Week 2: Arriving in Kep and Chamcar Bai

Sunday 14/09/08 - Tom Kemeny

We start our second week in Cambodia sitting (or in my case squeezing) on to a bus that will take us from Phnomh Penh to Kep, our placement for the 6 months that we are here. We have been warned by various people that our journey is likely to include garish Cambodian karaoke blasted at top volume for four hours. But thankfully the speakers on our coach appear to be damaged and all we get is a quiet background of Khmer pop. So we are able to observe and appreciate the transition between urban and rural Cambodia in relative quiet. Watching the countryside from the window of the coach was both an enjoyable and a sobbering experience as we saw both stunning landscape and areas that had clearly been over-farmed to the point where they looked more like wastelands.

We reach Kep a few hours later and are deposited by the roadside along with Vy (our volunteer coordinator who makes everything we do in PP and down in Kep soooo much easier), a desktop computer for the office here and our luggage. Instead of carrying everything down the short hill to the BAB office we load our bags one at a time onto the back of a moto driven by Theary (our volunteer coordinator and khmer teacher who also makes everything in Kep doable) and, wearing our helmets of course, we drove down the hill clutching our rather heavy and awkward packages. This was actually the first time either of us had ridden as a passenger on a moto and it certainly made riding them later seem easy and comfortable. When we got to the office we were greated by all the lovely staff here and Lucky, who is an adorable little black and white kitten. Lucky is so named because a Belgian BAB volunteer found her tied up in a sack with her dead siblings very close to death. But after a few months of solid meals and care she has recuperated into a bouncy and hyperactive little cat.

Kep city, where the BAB office is, is more accurately a long straight road with a small cluster of guesthouses, a crabmarket and a lone bar/bakery. It is a beautiful place though, with great views of the sea and surrounding islands. The food down at the crab market is also fantastic as you can buy really fresh seafood (literally out of the ocean and into the pan) for only a few dollars.

After dumping our stuff at the office we rode on the back of Vy and Theary's motos to Chamcar Bai. Chamcar Bai is a tiny village where we will be living and working during the week for the duration of our stay here in Cambodia. The moto journey down there took about 30 minutes but it seemed to pass in a flash since we both spent the ride staring around at the unbelievably scenic views of vibrantly green rice paddies and a backdrop of densely forested hills. When we reached Chamcar Bai we were taken first to the UNESCO site where the Coconut Project and the track to the Red House are. The Coconut Project involves women from ChamCar Bai village hand crafting coconut shells into exquisite jewellery. After visiting the Coconut Project (where we were briefly rained in) we proceeded another kilometer down a dirt track to the Red House where we will be living during the week. The Red House overlooks a large lily pond and to get to the house you have to cross a small man-made waterfall (which doubles as a shower during the week). The house itself is a suprisingly large wooden house on stilts, and of course it is painted a brilliant red. We both fell in love with the house immediately and had it not been neccesary to return to Kep and get our luggage I think we would have slept there that night. The Red House has three rooms - a large bedroom/lounge with two beds and comfortable chairs, a storage room that will later be converted to another bedroom when more volunteers arrive and a kitchen with a gas cooker which works better than the one in PP. We have since upgraded with two lights - one in the kitchen and one on the veranda outside the bedroom - run from a car battery. The only problem we have had in the Red House has been a rat which seems to think everything (nuts, plastic boxes and hoodies) are good to eat! Later in the week we relented and put out poison which immediately solved the problem.

Bright and early on Tuesday we brought our luggage from Kep to Chamcar Bai and finalized our schedules at the Community Learning Centre (CLC) where we will be doing most of our teaching

Now are schedules look something like this:

Tom-

7am: wake up and eat breakfast!

7:30am: cycle to CLC (4km each way)

8am-10am: teaching 4-9 yearolds

10am-11am: teaching teachers

11am-12pm: Khmer lessons with Theary (twice a week)
12:15pm: cycle back to the Red House for lunch and a rest
1:45pm: cycle back to CLC
2pm-4pm: teaching 9-12 yearolds
4pm-5pm: teaching 15 yearolds

5pm: cycle back home
5:30pm: eat dinner
6pm: lesson plan/read and relax
9:30pm: fall into bed

Joss-

7am: wake up and eat breakfast!
7:30am: cycle to CLC (4km each way)
8am-10am: teaching 9-12 yearolds
10am-11am: teaching teachers
11am-12pm: Khmer lessons with Theary (twice a week)
12:15pm: cycle back to the Red House for lunch and a rest
1:45pm: cycle to Coconut Project
2pm-4pm: supervising Coconut Project
4pm-5pm: teaching Coconut Project ladies
5pm: cycle back home
5:30pm: eat dinner
6pm: lesson plan/read and relax
9:30pm: fall into bed

So its pretty full on!! But so far very enjoyable. We have only done two full days of teaching because we return to Kep on Thursday afternoons and help out in the BAB office on Fridays as well as meeting with Savoeurn (the education coordinator) and Theary. The classes have been challenging so far mainly due to the language barrier between ourselves and the students, and also the teachers who are assisting us. Hopefully this will improve as the teachers' English skills improve. It is very enjoyable teaching all my classes as all the kids are so enthusiastic and focused on their learning. The diligence with which they study and their engagement with the work is inspiring. Looking forward to next week!!

Cheers,

Tom