03/03/09
This week saw some significant changes and events in Chamcar Bei, some of which were expected. We had the long awaited Kep trio running and cycling events which took up the whole weekend and quite a lot of the week for planning and preperation, which was all worthwhile because the events were a lot of fun for everybody involved and a substantial amount of money was raised for the BAB Kep Community Development project.
We found out last weekend that Srey, the head of the Livelihoods Project, is leaving for a job closer to home and her young children 
near Sihanoukville. Because she has done so much for the community of Chamcar Bei, BAB and the Community Based Organisation (CBO) members coorganized a leaving party on Wednesday night this week. The party was a great success and a nice example of the community organization skills Srey has taught to some of the Chamcar Bei residents since BAB's involvement in the party was mainly financial (extra power until midnight!). There was a huge meal of Khmer laksa-like curry with duck, rice noodles, salad and baguette which we have decided is the staple party food in Cambodia since we had exactly the same dish at
Phirom's house a few weeks ago. We were also forced to participate in tradtional Khmer dancing with our youth team friends. This basically entails walking slowly around a table while gracefully (or not in my case) weaving your hands in the air. This is fun until you realise you have done one and a half laps in the last four songs! As is the custom at these parties the music was also so loud that conversation was made rather difficult. But what kind of Khmer party would it be without some dodgy Cambodian pop blasted on a really bad sound system? But seriously it was a really nice send-off for Srey and a good celebration of the work she has done in Chamcar Bei.
near Sihanoukville. Because she has done so much for the community of Chamcar Bei, BAB and the Community Based Organisation (CBO) members coorganized a leaving party on Wednesday night this week. The party was a great success and a nice example of the community organization skills Srey has taught to some of the Chamcar Bei residents since BAB's involvement in the party was mainly financial (extra power until midnight!). There was a huge meal of Khmer laksa-like curry with duck, rice noodles, salad and baguette which we have decided is the staple party food in Cambodia since we had exactly the same dish at
Phirom's house a few weeks ago. We were also forced to participate in tradtional Khmer dancing with our youth team friends. This basically entails walking slowly around a table while gracefully (or not in my case) weaving your hands in the air. This is fun until you realise you have done one and a half laps in the last four songs! As is the custom at these parties the music was also so loud that conversation was made rather difficult. But what kind of Khmer party would it be without some dodgy Cambodian pop blasted on a really bad sound system? But seriously it was a really nice send-off for Srey and a good celebration of the work she has done in Chamcar Bei.
Joss and I left the party relatively early as we were quite tired after a full day's teaching. We said goodbye to Srey and her family and headed back to the Red House. About fifteen minutes later we were looking over towards the party and saw some car lights come on and start heading towards the pond. We assumed whoever it was just needed the extra space to turn around until the car was practically on the weir. As it turned out, when Erin and Sara said goodbye to Srey and her family, it was decided that they should be given a "ride" home aallll the way to the Red House and so having driven about a hundred metres Srey's family walked them the rest of the way. Of course having arrived at the Red House Srey's daughter was forced to sing us every English song she has ever learnt in school for the hundredth time that evening, but it's still cute :). Teaching this week was fairly uneventful in comparison to the weekend so I don't really have that much to say about it. We taught role plays on shopping/going to the market and numbers.
On Friday afternoon Joss and I went to Botanica guest house in Kep so we would be ready for the meeting on Saturday morning during which our duties for the weekend would be allocated. Staying at Botanica was a pleasure as we expected it would be, and we got a good night's rest which was fortunate because on Saturday afternoon we got busy with the events! We went inside Knai Bang Chatt for the first time for our bus monitor meeting so it was interesting to see what was inside the imposing walls. Our jobs, partners and buses for the weekend were finalized and we went back to Botanica for a quick lunch before picking people up for the 10km bike ride at 3pm.
