Literacy campaign

When I first started studying Khmer, I decided that learning to speak the language was enough, that tackling it in written form was above and beyond the call of duty. At some point a few months ago, I changed my mind.  It's been far from easy. When I began, I picked up a children's story book in a shop, and I vowed to finish reading The Ninja Cat, Dto-Dto by the end of 2014.

In his ever-so-tactful way, Meng, my long-suffering Khmer teacher, suggested that this book was quite a bit above my current reading level.  Perhaps you can understand why I was dismayed about this. It's not exactly high-brow literature.

Dto-Dto bests Mr. Wolf.  And me.

I acquiesced and purchased Little by Little, a charming picture book about a baby otter who cannot swim. My oh-so-entertaining friend, Ee Lynn, pointed out, "Well those skills will come in very handy...

Tuktuk Driver: 'I'm afraid we've lost our way, Ma'am. '

You: 'Tarka's friends splashed about and waved at him to join them, but he merely watched them shyly from the river bank.'"

In fact, I do have enough vocabulary to get the tuktuk driver back on course (and not into the river to splash and play with the otters), and it's looking like I will at least make it to the end of this epic (25-page) novel by the end of the year. I hope it ends happily, with Do-Do the otter succeeding in his quest, because a tragic drowning would be a horrible anti-climax.  

Do-Do tells his mother that Bear and Beaver are teasing him.
Mother is miffed and reminds him of his other winning traits.

Meng is quite pleased with my progress through the aptly titled Little by Little, and he suggested buying a couple more books at this level from the publisher, Sipar Books. It's an NGO, he pointed out, that supports literacy in Cambodia and publishes good books -- better than the ones typically published in the Kingdom.  One of Meng's biggest frustrations is that Cambodian stories tend to lack a plot -- they just ramble aimlessly for a certain number of pages and then end abruptly.  "They don't make any sense!" he grouses. For someone who is trying to make sense of the very foreign language in a very foreign script, a rambling, incoherent plot-line is just one more challenge I don't need.

So after a cup of coffee this afternoon, my friend Malcolm and I wandered down to Sipar, and a young man just inside the courtyard stopped us, clearly bewildered by two foreigners  walking purposefully toward the office.  I told him in Khmer that I wanted to buy children's books, and he looked relieved that we weren't in fact lost. There was a display rack in the office inside, and I found the series of books at the level of Little by Little. The label said they are for age 3 and above.  No doubt assuming I was shopping for my grandchild (great-grandchild, even?), the young clerk smilingly approved and rang up my two new purchases, and I forked over $2.75.

The red book to the left is titled The People in the Radio (I love listening to radio!), and the green one on the right is titled...  Well, to be honest, I haven't quite sorted the title out yet, because they've gone all cutesy with the font and made some of the letters look like ducks, damn them.  Is the duckling's name Gab-Gab, maybe? 

They say you revert to childishness when senility sets in.
It seems to have set in.

Outside the office, in the courtyard, though, were parked three brightly painted vans, and these really lightened my heart.  The CIA World Fact Book lists Cambodia's literacy rate at 73.9% using a very vague definition of 'literacy'. Most Khmers that I've spoken to about this say that the number of people who can read at even a barely functional level is more likely around 25%.  Therefore, Sipar's work is invaluable.

A mobile library!  Brilliant.

Sipar is a French-Khmer initiative with 20 years of history in Cambodia, and here's what they've accomplished:

• 300 school libraries
•  18  public Reading Centers
•  10 mobile libraries
•  2500 school librarians trained
• 11 reading corners in hospital
•  10 projects of communal educational services development
•  21 prison libraries
•  100 titles for young people in khmer
•  1 350 000 books were published

This mobile library promotes both literacy and
road safety, both desperately needed.

I stopped on my way home at Green-O Farms, an ostensibly organic green-grocer. (I say ostensibly because there are no standards here for organic farming, and without standards, there can be no enforcement. At least these folks are claiming to grow their produce without chemicals; their prices are not outrageous, and the quality is good.)  I set my new books down on the counter as the cashier weighed and rang up my purchases, and I noticed that the store manager was reading aloud the synopsis on the back of one of the books. He was reading slightly faster than I can, but not all that much. Remember, these books are aimed at 3 year-olds.

Thanksgiving is this Thursday, and one of the things for which I will offer up heartfelt thanks is the education I've received throughout my life, starting with my parents, who encouraged me to love reading and books as an infant, and ending with the people I meet every day here in Cambodia, who invite me to take a world-view very different from my own and remind me that kindness does not require high levels of literacy.  

As we were leaving Sipar, Malcolm and I said good-bye to the young man who had greeted us. "We are studying Khmer," Malcolm told him.  I pointed to the children's books in my hand and said, "These books are for me -- Shhhhhhhhh!"  He burst out laughing, and that really made my day.