Catch-Ups And Christmas

Christmas is a time for friends and family. When you only go back home once a year, this is the perfect time for a visit. I spent December in the UK catching up with friends and family, eating way too much and driving up and down the M4.

My trip started off with a few days at my brother’s in London with his wife and two children. As an absent aunt, it always takes a little while to reconnect but we had a great time together and it well and truly got me in the Christmas spirit. From our ice skating trip to attending the children’s school Christmas fair, complete with carols, I felt entirely festive by the time I set off to the first of two university reunions.

Family Ice Skating at Hampton Court

I’m very fortunate to be part of two groups of friends from both my undergrad and postgrad universities who are highly organised and meet up once a year. The first evening was with my Cardiff gang where we played Danish Secret Santa (Google it) and ventured out for dinner and drinks at Clapham’s answer to Winter Wonderland, aptly named Winterville.

Cardiff University Friends

Four days after I landed back in the UK, I was finally on my way to Devon where my parents live, after meeting up with a fellow Cambodian expat. Recognised by my dog and greeted with home-cooked food and a glass of wine, I could finally relax. Plus, the gift of an electric blanket allowed me to not freeze to death so that was a real bonus.

Throughout the month I was working full time which is awkward when you’re 11 hours behind your boss, with whom you work very closely. But we managed! My evenings were reserved for seeing friends from school and my childhood, catching up on our lives and falling comfortably back into old dynamics.

High School Friends

My second university reunion with my Warwick crew came the evening after my annual charity fundraiser. A three course meal and a night out to catch up with everyone I met during my postgrad studies.

Warwick University Friends

The following day I walked around a snowy Clapham with Ruth, my closest friend from my university days. That evening I returned to my brother’s for an early Christmas and present giving.

Ruth & Ruth

Lemons!

The final trip was up to Oxfordshire to visit my horse and my friend who now looks after her. I miss riding terribly and it was great to get back in the saddle and hack through the fields, where snow still lay on the ground. Yes, I was freezing cold, even with fleecy socks which had been heated on the Aga.

Reunited With Melly

The rest of my time in the UK was spent with high school friends and family, eating, watching TV, playing cards, hanging out and fundraising. SKOPE relies on donors from the UK and I returned to two Rotary Clubs who supported us last year and continue to be very generous. I updated them on our projects throughout the year, thanked them for their continued commitment and answered any questions they had. I also collected books which are going to be donated to my friend’s new library/school in her family’s village in Kampot.

Torquay Rotary Donation

With technology making communication so easy these days, I no longer have to tell everyone my life story of the year whenever I return. It’s nice to just be together as if no time has passed, enjoying our traditional Christmas festivities. From walks in the village to going to the beach to eating at our local pub, sometimes it feels like I’ve never been away. And yet, I have now been living in as an expat for three and a half years, with no plans to return to the UK permanently any time soon.

98 Years Going Strong

 

I’m now back in my beloved Cambodia where life is wonderfully familiar and yet full of surprises. Take Friday afternoon, for example. I was lying in my hammock when my Khmer neighbour casually beat a snake to death in front of my house, watched on by her three screaming children. Plot twist, this snake had fallen off the end of a stick which she had been carrying, walking from her own house to my other neighbours who are her in-laws. I’m presuming the journey was meant to culminate in some fantastic show and tell. Sadly for all involved, particularly the snake, the final presentation was far less impressive than it had been when first discovered and decidedly more gory. That said, I hate snakes and am glad there is one less of them living in my vicinity.

Please don’t let that put any of my friends or family reading this off coming to visit. It’s wonderful here. You’re all welcome at any time.

My new years resolution is to update this blog more frequently …

Lemon Sister Earrings

More Beach Walks

 

Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves

When considering the nature versus nurture argument, I find it very interesting to look at myself and my younger sister, Molly. While we were brought up in the same environment (nurture), we are very different people in many ways (nature). That said, we also have a lot of similarities; you just have to look a little harder to find them. While I love to travel, my sister is most definitely a home bird. I have a cat, she has a dog. Molly is making her way as an artist while I struggle to draw a stickman. We’re following very different career paths and yet, over the past few weeks, we’ve come to realise we can lend our individual skillsets to help one another. Rather than sisters doing it for themselves, therefore, we’re doing it for each other.

