first steps

I arrived at 9am on Wednesday morning, and now, coming to the end of Friday, I am beginning to feel at home. On my first day I was met at the airport by Chris, Vera and Gilly (the ex-headmistress who is to be our trainer and house-mum of sorts). We had a rushed breakfast and then, along with Catherine and Ingvill, we went to meet an Ex-UN worker who now works as an adviser for the Cambodian government. He is also the father of one of my Atlantic College first-years, Shimon. He told us all about Cambodia's history and explained to us the governmental system, which as far as I can understand it, is based upon columns and columns of departments that work almost entirely without cohesion.

We then went to the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, which was essentially left exactly as it was found at the end of Pol Pot's regime. The only differences were that two cells were taken up with photos of the prisoners and soldiers of the regime, another two with paintings of the prison by a survivor, and there were 14 graves outside for the dead found left in the prison when the regime was over. Stood outside the prison, as he has done everyday for a long time, was one of the last of the 7 who survived the prison. His presence made the whole trip more real, and his ability to be at the prison everyday was in part admirable, but also disturbing, because he seemed to have grown an immunity to the history of his surroundings.

We were then taken for a Traditional Khmer Massage, probably the most intense massage I have ever witnessed! We had parts of our bodies stretched that we never knew were stretchable. And  we all became very silly, and therefore very ticklish. We managed to enjoy most of the experience, though failed to maintain composure at the very end. The massuers (?) must have sighed inwardly at the silly little western girls, but selective maturity is definitely preferable never laughing at all!

We rode around all day in a Tuk Tuk... best form of transport ever! and we had the same driver all day who looked after us really well, driving us around in search of the perfect cafe, or chasing after us in the rain with waterproof ponchos.

Then, yesterday, we got up at 6am to drive 10 hours, all the way from Phnom Penh to Bunlung, where we will be living now for 6 months. and this morning we finally moved into our home. When me moved in it was filthy, but homely and we have managed to clean a little so the cooker is now white instead of grime-brown and the water in our wash-bucket is clear. I think this will become home very soon. I don't really know how I'm feeling about it all; partly comfortable now, and partly terrified i think... We'll see.

three days to go

    Less than three days until I fly out to The Kingdom of Cambodia. This is the first blog I’ve ever done, and it’s going to be very much a spew of thoughts as opposed to a well-thought-out monologue, but hopefully it will give people a good idea of what my United World Schools experience will be like. First, I guess I should say how I managed to get onto the project in the first place. Chris Howarth, the project’s leader, came to the United World College of the Atlantic early in my second year there. His talk was inspiring and a little forceful, but had its effect. A group of about ten of us displayed interest in going out and working on the project for our Gap Years, but only four of us (partly because of the British university fee changes - I won’t get started on that!) have managed to see the plan through ; myself, Vera form Mexico, Catherine from Switzerland and Ingvill from Norway. We all arrive in Cambodia around the 26th of September and will stay there, teaching in Chris Howarth’s schools until next March.
    Preparations are stressful to say the least. I've finally pieced together parts of Cambodia's modern history. I found an American documentary on Pol Pot the other day with the basic message that Communist dictatorship will always automatically morph into genocide -  which I think is a bit of a woolly statement to make. Something that brought me back to my history studying days was the discovery that, yet again, Western powers can be very much blamed for the occurrence of the Cambodian genocide, or at least for the rise of the Khmer Rouge. The Khmer Rouge gained substantial support following the appointment of American backed General Lon Nol as Prime Minister during the time when the U.S. was illegitimately bombing Cambodia in order to wipe out North Vietnamese guerrillas. Just a little history lesson there... I love history!
    Anyway, apart from looking at the history of Cambodia, I’ve also been poisoned with small doses of all sorts of fatal diseases. Part of me feels a little molly-coddled, considering how most of my suitcase is being taken up with first-aid stuffs. Having said that, I was doing a work shift today with a medicine student who has specialized in tropical diseases and there are apparently hundreds more jabs people should/could get, but many are almost completely ineffective. Even so, with the amount of money I have spent on jabs, anti-nausea tablets, rehydration mixture, malaria tablets, TCP and paracetamol, I’m going to be seriously annoyed if I manage to stay in Cambodia for the whole six months without getting at all injured or ill!
    I had my last shift at the Beach Hut today, and have my last wedding function to waitress tomorrow. I feel a little like, in the process of making as much money as I can before I leave, I’ve forgotten to breathe. It’s all good though, because I’ve had no time to be nervous, I’m just stupidly excited!