Cambodia to Bali.

Since I last wrote a lot has happened. I went back to the school for my last two weeks in Cambodia. I've been to Singapore for a weekend and now I'm sitting in a hammock in beautiful Bali, enjoying my few weeks before I go home. 

Yes, home as in home, home. 

I just don't know where the last couple of months have gone, it's crazy how fast the time has flown by and my thoughts keep meandering to finding a job when I get back...but less about that for the moment.

Going back to the school in Cambodia was the best decision. I mean, I didn't get to see everything I wanted in Cambodia but that stuff will always be there. The children I've gotten to know and the other volunteers, well they won't be there if I come back in a few years. Easy decision. And while I didn't get my old classes back I got to help out in other areas I didn't the last time round. For example: supervising a Microsoft Office class, teaching ABC's to brand new beginners and also 'helping' out with PE. I also just spent a lot of time sitting out in front of the school with the kids, the other volunteers and Visal, the most head strong two year old in Cambodia.

The night before myself and Cecile were due to leave the village for good there was a party in the village, though not for us. It was an amazing way to say goodbye and see all the kids happy and dancing. What happens in Cambodia is that everyone dances around a table with flowers on it and all the kids were trying to give us flowers to put in our hair. There wasn't a flower left on the table within an hour and us volunteers looked like we had gardens growing out of our heads. It was so nice to say our last evening was spent dancing up a storm on the streets of the village surrounded by all the children we've been teaching the last couple of months.

Needless to say I balled my eyes out crying when I left the village the following morning. I didn't want to make a big deal out of it but Visal gave me a cuddle and the girls followed me out the gate waving goodbye. I cried the whole kilometer walk out to the main road in the blistering heat carrying my backpack. How embarrassing. But then when I was waiting for the 'bus' an old Khmer lady offered me a seat on her bag of rice so that cheered me up a bit. There was also an old man on the 'bus' who seemed to think my white skin was absolutely hilarious.  I'm even tanned at the moment. 

So then, I hopped a plane to Singapore to stay with pals, Katy and Matt, and not only that but to meet the one and only Katie Finn after 6 months apart. I won't go on too much about Singapore since I've already been there and we'll go back again before jetting home at the end of March. 

At this exact moment we are in Kuta, Bali. It's a bit unbelievable to be honest. We were looking at the map and just can't quite picture that we are on this little island in Indonesia below the equator.  Not that it was easy getting here. Katie asked me that morning if I'd ever missed a flight and until that day I could say that I hadn't. And we jinxed ourselves, not for the last time, because we did in fact miss our flight to Bali. Spectacularly.

Here's what didn't go our way:

- we just didn't leave early enough. It's a fact but we just didn't anticipate the rest of our problems.

- couldn't book a taxi. 

- couldn't hail a taxi when on the street. 

- had to walk to the metro station and the metro was an asshole. 

- couldn't pay for a ticket with a card and had to change money.

- had to change metro trains twice on top of everything.

- arrived at airport and proceeded very wilfully to the wrong terminal.

- check-in lady at wrong terminal didn't spot our mistake very quickly and tried to check us in for at least 15 minutes. 

- we had to take a train to the right terminal. 

- Desk staff at AirAsia less than helpful. 

You can just imagine the sweat coming off us. Although Katie said travelling must suit me because if this was six months ago I probably would've tortured and murdered a few innocents along the way and I 'seem calm' now. So nice when friends can be honest with each other. In the end it only cost us 35eur each to catch the next flight out at midday which, as luck would have it, we were just about on time for. 

So, after our interesting journey we finally arrived in Bali. We are staying in a little hostel called Granny's where we've met great people, spent the day on Kuta beach watching surfers getting bashed by waves and later today we are heading to culture capital Ubud further inland. 

We might have missed our flight but, whatever. 

Volunteering Done and Dusted.