I suppose we are both creative; she with images, me with words. For the past year, I’ve been working for a digital marketing agency, writing blogs, websites, social media copy and much more. I have learnt what is required for a business to rise through the ranks of Google and land at the top of relevant search engine results pages and capture the attention of customers. And now my sister wants to do exactly this with her new website.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is simple enough once you know what Google’s PageRank algorithm is looking for. You need to deliver the information it is seeking in a straightforward format which it can identify and analyse to determine your page’s relevance. While Molly had a great website built for her by one of her friend’s, Google would have struggled to recognise its relevance before I got my hands on it. You see, Google can’t (yet) read images. It relies on text to understand what is on a page. Therefore, beautiful though Molly’s website was with images of her artwork, as far as Google was concerned, it was empty. Now, however, we have added in the relevant tags and alt text and meta descriptions which allow Google to scan the Internet, pick up keywords such as ‘pressure print’, ‘oil painting’ and ‘British bird greeting cards’ (all Molly’s specialties), and push her website up the pages of results whenever a relevant search is googled.

It’s a great feeling to not only be able to help my own sister but also to see the positive results in what I’ve been doing for her (using an analytics app kindly lent to me by my boss). It’s also validation that I really do understand what I’m doing. And the best part about this is that it’s a two-way street. While I may be helping Molly, she has skills to offer me too. Or, more specifically, my charity.

I am always looking for new ways to raise money for SKOPE, my education charity I run in Cambodia. Between us, Molly and I came up with the idea of her creating a charity greeting card as part of her British bird range from which the proceeds will go to SKOPE. We’re considering it her way of saying thank you for my help. And yet she’s helping me too. We are now both in positions where we are excelling within our chosen careers and able to offer support and help for one another using our specialised skills.

The cards Molly will design shall feature a Cambodian bird and are due to be available in her Etsy shop within the next couple of months. Hopefully, by that time and with my continued SEO efforts, she’ll be landing high up Google results and attracting more web traffic and more customers. We both benefit from helping one another. I’m sure our parents are reading this and wishing we had realised we would have benefitted from being friends as children so we could play together rather than fight. But it’s better late than never, right?

Molly and I are doing it for ourselves in our separate career paths but we’re also now working together, offering our unique skillsets to support and better the other. We’re two sisters who are doing it for one another.

 

Oh, and in case you hadn’t already clicked, here’s a link to Molly’s website and her Etsy store.

That Time I Built A Library … With A Little Help

Well, 2017 began pretty fantastically for me. My charity built a library! Yes, an entire library. And all for just $1300. That includes construction, books, and the solar panel which allows the kids to, theoretically, have access 24/7 to their new education area. It amazes me how much further money can go in South East Asia and this project just goes to show that good, generous people are still on this planet. Sadly, they’re not pursuing a career in politics…

Back to that library, however. I travelled out on Friday to a village in Kampong Speu where Karuna Youth Cambodia, a fellow NGO, have a school. I had been a week earlier to drop off our latest volunteers, Emma and Reece, who are part way through a five week stint teaching at the school and living in the rainbow house. The day before I had received a shipment of 100 kg of books from England, which DHL had couriered door to door for free (seriously – you don’t ask, you don’t get). So I brought with me these books plus those donated by Paññāsāstra University of Cambodia and one of SKOPE’s new supporters, Association of School Aid in Cambodia (ASAC). That evening, powered by beer, Emma, Reece and I coded about 400 English books. We did the other 200 the following evening!

Onto the build. Well, let’s be honest I’m not a builder but luckily some men in the village are. A father of some children at the school is a carpenter and he took the reins when it came to directing the construction process, particularly the wooden frame. About eight men worked tirelessly for two full days, completely voluntarily, and constructed our library. It’s only three metres square but that’s still quite a feat. Emma, Reece and I tried to help where we could but when it came to hammering with the flat end of an axe, we decided we’d rather not lose an ear.

That Sunday saw the arrival of some Sovann Komar kids, handpicked to be the ones who always get stuck in on projects with SKOPE. Because we really needed their help. The walls weren’t entirely up by the time they reached the school but we began painting anyway. Despite me telling them explicitly not to wear their nice clothes, many of them ended up shirtless and splattered in orange. I am still finding orange smears of paint on me and it’s been over a week since I left!

We ate a delicious lunch cooked by the villagers and then headed down to a beautiful area of the village by the river where the Sovann Komar kids decided to go exploring upstream. Upon returning to the school, the kids were set to work clearing a newly acquired strip of land which KYC will build a volleyball court and football pitch on. Their earlier painting task wasn’t completed but the men were working on the roof with electric saws and we decided against jeopardising anyone’s life.

After the Sovann Komar children left, the roof quickly finished so Reece, Emma, myself and a load of the local children got stuck into painting and by sundown on Sunday evening, the library was up!

