Cambodia Education begins with tasting spiders, ants, and frogs

COUNTRY: Cambodia
PROGRAM: UniBreak Groups
PROJECT: Education
WRITTEN BY: Sophie Turner

After an exhausting day of flying we were all grateful to finally touch down in Siem Riep and to be greeted at the airport by the smiling faces of our in-country partners. Our eyes lit up as the driver took us through the brightly lit streets, each building and street corner an inviting shock to the senses. Mesmerised, we reached our luxurious accommodation in heart of Siep Riep, Davy's home but luckily now also our guest house for the month.

Several days after some amazing sight-seeing, shopping and extremely beneficial Child Protection Training we are all feeling settled, now literally owning the barter system (apart from Kristie who is simply too kind-hearted, but is learning under Tara's close supervision) and have had the delight of trying much of the local cuisines including chicken with red ants, frogs and even spiders!

After a brief orientation into the political history of Cambodia, we met Jim and Lisa at The Spitler School, to map out our schedule for the month and how we can use our time to create a sustainable project that will benefit the students now and well into the future. We discussed plans for a photo-book project, and decided some of the funds raised could be used to purchase digital cameras, memory cards and printing.

We all look forward to our first taste of planning and teaching in this amazing setting, and can't wait to see what other new experiences this incredible trip will bring!