Hey everybody! This is my first blog post in a while; I’ve had quite an exciting month while in Cambodia. While in Cambodia, I shared a lot of memorable moments with my new teammates: Cecily, Hannah, Alyssa, Jacob, and Lucas. We also stayed with another team of six, and together we had the time of our lives. Our ministry site was an orphanage in the middle of the Kampot district in the south of Cambodia, which in normal terms is the middle of nowhere. We were surrounded by rice farms, and the nearest village was a 10 minute bike ride away. Our orphanage consisted of two cement buildings: one was a two story building that housed all of the orphans as well as our hosts, and the other building was ours. There were three empty rooms where we set up. The girls had cement floors to sleep on, but the guys had a room of bunkbeds with no mattresses to sleep on. Also, all of us shared a single bathroom. The bathroom was a small 6×12 tile room, and the shower water, sink water, and toilet water were all the same murky river water. There was also a classroom connected to our building where we would teach the younger and older kids English.
This blog I want to share about all of the crazy and funny and insane things I did while in Cambodia. The memories I made while in Cambodia I will cherish for the rest of my life.
- My first memorable moment in Cambodia came two days after we arrived in Kampot. At around 10:00 at night it started to torrential downpour, as it usually does in Southeast Asia, two of the guys from the other team (David and Parker), as well as Jake and myself decided it was a good idea to shower in the rain. So we all ran out into the rain and immediately were met with what felt like someone dumped a bucket on us. Dave and I stood under the roof as the water spilled off the roof making a makeshift shower stream. It was the best show I had in Cambodia.
- On a Friday night, Jake and I taught the older orphans an English lesson (since the younger kids were in the afternoon). Instead of teaching the older kids an easy topic, we decided to teach them an abstract train of thought. Our entire lesson plan was to get the kids to understand where straight, left and right were. And after you turn left or right, your bearings are still straight, left and right. It took us a half hour to explain this to the kids, which involved us waving our hands around a lot and pointing in different directions. Once the kids understood what we were saying, we moved on to a drawing of a city block, and asked them to give us directions from one place to another. It was a very successful class, and afterward Jake and I laughed how we had taught the kids abstract thought.
- After church one day David, Mike, Lucas and I all went biking through the rice fields in search of a bamboo tree to make staffs. It quite a fun experience once we found a bamboo tree; bamboo takes a long time to cut down when all you have is a seated knife. But, we were all able to make our staffs, and it was quite fun Afterwards, we biked through the rice fields the opposite direction of the bamboo tree, and passed a wedding (or funeral) procession, and were confused on what we were seeing. It was getting dark, so we took an alternative route home, and got to see some cool old temple or offering places.
- Since it gets dark at around 6:00 in Cambodia, adventures could only start as late as 4:00. So at 4:00 David, Jake and myself went for a bike ride into the nearest town. We turned left into a rice field, and followed the path through a bunch of mud puddles until we hit a gravel road. We stopped and I started taking photos of the area and the mountain in the background. David then asked me to start taking model photos of him. We were all laughing and started having a photo shoot in the middle of a rice field. David and I made almost all Zoolander faces or flexed. Jake and I straight faced it for most of the time, throwing sign making it look like we were dropping a hot new Hip-Hop mixtape (coming to you September 4th).
- At the end of our photo shoot, there was a crowd of 15 random Cambodian people surrounding us. It was clear they had never seen white people before. We left after that, and ended the trip by taking some photos of the breathtaking sunset.
- The next day, David said he wanted to go on and adventure, so Parker, Mike and I obliged. We biked for 10 minutes, the turned right after a big bridge and rode through a rice field. It was absolutely gorgeous. After a half a mile we came upon two large holes dug in the middle of the path, to drain the water from the rice fields. We picked up our bikes and carried them around the holes. As Parker set his down, the chain came off. This would usually be an easy fix. However, there was a sheet of metal encasing the entire chain, making it impossible for us to get our hands on the chain. We tried to use sticks through the holes in the chain guard to lift the chain up. It was getting dark, so we abandoned fixing it. David instead took my tank top and his, tied them to the frame of the bike, and put the bike on his back like a backpack. he then continued to bike like that to the main road (about a half mile away). We pulled Parker the rest of the way home on the bike.
- Our first real adventure day as a group involved us going to the mountain in pastors old beat up truck with a wide bed. But, a late surprise was that all the orphanage kids were coming with. So we had 40 people standing up in the back of this pickup truck as we bounce up and around. I seriously thought someone was going to die. We couldn’t even hold onto the railings. They were broken and were about to fall off. The car stalled a bunch of times, and we had to push it out of many a puddle or ditch. However, it did manage to make it through 2 foot puddles which looked more like ponds. Once we finally got to the mountain, there was a little lake where we could go swimming. It was a awesome break, because the water was cold, and Cambodia is so dang hot. All of the guys provoked a herd of water buffalo, and got one of the males to run across most of the lake to charge us. It was very terrifying. The ride back from the lake was terrifying as well, because kids were constantly moving around and trying to grab us. I almost fell off, but we all made it back home safe.
