Week 10: Not so quiet at the Pteas Krohorm!

Week 10 was supposed to be marked by Val and PJ leaving to Vietnam and the Red House being once more devoid of people. However, on Wednesday we found out that Fred will actually be working in Chamcar Bei (not Takeo), Abbey will be working for 2 weeks per month in Chamcar Bei, Biff will be living there all the time and Erin will be spending more time here. So we now have a full house!

Teaching was pretty disrupted this week because once again it was agriculture helping time for all of our students. This meant that more than half our classes were spent outside de-weeding, ploughing and re-planting flower beds and small fields at CLC. This was really fun but unfortunately meant that what class time we had tended to be disrupted and full of fidgeting xp. Teaching the teachers and youth team members was good this week, since they were not as involved with the agriculture. The youth team started reading novels with Joss and I which everybody seemed to enjoy. We are also nearly ready to launch the youth team campaign for keeping Chamcar Bei litter free. We are projecting that the day campaign itself will take place some time in late November. The youth team members have all been fantastic so far and we are now expanding the project so that some of our younger students can also get involved.

Thursday night marked PJ and Val's last night in the Red House and the first night for Abbey, Biff and Fred so we celebrated by inviting over several of our youth team friends and throwing a small surprise party for the new volunteers. Using our new coldbox we were able to have cold beers and cokes which, in Chamcar Bei, is a pretty big luxury! It was a nice send-off for PJ and Val and everybody (especially the youth team members) really enjoyed themselves.

On Friday Joss and I made a first trip to Rabbit Island, which was a nice way to regain some energy after a tiring few weeks of teaching (I taught roughly 100 hours in October). While we are teaching it doesn't seem at all tiring but once we get home after a few days I certainly feel pretty worn-out. Next week we will also get a good chance to recooperate since it is the Water Festival and we therefore get almost the entire week off.

Still loving it here!

Tom Kemeny