The last week has been a week of celebration, that is one thing for sure. We've had Chinese New Year being celebrated across Cambodia, it was my birthday during the week (I admit I'm a big fan of my own birthday) and then also just celebrating the end of what's been an absolute highlight of my life; volunteering at SCAO for the last two months. 

So what exactly have we done? What haven't we done?! The week started off heavy in my heart, knowing you are leaving behind some of the most wonderful children in the world is a daunting thing. Having Chinese New Year this week meant we had Thursday and Friday free from lessons which actually left me finishing up earlier than I had expected. I had to tell the children on Tuesday that my last day was on Wednesday and I was dreading it. But the funny thing is, the feckers weren't sad at all but were so excited about getting a new teacher. Maybe this speaks volumes about their true feelings for me, but it helped lift the sadness I was feeling knowing the kids are happy and that the new volunteers are just as eager as I am to continue with their progress and that's all that matters. SCAO and SCOOP are really doing a great job in Cambodia. 

Wednesday morning myself and the bold Sophie went with the man of the house, Sovanred, to the market. I really have to admire him. He gets up at 6 every morning to cycle 5 kilometers to the market to pick up food him and his wife will cook for the volunteers. It took us 45 minutes to get there in total. Sophie asked Sovanred if he can do it in less time, he said 'Yes, I can do it twenty' - but he was going slowly for us. Sweet. The market is a very interesting place at 7 in the morning. Firstly, it's crawling with people. At one point I couldn't move but a moto was trying to drive into me. Secondly, it's full of fantasticly weird and wonderful food you won't see at home. There's snake meat, pigs heads, leeches, insects and lots more. It was a bit overwhelming to be honest but amazing to be among Khmer people in such a central part of their lives, cliche as that sounds. 

The below pic is of snake meat. Couldn't confirm if it was from one snake...

The other big thing we did this week was join our student monks on a day trip. We had organized to meet them in Phnom Penh at 10 in the morning. They didn't make an appearance till 12, Cambodian style of course. They wouldn't tell us what their plan was but about 1 or so they hired two tuktuks to take us 40km out the other side of Phnom Penh to a national Buddhist centre. It was amazing. Set among the most beautiful farmland were some incredible Pagodas and woods. We were so busy taking pictures here, there and everywhere that one of the other girls playfully slapped a monk on the arm. She felt so bad, being a woman you aren't allowed to touch a monk. He had to reach into the lake to wash himself 'clean' again. We stayed a little bit too long in the Buddhist centre because at around 4 we felt we needed to leave to get back to the village. This didn't go down too well with our monks. They had planned to take us to their 'home' Pagoda which was close by. In the end we went with them and I'm glad we did because we got to see another side to their life. We saw where they entered the 'monk' life and how they acted with their leader, not to mention the fact they fed us some yummy mangos from their mango tree. We left at around 5.30 and a few of the girls cried knowing just how much effort they had put into the day and that we wouldn't see them again. Absolute sweethearts. 

Other stuff we got up to:

-  slept on the roof of the school. Woke up at 5 freezing. Now understand more easily how people are dying of exposure in the village. 

- our resident two year old hid the moto key of a volunteer in the water pump. 

- Sophie went with one of Khmer teachers to his rice fields. I couldn't go as I was far too busy being sick. 

- watched Lethal Weapon Tuesday night. Watched Bad Grandpa Wednesday night.

- a Dutch lady came to volunteer at the school. I finally got to practice some Dutch. 

- my birthday was Thursday. One of the German volunteers made some typical German food and we had a drink on the roof to celebrate. A birthday I am sure to never forget. 

And then team bonding with the other volunteers just got way out of hand. I did think that I'd settle and have a laugh with the others in the school but nothing could have prepared me for just how close we all became. Every meal was a laugh a minute and we ended up spending close to every evening in the village huddled together in the downstairs classroom, preparing our lessons, watching movies or just talking while swatting thousands of Mosquitos off us. We were all very much open and honest with each other (or tried to be) and managed to laugh when times got tense even when the boys evaded some essential bathroom cleaning.

