Cambodia

Cambodia

After Kenya, Cambodia is the second poorest country we have visited.
I can feel the changes slightly taking place inside of me, that I consider to come from traveling: as I write "second poorest", I feel it is not quite right to say it like that.
Similarly to Kenya, the Cambodian people is a smiling one, and were it not for a century of economic and cultural domination of the West, we would not be stuck in certain mindsets and standards when it comes to measuring "wealth" and "poverty".
On the way from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap, we stopped in front of a house, in the middle of a dirt road, a half-hour truck drive from the closest urban center.
The house was standing on its stilts, which looked strong and built to last. The house itself looked like it was only one room. In the space below it, without walls to close it from the wind, dirt, or gaze of passer-bys, a middle-aged man was napping in a hammock. Around, kids were playing with second-hand toys, their clothes worn, the youngest boy simply running around naked. In front of the house, a water pump. "Like it was for you a century ago", as they say. Or even "like in the middle ages".
Animals sniffed around in the neighborhood, looking for grass or grain. To separate each house and the piece of land around it from the next, identical-twin looking one, some fruit trees (banana, coconut) or cereals. No flower, no ornament of any sort was visible, except the odd shrine at the corner, with burnt incense sticks and small porcelain Buddha statue.
The encounter with the family living in the house was a materialization of the word "uneasiness", and I forbid myself to take pictures. I wanted to leave some of my extra tshirts to them, but did not know if they needed tham at all, or whether they would feel offended that I thought they needed my charity.
Cambodia has been out of civil war for less than 20 years, and the country lacks all the basics. A government spokesman explained in a Western business investment magazine that they did not have electricity until 1994 (in the Christian Era calendar, yes...), and now they do but it is still very expensive.

The image of that family, living in that house, is burnt in my mind. This is where we come from: a house made from natural material (wood and leaves), a household of many generations with numerous children, living outside during the day, sleeping all together on the floor, or a shared mattress with any luck. A hand pump in front of the house, which provides water for the whole "block", or at least a handful of families.
This is what every country went through, at some point of their history. For generations and generations, until "development" came, bringing nation-wide infrastructures and revolutionizing the role and power of the individual, and therefore the structure of the society. But we do not know what it feels like to be without running water and to be left hungry, rather than with a full belly, at the end of a meal. In our world travel, we have been to a few places where we did not have running water ourselves, or we had to cross an open field to reach the toilet, which was nothing else than four planks nailed together around a hole in the ground. But it is not our life standard.

And I believe this huge gap in daily reality, between "us" from the West, and "them" the more than 60% or 70% of the world population without access to all of our goodness (comfort/luxury), is a critical issue blocking us from effectively thinking new ways for "development", "community building", and "help".

It also reinforces an idea I've had for 6 years now, which is that as the guy sitting at the top of the world, with everything anyone could ever wish for, I have a responsibility to give back. Not give money and not care how it's used, nor give money and say "do what I command you". Rather, I see my responsibility as coming into contact with underprivileged people, listening to their needs, but most importantly their ideas; as understanding what works and what does not work, and why, when it comes to fighting poverty; as building bridges to bring joy and new means of expression without sacrificing the old customs and the human energy that flow in those communities.
The investment I am to make cannot be measured in euros or dollars, only in years. It is not about how much I can help to increase the income of a household, it is about how can I support their smiles.
The proper response to life is applause.
I hope to help in re-writing the scenario a bit, so we can all applause together, the sooner the better.

Motorbikes and unstable trucks swarm on Cambodian roads, carrying all kinds of load on their back, from wood beams to live pigs to whole families. Haystacks line the roads across rural areas (right side, on the picture above)

 The world-known profile of Angkor Wat, reflected on the water

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Happy me :)

A traditional dance show, with a 50cm-high head-wear, at the back of the stage a replica of stone carving from Angkor Tom temple.

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Stone monkey-men guarding the central tower and the shrine in an old temple around the Angkor Wat area. In early 20th century, French writer and future minister of culture André Malraux came in the region and "borrowed" a few archeological pieces, that were later sent back to Cambodia

Stone faces carved at the top of Angkor Tom temple

Business ideas

This morning was very productive in many ways!
As I worked my way through a critical step of my main project in the office, some thoughts I had been following for the past weeks finally fell in place. Now I can formalize a few ideas for new business that arise, mostly, from discussions with friends and colleagues , based on topics from the "4-hour work week" best selling book by Tim Ferris.

1. price minister online shop :
as I realized last time I shopped online, there are more and more entrepreneurs opening shop on PriceMinister, eBay, and other "P2P" online trading platforms. In France, this has become increasingly easy thanks to a new administrative status introduced in 2009.
The idea, if you follow Tim Ferris' advice, is to keep yourself out of the picture: setp up the shop, but make sure that customers orders are sent directly to your contractor, which will in turn manage by itself production and delivery of the goods, BUT ALSO after-sales service. Or find a thirf party to do it. After all, if such opportunities are available nowadays, why would you want to spend hours and hours answering customer emails when a specialist can take care of it for minimal fees?

