We boarded our shuttle buses at our hostel in Bangkok around 5:00am to head for Cambodia. We arrived at the border three hours later, spent a total of three hours going through customs and then hopped on another bus. My team and I were the last to be dropped off in the city of Phnom Penh 10 hours later where we met our ministry host for the month. We then climbed into another van where we crammed all of our packs and ourselves in like sardines for another hour-long drive. At this point it’s 10:00pm at night and we can’t see where we’re going or what the area around us looks like. Once we arrived, it was pitch-black dark. I just remember the dark sky being covered with stars and hearing the night sounds of crickets and frogs surrounding. I was convinced we were out in the country with nothing else surrounding else because it seemed so peaceful. The girls were shown our room which is normally the school’s office and the boys were shown their room which was the school’s library.
Then we were shown the bathroom…. Our first night there were no doors and everything was COVERED in bugs.
You can just imagine my horror at this point, right?
We were expected to be up first thing the next morning ready to teach the day away starting at 7:30am. It wasn’t until we woke up and could see in the day light the destruction of the school we were at. Just a few short months ago, a flood came through from the river and wiped out 1/3 of the school. Gone was the cafeteria, gone was the play area and gone were a few classrooms.
With the rough living conditions of this school (Oh yeah, and did I mention that the heat index was almost 110 every day?) it could have been really easy for my team and I to lose motivation and just complain the whole time. But I think after seeing the destruction and seeing the beautiful children of this school and how hard the teachers work, my team and I instantly fell in love. Rather than concentrating on all of the hard things about the month ahead, we all agreed to just choose joy and I can honestly say that it was most of our favorite month on the race thus far.
We each had a class in the morning and a class in the afternoon where we taught English, helped the other teachers with whatever they needed, decorated classrooms and just played and loved on all of the kiddos.
One of the coolest parts about the month, was that we were there for the Khmer New Year which is like Christmas for Cambodia. It’s a huge celebration in the Buddhist religion filled with water throwing parties, baby powder thrown everywhere, dancing and eating.
Also, have I mentioned the beautiful sunsets we were able to watch every evening?
Cambodia turned out to be one of the most beautiful countries with the kindest people that I’ve come across yet. I know I’ve said it already, but the people of Cambodia were absolutely beautiful as well- a natural yet stunning beauty that I don’t know how to explain.
In fact, I even got a parasite this month and I still love everything about my time spent here.
Cambodia unexpectantly stole my heart and this is a country I know I will return to again.