So, here's to the other volunteers at SCAO School 2, Emilly, Cecile, Nik, Vikram, Khai, Soph, and most importantly the bold Anne-Sophie, because without you guys it just wouldn't have been the same. 

So what's next on the cards? I've got a couple weeks free now until my friend, Katie Finn, arrives for some Indonesian fun. For now I'm going to wind down in Cambodia and see some more of this beautiful country I've fallen head over heels in love with.

Till then, 

Weekend Beach Breather in Kep.

After a long week teaching myself and the bold Sophie left the village Friday evening and hitched a lift into Phnom Penh, ready to catch a bus the next morning to Kep for some beach action. Now, hitchhiking is something I wouldn't ever dare to do back in Europe but yeah, hitchhiking in Cambodia? Oh yeah, that's fine. We actually managed to hitch a ride with some American-Cambodians who told us about their dramatic escape from the country in 1975 away from the Khmer Rouge. The husband lost his entire family and the wife had lost brothers and sisters. The wife was particularly chatty, told us she'd met up with an old friend a few days before, she hadn't seen him since 1969. She whipped out a pack of photos to show us. Guess who her friend was? Only the King of Cambodia. Turned out they were playmates back in the day. Always an adventure travelling around Cambodia. 

After our royal hitchhike, Friday night in Phnom Penh can be summed up in the following way: it was 10PM, then it was 1AM and then it was suddenly 6AM. Queue our mad dash back to the guesthouse to grab a bag before getting the bus at 7AM.

So where were we dashing off to? We were off to Kep, the original seaside resort in Cambodia. Myself and Sophie thought it would be nice to take a few days in a quiet place in the sun. That's exactly what we got. Our first day, as you can imagine when losing a nights sleep, we napped up a storm on Kep beach with a few dips in the sea in between dreams. We had read that the beach was rocky but a French lady informed us that they've been bringing up sand from Sihanoukville for a while now. We actually saw them unload the trucks the next day. 

Sunday we ventured over to Rabbit Island, a 25 minute boat ride from the main land. There isn't much to say really, it's a gorgeous island with some lovely views but I wouldn't spend longer than a day there. We got back from the island at around 4.30 and met a Dutch friend of mine at the bus stop. Her bus had taken two hours longer than expected and she wasn't able to make it over to the island to meet us. Not to worry, we took the loop road by the sea all the way up to the crab market and had a few drinks, snacks and crab dinners to finish the day off. Since Kep pretty much closes down at 11 every night we decided to walk back to our guesthouse which was actually pretty stupid because the street was unlit and it was a 2KM walk. The girls were worried about dogs biting them which, in fairness, is a genuine worry. I was far more concerned about getting robbed. Which is why I picked up a sturdy looking stick, Rambo style, for the walk home. In the end we were fine. 

Next morning we were up bright and early and set off for a small trek in Kep National Park. It's an 8KM circle up some 'mountains'. I didn't make it explicit to the girls but some of the reviews said that snakes and tarantulas had been spotted there. I can't say if I was relieved or disappointed but we didn't see either. I even had my trusty stick with me. The walk was fantastic, some great views over Kep and even Kampot and the whole bay. We didn't make it the whole way round as we went off-road when we saw a sign pointing to 'Jasmine Valley'. About 190m along a dirt track we found the most amazing resort. It's really built into the landscape and if you didn't follow the sign we saw you'd have no idea it was there. We had a coconut drink and let their resident nibbly-fish give us a pedicure. Then, before we sat ourselves back on the bus to Phnom Penh we took a dip in the sea and had the most amazing tuna sandwich. So amazing I'm mentioning it here. 

And that's that. We got back to Phnom Penh at around 7 to our usual guesthouse with a sweet sounding 'oh, it's you' - which we feel we probably earned because of our mad dash from the night club to the bus the previous Saturday morning. Right now, we are back in the school already knee deep in teaching. I'm a bit sad to say that next week is already my last week here. I'm putting together a few thoughts on the direction my classes should take in the coming weeks. It all just went so fast...

