As you know there was no internet at the office during our last weekend in Kep. Unfortunately this meant we had to spend an afternoon using the WiFi at Kep Lodge and lounging by their pool. How horrible.
It was also a long weekend as there was a public holiday on Monday, so we took the opportunity to go on a little excursion to the Kampong Trach caves which I visited last year with Leron when half of them were flooded. This trip Joss came instead and we were able to go much further into the caves since they are much drier at this time of year. The teenage girl who collects the tickets at the entrance and shows you around the caves for a small fee was surprised to see me again despite the fact I had promised to return in the dry season. It's probably not surprising really since the only foreigners you usually get in Kampong Trach are only stopping off for a few hours. This time she seemed to believe we were actually living in Chamcar Bei. Anyway, the caves and the surrounding cliffs were just as beautiful as last time. Our guide also showed us the far side of the caves where tourists don't usually bother going and the damage that has been done by local building contractors shamelessly quarrying the sides of the cliffs. Apparently the caves are now "protected" but in Cambodia that doesn't mean that much since the caves don't bring in that much money. (Photo below is of the "Dragon's Throat") 
After we visited the caves we went to the Kampong Trach market which is supposed to be bigger and better than the one in Chamcar Bei. Paa wasn't cooking for us that evening as it was a weekend so we planned to get our groceries while we were there. However, when we got to the market we found the sellers to be strangely unfriendly; this coupled with the stiffling heat and, for me, the inherant problems with shopping in a market where the ceiling is about 6
ft from the ground at best, meant that we just bought a few vegetables and went back to Chamcar Bei to buy the rest. When we arrived at the Chamcar Bei market there was such a strong contrast. Everybody knew us and stopped to say hello, it's open-air and and so everything consequently seems a lot fresher. The experience reminded us that now that the office is at CLC we don't need to leave Chamcar Bei for anything :)
Cooking for ourselves was pretty successful; I fried some pork with a bit of honey and Joss stirfried some GIANT carrots. Cooking in our kitchen is a little stressful since there are inherantly a lot of ants on the floor at any given time so you have to either endure the pain or jog on the spot while you cook.
The office was supposed to be packed into two overlaiden flatbeds, the first of which was supposed to leave in the early morning and then arrive some time before lunch. It reached CLC at around one and by that point it was clear that no amount of clever packing would avoid making three trips. The last truck arrived at about five and most of Wednesday was spent unpacking everything veeerrryyy slowly much to the annoyance of Sara the project manager. The organization went downhill even faster because Savoeurn's wife, Lakna, went into labour a week early and they had to rush to PP, although we were later told Savoeurn had been letting everybody else do all the work anyway. Now we have a functioning office right next to our classrooms at CLC, and all the staff staying next to the Coconut Project at the CVTC with us
which is nice. There are lots more friendly faces around! Of equal importance to having our friend Sok live at CVTC is a special someone he brings with him. You may have seen her pictures last year if you were following our blog. She is undoubtedly the cutest cat in the world... LUCKY!!!Sadly we had some really bad news for the youth team this week. The UWC scholarships that they have worked so hard to apply and prepare for are now an impossiblility as the age specifications were quite suddenly given to us. The upper and lower age limits were much smaller than we had been told to expect and so all the applicants from Chamcar Bei and the Kep area were either too old or too young. We had thought that the UWC movement was quite flexible regarding the upper age of applicants. It is now beyond appeal as there are over a hundred applicants that are within the required age group and many have already been turned away because they are not within the age bracket. The youth team students were extremely mature about it and did not let it get them down. They showed up for class the next day brimming with motivation as usual.
We had a very productive Friday this week! In the morning we taught Chakrya, a girl from the youth team who is a really excellent student but who can rarely attend our classes as the conflict with her unbelievably busy schedule! This week she watched Joss and I teaching a class and playing an educational game at the end. She was intrigued and asked if we could show her how to do it so she could play it with her students in the evening classes taught by the youth team. So on Friday morning we taught Chakrya a few games we use regularly and some other teaching methods we have learnt. This class could be a real breakthrough as Chakrya speaks very good English and has agreed to held us explain some of these games to the teachers. We also visited Kampot to observe a class at a school there for the hearing impared. The reason for this was that a parent from UWCSEA has been sponsoring one of the students there who is from Chamcar Bei and has received no information on his progress so we were asked to write a report. The school was really impressive and seemed very well run. The student in question was nothing short of inspiring. He is attending a school that is too far away for him to live with his f
amily and he is not only doing well academically but seems to be flourishing in general. He seems to have a great relationship with his fellow students and his teachers and is clearly a very happy person. He is really making the most of the opportunities he has been given. We gave him a ride home in our tuk-tuk so he could see his family over the weekend and during the whole journey he tried to communicate with us and teach us sign which seemed to be relatively successful. I feel like he got his points across anyway.Off to PP now for the five year scholarships - allegedly.
Byeeeeeee!
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