So I started at Honour Village last week. It’s an orphanage
which houses 42 children aged 3 – 15. But it’s also an English school for the
village kids, so there are actually 420 kids. Nice. I like the place, and
the people are lovely. It’s such a nice place to work. But it’s not for me. Lop
Lop and Linda are quite enough kids for one Cambodia trip. I have been sitting
in on the ‘starter’ classes. They have the most kids, are generally the
youngest, and know zero English. Because of their age, it’s all very singy
dancey – obviously not up my street unless I’ve had a few Angkors. And of
course, I’m a little too sober where work is concerned. They are pretty
desperate for another teacher to split the class which I’m currently observing in
half, and all eyes are on me. Cracking. We’ll have to just see about that...
NGO work is as standard as ever. Sit in an office, find things to do, the
co-workers don’t know what I am doing, I don’t know what they are doing. It’s
fine.
At weekend I went to Mondulkiri. I stayed in a place called ‘Nature Lodge’ which is like a little forest with lots of individual lodges in the middle of nowhere. So dark at night, and there are just cows and horses and crazy big dogs in your path. It was lovely. Slept under a mosquito net, and Erin woke up with a HUGE dead spider dangling from hers. Thank goodness for the net! It had a nice little restaurant where people sit on the floor with mats and it has little tables and scrabble and cards and dominoes and chess. They even played Arcade Fire, The Beatles, Al Green. I was a happy Woz. In the morning we got were collected by a pick-up truck, and by standard Cambodge rules – if nobody else can fit, squash in 10 more regardless. Crazy dirt-track to the jungle too. Silly non-existant transport rules. Me and Erin were split up from everyone else seeing as it was only us sound enough to bother with the overnight jungle trek. They were just chilling for a few hours with the domreys (elephants). So Minkun (our domrey) took us into the jungle, we stayed in a hut for lunch, showered under a massive waterfall and chilled behind it for a decent hour or so, then headed for a little place by a stream about 6 hours in for food and bed. We stayed in camouflage hammocks with zip-on mossy nets. The kids went out to hunt frogs at the night, so we woke up to them for breki... hmm. Then they went off to find the elephant before we headed for the second waterfall. They clearly don’t do the overnight trek very often. There was no path to the waterfall, so we were literally being thrown from tree to tree for a few hours making our own track... in the middle of nowhere. I’d say it was fun, but it was actually just bloody painful. Anyway, when we reached the waterfall I was first off the edge. They set up a ladder for some peeps to climb down for a swim instead though. They set a fire, we had lunch, then they brought the elephants.. And muddy elephants at that! We bathed them in the water, I was covered from head to toe in mud. Cheers Minkun. Then we headed for a few hours back through the jungle and to the lodge. All in all, a decent weekend. Worth the 12 hour journey there and the 12 hour journey back. Pretty heartbroken I have no pictures of the bathing the elephant. That was my favourite bit. I did give someone a camera, but she was evidently a moron. We were the only ones allowed to bath the elephant ‘coz we had done the overnight trek, so loads of others there got photos of us doing it, but of course I don’t know any of them. Whatever.
So ex-King Sihanouk died. All TV channels (yes, all 13 of them) were completely rescheduled to show only documentaries on his life. All the cafes have been packed with people watching, and there is an official ‘week of mourning’ where people are off work. It’s all they’re talking about. All the tuk tuk drivers on Pub Street (about 50 of them, and loads of other people) left work and watched the live arrival of his body in Phnom Penh on the big screens. Felt a bit awkward being there really. I’ve been asked about 10 times now, “have you heard about our king?” erm... yes, sorry for your loss? Linda cried. Which is a very sad thought.
Lop Lop has been hit by a moto. That sounds horribly grim but there is no other way to put it really. Sadly we don’t know much about it. Erin asked Linda where he had gone because we haven’t seen him for a few days, and she told her she had seen him after he had been hit by a moto and hurt his head, but doesn’t know where he has gone since. Apparently she couldn’t speak much because her “friend” was around, but I’ll find her tomorrow and find out more. I’m sure he’s okay. He’s a little soldier is Lop Lop.
WE HAVE A PUPPY. I came home early from work (I arrived at work at 8am, came home by 9am. No internet. Standard. Promise I grabbed a shower and headed to the internet cafe. Promise) only to find a puppy about 6 weeks old chilling in the guesthouse. I asked Teach where he had come from, “market this morning” – YAYAYAY. He is called Blue and looks just like Alfie and I am so happy. I got really keen and started telling all the staff about how happy I am because I am missing my puppies back home growing up but now it’s okay because we have one the same age here so I’m not missing out so much. Of course I got so keen in fact, that I was rambling and rambling and forgot that they don’t speak English. They looked at me very blankly, but they clearly found it funny how happy I was. I think they found it even more funny when I was so excited that I fell over. Yes I was just running about happy and then I got distracted and fell down.