Sadly, I had to leave the next day to get back to Phnom Penh and work but thanks to the headteacher, Phearith, I was still able to keep up to date of all the happenings with his amazing videos. Which, naturally, I’ve turned into a story of the weekend, along with my own footage. Watch it here now! The following week saw a concrete floor poured and levelled, shelves built, walls decorated, and the solar panel fitted. As luck would have it, Reece is a fully qualified electrician so he was incredibly useful at this stage. Now, in typical Khmer logic style, we had chosen to construct the library under a tree to stop the building getting too hot during the dry season. But if the sun can’t get to the roof, it can’t get to the solar panel. Not to worry! Reece put it on the roof of the adjacent school building which is south facing and ran a wire the short distance across. Voila! Light!

I love all the work I do with SKOPE but this was by far and away the best project we have ever done. I don’t know if it’s because I love reading so much or because language and writing is so important to me personally but I am quite literally overcome with emotion when I see pictures and videos of what we’ve accomplished out in that tiny village. Those children now have the opportunity to truly learn. Their exposure levels to English went from one Doctor Seuss book and a few Khmer ones to 700 English language titles and 120 Khmer language books in the space of a week. And already it’s clear they’re hungry for knowledge. Thanks to Emma and Reece’s prolonged presence, as well, these children are not only picking up the language quickly but wanting to learn more, study harder and succeed in life. I hope with the support of KYC and SKOPE, they will!

Here’s another link to the video I made – can you tell I’m proud of it?

If you’re interested in donating to SKOPE’s next project, contact me at skopecambodia@gmail.com or leave a comment on this blog and I’ll get back to you. Alternatively you can visit the SKOPE website by clicking here.

The Sun Sets On Another Year

After the year we’ve had, I think most people are looking forward to waving a firm goodbye to 2016 and welcoming 2017 with open arms. I mean, it can’t get any worse can it? Brexit and Trump, the war in Syria, mass shootings, terrorist attacks, the loss of Alan Rickman, David Bowie, Prince, Victoria Wood, Muhammad Ali, Elie Wiesel, Gene Wilder, Leonard Cohen, and then in the final few days a flurry of George Michael, Richard Adams, Carrie Fisher, and Debbie Reynolds. I don’t usually swear on my blog but I think at this point it’s fair to say “2016, fuck off!”

And yet … it’s not been all bad. Ok, it’s been pretty terrible but a few good things did happen in 2016. They may have passed you by, buried beneath headlines about Brexit and the American election and nuclear weapons and Syria and the refugee crisis but they’ve been there. So I’m returning to my usual happy self and reminding you of ten happy events of 2016 to restore some faith in our planet and humankind.

10. Ebola was cleared from West Africa.

9. 200 strangers went to the funeral of a homeless World War II veteran with no family.

8. Humpback whales, grizzly bears, manatees, and giant pandas all moved (positively) up the endangered list.

7. 800 of the Boko Harem hostages were rescued and returned to their families.

6. The hole in the ozone layer has shrunk by 3.9 million square kilometres in the past ten years

5. Volunteers in India planted 50 million trees in 24 hours.

4. Scientific breakthroughs in chemotherapy are increasing survival rates.

3. The Paris climate change agreement became international law in November.

2. The worldwide charitable drive for ALS in 2014 has led to scientists isolating the gene responsible and they have begun to work on a therapy.

1. Charitable giving and acts saw a significant increase worldwide.

Of course, the last one is a subject particularly close to my heart. I doubt I can claim my own charity, SKOPE, had much to do with the increase in charity across the globe but I’m proud to have been part of it. Both in my role as SKOPE coordinator and as a happiness ambassador to More Good Deeds, I read a lot about giving to charity, philanthropy, and how to involve people in charitable works. But it seems I needn’t bother, because everywhere you look there are signs of generosity, both financial and in other ways. Giving your time, your energy, your commitment, and your money all help charities. With politics in turmoil across the globe, it is down to us, the little people, to do that work on the ground. Whether in refugee camps ladling out soup each morning, or in medical tents outside obliterated cities like Aleppo, or even my own charity, handing out library books or stationary in a school in Cambodia, it all matters. It all makes a difference. And every one of us can get involved.

So let’s end 2016 on a positive note and look forward to 2017 with hope in our hearts. After all, it can only go up from here! I hope every one of you has a great time celebrating New Year’s Eve tonight and I’ll see you on the other side.

More Good Deeds

Over the past few months I have started working as a freelance writer and my newest employer perfectly aligns my two passions – writing and charity work. More Good Deeds is an Australian-based initiative whose sole aim is to promote acts of kindness around the world. I began as a blogger for this kindness platform and thanks to the generosity and, yes, kindness of my new boss, have been able to use this work to support SKOPE. Let me tell you a little bit more about More Good Deeds.

