structure comprised of bamboo arches that support shade cloth, which is perforated plastic sheeting. We got a lot of work done in one day, as evidenced by the series of pictures below. It was a very good time, and It was interesting to build something, because it is so easy to see the change you have wrought. This is in contrast to the shop, which is a more complicated and nuanced process, which makes it harder to immediately see the progress made.



Here is the field where we started. This is basically where the shade house will start, and It ends at the small tree near where the people are grouped. At this time we were laying out surveying lines to keep all the ribs in line with one another.



Then we had to dig all the holes for the bamboo ribs. The TC guys could do this outrageously fast.



Around this time (post hole digging, pre-lashing joist and vertical posts) we had lunch. This picture was taken just before that. We woke up at 6:00 to get out there, and my breakfast consisted of a coffee and single piece of biscotti. By the early afternoon, I was pretty ready for some food. That's why I'm looking so sullen in this picture.



We then planted all the ribs and began lashing the vertical posts and the horizontal joisty-thing (I dont know what to properly call it.)



This guy was a master of lashing pieces of bamboo together. I surmised that he was a fisherman. Also, as a side note, nothing makes one feel weak like working with people who survive on hard labor. This guy's forearms looked like bionic steel cords or something. Ridiculous.


Barn Raising! At least thats sort of what it felt like. Also, the arched structure reminded me of a cathedral, so I named it the "Tramoung Chrum Cathedral of Organic Agriculture."


Then some TC guys lashed the ribs to the horizontal joist. Thats leb ke on the left.



This was the end result. Pretty cool. Once we demonstrated the basic operation, The TC guys ran with it. They are going to complete the shade house in the next few weeks. I'll probably go out there sometime soon to see whats going on.

Thats the story. Hope everyone's well.

Take Care,

Ned.

p.s. this picture just makes me laugh. And that's Ahti, by the way.

Lesson Learned

So I bought some more tools today, and found out the people who I had been buying from were charging me elevated prices. Not massively, but at least 50 cents per tool, which was enough to upset me. Considering the prices of the tools I bought ranged from $2.50 to $4.50, 50 cents per tool is a noticeable percentage of the cost.

I made a bit of a fuss and they refunded me $1.50. I felt like an idiot, arguing over the price of a coffee. I guess it's the principle of the thing. They don't seem to be hurting for cash, and I was mostly annoyed because If I'm going to be a repeat customer, as I have been, I would hope for some recognition of that by giving me good prices. I felt taken advantage of, as silly as that may seem. Also, I was somewhat suspicious that they were charging elevated prices last time, but didn't think it was too big a deal. For some reason actually confirming it right after buying tools from them was infuriating.

Also, I explored the vast maze of parts in the Russian Market (there are pictures in some of the earliest posts of this area) and bought a throttle cable for the Chaly, which cost $1.25. It was fun to go into that part of the market, because people really do not expect westerners there, and many fewer vendors speak english. I feel like an explorer there, and really wish things like this existed in the US. Pick and Pull junkyards are the closest thing we have, but those are dwindling due to litigation, the scourge of so many fun and interesting things.

Also, the reason I wasn't able to load that darn video is that It was too big a file. So i need to find some program to trim it down a bit.


Ned.

Thanksgiving and Working in The Shop

Hi.

So First, I want to share some pictures from the very fun thanksgiving party that I attended and made some pies for. As you can see, there were quite a few people (I believe the official count was 29) and there was a lot of wonderful food.


People made legitimate stuffing, 2 large and delicous turkeys were roasted, mashed potatoes of many varieties, real gravy, etc. My contribution was pies, I made 3 apple and 2 pumpkin, but gave one of the apples to the owner of the oven I used, who also helped me bake for about 4 hours. This picture was taken en route to the party, the pies were still cooling as we rode.



Finding pie plates and some of the ingredients was a trial, but quite successful in the end. Everything was from scratch, from Cook's illustrated recipes. There were some goofs, like I forgot to add half the necessary butter into the apple pie crust dough, so had to add it after mixing it together. It ended up being pretty tough and not flaky, but was still not too bad. The pumpkin had a bunch of complicated steps that we skipped, and was still really good. So overall the pies were a great success, as was the party in general.


So moving onto the shop progress, here is a picture of me with a bunch of TC guys, and my translator who is cut off at the left side of the frame. Also, one of the TC guys was to Sai Ha (translator's) right, and is not in the photo. All the way to the right is Leb Krem, who randomly stopped in to say hi. He is kind of the leader of TC. Hopefully he enjoyed seeing the shop. The other important person in this picture is Lee Him, who is the farthest person to the left who can completely be seen. He will become the general manager of the shop, and is really into it. He pays very close attention, which is more than can be said for some of these younger guys. They are generally only really interested when we start using our hands. I think the launguage barrier makes it hard for them to focus.


