Volunteer work in Cambodia

I arrived in the Siem Reap airport around 9am on September 16th and was greeted by the Cambodian United Planet coordinator, Sophanit. From the airport I was transported to my home for the next three weeks, the Reatrey Angkor Villa, where I ended up sleeping the majority of the day. My body was absolutely exhausted from my travels in Laos, and had given me a bit of a fever as a result. My guesthouse room was the perfect place to shake it off - I was treated to air conditioning for the first time my whole trip. I also have an ensuite bathrooon, which is equally as luxurious. Thankfully after the day of rest I was back on my feet the next day.

Monday and Tuesday were basically orientation days. United Planet has partnered with a local organization called Life and Hope, which is run by monks. Life and Hope has several different programs: PACE (Program for Advancing Children Education), Food for Education, a sewing center for woman to learn sewing and english, and the CDV (Children Development Village). I was taken to all of these places and given more information about how they are operated.

Along with another volunteer from England named Nicola, I have been given the task of teaching children at PACE both english and math. PACE is set up at a house containing 14 children and a house mother and father. The children are aged 11-20, and they are either orphans or living at the PACE household because their parents are too poor to support them. With the exception of the 20 year old boy, who is an orphan and land mine victim, all of the children's english is very basic. However, they are quite clever and I see them learning from us quite quickly. The one exception is a 15 year old girl named Ra, who was just recently brought to PACE and has never been to school before in her life. It shows greatly, as her thought process is miles behind that of the other children.

Math is taught in the morning from 9-11. I had no idea where the children were at in their workbooks (which are written in Khmer), so I felt quite unprepared for the lesson. Prepared or not, it proved to be just all around difficult to teach math to kids who couldn't understand the language you were speaking to them. Yes they know their numbers, but trying to explain HOW to solve the problems was the difficult part. I was exhausted by the time 11 rolled around, and I imagine the kids felt much the same.

From 11-2 Nicola and I had our break, but because PACE is a bit of a distance from our guesthouse we ended up just staying there the whole time. Boon, the 20 year old land mine victim, ended up asking for help with his english pronuncation, so I spent some time going over his work book with him. He's a really sweet guy, and very intelligent.

From 2-4 was the afternoon english lesson, and today's lesson was on the numbers 1-20. The english was much easier to teach and the kids were a lot more enthusiastic about it.

From PACE we went straight to a Wat to help monks teach english to their students. I attended 2 one-hour classes, and found it much less exhausting than teaching the children. I was basically there to help the kids with their pronunciation. From 5-6 I had a group of teenagers, and from 6-7 I had a group of older students. Talking with the older students was lots of fun, and I really enjoyed my time with them. It'll be really nice getting to know all of them over the next 3 weeks.

Cambodia is definately the most third world out of what I've seen. On one of my orientation days Sophanit took us out to one of the villages that the Food for Education program operates in (Food for Education supplies familes with rice so they can afford to send their children to school). Many of the children in the village looked malnourished, and the housing was far from adequate. The one family has to huddle under a mat when it rains because their roof is in such bad condition. Being the rainy season, it rains almost every day. It would cost them $25 to repair the roof, and Sophanit said they'd probably never be able to afford to repair it. It just makes you feel so aweful - and thankful for what you have. $25 is just a few days spending for me, and here it would be a lifetime of saving for this family. Nicola and I both agreed that we'd like to give them the money, and the mother honestly looked like we'd just given her a million dollar lottery ticket. She rushed off to tell her husband the good news, and in a matter of minutes he was gone to go buy the materials to fix the roof. We get to go back and see the new roof in a couple of days.

I'm sure there's lots that I'm forgetting to say here, but it's getting late and the thought of tomorrow is making me think I should go get a good nights sleep. I just want to say a quick thank-you though to everyone who supported me in coming here to Cambodia. Thanks to you, more Cambodian children are being given the oppourtunity to learn english, and an impoverished family is sleeping under a solid roof.