Week 26: Project week volunteers!

28/03/09

This week we had five UWCSEA students from grade 11 come and spend their Project Week working in Chamcar Bei. We were in P.P. for the final selection of the UWC grade 8 scholars last weekend anyway so on Saturday night we decided to meet up with the five volunteers as we had not met them when we were at UWC. When we met them we were very relieved as they were all genuine UWC students, all very motivated and ready to get to work in Chamcar Bei but also to be as culturally sensitive and polite as possible. Since the episode with the ISPP I think we were pretty desperate for them to be good to everybody in the village, and they didn't let us down.

I had a lot of fun during the week since I was able to take a little time out of my usual schedule to help the volunteers build a house from scratch. This was a really nice experience but I'm very glad we had the help from Theary and some other people from the village or I doubt the volunteers and I would have known where to start! In the afternoons the volunteers came and taught at the school - two working in the nursery, two working with Joss teaching the small kids and one working with me teaching the older class. We also had them rotate through the different classes so that they got to see teaching at different levels. Their stay also included some epic games of pi-niak (two-people) a favourite game in which everyone pairs up and one person carries the other on their back. The people being carried have to throw a ball around and if they drop the ball then the people doing the carrying have to try and hit them with the ball before they run away. If the people on top get hit with the ball on the first throw then everybody switches over, if the ball misses then the people on top stay on top. A fiendishly complicated game! But a very fun one when played with 50 children, all the teachers and half of the staff! It was really nice having the UWC students working with us for a week since they were all really hardworking and willing to get involved with anything that was available. It was great to see how much they got out of the experience and I'm glad I could be involved with it.

Another huge event occurred this week! The basketball court is finished!!! We now have a semi-functioning basketball court at CLC! The only problem now is that the surface has waaaaay to many rocks in it so you can't really bounce a ball there just yet. We have started clearing the rocks now and its already looking better and until we can afford concrete we are buying seven trucks of good quality sand to pack down on the court so it can be played on. These surface problems haven't slowed down the students at CLC at all! They are often outside at play time now shooting hoops. I'm really glad the children are already taking such a liking to basketball because it is something I can really leave behind for them after I leave (which is awfully soon now). Not to mention it would have looked pretty bad if I was the only one in Chamcar Bei playing after all the hassle we have been through to get the thing built :).

We went back to Kep with the volunteers on their last night and ate at the Veranda since that is where they were staying. We took some of them to see the Riel bar and played pool for a little while and then Joss and I stayed on for a little while afterwards to hang out with Marcel since that was probably the last time we would see him before we leave. Although I'm sure I will be back here some time soon it's still sad to be saying our goodbyes already - the 6 months went by so fast!

Although I am so sad to be leaving I am also looking forward to getting back to Singapore to see my parents and my friends there. Another silver-lining to the cloud of leaving Cambodia is that Vy, the volunteer co-ordinator in P.P., will be coming back with us and staying for a week! She will probably stay at my family's house for part of her stay. Joss and I are really excited about showing Vy around Singapore. At least to start with we can bring some of Cambodia back with us literally!