FIRST NIGHT OUT IN A WEEK TOMORROW. Mental. Would have never managed that at home. Not even had a drink this week. Would have been nice if we had new volunteers. I need a Brit. It turns out we actually do drink more than the rest of the world. I feel like I am forcing them to be out with me. But they’ll have to deal with it because it is my home comfort.
I’m going to sleep now. Note to self: next blog, laugh about the cinema. Oh, the Cambodian cinema. You’ll hear all about it soon enough.
CHOW FOR NOW. xx
At weekend I went to Mondulkiri. I stayed in a place called ‘Nature Lodge’ which is like a little forest with lots of individual lodges in the middle of nowhere. So dark at night, and there are just cows and horses and crazy big dogs in your path. It was lovely. Slept under a mosquito net, and Erin woke up with a HUGE dead spider dangling from hers. Thank goodness for the net! It had a nice little restaurant where people sit on the floor with mats and it has little tables and scrabble and cards and dominoes and chess. They even played Arcade Fire, The Beatles, Al Green. I was a happy Woz. In the morning we got were collected by a pick-up truck, and by standard Cambodge rules – if nobody else can fit, squash in 10 more regardless. Crazy dirt-track to the jungle too. Silly non-existant transport rules. Me and Erin were split up from everyone else seeing as it was only us sound enough to bother with the overnight jungle trek. They were just chilling for a few hours with the domreys (elephants). So Minkun (our domrey) took us into the jungle, we stayed in a hut for lunch, showered under a massive waterfall and chilled behind it for a decent hour or so, then headed for a little place by a stream about 6 hours in for food and bed. We stayed in camouflage hammocks with zip-on mossy nets. The kids went out to hunt frogs at the night, so we woke up to them for breki... hmm. Then they went off to find the elephant before we headed for the second waterfall. They clearly don’t do the overnight trek very often. There was no path to the waterfall, so we were literally being thrown from tree to tree for a few hours making our own track... in the middle of nowhere. I’d say it was fun, but it was actually just bloody painful. Anyway, when we reached the waterfall I was first off the edge. They set up a ladder for some peeps to climb down for a swim instead though. They set a fire, we had lunch, then they brought the elephants.. And muddy elephants at that! We bathed them in the water, I was covered from head to toe in mud. Cheers Minkun. Then we headed for a few hours back through the jungle and to the lodge. All in all, a decent weekend. Worth the 12 hour journey there and the 12 hour journey back. Pretty heartbroken I have no pictures of the bathing the elephant. That was my favourite bit. I did give someone a camera, but she was evidently a moron. We were the only ones allowed to bath the elephant ‘coz we had done the overnight trek, so loads of others there got photos of us doing it, but of course I don’t know any of them. Whatever.
So ex-King Sihanouk died. All TV channels (yes, all 13 of them) were completely rescheduled to show only documentaries on his life. All the cafes have been packed with people watching, and there is an official ‘week of mourning’ where people are off work. It’s all they’re talking about. All the tuk tuk drivers on Pub Street (about 50 of them, and loads of other people) left work and watched the live arrival of his body in Phnom Penh on the big screens. Felt a bit awkward being there really. I’ve been asked about 10 times now, “have you heard about our king?” erm... yes, sorry for your loss? Linda cried. Which is a very sad thought.
Lop Lop has been hit by a moto. That sounds horribly grim but there is no other way to put it really. Sadly we don’t know much about it. Erin asked Linda where he had gone because we haven’t seen him for a few days, and she told her she had seen him after he had been hit by a moto and hurt his head, but doesn’t know where he has gone since. Apparently she couldn’t speak much because her “friend” was around, but I’ll find her tomorrow and find out more. I’m sure he’s okay. He’s a little soldier is Lop Lop.
WE HAVE A PUPPY. I came home early from work (I arrived at work at 8am, came home by 9am. No internet. Standard. Promise I grabbed a shower and headed to the internet cafe. Promise) only to find a puppy about 6 weeks old chilling in the guesthouse. I asked Teach where he had come from, “market this morning” – YAYAYAY. He is called Blue and looks just like Alfie and I am so happy. I got really keen and started telling all the staff about how happy I am because I am missing my puppies back home growing up but now it’s okay because we have one the same age here so I’m not missing out so much. Of course I got so keen in fact, that I was rambling and rambling and forgot that they don’t speak English. They looked at me very blankly, but they clearly found it funny how happy I was. I think they found it even more funny when I was so excited that I fell over. Yes I was just running about happy and then I got distracted and fell down.
FIRST NIGHT OUT IN A WEEK TOMORROW. Mental. Would have never managed that at home. Not even had a drink this week. Would have been nice if we had new volunteers. I need a Brit. It turns out we actually do drink more than the rest of the world. I feel like I am forcing them to be out with me. But they’ll have to deal with it because it is my home comfort.
I’m going to sleep now. Note to self: next blog, laugh about the cinema. Oh, the Cambodian cinema. You’ll hear all about it soon enough.
CHOW FOR NOW. xx
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