Dave and Jen For Oxfam

Nine weeks. 9 weeks. 9 wks. I typed it a few ways and all of them elicited the same excitement and trepidation. We leave for Vietnam and Cambodia in nine weeks time. At the time of writing I have managed to pick up a cold from a work trip in the previous few days and am ruled off the bike to rest up for the weekend.

Being only mildly ill the last few days has naturally enough led me to think how we might handle actual illness on a trip involving mountain bikes and a third world country. I can only blame a series of airports, handshakes and finger food catering for my current discomfort. In a similar sense I can only imagine a number of amusing situations lest we take ill amid villages, rough trails and remote bathrooms. It’s likely that someone on the trip will eat something that disagrees with them, or catch the plague and die on the spot or something, but that’s part and parcel of the trip. I try to joke with Jen on this topic but for all her polite corporate demeanour, this is a girl who has powered through Tasmania’s Overland Trek and spent her fair share of time travelling in less than ideal conditions. As for me, I’ve braved life in a Yugoslavian village where it was common for the family donkey to quite happily watch one performing their ablutions in a construction I wouldn’t particularly refer to as anything within the realms of the word “toilet”. Poor donkey.

Whilst that’s an entirely delightful and engaging topic, the singular point returns that we should plan and prepare for a range of discomforts and mild illnesses and simply get on with it. This doesn’t extend to my cold however, which earns little pity from my counterpart besides the odd cup of green tea. Over said tea we discuss first our own preparations for a workable first aid kit of sorts and then on to the conditions that most Cambodians must live within. With their infrastructure hampered and outright attacked by years of civil war and unrest there is increased pressure on providing access to clean water, sanitation and health care. This is of course a focus of the work Oxfam does and it is incredible to think that there is such a real world need for something as simple as access to basic medical treatment. With the Khmer Rouge rather infamously depreciating the quality of living to almost unimaginable depths, I do wonder how much of this will be evident on our trip. There is no denying that more needs to be done however, and equally there is no denying that even small amounts of support can achieve large successes. To quote Oxfam, a “$20 donation can pay for five household gardens to be set up in Cambodia. The vegetable gardens can help families to have a more diverse diet and decrease the chances of malnutrition.”.

It’s incredible to stop and actually think about the difference such a small sum of money makes in the establishment of a vegetable garden for a family that has known only hunger and instability for actual generations. Jen and I talk on this topic for a while. Being avid food lovers who live in inner-city apartments we think of the potential joys of biting into the first explosively delicious and bright red tomato from our own garden. Or perhaps the smell of fresh tomatoes thrown into a Samlar Machu boiling away with mouth watering promise. How it must feel to have the knowledge that you can sustain yourself and your family. Most Cambodians would of course have no knowledge of how easy this is for Australians and members of first world countries to achieve, or how affordable helping them to achieve it is for us. It is easy though, and this is of course where I should be reminding you to support Jen and I in our fundraising for Oxfam. So I will. Support Jen and I in our fundraising for Oxfam!

As a final note of discussion, as we start to stare once again at the calendar and its “9 weeks!!!” count down, there is again the wonder of just what it is like over there. Whilst my grandfather was part of an official visit to the nation after the massacres, of which I can recount at a later stage, his stories seem as detached from the reports of the current Cambodian nation as they themselves seem from my imaginings. From friends who holiday in Cambodia I hear tales of adventure and exploration, whilst former colleagues now pursuing humanitarian vocations recount a completely different story of the same locations. This is not entirely unfamiliar to me, as I spent days sunning myself on the beaches of Former Yugoslavia, weeks in villages still pock marked from the rat-a-tat of gunfire and too many hours waiting in courts and police stations or covered in paint, digging a chilling variety of spent projectiles out of walls with a bucket of rendering plaster at my feet. Same region, different experiences, increased empathy and a better understanding.

When people ask us why we choose this method of fundraising for Oxfam, or why we don’t just go on a holiday and donate our money anyway it comes down to the idea above. In this trip we hope to help, and hope to understand. We would love your support.