HOT & HUMID - VOLUNTEERING IN PHNOM PENH ...

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Hi guys,
We've been here one week already - amazing! Perth seems so far away. Good flight up, but very late arrival at our hotel in KL. Finally in bed by 12.15am and up again by 6 for breakfast and back to the airport. KL Airport is still amazing and so easy to get lost in - by accident or design.

Cambodia is very hot and steamy - the afternoon storms are spectacular but increase the humidity. Our accommodation is above the Prison Fellowship offices and quite comfortable. We are on the third floor which has been divided into 2 halves. The guys are in one side and we are in the other. There are fold-up beds with quite comfortable mattresses and a frame on which our mosquito nets are hung, (there are dengue mosquitos here as well as the usual variety). Because of the dengue fever we are all a little paranoid with the mossie sprays, etc. We are three ladies at the moment with another one joining us on Monday. The kitchen facilities are very sparse, (however everything is kept very clean).

Breakfast is white bread toast (still no wholemeal/wholegrain available) and jam (I'd kill for some Vegemite on my toast!). The fruit is good up here so we eat a lot of it. I don't bother about lunch much because it is too hot. Sometimes I share the teachers' lunch at whichever organisation I'm teaching". Khmer coffee is a bit like Bali Kopi - very good and with 1/2"of coffee grinds in the bottom of the cup.

We usually all go out together for the evening meal. Quite a convoy (at least 3 tuk-tuks full)!! Kelly and her husband Neal are both pastors at Riverview Church and are up here very often, so they know where the best places for Westerners to eat are.
The PF offices are in one of the outer suburbs of Phnom Phen- a bit quieter than in the centre of town, but hard to find internet cafes.

Traffic is unbelievable - frenetic, un-coordinated and there don't seem to be any rules, or if there are, nobody pays any attention to them. Peak hour traffic is amazing - a milling mass of motorbikes, tuk-tuks, trucks, expensive Lexus 4 wheel drives (if you can afford a Lexus here, you've really made it) and pedal bikes in amongst it all.

The Cambodian people are lovely. Despite what they have been through and are still going through, they have ready smiles and love to laugh.The sight of so many kids and adults who have lost limbs to the landmines is very disturbing. The Government apparently does not have any programmes in place to deal with them and they are reduced to begging in order to survive. There are certainly no prosthetic devices available to the ordinary Khmer people let alone medical attention which they couldn't afford if there was. Sadly, the downturn of the American economy has badly affected Cambodia and a lot of the aide money coming in from overseas has dried up. This means the organisations still working are stretched very thinly indeed.

We each have our own teaching jobs and timetable. Jill has been teaching up to 45 kids in the heat and in un-airconditioned rooms and is a trooper. Although she gets very tired by the end of the sessions, she is doing a wonderful job with them. She is using the whole suitcase of resources which she bought with her as the old çhalk and talk' teaching style is still alive and well up here.

I have been teaching with two organisations - Transform Cambodia and Hagar Halfway House. Transform Cambodia has three centres and my job with them has been to show their teachers the Communicative English methodologyy which they have never seen before. There are no up-to-date text books and teaching equipment is very outdated. I find these teachers totally dedicated to doing the best jobs they possibly can and hungry for all the information that I (or anyone else) can give them. I have 2 x six hour sessions a week at Transform and as they are very intensive,which leaves me very tired but feeling great (if that computes) at the end of them.

The other organization I am working with is Hagar Halfway House. The classes leave me feeling extremely sad and filled with rage at the same time. The Halfway House has been set up to rescue girls (as young as 2 years old!!) from the sex trade industry. Sometimes they have been sold into it by their parents because they are so poor and have so many to feed. As and when they can, Hagar takes these girls off the streets and into safe and protected houses where they receive ongoing counselling, medical attention and sometimes surgical care and lots of love and attention from the staff. It is often a complicated recovery for them - for a lot, this life is all they have ever known or can remember. Hagar supervises their schooling in the Government school and my job is to give them conversation English lessons. They are intelligent and learn fast, although often very fragile emotionally. I frequently feel unable to give them all that they need and struggle with my own emotionsa lot. Especially when the two youngest girls - 8 years old and phyically so small and fragile with beautiful smiles - it seems unbelievable that anyone could harm them in any way.

Anyway, I am going to finish off now and hope you all are feeling fine. I'll send you another emails to bring you up to date tomorrow morning if I can.

Hope all is going well with you and I send you lots of love and hugs.

Your loving mother, auntie, cousin and best friend,

Vicki

PS Jill and I are looking out for each other and that's a comforting feeling.,

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