Here we are tearing the Chaly down. We stripped it completely, except for the wiring harness, and took the head off the engine. This made it much easier to explain the valve train, and do my best to explain timing. We then put the engine back together and it started, which was exciting.



Here is a picture of the white board. The drawings on the right are trying to explain what the valve train does/how it works. The bottom left is how a carb works, I said it was like a straw pulling gas into the air. It worked as an analogy, which was cool. On the top, I was trying to explain valve clearances, which was somewhat less successful.


So I have a video of the guys drawing the 4 strokes of an engine on the whiteboard, and spent 2 hours trying to load it onto the blog. It was like waiting for water to boil, except it never actually happened, and I couldn't be sure it would, when at least water boiling is almost certain to happen. Frustrating. I'll try to get it on next weekend.

As a final note, I found out that the two guys I'm sending to school will be done in four to six weeks, which is good. When they come to the shop we'll start taking in clients moto's I think, which will be terrifying/exciting/etc.

Hope everyone's well, and that you had good thanksgivings.

Ned.

Something to Work On.

So the TC moto shop is now the proprietor of a motorbike. Hooray!

Our fine purchase, got at the high price of $70, is a Honda Chaly of approximately 1997 vintage in fairly miserable, though mysteriously running, condition. This is how we found her, at Leb Ke's families house. Upon firing her up (I was totally astonished that it ran. These honda's are ridiculously dependable) and driving around a bit, a mouse that had previously made its home in the Chaly sprinted away, to find a new place of rest.

This next picture is of the throttle cable, where it meets the carburetor. As you can sort of see, it is shredding into bits. I think there were about 3 wires left intact upon riding back to the shop. The reason it has taken such a beating is that the throttle assembly on the handlebar no longer functions correctly, so the only way to control the speed of the bike is to reach down (the carburetor is located between the drivers legs, by the knees) and pull the cable directly.

To put it mildly, this makes it difficult to ride. Turning is highly dangerous.


However, we made it to the shop, and it is now resting for the coming teardown. I'm not really sure what the goal is yet. Ideally we would restore/hot rod it, but I'm not sure If we can get it registered. So we'll explore our ability to legally drive it while stripping and cleaning it, and try to deduce the financial investment required to return it to somewhat safe status.


If actually driving it is not in the cards, it will just be a lesson in what not to do. For example, the rear sprocket is pictured below, in all it's shocking glory. Normally sprockets have teeth similar to dog canines, i.e. large and pointy. This one looks more like dull shark teeth, all curved backwards. Because the teeth dont stick into the chain, when you are driving and let off the gas, the chain 'coasts' over the teeth and makes a terible racket. I think the only reason it works at all is because the chain has zero slack. It's pretty nutty.


So thats the moto story. Also, we now have a whiteboard, to facilitate teaching.



On monday, people from Tramoung Chrum are coming to the shop. I will attempt to teach them how engines work, and if that fails we'll just take the moto apart.

So that's whats up!

Ned.

Hi everyone.

I haven't posted in a while because I haven't been up to much. Buying the tools led to a stall, since i had nothing to use them on and didn't know what direction to go in, other than needing to buy an old motorbike to use them on.

So tomorrow (hopefully, I still need to confirm with Leb Ke) I'm going to meet Leb Ke's brother, who has a beat up moto i can buy. Next week people from TC will actually be involved in the project, which will be a big step. A guy named Lee Him is going to move into the shop, and becomes it's general manager. I will then be responsible for the training of 4 young guys from TC. How that's going to work out is anybody's guess.

So I will try and teach these young guys basics, like how engines work and stuff, while also trying to work on the old moto, kind of like a balancing theory and practical work approach. I have no idea when we will open for business, but i would say it's months off still.

Anyway, Here are some pictures of two cool events. The first was a well getting drilled at the house Im staying in by a seriously jalopy-type vehicle. It was homemade, with a 22 HP single cylinder diesel engine with an enormous flywheel. It looked like an old steam engine. The drill was also a fabulous concoction of cobbled together parts.

The next cool thing was checking out TC's organic agrictulture project, which is moving along nicely. They have a bunch of watermelon plants, morning glory, and other stuff. A friend of mine is working with them to build a shade house, which will allow for growing of tomatoes and green peppers, which don't do well in direct cambodian sun apparently, and are mostly imported from Vietnam or Thailand.

I included some pictures that are more 'arty' than useful, but i thought they looked cool and included them anyway.

hope everyone's well, expect an update when the moto is bought and/or people from TC come.

Ned.