P.S. Still no water in the village.  

Water problems.

I can tell you upfront that the theme of this post is going to be water. Or rather, lack of it. I mentioned before that our water was cut off in the school. One of the former volunteers said it happened once last year for two or three days. It's been a week since we were cut off, that's a whole different kettle of fish and brings about a range of problems that we are solving both creatively and strategically. 

Water Problem Number One: Drinking Water.

We have a filter up on the wall in the kitchen where we get our drinking water from. Only now there's no water going into the filter. Not such a big deal as there is bottled water available in the village, we can buy 20 liters for 75c and I'm pretty sure we are still being charged more than the normal villager. Such is the way here. 

Water Problem Number 2: Personal Hygiene.

Gone are the days we wastefully took a shower each and every morning. 7 volunteers, 5 of them girls, that's a lot of water. But we've been creative and managed to clean ourselves in a number of different ways. 

1 - baby wipes. OR as my mother likes to say, 'taking a whores bath'. I've no idea where she got that from.

2 - cleaning up at the neighbors with their stored rainwater, scooping water over ourselves from a bucket in an outhouse. One of the women was joking I owed her 25c for using the shower....we laughed. 

3 - being an arrogant westerner and using bottled water for a bath. Even more arrogant is boiling the water for a warm bath. Bath in this case meaning laundry bowl.

4 - getting water from one random pipe in the village that still has some. This morning I went and filled 8 empty water bottles. I had no idea how to remove the pipe but a few of the village women pulled it apart and filled my bottles for me. I didn't let them, they forced me out of the way. My dad would be ashamed of me, him being a plumber and all. I then took a tiny bath in my favourite laundry bowl again. 

4 - on my way back with my newly filled water bottles I met Cecile who was on her way out to take a shower in one of the Khmer teachers houses. She met his whole family pre-shower.

5 - we haven't yet, but I won't rule it out either, heading out to the small lake to wash up. The locals go out with some shampoo and a sarong and they just go for it. 

6 - going to the city to shower. I'm ashamed to say it but I jumped at the chance to go to Phnom Penh last Saturday just because I knew I could take a shower with an actual shower. I was dirty by the time I got back to the village but it was glorious while it lasted. 

7 - and then finally, embracing our natural odors and trying not to sweat too much which eventually brings us back to baby wipes at option number 1 above. Yum. 

Water Problem Number 3: Toilet Flushing. 

I won't go into too much details here. No water means no toilet flushing. And since we have to drag buckets of water from out in the village to the school we have made some strategic decisions regarding flushing. I'll leave it open to your imagination. 

Water Problem Number 4: Cooking and Cleaning.

Basically the school is getting its day-to-day supply for cooking and cleaning from the random pipe in the village which the school caretaker gets every morning by filling up loads of buckets. We help him out when we can. It's possible we will have to do a good intestinal, parasite clean out in a couple of weeks but since all the water is boiled we don't see a problem with it. There has been a couple of instances however when the day-to-day day was mixed up with the drinking water. Put this with our toilet flushing problem above and we could be in for a seriously rough ride. 

This is all well and good for us. This is a completely new experience and no matter how inconvenient it is we know it's temporary and we will all go home to our tiled bathrooms and over heated showers at some point in the future. For the villagers it's another story. The water has been cut because of construction out on the national road. No warning and no indication of when it comes back. Myself and Sophie were playing with some children the other evening when I spotted infected wounds on a little girls hands. Sophie being a nurse, she cleaned and dressed them. Turns out the little girl has scabies and an aggressive fungal infection. We spoke with her mother who said the whole family has the same problem. Sophie told them the best way to get rid of them is to get a lotion from the pharmacy, wash thoroughly every day and wash all bedding, towels, clothing, etc. Can you imagine what a task that is for a family of 9, never-mind not having a washing machine but not even having a reliable supply of water? It's ridiculous, they are almost doomed to suffer from treatable and unnecessary infections until the water comes back. 