- My most memorable moment in Cambodia had to have been when Parker, David, Jake and I just went exploring. Our plan was to turn right out of the orphanage and keep going until we were tired. We had biked about 20 minutes when we came across the first real big bridge we had seen. I needed to stop to fix my backpack, so we all looked around and looked down at the river. After a minute or two, Parker asked us “Do you think I would live if I jumped off the bridge?” We told him to go check the depth, so he went down and waded in. The water was up to his collar bone, so we thought “Yeah, we can jump”. After he climbed back up, Parker hopped up on the railing, and looked down at the river below. The bridge is about 15 feet above the water, but the railing was about 4 feet tall, so it was about a 19-20 foot drop. Parker jumped in, and made a very funny sound when he jumped in, sounding like “oogle oogle”. This made all of us cry from laughing so hard. Naturally being scared of heights, I took my time up on the railing. I stood there for 3 minutes with all the guys telling me to jump before I made the decision to jump in. It was the craziest thing I can think of, and my knees hit the bottom of the river. I can now say I jumped off a bridge in Cambodia. After everyone jumped in, we got back on our bikes and traveled another 25 minutes before I was thoroughly exhausted and requested we turned around. The bike ride back was absolutely gorgeous, with all of the different rice fields being illuminated by the setting sun. It was a sight I never want to forget. However, my chain came off twice on the way back. After what happened to Parker, we started bringing my pocketknife with a screwdriver with us every time. So, we were able to fix the chain no problem. David’s chain broke 3 minutes away from home, so Parker and Jake helped pull Dave the rest of the way home. That day had to have been my favorite in Cambodia. A bummer of that day was that I lost my GoPro taking a video of me jumping off the bridge; the water swept it off my head as I landed in the river.
- A total God moment was the next day. Our host, Pastor Kmeng, felt terrible that I had lost my GoPro, and was hellbent to find it for me. I was very skeptical, because the current was so strong, and almost pulled me downstream when I had looked the day before. So, both the team and the oldest orphan boys went with Kmeng and I to look for the GoPro at the bridge. We got down underneath the bridge, and Kmeng prayed to God to help him find this GoPro. He took 3 steps, and on his fourth, he turned around and asked us if we believe that God is good. He then pulled my GoPro out of the water!!! I was utterly taken aback. God is so good y’all!! After that, we all got to jump in the river again. I jumped in 3 times, and got Cecily and Alyssa from my team to jump in as well (as well as Claudia from the other team).
- Thanksgiving was a very interesting day in Cambodia. I got to talk to my parents and my Aunt and Uncle. We woke up to decorations made by the girls of our teams, and it was all very sweet. There were also thankful notes written to everyone. For lunch, we had creamy chicken/pork, but tasted like turkey. And for the first time we had mashed potatoes in Asia. They were super delicious. Everyone went out on an adventure after lunch, but I was feeling very sick, so I stayed behind so I could write my sermon for the upcoming Sunday. I ended up doing a lot of working out and almost finished my sermon.
- My final day in Kampot was very interesting. I gave my sermon on living a Godly lifestyle, and it ended up being around 45 minutes total. This was mainly because of the translation time from English to Khmer (the national Cambodian language). The rest of the day was essentially washing our clothes and packing up our lives to go to Siem Reap for another team debrief. I ended my time in Cambodia the same way as I started it. It started to downpour again, so David, Parker and I all ran out one last time to take the cleanest shower we had all month. It was very nostalgic.
- On our travel day, we had to say goodbye to all the orphans. It was a very sad time, filled with a lot of tears. One orphan I was especially close impacted me greatly. His name was Bonnut, and he is 12. He looks like he is 7, but acts like he is 15. I constantly played soccer with him in the back of the orphanage, and always let him play my Ukulele. As we were saying goodbye, I gave him my Ukulele. When he realized I was giving it to him, he started crying very hard, and started sobbing into my shirt. I didn’t think I was going to cry saying goodbye, but this little bundle of joy brought me to tears. The drive to Phnom Penh, which is the capital of Cambodia, was crazy. We had 18 people in a 12 passenger van and had ALL of our packs hanging out of the truck held in by a few strands of rope. We got to explore Phnom Penh that day, and I lost a terrible bet on our way to a restaurant. We saw a stray dog that was hideous and looked like an Ewok, and I had to go pet it. I guess I moved too fast, because it got up and chased after me. Everyone said I looked terrified, but that was only because I didn’t want to get bit again.
- When we got to Siem Reap, which is the home of Angkor Wat, the largest and oldest Buddhist temple in the world. We stayed in a hostel with a pool, which was very refreshing. My most memorable moment from our trip was going to Angkor Wat and seeing all of this ancient architecture. It was cool to see what used to be one of the ancient wonders of the world.
It was very elaborate and intricate, and I got to lick it. Also, shoutout to Lauren Padgett, because she was the first friend I’ve FaceTimed while on the race.
I am currently in South Africa. Jeffrey’s Bay to be exact. I will have another blog soon about South Africa and a travel update. God bless you all!
