The Orphanage and Our Trip to Koh Rong

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So far I have spoken little about our time at the orphanage and so now I think it's about time I update you all on the real reason why we are all here in Cambodia.



The four of us were chosen by an organisation called Golden Futures (who we are now a part of) to volunteer for six weeks in the capital of Cambodia, Phnom Penh (pa-nom pen-yuh) at an orphanage called New Futures for Children (NFC). It has been a life changing experience so far and we shall all be extremely emotional when we finish our work in 2 weeks time.



I'd just like to say a quick thank you to anyone who has donated money to Golden Futures already and anybody who has helped us to come to Cambodia; for me this is especially Mum and Dad and Nana, Aunty Lesley and Uncle Paul too. Love you guys xx



Back to NFC. The kids are unbelievable. The age range is from 11 to 24 and we have been extremely fortunate to work with all of them. At NFC there are around 30 children and then another 20 living at a place called Midway House, which is for university students, who look after themselves. We have helped out wherever and whenever we can and more importantly, how NFC want us to help.



We were given a number of goals to complete and we have nearly completed these already, so we are ahead of schedule at the moment!

These included:



Making the only comprehensive University Guide for universities in Phnom Penh



Verity and Shyam took the lead with this task and managed to fully update and add information, including addresses, courses offered, prices of courses, change of universities. This was a long and monotonous task but one that is essential for our trip. We are now in the process of distributing this guide to other Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) to allow prospective students the chance to look at their options.



Carrying out workshops for the children



This task is also an essential one, because there are so many skills that we take for granted in the West that we don't realise people in countries such as Cambodia don't necessarily receive the opportunity to learn. We carried out workshops on Future Possibilities, where Emma summarised as many career paths as she could with the personalities required in each career, in order to improve the children's understanding of the vast choice they have when they grow up. I took 2 workshops, the first was on University Life and Goal Setting and the second on CV and Cover Letter Making, which actually helped me just as much as the kids I think! And Verity took one on Interview Skills and Shyam on Budgeting. These workshops may sound simple to us but it was a real help for the children who start to look for full time work from as early as 16. Emma also ran a workshop on Business in Cambodia, covering everything from the startup process (research and business plans), to the registration process and fundamentals such as funding (loans etc).



Other tasks included: making university visits, creating a Loan Advice Booklet, teaching English and finding work experience for the children, of which everybody helped out but I will tell you more about these when I'm home.



Overall, NFC is awesome and the kids love us, I think. And they love their Chowmap (fat teacher). So I think we have all been successful in helping the children, and even the adults too, which was our number one goal coming out here. Everything else has also been fun and weird and really weird and pooing in a hole weird. Onto our trip to Paradise...



Before heading to Koh Rong, which is a Cambodian Island, Emma, mainly, did loads of research about the island and read review after review on the best places to go. We knew we wanted to go to Koh Rong as we heard it was a getaway island, a place to relax rather than travel around. Emma stumbled across this place called "The Lonely Beach", which had near perfect reviews. The reviews didn't even do it justice. It was paradise. It was literally paradise and heaven mixed together.



The Lonely Beach was on the opposite side of the island to the more touristy area, which made it even better. We were stripped down to the bare necessities, a bed (lumpy pillow and cheap mattress) with a mosquito net above on a high deck, which they called the VIP dorm; a toilet/shower room (manual toilet - you have to poor water down in to flush it - and a bucket in rainwater - the shower haha); the most glorious beach in history and an open restaurant area which was lovely as well.



The beach in the daytime was incredible. The sea water was the clearest you will ever see, the sand was the softest under your feet and the skies were amazing. Then it got better. At about 5pm everyday, the sun began to set and we all just sat and watched, mouths open, the changing colours of the sky. Perfect crimson red, golden orange and different blues all around. I have some of the greatest pictures I'm ever going to take in my life. (These will be posted onto Facebook. So if you don't have Facebook, ask someone else to see.)



Then it got better. Again. After dinner, when it was almost pitch black, we would all trek down to the sea for another swim. The sea contained little creatures or organisms called phosphorescent phytoplankton (may be a slightly different spelling) which lit up as you swam around. Imagine being in real life Avatar. It was natural ecstasy and I was in a state of euphoria. While this was going on, lightening bolt after lightening bolt were shooting through the sky about 10 miles away from us. Imagine, one second lightening in the sky, another, luminous phytoplankton in the ocean. It was insane. Unbelievable. Ridiculous. The GREATEST THING OF ALL TIME. I will never have a better experience in my life than what that beach and sea gave me in 24 hours. Ever.



So, all in all, Koh Rong was unbelievable and I still managed to get loads of work done. So it was win-win.



We are currently en route back to Phnom Penh where some refreshing showers and shopping will get us back into city life.



If there is anything at all you want me to talk more about in the blogs, please let me know.



Muchos Love as always,



Love Tobela xxx



And Emski xxx

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