Established in 2013, More Good Deeds believes everyone has not only the ability to do good but also the power to spread kindness. There is a psychological term, the law of reciprocity, which basically proves that humans are innately programmed to do something nice when they themselves have experienced or witnessed a kind act. It’s the simple ‘give and take’ theory. So if we help someone carry their shopping bags at the train station, that person is more likely to do something else kind for someone in the future, inspired by our own kindness.

More Good Deeds have an app, on which users can post their own good deeds, give thanks to people who showed kindness to them, gain followers, start chains of kindness, and generally put a smile on their faces. Because in today’s world it can be hard to remember there are still good people in the world. With the news being so, frankly, awful every single day, a little ray of sunshine such as the one More Good Deeds shone into my life is a blessed, wonderful, relief!

But More Good Deeds go a step further. For every ‘good deed’ their users do, businesses and companies donate $1 to the user’s chosen charity. Cool, right? What’s even cooler is they’ve put SKOPE on their charity list. So it’s now easier than ever for you to support SKOPE! Simply download the app, select SKOPE as your chosen charity, and then post every time you do a good deed. An example of a good deed might be: giving up your seat for a person on the bus, helping someone cross the road, donating to a charity yourself, or giving someone your parking ticket which still has time left on it. Each time you do something good, SKOPE will get $1 and you’ll get a warm and fuzzy feeling from being nice. Everyone wins.

So please spread the word, share the kindness, and support SKOPE and, theoretically, the other charities which More Good Deeds promote! Download their app here: iTunes – more good deeds

Go, do, experience. More Good Deeds.

Hurray for Library Books

SKOPE enjoyed another amazing donation day last weekend when we returned to Kampong Thom to a school I first visited in November 2015. We’ve already done a stationary handout and supplied sports equipment in March (read more about that awesome day here) but this time it was all about books. Library books to be precise.

Hurray for Library Books!

The school, located in the grounds of a pagoda, provides education to approximately 450 children from the surrounding farming communities. There was already a library onsite but the shelves were either sparse or stacked with English language books neither the students nor the teachers had any hope of reading. SKOPE decided to change that. We did a fundraiser in Phnom Penh in July, selling books to raise money for the library project, and it was so successful that the entire project was funded by this day so thank you so much to everyone who supported us.

Rachana reads to a local girl

The library books were purchased from Sipar, a local NGO and publishing house. Titles ranged from a Khmer translation of James and the Giant Peach to traditional Khmer folk tales to science books. Each one was given a code and covered in protective plastic. The school has a trained librarian too, so the books can be loaned out and kept track of just like any other library. A big thank you to Sipar for their work and support of this project.

Lionel works with two girls to read this book

As always, I was joined on the day by some of Sovann Komar’s children and staff. They were all absolutely phenomenal on this trip and really got stuck into the tasks I gave them. They all read with the local children, helping them out on difficult words and explaining the stories. It was magical to see and I am anticipating blossoming teaching careers in their future.

Maya definitely has a potential teaching career ahead of her!

We also donated two laptops, one to each school we’re affiliated with in Kampong Thom. These laptops were to be used by the school administration who are currently doing everything by hand. I’d had them loaded up with a Khmer keyboard so they could type and then Sam, Jack, and Colin, three boys from Sovann Komar, spent time with the headteachers showing them the basics of Microsoft Word and Excel. A huge thank you to my cousin, Stephanie, and her school in London who donated these laptops to SKOPE.

Our tech-savvy teens were more than happy to help explain to the local teachers 

When it was time for the children to go home for lunch, they were definitely reluctant to leave their newly stocked library. They loitered for a while, chatting with the Sovann Komar children and staff before finally cycling away towards their family farms. We stayed at the school to eat lunch before making the journey back to Phnom Penh, during which every single one of my helpers passed out in the van.

I know I often say how much I love my work but this trip was particularly special to me for two reasons. Firstly, I got to return to where this girl, Srey Nang, studies. After taking this photo of her in November last year, she sort of became the face of SKOPEs campaigns. It was therefore an honour to go back and photograph her with some library books, proving that we can indeed “be the change”.

Secondly, I love reading myself and I was overjoyed to see the same look of rapt attention on these kids’ faces as I’m sure I get at times. They were so enthusiastic, so well-behaved, and so eager to get stuck into the new books, ready to explore the worlds captured within their pages. Already I’m launching a second library project, and am considering making this one of SKOPE’s speciality project types as the benefits are just phenomenal. Books and reading open so many doors for us and I think it is an area we can really make a difference in, especially in rural Cambodia where access to literature is limited. So please check out our next library project plans here, and see how you can get involved.