Non Water Related Items for this week:

- Pretty sure one of our preschoolers has a serious learning difficulty. it's a daily struggle to get him to concentrate and he can become distressed very easily. 

- I've been showing our resident 2 year old Barney episodes on YouTube. Much to some resentment, he loves it. 

- We got a tour of the local Buddhist temple by our student monks. Some important Cambodian government minister was there too. He wished us a happy new year. 

- The schools wifi hates iPad minis. #westernproblems. 

And that's it for this week. Only another two teaching weeks and my volunteering stint will be over. Time is flying much too quickly. 

The itchy and scratchy show.

I am wrecked after another week as a teacher. It's a good feeling. After my crazy week of sightseeing up north, I got back into the swing of things easily and geared up for some intense lesson planning and execution. We actually had another day off on Tuesday, Victory Day here in Cambodia, which slowed the momentum up a bit. I think Cambodia must have the most public holiday days in the world. The other volunteers said that a few months back there was hardly a week where they didn't have a day off. They should give some free days to Holland...

 

Life in the village this week was interesting. I said in my last post that I caught bed bugs while in Siem Reap. I've never been so itchy. Ok, I have a feint recollection of wanting to scratch my skin off at 6 years old with chicken pocks but the bed bugs thing was this week. The worst thing was that I didn't even realize I had them till I got back to the school with a bag full of freshly washed clothes (freshly washed by a launderette) and infected both the bag and my bed with them. So, not only did I have to hand-wash copious amounts of clean clothes, I had to wash my sheets, leave my mattress in the sun for a day and spray the bed frame with some toxic chemical I found in the back of the medical cupboard down in the kitchen. I even cut off my hippie bracelets just in case. I think it did the trick but I've felt paranoid all week. I went for a walk with Cecile the other evening and I had an absolute panic attack when an ant bit my foot. I was also terrified that they had crawled into my hair and were having the time of their lives in there so I bought some head lice shampoo. I was all geared up to wash the (probably non existent) feckers away when we were told there was no water left in the storage tank. No water = no shower = bed bugs building small bed bug towns in my hair. After a couple of hours I couldn't take it anymore and like the arrogant westerner I am I went and bought 12 bottles of drinking water and took a bath in the biggest laundry bowl I could find. The other volunteers called me wasteful and it is but I HAD to do it. I HAD TO. But tomorrow I take a shower with old rain water at a neighbors house so it works out.

My hand washing skills displayed in below pic. 

The below pictures are of my 2-3 ABC class. We've been learning about the body this week, employing the services of Brother Monkey, best known for appearing in 'The Monkey Family'  back in December. My favorite class this week was our creative Friday task where the class could only draw what I told them....e.g. draw two heads, one tummy,  ten legs. We ended up creating a monster and it was the most fun all week getting them to present their creations to the class at the end. 

Between my classes on Thursday I went for a walk around the village. Within 10 seconds of leaving I had a hand in each of my own and was given a walking tour of the village by two of my 8 year old students. I was introduced to every aunt, uncle, cousin and grandparent they could think of and I was made to hold at least three babies. It was amazing and something I'll never forget. 

And an update on the protests I mentioned the last time; 6 people now dead and many more were seriously injured. Factory workers all returned to work with a $5 dollar increase on their existing $60 a month. However, they won't be paid for the next two weeks for the 'damage' they have caused to the garment industry here in Cambodia. The labour unions have been identified as inciting public disorder and will not be taken seriously in worker negotiations again. I also read an article online from a teacher with 21 years experience being paid a paltry $75 dollars a month. And six workers were grabbed off the street in Phnom Penh while trying to deliver a petition, they were detained for 18 hours without charge. My heart bleeds for these people. I can't imagine the hopelessness they feel for their children's future. 

