Getting stuck in to volunteering in Cambodia

COUNTRY: Borneo & Cambodia
PROGRAM: GapBreak
PROJECT: Building & Teaching
WRITTEN BY: Clare O'Brien

Halfway through the last month and I'm not sure how I'm feeling. Both homesickness and feelings of never wanting to leave have begun to wash over me.

Our arrival in Cambodia was all a blur, we met our final addition to the group- India, another Australian girl- and headed straight from the airport to camp. We trundled along on the bus until we arrived at Beng Maelea where we were greeted by one of the most welcoming faces, our camp manager Han. There was never a moment when he was not smiling... or when he was silent. If we were walking to project work in silence he would bust out some song or just chirp a rhythm- it was fantastic.

The camp felt like it had grown out of the ground and was just a perfect part of the village. The dinning area had no floor as it was all hardened soil, the benches and tables were made of wood and looking to the surrounding long houses was like looking onto a little jungle village.

The thing that made this camp for me was the fact that it was part of the community, we had to walk through the local pagoda to get to work and would have kids running in and out of camp. Not only that but in the mornings our camp became the English classroom.

The school doesn't have enough classrooms for them in the mornings so the camp offers its facilities to the class. They get an added bonus though- us. Almost every single day for two weeks the morning and afternoon English classes would have one of our group teaching them. I remember the first time we found out there was teaching in camp. We had a nice peaceful breakfast in the communal area, brushed our teeth and came back from the bathrooms (which were a fair distances through the trees) and suddenly the communal area was over-run by children.

Just like in Bongkud I was so surprised by how much English they actually knew and we were able to have a few conversations. The afternoon lessons, however, were less like that; they were much younger and normally consisted of singing the alphabet, heads shoulders knees and toes and then playing an hour-long game of football. Even though it didn't feel like you were teaching much you knew it made a difference when they came over to help us work.

We were working on the teacher accommodation. Many of the teachers live in Siem Reap and many other places that are much too far to travel on a daily basis. They had previously been sleeping in a classroom until the school needed that space and sadly they lost a lot of teachers because of this. The accommodation we were building was a building split into 3 rooms, 1 room for two teachers, and was located in the school yard. That is where we saw our teaching come into play. As we pushed the trailer through the grounds the kids would always run to help, no matter what it was filled with, we had massive rocks, massive buckets of sand and even bags of cement. After helping with the scariest journey pushing it through mud and over rocks they would stay and help to move it into the rooms, always trying to strike up a conversation. A lot of these did end with just asking how we were but just having that tiny connection would put a smile on both the kids and our faces for the rest of the day.

Our days off felt like they went past in a blur, the whole two weeks did. The two days we didn't work we visited the temples and went on an unsuccessful fishing trip. Visiting temples over here is so different to at home. There is no 'do not touch' or 'do not climb' signs. In Beng Maela we were literally climbing over temple ruins, it was very different for the temples in Siem Reap. They were spectacular. Lucky for us we got to see a sun rise over Angkor Wat, to see it all highlighted in pinks and purples was amazing. We spent the rest of the day with our tour guide Kim, doing a bit of temple run seeing Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom and the Thome Raider temple before the day was over. It was a really spectacular day.

All our site-seeing is so fast-paced that our day fishing was a beautiful time to take a break. Even though we'd already been in Cambodia for two weeks, that second last day in camp is when I really began to appreciate the country. We rode around in a trailer attached to a moped, we drove past amazingly green rice fields, under a fantastically blue sky and got smiles and waves from anyone we drove past. The fact that the camp staff could talk to anyone from any village and get a smile, the fact that we could say "Susudi"(hello) and get the same smile was also fantastic. The people here are truly so happy and kind even though they have little to nothing compared to us. They work hard for everything they own and seem to put their all into everything they do, it's truly amazing.

Saying goodbye to the camps is getting harder and harder. As time has gone on I have slowly realised that when we leave each camp it is probably the last time we'll ever see these amazing people. And that's all I could think as we drove away from Han and the rest of the smiley Beng Maelea crew and began our seven hour journey to Phenom Penh. Being in the cities is always so different and I find it a lot more challenging to be here than I do in the villages. Thankfully we have only spent one full day here; tomorrow will be heading to our final camp, for the last two weeks of our trip. I can feel myself getting emotional already.