Two NGOs and a Rainbow House

Last week I went on a two day trip to SKOPE’s newest partner school. Located in the heart of Kampong Speu Province, nestled amongst the trees, is Karuna Youth Cambodia. Founded in 2011 by their young director, Phearith, KYC is an NGO which focuses on community-based education projects. The village of Chherteal Chrum is unassuming and from the outside looks like any other rural Cambodian community. But the children here are luckier than most and six days a week 250 of them are able to attend free English and Computer Studies lessons at KYC.

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The school is small; just one classroom and a narrow corridor which acts as a computer lab. There’s also a small meeting room and performance area (Phearith is looking to begin a traditional arts education programme soon). The playground and surrounding greenery is beautiful and at the far end of the property stands the solar-powered Rainbow House, built to accommodate future volunteers, complete with bathroom, living area, television and mezzanine bedroom.

Look how cute it is! And I slept like a baby to boot.

My trip out to the village took three hours in a local bus-taxi. Usually there are upwards of twenty people crammed into a twelve-seater van but I was lucky. Just me and four Cambodian men. Oh, and a huge bag of alive crickets. The countryside in Cambodia is beautiful, especially in Kampong Speu which is home to the Aural mountain range, the largest in the country, so the drive was delightful. When I arrived at the edge of the village, a man took me by moto to the school where I met Phearith and got the tour of the complex. It is a little haven of comparative luxury; electricity, running water (sort of), English-speakers, and delicious Khmer food.

I was waited on hand and foot by the family whose property borders the school. The women cooked incredible dishes for me throughout my time there and I was very impressed by their skills and hospitality despite them not speaking a word of English. The school ran until four in the afternoon at which point Phearith and I went for stroll around the village. I’ll let the photos speak for themselves here … Basically, it was one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen.

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That evening the villagers were all invited to join us at the school as a celebration. Whether it was because Phearith was taking his monthly visit to the site (he is based in Phnom Penh where KYC also operates) or because I was there remains unclear. But I’d like to think it was the latter. Of course dinner wasn’t on time so we wiled away the wait by singing karaoke (not me, don’t worry) and watching a zombie movie which had all the women who had already arrived screaming and the kids hiding behind their hands. Due to the fact that I was sleeping in a wooden house on my own at the end of a school garden in an unknown village, I opted to read on my phone rather than watch …

The following day I spent time with the school children who had come to study. The centre is open all the time and many came hours before their lessons to play with friends and hang out in a safe, clean space. I wandered around, chatted to a couple of them, and then settled down to read a Dr Seuss book to a group of students who were waiting for their class to begin. They were so engaged in it, despite not understanding a lot of the text and I suddenly remembered how much I enjoyed teaching.

The teachers at the school are past students who have studied in Phnom Penh on scholarships from KYC. Whilst their English is good, there is no substitute for native teaching and this is what KYC and SKOPE are partnering on. As of October 2016 we are launching a volunteer program. These volunteers will live on-site in the Rainbow House, be provided with free meals and teaching supplies, and get an incredible experience of life in Cambodian countryside. The program is free although if volunteers want to make a donation towards the school or to cover the costs of the food/housing, they may do so at their discretion. Transport to the site will be organised either by me or Phearith and I may even come with volunteers to settle them in (plus I loved in there and would happily go back any time).

Some of the children in Pre-School

Here I must point out that there has been a lot of press recently about the negative impacts of ‘volunteerism’. KYC and SKOPE are working together to ensure that any and all of the issues raised regarding volunteerism are addressed and eliminated. Both organisations believe in sustainable, community-based practices and we endeavour to do our best for the children we are working with. I will be writing a blog some time over the next few days on volunteerism, SKOPE, Cambodia, and my thoughts more generally.

If you’re interested in volunteering for KYC, please fill out the form below. Alternatively you may contact me (SKOPE@sovannkomar.org) or Phearith (kyclub.info@gmail.com).

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Bookworms

SKOPE (I) visited a couple of primary schools in Kampong Thom in November last year where several different projects were suggested to me. Our return trip in March saw us handing out exercise books and stationary to 900 students (amalgamated from two different schools). We also donated sports supplies and games. Now we’re heading back to complete the second request: a library.

I love to read. Always have. It comes in fits and spurts and sometimes I’ll go for months without reading anything. Other times I’ll become completely engrossed, moving seamlessly from one novel to another, devouring the words on the pages as fast as I can. So I was more than happy to put my effort and the finances of SKOPE behind a library project. The school in question has an onsite library and the only problem is the lack of books. Now, I’m no expert but books are a pretty fundamental part of creating a library.

