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.