Volunteering in Siem Reap
Trip Start
Jun 29, 2008
1
23
40
Trip End
May 15, 2009
Siem Reap,
Cambodia
Friday, August 22, 2008
There are about 15 volunteers here at the moment covering 5 different projects. Ranging from fairly established ones like Sangkheum to very basic new ones. Sangkheum has been around for about 6 years and is made up of resident and non resident children and aged between 4 and 18. The resident children are split into 'family'groups and housed in individual houses with a carer. The non resident children come from the surrounding areas. They are taught Khmer, English, Computers and Art. There are about 100 children there and they are split roughly in half between resident and non resident. Usually there are three volunteers from Globalteer out there teaching.
I got to meet most of the volunteers on the Friday evening which was handy as it was the weekend and it is usually difficult to bump into people as they are out and about relaxing. I made my way to town to have breakfast in my favourite spot, The Blue Pumpkin, fully air-coned absolutely bliss with cool tunes and big sofas to lounge on. I then treated myself to a massage, well I have tried to do one each week I'm in Asia as they are so cheap, and this one didn't disappoint at $7. The rest of the weekend was spent chilling out with some of the volunteers and having a drink. Well it would be rude not to have a drink on the weekend!!
On Monday it was out to the school. Marcus the education coordinator took me out there along with Maggie, an older Aussie, who had already been at the school for a week. The school is currently on their summer programme which mostly Khmer art and crafts and also making things for their end of summer show and award day. So for most of the day we aren't needed, we just get in the way. Maggie has two one hour lessons to fat lunchtime with some juniors and young adults. I just sat and watched with the occasional bit of participation. Maggie has been teaching for years so she is an old hand at it. It's a bit of a waste of my time but it is only for 2 hours a day so I get plenty of time to myself. The downside is it's a half hour tuk-tuk ride from the GH and costs $8 between us!! Poor Maggie paid it all herself the previous week which is a bit much when you pay 500 quid for 3 weeks and your flight here.
The rest of the week was pretty much the same other than new volunteers arriving and some leaving. We have a pretty good bunch ranging from 21 to about 65. There are five americans, six aussies, four english, a canadian and an irish woman. Five are over forty and don't really socialise with the rest of us young uns!!
We were joined by another aussie woman on Thursday at our school, Maureen, who is I think in her fifties. Lovely lady.
Friday the kid had the end of summer show/award ceremony. They put on 3 small plays about children's rights, their right to no discrimination, to be protected and the right to life. Even thought they were in Khmer we could understand their meanings. The plays were written and directed by the older kids, some of whom Maggie teaches. We then shared lunch with them, red curry with veg, chicken and pork served with french bread and noodles. It was lovely as long as you didn't look at some of the meat as we had a chicken foot at the bottom of our bowl. They spent the afternoon playing football which we didn't watch as it was too hot.
The weekend was spent partying quite hard on Friday night and getting in late. It was really busy in town and I ran into quite a few people I knew from last year, John from Bristol who owns Aqua, Mac, an english guy who owns Funky Monkey, Stewart from London who's an architect, Sam the previous volunteer co-coordinator and who now runs one of the projects and Zoe who works at Angkor Wat bar. What was real funny is that they all remembered me, not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing!! Thank god for Royal D rehydration powder, it's a miracle cure and preventer of hangovers!!
Most of yesterday (Sunday) was spent trying to prepare for our lessons on Monday as Maureen and I have two two hour lessons, 9-11 and 2-4 plus an hour at lunchtime and Maggie has two two hour lessons and two one hour ones to do. We are not sure of the class sizes, could be 30 kids, what their level of english is or their ages. So we are in the dark a bit so Maureen and I will have to wing some of it. I didn't sleep much last night worrying about things.
Well D day arrived after being here a week and I got up extra early even went out on my push bike to find breakfast, a pork filled mini baguette, it was surprisingly good and only cost 25 cents. We got to school only to be told that lessons don't start till Wednesday, three unhappy bunnies as you can imagine. Our tuk-tuk had already left so we had to find someone to ring Globateer up to get him to come back to us. We played with some of the younger kids whilst we waited. We went to see a silk farm on our way back to make use of our now free time. It was really interesting and we saw the people weaving the silk too. We then made our way back to the GH for our moan to Marcus. That didn't really get us very far which I expected. He aplogised and arranged for us to be able to start tomorrow instead. We asked if we could help at one of the other projects which was met with a NO they are already at full capacity. We decided to go out to New Hope one of the new very basic schools which has 6 of the volunteers at. It is in the middle of the local red light district with numerous karaoke bars, not just a place for singing if you catch my drift. This is a very basic school where two of the classrooms are part of the playground with no desks, the kids sit on the floor on mats. The volunteers teach 6 classes here with limited resources. The kids are lovely, very much like my kids from last year, very affectionate. I think our school's kids are going to be much more quiet and hands off.