A sad looking bookshelf in Kampong Thom

The school’s headteacher has arranged a timetable to ensure each of the school’s classes visit the library every week, exposing them as much as possible to reading and literature from an early age. The only problem is, the kids are bored. They’ve read all the books suitable for their age range, of which there were only ever a handful. How can we expect kids to become passionate about reading if we don’t have engaging texts for them to explore? Well, thanks to SKOPE, they soon will.

I held my first fundraiser in Cambodia to raise the money for this project. Whilst visiting my sister in Perth, Australia, last year, I had come across a gimmick in a bookshop I wanted to try out. It’s called Blind Date with a Book. The premise; the books are wrapped up so you can’t see what the title is and you choose what you want to buy based on limited summary points on the front of them. Fun, quirky, and unusual. Perfect.

Just a few of the books I wrapped to sell

It took ages to get the books ready but it was a lot of fun and a way of remembering back over the books I’d read over the past couple of years. Almost all the books we sold were one I’d accumulated during my time in Cambodia. Next we needed a venue. I asked permission from one of my favourite restaurants for me to hold the fundraising event one Saturday morning where I knew footfall would be high. Helped by Sovann Komar’s current intern, we set up our display and prepared for customers to arrive.

Ready for supporters

To be honest, I wasn’t exactly optimistic about raising a huge amount of money but I was blown away by the support I received. Although many of my friends here in the city also came along to support SKOPE, the vast majority of our customers were strangers who had seen our advertisement on Facebook. In fact, we almost ran out of books and were generously restocked by my friends Emily and Josh. Other buyers offered to donate their own books beforehand, should I want to do the same fundraiser in the future which was wonderful.

With the money raised, I went to visit the head offices of Sipar, a Khmer language book publisher. They had an eclectic mix of titles from my first words to a translation of Pippi Longstocking, non-fiction books about Cambodian history and traditional moral tales. I put in an order for 120 books and we’ll be delivering them some time in September or October!

Some of Sipar’s fantastic range

Thanks once again to everyone who came along that day and supported us. Keep an eye out both on this blog and our Facebook page for any upcoming projects and fundraisers you might want to get involved in.

2006 – 2016: My Cambodian Decade

Ten years ago today, my feet first touched Cambodian soil. I had no idea that a decade later I would be living and working in that very same country with no plans to leave any time soon. I came to Cambodia as part of a one month expedition, which also included Thailand, with a company called World Challenge. We were doing their ‘Team Challenge’ expedition and I was part of a twelve-strong group of sixteen and seventeen year olds from my secondary school. We’d spent close to two years raising the £3,000+ each to go on the trip and it all boiled down to four weeks in South East Asia. At the time, it wasn’t one of the best experiences of my life, predominantly because of our incredibly unpleasant team leader whom we later got fired from World Challenge. I think our troubles in Thailand left a sour taste at the end of our travels but when I was planning my gap year two years later, there was only one country I wanted to go to: Cambodia. Since then, I’ve never looked back. In between finishing high school, getting my undergraduate degree and then my masters, I have spent a combined total of three years in Cambodia so far. Over the past ten years I’ve worked for numerous NGOs, taught hundreds of children, lived with lots of different people, and made some of the very best friends in the world.

In honour of this milestone, I’ve been re-reading the diary I kept when I was travelling. Some of it could have been written by me yesterday. Some of it was clearly written by a sixteen year old with no understanding of the possessive apostrophe (I’ve had to correct them grammatically to publish here because it’s just embarrassing). Anyway, here are some extracts for your enjoyment.

Saturday 15th July 2006 – Arriving in Cambodia

It’s beautiful and outside the city it reminds me of Spain/Mallorca but the hustle and bustle of the centre is amazingly different to anything I’ve ever experienced. There are thousands and thousands of motorbikes, many of which have two or more people on. The current record is 5! I saw a mother feeding a baby on one and very few riders wear a helmet … We passed the Royal Palace and saw lots of children begging. It was really sad as they were all so beautiful. We also saw a man who had been crippled, probably by a mine set down during the wars in Cambodia.

Sunday 16th July 2006 – Phnom Penh

I didn’t sleep too well as our window was open and Phnom Penh is the new city that never sleeps! … The killing fields, when we finally arrived, was a very sad place … The mass graves and the signs stating the numbers of the dead that were buried there was a horrible thought but I had no personal experience of it so it did not mean as much to me as other massacres … At dinner we all sampled some delicious Khmer food. It’s very similar to Chinese.

Monday 17th July 2006 – Orphanage Day 1

I was crammed into the minibus and it got called over by police but we don’t know why. The tuk-tuks in front had to swerve across a steady stream of traffic to stop and wait for us. The driving here is crazy! [At the orphanage] we were enthusiastically greeted by beautiful kids … It’s lovely to play with them as they’re all so friendly. I wish I could take some home with me.

