Week 1: Arriving in Kampuchea!

Sunday 7th September

Saturday 30th August, 7am: nine UWCSEA gappies, 1 Mr Morley, 1 JC, 2 Bridges Across Borders staff and at least 180kg of luggage squeeze into a minivan at Phnom Penh airport. A squashed 30 minutes later we all arrived at the Bridges Across Borders office and somehow managed to heave our luggage up 2 or 3 flights of stairs to our rooms. Tom and I will only be staying here temporarily for this first week before going down to Kep but even so, the realisation that our gap year had finally begun was uber exciting and we, like the other 7, found ourselves sitting on the rooftop in a slightly stunned (and sweaty) silence as we let this feeling sink in during our first power cut.

Although it was just over a week ago, it seems like at least a month since the 9 of us and our parents were sitting in Sophie's living room listening to JC, Mr Morley's daughter who did a gap year in Phnom Penh about 3 years ago, giving us some idea of what to expect. Since Monday we've had the opportunity to see all the projects that the 7 PP volunteers will be working at. I reckon everyone here in PP is going to have a fantastic experience and I have to admit it I would be quite keen on working on most of those projects - especially CDCC, the Cambodian Dump Children Centre, which is was quite a large centre which tries to get children off the nearby dump and give them an education, health care and shelter. All the kids loved having us - as did the kids at all the other centres we saw. One girl called Retsaa showed me around and held my arm the whole time we were there. I read some very simple English books with her and some others. Here's a photo of her and me.

We also visited 2 Aziza schools - one in a slum who's residents are in fear of eviction, and the other by the lakeside who face the same problem because the government wants to fill in the lake to have more land for development. The Rudi Boa centre was also by the lakeside. It was particularly shocking to me to walk around the surrounding village. All the houses are built on stilts over the lake. However, the lake is more like a floating rubbish dump as there is no waste colelction system. It's particularly worrying that the kids there swim in the lake which is also full of used needles and other sharp objects. On the Friday we visited Tiny Toones, an orphanage which teaches street kids to break dance and make music as well giving them English and I.T. classes.

I'm glad we got this week to have a chance to see the projects here in PP and to see the way of life. It's been a lot of fun working things out like how to get a tuk-tuk and buying our food at the Russian market, finding out where we are and generally discovering PP. Tomorrow however, Vy (our fantastic PP volunteer coordinator who has been helping us so much to get sorted this week) is taking Tom and me down to Kep by bus. We're really looking forward to getting there as it will mark the real beginning to our gap year.

- Joss