Then, as foreigners, we also have to deal with a certain backlash. My roommate Sophie was in Phnom Penh for a couple days volunteering as a surgical nurse on pro bono operations. She bargained with a moto driver to drive her back to her hostel. For the whole ten minutes of the journey he aggressively told her how selfish she is for bargaining, she is white with a lot of money and Cambodian people have nothing, good Cambodian people are dying for a better life, doesn't she know? She didn't feel it was a dangerous situation but knew the driver had no intention of hearing her story or the fact she assisted in free reconstructive surgery for Cambodians that day, such was his grief. It will be interesting to see how the next couple of weeks and months will pan out. 

Holiday week in Northwest Cambodia

I've had a fantastic week since our Christmas shindig last week. I've been up to Battambang and Siem Reap but I'm not going to talk too much about it. I think it comes across as very shallow and disrespectful considering what's happening in Cambodia at the moment. It's true I had an amazing week but it hardly matters that much that I've had the time of my life while the Cambodian people are struggling for a little piece of fairness. On Friday I saw the headlines splashed across the news; five people were shot dead by heavily armed paratroopers outside a garment factory while protesting for a wage increase. The police opened fire on the crowd because 'they had no choice'. I knew there were protests planned by the opposing party for the week and we were told to take care as we headed off for the school holidays over New Years. You know how much money a garment factory worker gets a month? Between 60 to 80 USD A MONTH. Yes, it's cheap to live here but it's not that cheap. I got talking to one man who said he is afraid of what will happen next. He thinks the country will go back to its horrible ways and people will (are) be killed for stupid reasons. He said the people hold the pain in their hearts. They can't speak their pain freely and hold it all in their hearts. At this point he became too emotional and walked away. He was crying. It's a bit cliche but we don't know how lucky we are. We totally take for granted our human rights of fair pay and free speech each and every minute. In the last day alone I saw three girls I know in Ireland post pictures of their new Michael Kors watch or Victoria Secret swimsuit. It's not their fault they can have nice things but it's just heartbreaking to know good people are dying here for a little piece of the kind of life we have in Europe. I don't know what's next for Cambodia. I read that the governing party has banned the opposition from protesting until they can guarantee public safety. Hard to swallow when you see pictures of peaceful monks and ordinary people being beaten by police and army. I don't know how human beings can be so cruel to each other. It's heartbreaking. But let's see how things progress over the coming weeks. 

SIEM REAP HIGHLIGHTS

- a tourist resort town if nothing else, it even has a street called 'pub street' that wouldn't be amiss in Magaluf. 

- bought three day pass for Angkor, went every day. 

- Day two I cycled 30km round the Angkor sites. Was tough and I got saddle arse from it. 

- last day I visited the 'big three', Angkor Wat (the big one) the Bayon (the faces) and Ta Phrom (the trees). 

- got the chance to meet up with some long lost colleagues and friends and eat myself sick in a few amazing restaurants. So nice to see friendly faces from 'my other life'.

- caught bed bugs from the hostel, am currently boiling all my clothes. 

BATTAMBANG HIGHLIGHTS

In short: hipster cafés, temple spotting, acrobatics watching, Bamboo train riding and moped driving. This is also where we rang in the new year, already 6 days ago. I really felt at home there. We also met a man who was returning to Cambodia for the first time since he was 4. His parents fled in 1979 under the Khmer Rouge. He was with his mother and they both had such optimism for the country, it warmed us. But I would also like to be able to ask them now how they feel after the unrest on Friday. 

The below is of Wat Banan outside of Battambang. Old Angkor ruins. 

The pic below is of non other than Mr. Battambang. Legend has it he had a magic stick that controlled all his enemies. I believe it. 

Deep gorge down to Hindu statues outside Battambang. 

PHARE CIRCUS 

Born from a former physical education course for kids originally from the Khmer refugee camps in Thailand. We saw trained acrobats perform for an hour. The best 10$ I spent all week. Two former students have even been accepted into Cirque de Soleil. 

