A Break from Voluntary Work in Cambodia

This week I am teaching the morning classes at school.  Although this involves getting up at 6am, I am really enjoying it as the kids in the morning are just beginning to learn English so it is a totally different sort of teaching.  Recently we have been working on writing letters (we are up to the letter F!) and doing a few songs.  Naturally I love the song part, and the kids go wild for them!  Yesterday we sang one song all about the letter A 12 times and they wanted to do it again today!  Also this week, the children have got some new name tags which we handed out today.  They were so super excited about it and children started to gather outside the classroom to look in the windows and we were handing them out to the first class.

Over the weekend a few of the volunteers embarked on a weekend trip to Battambang.  It is actually the second biggest town in Cambodia and we had heard some good things about it from some of the old volunteers so we decided to investigate for ourselves.  The bus to Battambang takes about 3 hours, but in true volunteer style I decided that that would be the easy option and opted to take a boat instead!

It was rather uncomfortable and quite hot, but we passed a largely enjoyable 8 (yes, eight) hours on the boat to Battambang.  We passed lots of small villages and saw fishermen at work which was good fun.  Once in Battambang we set off in a tuk tuk for the bamboo railway.  This was a little way out of town and is a single track line which takes you about half an hour into the jungle and back.  The train comprises of a bamboo plank of wheels with a little motor attached to the back.  It was seriously good fun sitting cross legged at the front going full steam at about 40mph.  As it is a single track railway, when you meet other trains, one train must dismantle theirs whilst the other passes and then put it back together again.  Really good fun, especially the face off from train to train to see who will be dismantling theirs!

The next day in Battambang, we hired motos and a driver for the day and headed out to the countryside again to check out some temples.  All were fantastic to explore, but unfortunately situated at the top of mountains of 10, 000 (maybe a slight exaggeration) steps.  My legs are still aching.  We also went to a killing cave from the Khmer Rouge time which had been virtually untouched since. It was disturbingly raw and unsanitised and completely different from anything you would expect to find in the West.

Hilary's placement was arranged through BUNAC.