Advertisement
Published: January 7th 2010
Edit Blog Post
After the painful wait at Kuala Lumpa for 10 hours overnight I arrived in Cambodia. It was like stepping into a butterfly house because it was so hot and humid. It really is a beautiful country and because it hasn’t been long since the rainy season everything is really green. Nick the co-ordinator met me at the airport and we took a tuk-tuk back to the house. The traffic is horrendous, apparently you don’t need a licence so people just drive everywhere and I mean everywhere, I was holding on for dear life especially as the tuk tuk driver was pulling out in front of 4x4’s and continually beeping. Meanwhile families of 5 with no crash helmets including newly born babies slung under one arm were cutting up all the traffic on their mopeds. It is unbelievable what people carry on their mopeds. I saw one guy carrying 3 pigs tied up on the back of his and yes they were still alive all wriggling. There are children selling food on stalls everywhere by the roadside and opposite the house we are staying in 6 little boys are currently thigh high in raw sewage whilst the older boys try
and fit a sewage pipe. I can see them now jumping about and trying to put the pipe in using a chain they made. Back to the house and bless the little tuk tuk driver about 3 foot tall carried my heavy bag all the way up 2 flights of stairs and I could see he was clearly struggling but he just kept on smiling.
I have spent one day and afternoon at the school I am teaching at so far. The entire school made a big circle to welcome me and the children are just adorable. They like to practice their English and regularly ask ‘how many brother, sister you have?‘ ‘how old are you’ and ‘where are you from?‘ I have shown them all pictures of the Ambleside children (they didn’t really understand they were at nursery school and kept saying ‘family, your family!‘) The 3-5 year old class consists of the children lead on a concrete floor trying to write numbers onto scraps of paper. Their classroom is a hut with a straw roof and no sides. Chickens and dogs run about outside. This week I have been working with the 5-16 year old streamed set.
The teachers are trying hard but it is very, very old fashioned way of teaching. Basically imagine the school is complete opposite to Ambleside in every possible way. Still at least its better than state school where parents have to pay 25cents each day directly to the teacher so he/she can promise to give direct attention to the child. Anyway the positive out of all this is that the lady who runs the school has big plans for me apparently because I have worked with under 5‘s she wants me to help devise a curriculum focusing mainly on the younger children and pull the whole under 5’s together which it definitely needs doing as at the moment there is nothing. This is going to be a big project for me and when I was first told I was a little apprehensive.
Siem Reap is bustling with people at night. Because of the humidity walking through the small streets feels like walking inside a building. There are lots of children out and about with no shoes on trying to sell fruit. The night market is an amazing place rammed full of exciting little trinkets and clothes (all designer fakes.) The
food is very cheap here, you can get a beautiful meal for $2.There seems to be a fashion here of restaurants having a giant paddling pool outside their establishment with fish in it. The idea is you put your feet in it and the mini fish gobble away all the dead skin. People take their shoes off before they enter a building and leave them outside the door so I guess that’s why the fish (called Dr Fish) are so popular as people suffer from hard skin, yuck.
The Cambodian people are very blunt when they speak and will openly ask you questions such as ‘where is your husband? Or ‘how much is your wage?’ If you are the slightest ,slightest bit overweight they make bold statements and questions such as ‘how many kilo?, you are very big, you need to do more exercise!’ I was in a bar the other night and a Cambodian man came over to me passing me some tissues in his hand ‘you look sweaty’ he said. Charming.
It is a bank holiday here today ‘End of Genocide Day’ so the school’s are shut. Had a fantastic evening with some of the other
volunteers last night. We went for food and then on to two different bars both tucked away made from bamboo. I only drank pineapple juice all night which the bar tenders make from cutting up a pineapple in front of you and then mushing it all up in a blender. I met a couple of Cambodian guys who were about 3 foot tall. Bless them they were so, so enthusiastic to learn English they kept saying how privileged they were to meet me. They spoke fantastic English and they only way they can improve is to go abroad. They are both saving hard except it is going to take years and years judging on what they earn (I didn’t tell them this but I am sure they have already worked it out.) They earn 1000 reils a day (25cents)
I also went to a karoke last night which was open aired tucked away in the middle of the night market. It is quite entertaining watching the Cambodian people sing English and American pop songs, they have the sounds but not the words pronounced properly. I sang with this American guy because he didn’t want to sing alone. They
don’t have the equipment for a proper karaoke so there is one guy playing on a keyboard and you just have to know the words off by heart except we were singing police ‘Every Breath you take’ and ‘I will survive’ both which you know the chorus but not the verses. Anyway it went down very well . At the end of the night one of my new Cambodian friends said he would drive me back on his motorbike (he was very drunk and had no helmets obviously!) I politely declined although he said he will drive me wherever I like in the future for free so I won’t have to pay for tuk tuks because he is honoured and that way he can practice English. Anyway it was very daunting getting back, the streets were full of police and children picking through rubbish but after wandering about in the dim lit streets we managed to get a tuk tuk (thank God) although the driver I think was drunk himself+. Tuk tuk’s can’t go very fast so I figured if we crashed I wouldn’t’t be too badly hurt.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.094s; Tpl: 0.034s; cc: 10; qc: 52; dbt: 0.0454s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Sam
non-member comment
Great post keep them coming!
Great to hear your doing so well, remember to stay close! And don't get on that drunk guys motorbike whatever you do! Be good and careful! Sam