Poodling in Phnom Penh part 2

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Lots to catch up on so here goes...........

My time in PP was an eye-opener. Visited a few projects, museums and generally got a feel of the place. Met Norman and Fi's adopted son and family at the "Care for Cambodia" centre they set up a good few years ago now. Amazing place. About 40 kids and young people live there and they do loads of stuff: a craft project run by Fi, a mechanics and metal work project ("Ironworks") run by Norman plus sports, music and animal husbandry. Hats off N&F and everyone else there. V inspiring.

Also met up with a couple (David and Gail) who run a training project - Hosea Ministries - which covers a load of stuff from a sustainable agriculture project in a nearby village to drugs awareness training for churches across Cambodia to a project supporting families affected by drug addiction. Sparked with Gail about arty stuff. She's on a sort of arts therapy training course at the mo and wants to start doing more creative stuff with the families and children especially. Maybe a link for a future visit. Anyone interested???

The most moving times in PP were visiting the Genocide museum and one of the Killing Fields on the edge of the city. I'd seen the film "The Killing Fields" ages ago but couldn't remember much about it so watched it again beforehand. Was shocked by what had happened in the Khymer Rouge era (a Commie regime in the mid 70s that wanted to start a new state and wiped out hundreds of thousands of Cambodians in the process). Realised as I was looking at mugshots of children at the museum that, had they survived, they'd be my age now. Both the museum (a school which was used as a concentration camp in the regime) and the Killing Field were disturbing places, obviously, but when I left both of them I found a couple of projects which were doing really positive stuff (one a craft project for disabled kids and another a youth theatre project). Twas heartening to see pockets of life and colour and hope like that literally just metres away from places that had been full of death and violence.

In fact I was amazed at how much is going on in PP. There's projects all over the place and just in the group of people I met through Michael and Elizabeth, people are involved in loads of stuff: kids and youth work, website design, exporting tiles to the Isle of Wight, teacher training, teaching English, writing and editting a magazine for factory worker girls ("Precious Girl"), football training, rehabilitation and training for girls previously caught up in prostitution......... I could go on but I can't remember them all now. Suffice to say, there's a LOT going on in PP. It's buzzing. And it's all happened in a fairly short time since the regime (about 30 years). Amazing.

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Photos

Travelling in style
In the back of a Tuk Tuk

Making paper
Teenagers from the Care for Cambodia project

Making paper chains
Some children from the Care for Cambodia project

Young musicians
A glimpse of the good stuff going on now