BAMBOO TRAIN

Controversial. Some love it, some hate it. We loved it. A bit scary at times travelling on a bamboo mat with wheels at speeds upwards of 35km per hour. Also the tracks were anything but parallel. Only one track? No problem! Just pick the train up and let the other pass. Simple. We gave 2$ to the best businessman in town. At seven years old we were bamboozled. He took us on a tour of his village, showed us the little factory, the fish farm, his aunts house, his uncles house, his school and his sisters shop (in case we needed a cold drink/t-shirt/bracelet.) Then we climbed back aboard and we zoomed down the tracks again. Oh, but not before we were told to tip the poor driver. No idea what the 5$ ticket fee was for. 

Right now I'm back at the school. I realize this post probably reads a bit all over the place but then I'm also all over the place, both elated after an amazing week and heartbroken for the people I'm getting to know. I'm really hoping for the best for the people of Cambodia, they deserve it. 

Christmas in Cambodia

There is only one day of the whole year where I can accurately say I've been in the same place, with the same people and eaten the same dinner for the last 26 years. That changed this year. Instead of sitting down to a massive turkey and ham dinner on the 25th December and having an argument about what to watch on TV, I had some Khmer food in a tiny Cambodian village and ended the evening drinking beer and rice wine on the roof of our school. I was a bit sad to be away from my family but it will be a Christmas week I'll remember forever even though we worked on Christmas Day. Actually at my most homesick this week, a little girl from my beginner class gave me a present of chocs. It made my heart melt because she said she was sad I wasn't getting any presents from my family this year. Children are so thoughtful sometimes. Below is a pic of her gift to me...after I ate the snacks....

As part of our school year here at SCAO we threw a Christmas Celebration for the students just to treat them and have a bit of fun. The party started at 11.30 on Friday morning and went on until 6.30 the same evening. I have to give ourselves a good pat on the back; it was epic. We had a good schedule of events starting off with the obligatory speeches, giving out some food and snacks, dancing, games, more dancing, a singing competition and then even more dancing. I have no idea where the kids got their energy from. They danced from almost noon to 6.30 and we had to shut the music off, they didn't want to go home. But the best part of the day for the whole school was the singing competition. You couldn't pay an Irish child to get up in front of their whole school to sing a song but these kids signed up with such enthusiasm it made me dizzy. We told them a week in advance about the competition and they had to sign up with their names and a particular song. We then divided them into four different categories, X-Factor style of course, 7-11, 11-14, 14+ and duets and they sang their hearts out. Us as volunteers were given different categories to judge. I had the 11-14 group, much to my relief because the 7-11 group had about 10 different versions of BINGO and Twinkle-Twinkle to go through. It was amazing and the whole contest lasted at least 2 1/2 hours. We also had a little Xmas present for them, we gave each student toothbrushes and toothpaste. And then apart from that we just went crazy dancing. At one point I saw two of our tiny pre school students doing all the actions to the 'head, shoulders, knees and toes' song. I couldn't believe it because they wouldn't do it for us in class. Little feckers. All in all an absolutely fantastic day for everyone. 

The pic below is of the preschoolers before we opened the gates for the Xmas party. Too cute. 

The day before the Christmas celebration we were scheduled to give our students an exam. I had two classes to make tests for and even though it cost me an extra two hours in prep work I made two versions of my exams. I'm such an asshole. I made them appear to look the same but slightly different. I did it to see the panic in their eyes when they couldn't copy from their neighbor. It was brilliant. Overall they went well but there were some surprising observations. There are two girls in my class, one extremely chatty and one quiet. The chatty one I expected to pass with flying colors but her grammar was awful. The quiet one I thought had a pretty low level of English but her grammar exam was graded at 100%. Just goes to show that there isn't one way to gauge intelligence of a language. I will be rethinking my approach for the next round of exams in January..

