Advertisement
Published: January 30th 2011
Edit Blog Post
Well I can't quite believe that I have already been in Cambodia for 3 weeks now - the time just zooms past. Everyday there are new things happening.
Today I went to a Khmer cooking class. The tuk tuk picked us up and took us to a village not far away. When we got there we met a khmer lady who took us for a tour around the village and explained a lot of Khmer superstitions and how various plants are used for healing methods (ie, a green banana eaten every morning for 2 months if you have a bad stomach.) She also told us that it is unlucky to tell a woman that her baby is beautiful if it cannot walk yet - instead you must say that it is ugly. For the past 3 weeks and 3 months last year I would hold random babies in the poor villages and tell all the women 's'art, srey s'art' which means beautiful. Lets just hope they weren't all as superstitious. Anyway back to the cooking class, we made traditional spring rolls, a chicken curry and these traditional waffers. After we finished we ate our food in a little hut over
a river. I surprised myself with my culinary skills and how much I actually enjoyed it (I am not one of those people who cook for enjoyment) but then again when I cook at home I don't have some one weighing out the ingredients, peeling them and then clearing up after me.
Last weekend we took some of the children that have been adopted into New Hope to a place called 'Barai.' When we got there we took them all out on a boat to the island and spent the afternoon there. We splashed in the water with the children and had such a good time. The kids were were so excited as some of them hadn't been on a boat before. One little girl there had just been adopted into New Hope. She went swimming with all her clothes on and when she came out she was shivering and shivering. Luckily I bought a spare set of clothes with me. I helped her take off her t-shirt so she could put another one on and I saw her tiny limbs. She looked like a poor African child as she was so malnourished. Her arms were skin and bone,
her ribs were showing and her little belly popped out. I was scared I was going to hurt her by just helping her take off her t-shirt. I quickly put my dry t-shirt on her which was so big it pratically fell off. She was still shivering violently so I wrapped her up in dry towels. Luckily however, she has been adopted and is going to be put on a special diet programme. It will be good to see her over time develop like the other children from New Hope have into confident, happy, healthy children.
Last Friday evening a load of us volunteers went to a place called 'Road 60.' It is basically like a Khmer funfair. I decided to stay well away from the rollercoasters and big wheel as there are no health and safety guidelines over here. Speaking to other volunteers they informed me that being on the big wheel was one of the most terrifying moments because they could see all the bolts coming loose. I decided to stick to the bumper cars which seemed to have a mind of their own. Whilst I was there I bumped into a lot of children from the
school who were there collecting rubbish. Anyway that Friday after school before we went to Road 60 one of the boy's in my class who is only 3 was fast asleep on the classroom floor and his older brother who is 5 was trying to get him to wake up so they could walk home but he was too exhausted. Everyday this little boy falls asleep in class and I carry him out and lay him down in an empty classroom. I decided to put the two little boys on the back of my bike and take them home myself as they were so exhausted. I managed to successfully cycle them home over all the bumps and pot holes which didn't seem to affect their balance in the slightest. All the locals stopped and stared to see this western girl with these two little boys on her bike. When we finally arrived I was in a sweat. The Mum gave me a cup of water and her eyes pleaded with me that I drink it, I couldn't really make excuses that I wasn't thirsty when my face was covered in sweat so I decided to bite the bullet and drink
the contaminated water. I tried to explain to the lady that her boys were tired and needed to sleep. Later that evening at 11pm at Road 60 I saw the Mum with the two little boys collecting rubbish. They walk up there every night and her boys collect cans, that is why they fall asleep in class everyday.
School is going well, it is hard work with up to 49 children squeezed in one class. My class is the most diverse with some as young as 3 and some as old as 15. Handing out pencils in a nightmare. These children have nothing so the minute you put a pencil on the table they fight to grab it first. I bought some little reading books the other day but I could only get 20 so they had to share. What a mission I had to get them to understand they had to share them and not just hold them. It is difficult but you have to understand these childrens backgrounds and why they are like vultures because they have nothing.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.133s; Tpl: 0.02s; cc: 9; qc: 56; dbt: 0.0544s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Keith Jefferies
non-member comment
Well done Ellie
Very good Ellie. Very interesting. The food looks good!