2. diversity agent
A friend sent me a link to a very interesting blog on "social spelunking" (sorry French people, it's hard to find a translation for that....)
On this post about women in technology & tech conferences, the author explains that the majority of web users are female in North America, and that the largest population on the Web is Asian.
So?
So, it means that for companies such as Mindvalley, and of course plenty others, their activity of online marketing and advertising strategies would benefit from identifying those trends as soon and as precisely as possible.
I am confident there is still today a market for this kind of activity: as traditional advertisement becomes less effective, creative companies are in need of hard facts to identify the trends they want to surf.

Alright, that's all for today folks. Reactions welcome.

The Sunday Morning Factor

Have you noticed how many unusual things happen on Sunday mornings? Do you feel that there is something special about that precise time of the week, where everything seems better, simpler, where your mind is more relaxed?
Probably a lot of people just spend it sleeping, after coming home at 7 from an all-night-long hardcore party. It does happen to me from time to time!

A couple of things made this morning - and it's not even over yet! - different:
1. I got a new mobile phone last week, and I now have unrestricted, unlimited access to internet and 20 TV channels , 24/7, from anywhere as long as my mobile catches a signal.
2. some day in september 2003, soon after joining the business school I graduated from, I stepped through a door labelled "Aiesec" because I thought there might be something of interest.

Now let's look at the consequences:
1. as Thomas Friedman, world-reknown columnist & economy journalist, explains in book, "The World is Flat" (or on Amazon.com), the current trend is for increased connection of individuals to the global society & economy, and one of the things that individual can now do is "in-forming". He means that "Never before in the history of the planet have so many people-on their own-had the ability to find so much information about so many things and about so many other people". One of the consequences he describes a bit further in hte book is that every person with access to a computer and internet can be his/her own news reporter, can create his own information, comparing sources, relating events between each other, balancing perspectives coming from different places and build up his own opinion on a topic with a lot more foundation than ever before.
So I got this new mobile with internet, and as I rode the train back from my parent's place to my current flat, I was surfing on facebook (yes, they do have a mobile site). and one of the news caught my attention, it was an update about Janne Asmala.
That brings us to point 2.
2. Janne is a Finnish chap I met in 200...5 (I think?), at an Aiesec conference. It's amazing how much change in life has derived from my stepping through that door back in 2003. So in 2005 he was a student in Finland, aiming for a master in Knowledge Management. Meeting him was a striking experience for me because we were just 20 years old and he had already read an amazing lot about philosophy, the power of the mind, and education system. Within Aiesec, pushed simply by his strong inner belief, he started a move to change the education systems globally. I'm not sure how that move is now, but back then it resulted in discussion groups at several conferences, involving dozens of students from just about any country, and I'm sure it was a life changing experience for them. Witnessing this phenomenon made me understand better how a single person, just following his own path and inner conviction, can bring change and involve people into something bigger than just themselves.

So, surfing on facebook, i went to read his latest post, which led me, following the links at random, to learn about the book "Presence". As one of the amazon.com reviewed it:
"The authors' central question is "How do we individually and collectively bring about useful change in circumstances where the past, and established ways of thinking, are not good guides to the future?" If, as the authors believe, globalization, the exponentially growing impact of humans on the environment, and the overwhelming power and influence of a small number of global corporations have produced a situation in which accepted ways of thinking and acting are no longer appropriate, what are the appropriate ways of thinking and acting and how do we learn them, get them accepted and promote their widespread adoption? Is this an issue only for those in 'positions of power', or can all of us make a difference?"

I found myself looking at an excellent phrasing for a question that I have been focusing on lately: the challenge of change in environments that are not receptive to it. I think this is also a question that a lot of people are asking themselves at the moment, what with general climate change, economical slow-down (I'm an "anti-crisis"!), etc.
However this sentences poses quite a number of problems. Starting with the definitions of the words used :"useful change", and "established ways of thinking", are very much subjective. The very idea of "useful change" is extremely controversial", as differet people will see it differently. Also, what can be considered an "established way of thinking"? the average habit of the majority of the population? A statistical opinion at a given point in time?
I do not have answers for this, but I definitely intend to look into this topic. It is one of the questions that emerged from the Kitchen Discussion. But that is another story... that I keep for next time.

I hope you all make good use of your Sunday mornings. It is a time for extraordinary events, that will link your peaceful resting morning to places far away in space and time. It works if you read a book too :)
Long live Sunday mornings!

A thousand trees

..."It only takes one tree to make a thousand matches,
it only takes one match to burn a thousand tress. " ....

A Thousand Trees, written & performed by the Stereophonics, in the album "Word Gets Around".

Got me thinking about responsibility, and my understanding of that word.
My paradigm about responsibility comes from one of my most impactful experiences ever. Let's rewind, step by step, back to that meaningful moment:

2008 is a year to remember for many reasons, on a global perspective.
Personally, it was the first year in which I took the time to reflect on what moments had been critical for me, in my life until now, and what they meant, why they had happened the way they did, and is there something I should do about it if I ever find the answer to all my questions.

