Not much happened today. We got up, packed, and headed back to Phnom Penh. We got back to the Top Banana and they only had one double room and a single so Adam decided he'd sleep on our floor... I knew my sleeping bag would come in handy at some point! Megan went to dinner with the operations team so Siamack, Adam and I headed to dinner at the new restaurant across the street. New, as in, it wasn't open yet when we left for Kep. Amazing how quickly they finish things here. It was good, but it's mad expensive so [View Full Entry]

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Got up late because my cute room is majorly hot and the fan's not making it any better. And I managed to clog our toilet after using it once. Awesome. Not that any of you needed to know that, but I thought I'd share anyway. I'm not really sure who is reading this so I'm going to say whatever I want :-) After a breakfast of bread and Nutella (yum) Megan and I headed toward the river to walk around, orientate ourselves in our new town, and find some schools. We considered following kids in uniforms, but decided NOT to be [View Full Entry]

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Got up this morning and did some more hammocking. Tough day, really ;-) We got a boat back to Kep (which was even wetter than the first time, and then it started raining as well). We cleaned up and packed up quickly and loaded into three tuk tuks to head to Kampot, a city about 30 kilometers from Kep. We're going to stay here for a couple of days to meet with someone from the teacher training department and check out the school/NGO/teacher situation here. I created the daily/weekly schedule for our students today. We're using that to try to figure [View Full Entry]

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Not much to say about today. Spent the day lazing about in a hammock, swimming in the ocean, drinking beers and pina coladas. Halfway through the day pretty much everyone we've met in Phnom Penh arrived on the island, mostly people we'd met at the Top Banana. We're pretty much taking over the island :-) Spent the rest of the day hanging out, dancing to tunes at the bar next door, having a grand ol time in general. The one downer of the day was that Julia dropped our key on the way to go to sleep in our room and [View Full Entry]

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Today we spent the morning preparing for the B-team to visit. We went to Botanica to eat and catch up on email- it had been a couple of days since we had had a chance to check it. Megan and Adam headed back to the hotel to meet the B-team who arrived via bus from Phnom Penh for work and pleasure :-) They wanted to visit a school, so Megan took them to the upper secondary school we visited on Wednesday. I stayed behind to pack, clean up, and get ready for our weekend trip to Rabbit Island. They got back [View Full Entry]

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Today is Megan's birthday. We have a weekend celebration planned, but first work... Megan and I went to find a microfinance place that we had passed on our way to the upper secondary school. For those not familiar, microfinance refers to groups that give small loans to either individuals, groups, or villages. These loans are then paid back (with interest, which ranges depending on if it's an NGO or a profit making endeavor). These loans are very popular in developing countries, for they can get a small business started or help a family pay for schooling for their children. Hence our [View Full Entry]

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Today we split up into two teams to try to visit more schools. I was with Adam and Megan. We went back to the original school we found on our biking trip on Monday. We were welcomed into the director's office. He didn't speak English, but someone translated for him. He answered a few of our questions, but as soon as we asked to visit classrooms we were asked if we had gotten permission from the local Ministry of Education. We explained that we are in the process of getting our MOU, but they said we weren't allowed to observes teachers [View Full Entry]

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Quick entry today. Megan went off to a meeting with some guy who knows a lot about education in the area. Meanwhile, Adam, Sia and I got Jackie (the guy who runs our guesthouse) to take us to see schools. When he heard about our project, he immediately started trying to convince us that there were enough secondary schools and instead we needed to build a new primary school for his village. I wish we had the resources to help every single person from every single village that needs a school, because I know there are tons. But we're focused on [View Full Entry]

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Today I woke up super late. I guess I needed my sleep. We decided to rent bikes and see what Kep has to offer, and also to look for schools to visit later in the week. Our guesthouse didn't have enough bikes available, so we found another place that would rent them to us. Sia is the master bargainer in the group- he got them to change $2/person/day to $5 for all of us. Nice work, Sia! We rode in the direction of the crab market and kept going around the bend to the Nude Fisherman's wife statue. That was the [View Full Entry]

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We got up this morning just in time to finish packing and hear the minibus beeping for us downstairs. I didn’t say bye to Maly or anyone else in the hostel for that matter because they were sleeping and I didn’t want to wake them that early. I’ll probably be back later in the summer anyway- I think I’ll have some meetings in Phnom Penh and I’ll definitely be back to catch a flight to Bangkok→ Tokyo and back when I go to Fuji Rock in July. Now I’m on the bus to Kep. It has air conditioning that is not [View Full Entry]

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