Dating and surviving

A young Cambodian proposed Kirsten (another student working for Kamworks) to show her around in the village. And... She brought a bunch of people (us) to this "date".
His brother works on the rice fields and he showed us how they pump water onto the fields.



Life on the campus is sometimes tough, but a good experience.


Arriving with four students at the same time we apparently disturbed the developed living patterns of the other four students. The power supply by solar panels is running short from time to time, internet is slower and breaks down more often and as more students are expected to come soon, we might run out of beds as well =) We will see and share in the meantime what we have, haha, also the spiders.

Meeting the locals

Yesterday, we basically walked, walked, walked around. First impression: Very intense colours, sometimes the grass is so saturated that it looks unreal.


We came along a Pagoda complex (beautiful!) where we had unexpectedly contact with some Cambodians which made us pray by repeating sentences and imitating gestures.




They constantly touched our arms and hands and took pictures with a mobile phone of one of the boys which both made them laugh very hard. Strange but nice experience...

Looking for a shop to buy some food, we were invited by a family to have lunch with them. Although we said that we were not hungry we at least had to drink beer with them and to try some of the dishes. Two of them spoke fluently English as they work for an international organization in Phnom Penh.


They also tought us some basic Khmer words that we could immediately try out on the rest of the family.


We spent a whole hour chatting and joking. In the beginning it made us feel quite uncomfortable to accept the invitation, but they seemed to like to have us as guests. In general, the people are very friendly and talk to us in Khmer, English or sign language. Children run towards the road when we pass by, saying "hello" and "bye-bye".

Landed

Hoi allemal,

We managed to land safely in Phnom Penh yesterday night after a long, long and exciting trip.




The airport of Bangkok, where we had to change planes, did not really feel like abroad yet, but eventually the flight with Thai Airlines (great food!) and the airport of Phnom Penh provided us with that surrealistic feeling you need to get into the right mood for such an adventure... Far less Western faces!



We were picked up with a truck that brought us including some freshly gathered mangos to the Solar Campus of Kamworks.


This Solar Campus lies in the middle of nowhere, about 30 km from the capital, between banana plants and goats and next to an orphanage where we also get dinner. April is the hottest month which means that we have temperatures between 35 and 40 degrees and still about 25 degrees at night which makes any blankets superfluous.


Mosquito carpets have to be swept from the floor regularly.


We used our first day to explore the environment of the campus and the workshop and to make plans for the deeper field research next week. A Cambodian is going to take us to the houses of the rural people, translating at the same time the conversations as we did not have the time to learn Khmer yet.

Fortsetzung folgt...

Team Lumen

Hello everybody!

We would like to introduce ourselves and our project to you.

We are four Industrial Design Engineering students, from the Delft University of Technology. Currently we are working on a project for Kamworks, a young solar company located in Cambodia. We are developing an affordable, quality lighting solution for the rural Cambodian population.

In Cambodia about 85% of the 15 million citizens of the country have no access to reliable electrical supply yet. They mainly use kerosene lamps, which involves high fuel costs, poor light quality and low safety, contributing at the same time to environmental pollution. The absence of reliable electricity sources forms a real barrier for the development of the rural population.

Therefore, we are aiming to to develop a locally producible, affordable and durable lamp for the Cambodian market. To make this happen, we are going to stay in Cambodia for 2,5 months. During this period we want to understand the Cambodian context and design a lighting solution tailored to the needs and wants of the user.

In this challenge we would like to invite you to join in; with your comments, ideas and creativity from this blog...With your support we are sure that the outcome of our project will be more than positive.

Regards,

Lumen