In the course of that thiking, I remembered one of the most impactful moments of my life; one which set me out on the Sustainable Development path and were I made to myself the commitment to care about the environmental consequences of my actions.

Looking back, it could have set me on a lot of other courses.

It happened in Aiesec.
Fall 2004, I’m in my LCP term at LC INT (now IT-SudParis), and I decide to attend EuroCo, the very first edition of this pan-european conference for LCPs. So, 121 LCPs from all the cities, from Lisbon (Protugal) to Iasi (Romania), and from Milan to Stockholm. 121 students from all over the continent, ages ranging from 19 to 26. On the 3d or 4th day of the conference, after a mind-blowing Outdoor Day where I truly understood the word “team building” and the challenge of facilitating a session, we went into a different kind of simulation.
A current-state-of-the-world reproduction, on a smaller scale.

Here is exactly how it happened.
As we entered the plenary room, each LCP was given a small piece of colored paper. Soon we found that there were different colors, and not all in the same quantity.
I was in the white group, the largest of all. In fact, I think we were almost 50 people in there. We had to split into 5 10-people groups. We were advised to all sit on the ground. The pink group, with 30 people, split as well in 3 smaller groups. the blue, green, and yellow, were accordingly getting smaller and smaller. In fact, the Yellow “group” was just one girl, from the Netherlands or Denmark maybe.
Then each group was given the details of its current situation, and of the situation of others. To sum it up, the largest, white group, represented countries with the most difficult socio-economico-political situation.
- We did not have stable politics ensuring the development, roll-out, and improvement of national policies
- our people did not have permanent access to education, even for children
- we did not represent a market significant enough that foreign investments would come fortify our economy: only international grants & donations were coming in
- possibly, we would undergo civil unrest and/or war, environmental pressure from flood and earthquakes, disease epidemics…
- women were being discriminated at all stages of the society, starting from school
- etc.
you get the picture.

For each group between us and the yellow group, the situation was increasingly better, so that this girl sitting on her chair, alone, represented what I could call the modern, western society:
- higher education available for the large majority of the population
- political stability and strong diplomatic relations with other well established nations
- public service for basic survival needs (housing, water, existing healthcare system)
- economy providing at least 80% of the population with jobs
- research & education running and cooperating with peers in other countries

After we read what we had, the facilitator (Caroline Gertsch from Switzerland, if memory serves) gave us our task:
- identify what you, as a country, can OFFER to and RECEIVE from countries that would be in the groups just “above” and just “below” your own.
- for the bottom group (49 people and me), we could only look “up”
- for the top group (the girl alone), she could only look “down”

We had 25 minutes to discuss in my group of 10 people what we could find to offer to any country, to attract investment. It was probably an intense discussion, full of interesting thoughts and remarks. It may as well have been dull. I don’t remember it. But I remember the conclusion. I can let you think about it if you want. You can take 5 minutes now, to think about what you would have said in our situation.


If you don’t want to spend this time now, I give the answer now, and you can do it later, by imagining, say, the second group (pink) and thinking about what they can offer and what they can receive from countries with relatively close situations.
Basically, all we had to offer were :
- our arms & legs for working
- our natural resources, scarce or hard to mine ourselves, due to lack of know-how and equipment.
And what we could expect from other countries:
- everything…

To be more specific, the first needs identified (my memory seems weak on this point)
- support for building infrastructure
- support for stabilizing the political society
- international help on meeting basic water & food demand
- funding for child education & support for creating quality higher education

That moment has impacted me up ot today, and will continue to do so: I don’t even have a clue how many countries in our actual word are part of that huge group so much in need of help.

I think I saw more the other end of the issue: the girl at the top of this giant pyramid of needs, the only one, closest to the top, had everyone to help. And she was really alone. She had everything the others did not even know they could want and have. I do not believe that this will happen by itself if we just let time pass. The top countries had a blank page and enough ink to write their way to the stars and back. Now the planet is crowded ("hot, flat & crowded" as some would put it) and we are "consuming" the environment faster than it renews itself. (see latest studies from Science & Vie in France, or your local science magazine, about the ratio between population and 'minimum required space of earth"-per-person... well, it doesn't look good right now, and its still going down).

A famous french writer wrote "if you dont do it, who will do it? if not now, when?" (André Gide, in Les Faux Monnayeurs).

That is the sense of responsibility that I got from that cold day of october 2004, in the middle of a room full of students I never imagined meeting one week before.

Last week, at the Winter National Conference, in my closing speech I mentionned the idea of "connecting oneself" to the world, and how aiesec helps you to do that, when you go through the full @Experience.

I felt connected to the world, and I saw myself sitting at the top of it and doing nothing but eating it away and not even knowing the consequences of my way of life and my actions.

I hope I made my experience understandable for you. If not, I'd like you to leave me a comment, and we can talk about it more in detail.

It's really ironic that we make matches from trees. We have to be careful with each match.

Goodnight world.