COUNTRY: Cambodia
PROGRAM: UniBreak
PROJECT: Community Healthcare & Teaching
WRITTEN BY: Emily Miller
We swapped shorts for hippie pants and singlets for t-shirts. From the minute we stepped off the plane Cambodia welcomed us with open arms. I’m not too sure if we were as happy to welcome the continual sweat and application of insect repellent, but none the less we kept our arms open to.
Rachael and Sasha arrived on the Saturday, Amanda and I Sunday and each of us were welcomed by Dayvy. We are staying at the Tasom Guesthouse, simple but perfect for our month away. As our flight was delayed due to weather out of Vietnam, Amanda and I ventured out to grab something to eat for dinner. Here I am in Cambodia and what do I find? Spaghetti Bolognese my favourite dish.
On Monday we had our orientation where we met Billy, Khan and Siphuong. We played some ice breaker games as this was only the second time each of us had been together and there was plenty to learn about each other. We all went out together for lunch to try some traditional Khmer food, as well as a brief tour to show us where the all important chemist and ATMs are. Lunch was delicious, I was completely surprised by how much each of us enjoyed the food. We definitely won’t have any issues with our meals while away. That night we all went out to dinner for a Khmer buffet and to view traditional dances. We ended up with the dancers trying to mimic their style. Personally I loved the coconut one.
The next day we had our first visit to MHDC the military village where we are going to be teaching health, English and completing house visits. Each of the military people on the board welcomed us and gave us an introduction then it was off to view the classrooms. As we drove around the corner smiling faces were seen everywhere. The children were so excited to see us and kept asking when we were going to start teaching. Their excitement was definitely motivation enough to teach them as much as we could to help give them greater opportunities after their school life.
That night we went into town to get dinner. The streets were buzzing with tuk tuk’s, motorbikes, cars and people walking everywhere. Without a second thought popular pub street was to be our first destination! We opened the menu to decide what to have and we couldn’t believe how cheap everything was. Obviously we were previously told that meals were cheap but a whole dinner for the equivalent of a half air filled packet of chips in Australia is crazy!
Wednesday was our first day of placement and our day started off with a health class with the adults. We all found the first day really difficult with translation and not being able to have complete discussions because of the language barrier. We had to reorganise our way of teaching and focus more on images rather than words which we found really helped with the language barrier.
The English class in the afternoon was so much fun, the kids were so enthusiastic about learning English. It made teaching them so easy, we started off with basics and by the end of the month hope to have them all saying basic sentences.
By the end of the week we had teaching down packed, the health classes got easier because we were creating a bond with the adults and they were asking us questions and telling us things that they do instead which they find works for them which makes it easier for us. I can’t wait to continue teaching them all next week and I’m sure my group feels the same.
This weekend we are doing the bike4kids charity ride through the temples and we plan on continuing after the ride as well as on Sunday so we can look at all of the main temples. I’m hoping to do an elephant ride at sunset with the girls.
Stay tuned for my next blog where I will fill you in on our progress as we start house visits next week and I’ll tell you how we all went on the bike ride.
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