so long, and thanks for all the rice

I have now left cambodia, and still am not sure how I feel about it.

The last weekend was as good as it could have been. I spent most of it at CCH helping out at the interviews for United World College candidates. There were two full scholarships available, to Atlantic College, the one that I went to, and Li Po Chun in Hong Kong. There were also two half scholarships, which have yet to be allocated, to UWC Costa Rica and Adriatic College in Italy. We started on Saturday morning with eighteen candidates.

The first day was easiest, each candidate had both an English and Khmer interview and some academic tests. My job was to oversee activities between interviews, which included role-plays, presentations and a great team exercise where they were given nothing but newspaper and told to build a bridge. I was also allowed to help mark the candidates, which was intimidating, as they wanted me to allocate marks based entirely on body language seeing as I couldn’t understand what was being said between team members. I suppose that was an interesting way to mark them as it meant I was focusing solely on what interaction and teamwork I was witnessing, without real reference to any of its context. But overall I think it was easy to weed out the ones that were perhaps not really UWC material, though they were all wonderfully bright kids.

So, we managed to narrow those eighteen down to seven, who returned the next day. They had another two, more in depth interviews and I spent time showing them all the college websites and answering questions they had about UWC. Then two were finally chosen, a girl to go to AC, who was clearly incredibly intelligent and focused, though I worry that she may not embrace the extra-curricular side of the college, and a boy to go to Hong Kong who was the least traditionally Khmer teenager I have met in 6 months. He was very open and inquisitive and definitely deserved the scholarship. It was hard watching the ones who were rejected leaving, knowing that though a couple of them may be able to afford a high standard of education in Cambodia, for most this process had very much been a case of all or nothing, and they would have to work harder than anyone their age could be expected to in order to get as far as UWC would have led them. Still, they showed so much spirit that I have no doubt they will all end up doing what they want to in some form or another.

Being back at CCH was wonderful. The girls all remembered me and were so affectionate that it made it hard to leave them. I was able to be there for the usual Saturday night disco, this time a special one because an Israeli man, who was sponsoring two of the boys from the brother home of CCH, had come to see how they were and had bought soft drinks and special food for everyone. Papa Sohka (as the children call him), the director, is also a musician, and he played live music on a little keyboard while one of the older boys sang Khmer pop songs for everyone to dance to. One older girl sat with me after the dancing. She showed me the book of english proverbs she was reading and told me about how she would love to go to a UWC. She was so inquisitive and smart. She asked questions like “why do we fall in love” and “would you like to be a millionaire” as I continually struggled to give coherent answers. She told me that her biggest wish was to ride on an airplane and go to a country where it snowed.

When I left in a tuktuk, Sohka came up to say goodbye. As Chris had warned me, Sohka is very shy with foreign people, and had said nothing to me until that point except for when I asked him a question about the interviews and he said to talk to his assistant. But he shook my hand and thanked me for my help and made me promise to come back and visit, which meant a lot.

In the evening on Sunday I went to the cinema that I love, with the Canadian boys I met from Siem Reap. I stayed at a guesthouse I had been to a few times before, and the guy there greeted me at the door saying “You no book room. No worry, you remember me? I remember you, I give you same room as last time!”.

So, I left the guesthouse at 7am the next day, and now I’m in Bangkok waiting to fly home. I feel like I’ve left somewhere behind that was home, even though I would never be able to call it that.

I think I will write once more when I finally arrive in Wales, by which time I will hopefully have a more articulate-able understanding of what this trip has really meant. I will also add the pictures from the last few days, because my camera is now packed away.

temples and other things

I decided to spend the last week or so of my trip as a tourist in Siem Reap and I think it was the best decision I’ve made. Having time to breath and gift shop and chat to people about their travels and my own has given me time to dwell on my time here and really warm down to leaving.

The first few days I spent in Siem Reap were in the company of the only other under-twenty-year-old tourists I’ve found in this whole six months. I met them at the hostel and joined them on a trip into the woods where we set up camp; myself, a Scottish girl called Yoshe, Canadian Jayden and a Moroccan guy called Rachid. We did very little except eating rice from plastic bags and chatting. Also, on the second night, we walked to Angkor Wat to watch the sunset, where I had my first temple experience. The beauty of the structure was undeniably beautiful but hard to appreciate in all its glory because there was renovation being done on the outside and it was too dark to see the inside. When we came back to the city, Yoshe, Jay and I celebrated rejoining civilization with a trip to an over-priced hotel swimming pool full of over 60s with perfect tans, and went for pizza together. It was lovely finding people just to wander with, if nothing else.

camping

Over the next few days I wandered the city and the surrounding area, swimming, walking, cycling and eating to my heart’s content. The Canadian guy and I hired mountain bikes and tried to get to the floating village, about 15km outside the city. The mission was doomed to failure, but made for a good story, if nothing else. We set off in the sweltering midday heat and by the time we reach a road that at all justified hiring mountain bikes, I was feeling seriously ill. We put the bike on a boat and crossed a small stretch of river and then after that there was not really a path to follow. After about a half hour of solid effort we ended up turning back, and made it back to the river. We put the bikes back on the boat but when I tried to walk across I stepped a little to far from the centre of the ramp down into the opaque water and fell in right up to my waist. I can imagine it must have been very funny to watch - the Cambodians around definitely appreciated the entertainment. And on the plus side, I didn’t feel ill anymore. Jayden had also, on the way back, managed to puncture one of his tyres, so I was able to dry off while we waited for it to be fixed and made our way slowly back to town. We then went to lunch, where it took way too much effort to explain to the Khmer waiter that in addition to my meal, I wanted a small bag of uncooked rice. He was further confused when he finally succeeded in bringing me that, by the fact that I put my camera in it to dry it off - which successfully fixed it!