Wednesday 19th July 2006 – Orphanage Day 3

Some people went to the market today to get sheets, a kettle and underwear as the kids here only have one pair each! Now, thanks to us, they have two … I ate crushed beetles which were actually delicious. In the restaurant we were served an un-gutted fish. It was great fun pulling it apart! 

Thursday 20th July 2006 – Orphanage Day 4

It monsooned again today … When it was time to leave we had to wade up to the tuk-tuks. Sometimes the water was over my knees. It was great fun though despite the fact that the water was sewage water and Jo and I saw a syringe and a drip bag which made us really worried about stepping on a needle or anything else. It made us realise what environment these people live in.

Saturday 22nd July 2006 – Orphanage Day 6 (Now known as SOS Day)

A nurse came in to read my blood pressure and heart rate and to take a blood sample … When the doctor came in an examined my ankle he said it was probably a spider bite … and that the spider had left poison in my ankle. He gave me some pills to take every 6 hours and I was put on an IV drip … It was our last day at the orphanage too and the goodbyes were so upsetting as we’re never going to see those kids again.

Sunday 23rd July 2006 – Travelling to Siem Reap

The bus was going at a good speed but I have no idea what that speed was as all the dials had broken. There were loads of cows that seemed to be tied up but we still almost hit some. There were stray dogs and straggly chickens too … Siem Reap is really beautiful and I prefer it to Phnom Penh.

Tuesday 25th July 2006 – Angkor Wat

There is a terrific set of extremely steep steps, very worn and uneven. Adam, Kate and I climbed up them … This sort of climbing would never be allowed in England because of all the healthy and safety procedures! The views were so spectacular that we sat at the top in a window for about an hour … Before leaving Angkor Wat, we all decided to investigate the source of some exotic music. We found a current Buddhist temple. I felt that looking at them was a bit intrusive but I wandered up quickly. I also saw a line of red ants.

Wednesday 26th July 2006 – We say ‘lear-en-haoey’ to Cambodia and ‘sa-wat-dee’ to Thailand

The bus was absolutely tiny! … the road we were on was ridiculously bumpy. At one point I left my seat by 15cm and the sweets on my lap flew down the bus … Kate and Louise were passing the time by counting pigs! … We managed to cross the border without being blown up by a mine which is also very good.

Ok so I wasn’t the most eloquent of writers. But a few of these sentences could have been written in one of my current blogs! Some of them, of course, could not. I mean, was I really that insensitive at the Killing Fields? Possibly, I can’t really remember and I was a self-absorbed teenager at the time. But did I really think the genocide I was learning about didn’t mean much because my grandfather wasn’t involved? And just to clarify, Cambodian cuisine has very little in common with the Chinese take-aways I was referring to. Presumably it was because I’d eaten noodles and rice … And the way I talked about the orphanage kids like we were their saviours! It actually sounds like this orphanage was one of the ones the media now warns against. Clearly there was a regular influx of tourists and white money, each group believing they were helping these poor kids who were really just smiling and playing with them because they knew they’d get things bought for them. As for Angkor Wat, health and safety has encroached sadly and you can no longer climb like monkeys over ancient ruins. Although perhaps in terms of preservation, this is a good thing. I also don’t tend to write about seeing a line of ants … Oh and no one says that Khmer I used as a title of the final entry. I’m not even sure what it’s supposed to sound like.

But what is the same? The crazy roads, ridiculous driving, and lack of helmets. The beggars and cripples near tourist attractions. The noise of the city. Monsoon floods with discarded medical supplies floating in them. Saying goodbye to the kids I work with makes me cry. Buses with speedometers that never work. Cows, dogs and chickens regularly meet their fate on the roads. I still visit that little working temple near Angkor Wat every time I go. The border crossing in Poi Pet is one of the worst in the world.

Ten years has passed and Cambodia has certainly changed. I have too, thank goodness. Some changes have been good, others less so. Some of the Cambodia I wrote about ten years ago is recognisable today, other areas have faded away. But one thing remains the same; my unrelenting, deep, and enduring commitment and love to this country and its people. Here’s to the next ten years.