Other notable items from this week:

- Myself and Sophie went to the next village over to see the Buddhist centre of Cambodia. We ate street food we should have died from. Was a good day. 

- We had an origami class from the monks. Took an hour and a half for me to learn to make a swan. 

- A preschooler peed on the Buddhist altar in the school. 

- Another preschooler peed on the floor. A volunteer walked in it. 

- Our resident 2 year old peed on the bathroom floor. His dad walked in it. 

- We ate another volunteers chocolate that was sent over from his grandad. In fairness, he left it in the fridge with no note on it. 

- I spent an hour hand washing clothes only for them to stink of the local water. Couldn't wear any of them. 

Right now I'm having a really nice coffee in Battambang in the north west of Cambodia. I've a week off due to New Years and myself and another volunteer headed out of the village for a couple days but this will have to written about in a couple of days. But safe to say I'm loving this city a whole lot more than Phnom Penh. 

By the way, rice wine is evil and pretty sure it would be more at home in the tank of motorbike than in a human body. Never again.

Hair-cuts and House Building

Friday evening. Such a nice part of the week. I love it here in the school but there is a certain feeling of achievement when it gets to Friday evening and the teaching is done till Monday. This week was a good one. We started it off by saying goodbye to two volunteers and then welcoming two new ones into the family. I have to admire the set-up of the school in this regard, the turnaround of teachers is so high it's an amazing thing to be able to foster learning and progress regardless. One consequence of the new volunteers was that I had to give away one class to the new volunteers. I gave up the preschool class even though I love their little souls and all the crazy noise they make. Without really thinking about it I found myself this morning in the middle of the class singing along to 'Bingo' and doing all the exaggerated gestures. Cecile, the head teacher of the pre-school class, was laughing and asked if I missed the little faces. I really miss them. 

I had a hair cut this week. I've went the last three months without so much as blow drying my hair so when a student of the upstairs hair and beauty class asked if I wanted my hair done I thought 'why not?' I had to laugh at myself. I've refused point blank in the past to get my hair cut at hairdressing academies back in Ireland and Holland but here I was in rural Cambodia, where I don't speak the local language, getting my gruaig cut by students. I needn't have worried though, the cut turned out fine and my hair is much happier and healthier. It was the crimping that didn't suit me. Actually, the cut turned out so good in fact that Cecile, who I mentioned above, had her hair cut today as well. I think I'll stop by more often.

Fridays at the school are not ordinary Fridays. Here they are Creative Fridays where we try to think outside the box for our lessons. This can either lift a volunteers heart or strike fear into the body of those who relaxed a little too much on a Thursday evening. This week I had it sorted. After a tough week of introducing the family members to ABC beginners by use of 'The Monkey Family' my creative Friday task was building a house for them. It's possible that I was a teeny bit more excited than the class was, having spent a good four hours preparing for a one hour class. I pre-prepared a lot of the materials, the vine floor, the banana wallpaper, the bamboo walls and the 'timber' roof. Let's be honest here, all the students had to do was color all the bits and pieces and glue a few things together. In the end I was happy and they were happy, so a big win-win all round.

So now it's Friday evening and I'm relaxing with two other volunteers watching a movie. I said in my last post that we were challenged with the all night blaring of music from a local funeral. Well, this week we had the 7 day memorial from last weeks funeral and also two more funerals starting today. Not to make fun of another cultures customs but it's quite interesting trying to steer classes with three different loudspeakers blaring music and speeches all day. Not to mention trying to sleep at night. Why all the funerals? The temperature dropped quite suddenly the last week. I know it's quite common at home in Europe for elderly and infirm people to pass away with extremes of weather but here the temperature 'dropped' to about 20 degrees. It's almost unthinkable for me to hear people died because of the 'cold' at 20 degrees. It's really strange. This means that music blares all night when the person dies for three days, then again after 7 days, 30 days, 100 days and 300 days and then every year after that. Basically music just blares all the time, day and night, in Cambodia. A nice idea. In theory.