…It’s true, they really like to laugh 🙂
At the beginning of them month, we spent 5 days in Siem Reap at debrief. We had those days for refueling, resting, teaching sessions and have meetings as team leaders and also as a team with our squad leaders and staff from the States. It was a very nice rest. We actually stayed at a hotel and it was so nice!!!!! There was air conditioning, complimentary buffet breakfast and a POOL!!! We couldn’t believe it 🙂
A few friends and I went for a bike ride to Ankor Wat (really old temples in Siem Reap), apparently one of the World’s Wonders. We rented bikes for 1 dollar and biked around the temples and saw the meticulus details of the temples and the trees and roots overgrown over the old buildings. It was interesting. The bike ride was really fun too!!
We met a group of Cambodians who were there for a school trip from their university and many of them knew english but I was also able to speak to one of them in FRENCH! haha. Fantastic!
Another VERY exciting part of that day was that we were biking along and I heard a volleyball hit someone’s arms through the trees. I made everyone stop and turn into the place where I heard it and there were a whole bunch of guys playing volleyball!!!!!! We stopped and I got to play with them for a few minutes…they were quite good. A highlight for sure!
We left Siem Reap and then headed to our ministry site in Kampong Chhnang. It took us two days to get there because we stopped in one city to stay overnight at another site by the same organization we are working with this month, Transform Asia. We also had a great day there going around the city with one of the contacts from the States and we stopped at a little street vender (my favourite) and her specialty was bugs and snakes. So we ate a huge bug (not the best) and then tried snake!! So, there you have it, I have eaten snake. It didn’t actually taste like much and it had absolutely no meat. It was just skin and bone. I guess I ate snake skin! YUM…
We travelled the next day, finally our 4th and last bus ride. We met our wonderful contacts from Tennessee! They took us to our ministry site and that is where we are now! We are working at a New Development Centre which has been around since the 90s. It is a training centre for women who have been saved from the sex trade. Many of them do not have an education so we have been teaching them english and computer. At the centre they learn sewing, cosmotology and we have been teaching them jewelery-making. Many of them know no english or any computer knowledge so we have started from the very basics. It is challenging but also a lot of fun and encouraging. We also have been teaching some girls and children guitar and keyboard!
This month has been similar to our ministry last month except this is the next step from last month. These women have been saved from the sex trade and now are being trained in order to live and be able to support themselves. A lot of the population in Cambodia are less than 30 because of the genocide which occured here from 1975-1979 which killed around 21% of the population. We actually went to one of the torture camps, which used to be a school. I wanted to go and learn about this genocide because it affects every Cambodian’s life. They all have some connection. We saw so many pictures of victims from this one place, where there were only 7 survivors. We actually met one survivor who wrote a book about his life. He was not killed because he was a skilled painter and they wanted a painter.
Even through all of this, which was so hard for me even to read about, I have noticed that Cambodians love to laugh! Just today I went to the market and said my usual “Swoi-se-dye” to every person I saw (it means hello) and one lady just burst out laughing. I probably say it wrong, but still they like to laugh. At the centre where we live, we are often tickled by the children or any of the girls we know! It’s really funny 🙂 We have access to bicycles here so I have been riding almost every day. It is so much fun to ride down to the market or up the road to the coconut trees and rice fields. I say “swoi-se-dye” to everyone and they all say it back and the children all say “hello, what’s your name” not knowing the meaning of “what’s your name” because I ask them the same question and they don’t answer! ahaha.
Biking, pinapples, volleyball, green scenery, the market, rice for every meal, friendly people, laughing and smiling = yes, Cambodia is great!
It is hard to not feel exhausted here on our ninth month around the world, but every day I experience something new and exciting. AND I can’t believe it has been 9 months, now I know how mothers feel when their pregnancies feel so long yet short at the same time!!!
They eat a lot of rice!
-ANNE!