July 2006 – Me with some of the children from the orphanage in Stung Mean Chey

February 2009 – Me with Loung and Veronique at Sovann Komar

July 2010 – Me with Laura, Marissa, and Orlando at Ta Mao wildlife reserve

December 2012 – Me and Mandy with Cheng and two children at Aziza’s Place

August 2014 – Me with Lucy, Aria, Andrew, and Marcus at Sovann Komar

March 2015 – Me with my Grade 5 class

15th July 2016 – Me with my Grade 4 class

 

Playgrounds! Millbrook School and Sovann Komar build happiness with SKOPE

Sovann Komar and SKOPE recently played host to some students from Millbrook School, New York, who came over as part of an educational trip to get involved in our outreach programme. Which, naturally, meant I was running most of the weekend. There were eleven students and three teachers visiting to organise activities for and I think everything went smoothly. At least, by Cambodian standards. The theme for the overall weekend was: playgrounds!

My willing band of helpers on the first day

On Saturday the American students and some of our own kids worked really hard to recondition the existing playground in Sovann Komar Children’s Village. After eight years of enthusiastic playtimes, it was looking a little dilapidated. So we replaced the sandpit, painted the climbing frame, swing set, and seesaws, hung a new rope swing, and replaced the jumping tyres.

Have you ever tried to remove a tyre filled with concrete and anchored with an iron rod? No? It’s hard!

We put a fresh coat of paint on the climbing frame

It was all hands on deck for the new sand pit

We got new horse heads and seats for the seesaws and painted them

Everyone got stuck in and we were all covered in paint, sweat, sand, and mud by the end of it. But that doesn’t matter in Cambodia in July because there’s always a monsoon around the corner to wash it away. And what better way to experience the rainstorm than by playing a game of football (or soccer, for my American readers)! Those of us who preferred to stay dry (ish), helped with the construction of a giant banana boat.

Sunday was SKOPE’s latest project in Prey Veng province. It was much more ambitious than all of our previous ones combined. And by that, I mean we were doing multiple things, most of which required manual labour. Here was the schedule:

• Hand out stationary to every child (equipment donated by a very generous supporter from China and supplemented by the headteacher at Sovann Komar School)
• Plant trees
• Hand out water filters to each family
• Create a cement base for the new water well
• Build a playground

I was most involved in the first and last point as SKOPE fundraised to support those two endeavours. The trees and water well were supported by Sovann Komar itself, Panasasatra University of Cambodia, and donors from the United States. The water filters were donated by Millbrook School.

The new well looks great! Plus it provides safe drinking water for the students and surrounding community.

Now the children and their families can drink clean, safe water at home

The playground was an idea I had had a few months previously. It was a somewhat daunting task but with so much help from various men at Sovann Komar and the children themselves, it soon became viable. I held a design competition for the playground layout for the children at Sovann Komar, involving them in the structure from the start. The frame itself was built by me and my manly helpers and erected a couple of weeks before the official donation day. On the day itself, we had painted tyres to nail up for monkey bars, ropes to thread for a climbing ceiling, more tyres to tie together to make a climbing wall, and an amazing spiderweb design.

This aspect of the day took the most co-ordinator, the greatest number of people, and the most brain power. Seriously, knots are confusing. Luckily, one of the girls from Millbrook School was a former rock-climber and with her advice, several other students were able to create sturdy, safe connections. We also hung two tyre swings from trees which were inundated with children as soon as our workers were out of the trees above them.

Monkey Jack!

Complex spiderweb making

I’ve never seen so many children climbing on a structure before. As soon as we stepped away, they ran for it, scaling up to the top with ease, swinging on the ropes and clambering through tyres. It was one of the happiest sights of my life and one I will never forget. Also, the playground stayed standing so that was a win!

The completed structure!

Amazingly this held up fine!

Monkey bars or a place to nap? You decide!

Trying out the spider’s web

Monkeying around

In the evening of that night we sailed the banana boats we had made the night before and then had a feast of home-cooked Khmer food, slaved over all day by several of Sovann Komar’s mothers and employees. Then it was time for singing and dancing and generally having a great time. I was so impressed with the way the Sovann Komar children interacted with the Millbrook students. They were confident, friendly, and helpful and I hope they have formed long-lasting friendships. The goodbyes were tearful, let’s put it that way.

Monday morning was the end of Millbrook School’s trip but they had time to eat breakfast with my unusually shy Grade 5 class before teaching English. From origami to reading time, singing songs to conversation classes, Grades 1, 3, and 5 loved learning from our young volunteers.

Origami with Grade 1

After breakfast with Grade 5

And then they were off, continuing on their adventure through Cambodia before returning to New York later in the week. It was amazing to host these bright, funny, caring young people and I hope they had as good a time as we all did here. It was fantastic to meet every one of them (you, if you’re reading) and everyone hopes you come back to visit us again soon. Sovann Komar and SKOPE are very grateful for your time and energy and look forward to continuing our relationship in the future.

Oh and just in case you missed it, here’s the link to a video of our amazing weekend.

Farewell sunset of the Phnom Penh skyline