Since my bus was for the spectators rather than the participants we didn't start picking people up at the guest houses until it was almost time for the race to start. The bus I was responsible for could seat 45 people and we had a whopping 6 supporters to pick up before heading to the finish line at CLC. When we were about half way to Chamcar Bei some omin
ous black clouds that had been gathering broke into torrential rain just as the horn blew for the bike ride to begin. It was a bit sad to arrive in Chamcar Bei in the pouring rain because the beautiful hills were eclipsed by the downpour and the village was a lot less attractive as a result. I was quite dissapointed because I had been anticipating showing people how amazing the village is but in the rain it looked rather bleak in comparison to its usual radiance. This was remedied when we arrived at CLC to be greeted by literally every child Joss and I teach (in their best school uniform) lining the road to CLC like a miniature Khmer tour de France. The children and other village residents made for a really nice atmosphere at the finish line despite the weather and thankfully the rain over CLC wasn't so heavy and the kids weren't drenched.
ous black clouds that had been gathering broke into torrential rain just as the horn blew for the bike ride to begin. It was a bit sad to arrive in Chamcar Bei in the pouring rain because the beautiful hills were eclipsed by the downpour and the village was a lot less attractive as a result. I was quite dissapointed because I had been anticipating showing people how amazing the village is but in the rain it looked rather bleak in comparison to its usual radiance. This was remedied when we arrived at CLC to be greeted by literally every child Joss and I teach (in their best school uniform) lining the road to CLC like a miniature Khmer tour de France. The children and other village residents made for a really nice atmosphere at the finish line despite the weather and thankfully the rain over CLC wasn't so heavy and the kids weren't drenched. Having dropped the supporters off at the guest houses after the bike event we grabbed a quick shower at Botanica and when to the sailing club for the big dinner event. This was nice because we had a brief opportunity to talk to some of the prospective 3YO students in their last year at UWC. Unfortunately having been there for ten minutes we were summoned to another bus monitor meeting and I got the short straw of taking people back to the guest houses for the last hour or so of the dinner. Unfortunately the buses weren't that well organized so this got a little hairy and I didn't finish till around 11pm. Thankfully Joss saved me some food .
Next morning Joss and I were up at the inhumane time of 5am to organize transport to the running events commencing at 6:30am and 7am. These trips were fairly uneventful although apparently one bus for runners didn't arrive on time and it took some miracle working from Vy and Antonia to compensate and somehow get everyone to the starting points on time. My bus arrived on time and all the supporters were ready and waiting when the first runners s
tarted coming in. As I had been predicting to Joss for weeks, our friend Hal Quin came in first place for the half marathon and his two younger brothers came 2nd and 3rd in the 10km run! Joss and I showed a few people around the Red House (including one of the next generation 3yo UWC students) and everybody seemed to love it just as much as us. There was a slightly drawn out group of speeches before the cyclists handed over their bikes to village children but the ceremony was still quite well done and everything was wrapped up in time for the participants and supporters to visit the CVTC shop and purchase pretty much everthing that has been made so far. This was really great because the project was very much in need of a boost since the women have been working very hard for months for very little reward up until this point. It's great that the project will have wind in its sails now for some time. On Monday morning Joss got the worst job instead of me as she had to leave Botanica at 4:15 am to get people back to P.P. for a 10:15am flight. Lucky, for I was spared another early start as m
y bus left at lunch time. We got everyone safely back to P.P. with no problems and stayed the night to pick up my Mum from the airport on Tuesday.
tarted coming in. As I had been predicting to Joss for weeks, our friend Hal Quin came in first place for the half marathon and his two younger brothers came 2nd and 3rd in the 10km run! Joss and I showed a few people around the Red House (including one of the next generation 3yo UWC students) and everybody seemed to love it just as much as us. There was a slightly drawn out group of speeches before the cyclists handed over their bikes to village children but the ceremony was still quite well done and everything was wrapped up in time for the participants and supporters to visit the CVTC shop and purchase pretty much everthing that has been made so far. This was really great because the project was very much in need of a boost since the women have been working very hard for months for very little reward up until this point. It's great that the project will have wind in its sails now for some time. On Monday morning Joss got the worst job instead of me as she had to leave Botanica at 4:15 am to get people back to P.P. for a 10:15am flight. Lucky, for I was spared another early start as m
y bus left at lunch time. We got everyone safely back to P.P. with no problems and stayed the night to pick up my Mum from the airport on Tuesday.So the Kep trio events were a great success once again and just over USD$50,000 was raised for the village - not counting the refreshments and CVTC products bought. Thank you to everyone who helped and participated in this event. Joss and I would like to say another thank you to the people who brought us teaching/basketball supplies and toothbrushes from Singapore as well as some much appreciated ant powder!
P.S. an upcoming event that is FAR more important than marathons and parties etc. drumroll please..... we are getting a kitten in two weeks!!!!!!
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