The Wales-France match turned out to be a mission to watch and was much less satisfying than watching the England match in Phnom Penh. I was persuaded to join Jayden and another friend of his (who, entertainingly, has been going everywhere in a full suit for 30 days, without a break, for a bet, and therefore manages to start conversations with strangers just because he looks so overdressed all the time) to go to a club. So I ended up sitting at the bar, trying my best to pay attention to the rugby when the music was blaring and no one else cared about the match at all. I felt very antisocial and a little silly, but still, the outcome of the match made up for it!

I decided to splash out and return to the floating village to see it properly by boat alone. I somehow ended up with a whole boat to myself and the place was definitely worth the trip. The village was spread out over the Tonle Sap lake, a series of floating buildings which you could only move between by boat. One of them was an orphanage and the others were houses, shops, restaurants. On one of them was a catfish farm and a crocodile farm and I also visited a little museum/aquarium. In boats around each building, children sat with snakes round their necks, as a money making tactic for all the tourists that passed through, though I’m not sure how entrepreneurial holding a snake up to a tourist and saying “snake!” can be.

crocodile farm on the floating village

the floating village

Three days of templing followed, and though the temples were possibly one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen, wandering round them for hours at a time was not my idea of a good day. On the last day however, I managed to find the perfect way to see them. I went to Ta Phrom, or the Tomb Raider temple, which was almost completely overtaken by trees. I spent hours there, sat in a window reading, which ended up pleasing a lot of Koreans who wanted their photos taken with me.

Bayon

Sunrise at Angkor Wat

Ta Phrom

One evening I went to a children’s shadow puppet and traditional dance show. The show itself was not exactly good, it was full of inaccuracy. When you took into account however, that it was performed by deaf dancers accompanied by blind musicians, then a little inaccuracy in their synchronization can definitely be forgiven. And, if nothing else, the costumes were stunning.

I also visited an international school in the town. The principal was an friend of a friend and showed me around. It was possibly the best school I have seen in Cambodia, showing how much is possible when you rely on parents’ money as opposed to donations. They had murals everywhere and lovely classrooms and sports equipment pouring from every orifice. Maybe one day UWS will be like that… hopefully.

And now I am in Phnom Penh, back at CCH for the United World College interviews, waiting for someone to tell me how I can help out. In that under-organised Cambodian way I’m not sure they ever had a job for me to do, but now I’m here so I hope they use me.

Home on Monday...

hunting for treasure

My last week of teaching in Cambodia was different again to everything I’ve done so far. The quietness of the place, an orphanage in the middle of nowhere, about an hour from Siem Reap, was similar to that of the jungle, so I had plenty of time for reading and other calm, solo pass-times. The place itself however, was very different to anywhere I have been so far. The project was very well established and though they seemed to have significant financial obstacles to overcome, they had still achieved an incredible amount in the short few years since they had started. There weren’t many kids living there, around 30 or 40 in total, all from about 7 to 18 years old. They had three classrooms for English lessons and a primary ad secondary school close by. They had also developed a farm where they grew rice and vegetables and fruit and had a huge fish pond, so they were able to grow enough to feed themselves and also sell some to earn money to run the generator and buy animal feed for the various chickens and pigs wandering around. I ate and lived alone so had plenty of quiet time, a nice contrast to CCH. But the director would sit and drink instant coffee with me every morning and tell me about all things he was doing for the orphanage and the jobs that needed doing and the problems they were facing. He rarely answered the questions that I actually asked, but I learned a lot anyway.

The teaching was really good fun. I was teaching English again, primary in the morning and secondary in the afternoon. The younger children were a challenge, but I had a translator for when I needed it. And mostly, all they expected from a foreign teacher was just a lot of good games, so it ended up being very chilled out and giggly. I was shocked by how many mistakes the teachers made during teaching English, but I suppose as long as the kids learn to communicate in another language it will be a job well done, whether their grammar is perfect or not. The oldest class I had was the best because their English was good enough that I could build up a strong relationship with them. I was impressed by the higher levels in the Cambodia English curriculum. The older kids were doing comprehension exercises on topics such as democracy and environmental protection, albeit a little basically.

The last day I spent teaching was the best. I played games the whole time because that is what the kids wanted to do, so in the morning we played simple vocabulary games and when teaching was over, which was earlier than usual because it started raining (the Cambodians react to rain as the Welsh do to snow). Then my translator offered to take me to see a private village primary school where I ended up doing a quick lesson as well. Then, in the afternoon I played Pictionary with the older kids, which they all loved, once they had stopped being self conscious. And for my favourite class I also made a short treasure hunt which ended up being the funniest thing I have seen in a while. They were given a list of instructions - “turn right, take four steps” etc - and ended up just following each other and going round in groups. They got it in the end though and seemed to have a lot of fun.

A little downer on the week was that my wallet was stolen soon after I arrived there, probably by someone from the nearby village. After a couple of days it showed up again, having been left at the side of the road once they had taken my money and also, for some reason, my photos. That wasn’t until after I had cancelled my card however, so I had to get hold of emergency cash which was worryingly easy. Somehow it’s easy to feel that as long as someone knew my date of birth and address and managed to steal my passport, then they could empty my account with very little hassle, and almost untracably. But there you go, all’s well that ends well.

chicks in the classroom

my classroom

hiding from the rain

the fish pond, with an armchair for fishing from

the only transport