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.

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.