weaving island, prison and killing fields

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After the cooking lessons we went to a weaving island, that is a bit outside of Phnom Penh on the Mekong river. All they do on this island is farming and weaving. All the houses are build on stilts, below you see them weaving. We went a bit round this village, and people just invited us to sit with them. We tried our little Khmer knowledge from our Khmer lessons. They all want to have our white skin and our noses. We also could try to weave for ourself. Then we had lunch with a family, after that we went back to Phnom Penh. On the next day we went to the S 21 prison, from the time of the Khmer Rouge. It is such a sad thing to see. Before they used it as a prison it was a school. You could see the walls that they build up to make smaller cells out of one classroom. The sadest thing for me were all the pictures on the wall from all the prisoners. It made it so personal. There were only 7 people that survived this prison, everybody else was brought to the killing fields after they were tortured in the prison to get some answers the Khmer Rouge wanted to hear. In the afternoon we went to the killing fields. I was a bit scared that it would be to much for me after seeing the prison. But it had such a nice respectful and hopeful atmosphere there, I really was impressed. Everybody went around quietly, as they would really think of everybody who died here and give them some respect. This was a sad, but good experience.

In the evening there was a social dinner, where all the volunteers go out for dinner together. We were at a barbecue place. We all sat on the floor on a pillow. In the middle of the table there was a fireplace where they put a round thing on top, in the middle is place to roast the meat, on the side was a soup for vegetables and noodles. It was a really nice dinner! And for me it was good to have some fun after a sad day!

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