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hello to all just a little update from Cambodia! we have been living in our teeny apartment (well, room really) and made it our home for the last month, we live in the back garden of an old cambodian ganster with gold teeth! he has 90 crocodiles which are about 5 meters from our room, seperated by, in my opinion a not so sturdy low wall!!as steve irwin would say, theyre little rippers!! weve been surviving on a teeny budget (my bank balance and dad would disagree somewhat) the rent for a month is 50 us dollars between us, we discovered 6p pancakes what more could you need?! the building site is also on his land which means we can roll out of bed to work for trailblazers. we are embarking on our last week of volunteering for three charities - SCC (school charities cambodia) correct me if thats wrong fe!! At SCC we have been sanding, painting the school with two lovely volunteer teachers from the UK, pete and cat. our last job here is to install a rubbish and recycling system, something that just doesnt exist in cambodia!! The idea here is to throw it on the floor and make the streets stink, so SCC are trying to fix that in the school area at least - its a start! In the mornings we have been working for Trailblazers, a non profit organisation that produces and installs bio sand water filters, then delivers them to the poorest villages in the Siem Reap province that have no access to clean water. they then educate the village chief and a few others in how to maintain these filters - they are amazing, so simple and just use a basic sand and gravel filtration system. Thats where we come in, we have been based at the site for 4 days a week, washing gravel, paiting filters, heaving sand about, with a really fun team of cambodian builders who laugh constantly all day, and although it is hard manula labour we really enjoy it! then on fridays and saturdays we go out on delivery which has been so interesting - last friday we went to a floating village, Kampong Phluk in the Tonle Sap lake, which involved seven filters, seven bags of sand and five people on a very small wooden boat, it takes 2 hours to reach the village, and its amazing, houses on giant stilts, the biggest concentration of children in one place ive ever seen but the water that they currently drink from the lake is dirty, polluted and people get seriously ill or die drinking it, so these filters are vital. Its been a real eye opener, that the people in these villages can grow food in abundance, have shelter, but still no access to clean water! again, being cheeky here but seriously guys only 20 quid for a filter? im sure you can all afford it! check out the website http://www.thetrailblazerfoundation.org and buy one!!
oh and i took my first and hopefully last trip to hospital in cambodia when we were here last month for a week with trailblazers - we were on a delivery and i was hoisting a small cambodian baby onto the truck (no, we are not delivering those as well, i cant remember why i was doing this!) and the driver reversed the truck onto my foot. I say onto, not over, because he couldnt speak or more importantly understand english, so i was screaming like a demented twit and making forward motions to no avail and threw the perplexed baby onto the truck. anyway he finally realised and he rolled off my foot which by this point resembled a very unappetising pancake. The wild man of borneo (chris' unnofficial moniker) took a flying leap to save me (a bit late, but i apprecieated the gesture!) and put me in the front seat and drove to hospital (via two 'clinics' which no human or animal should ever have to attend) which resulted in no broken bones,an xray and $180 bill! so much fun was had and no damage done,except to my wallet!
Our final volunteer post is at J school , run by a lovely guy called, you guessed it, Jay. He runs 'J school' in his father old house. It is a one classroom shack, and we have sixty kids every night, split into two classes and they are such fun and their enthusiasm for learning is unrivalled! curiously they love hangman and refused to get bored of it, i think we have played it at the end of every lesson! it has really tested our imaginations, coming up with new games and teaching ideas (thanks steve!) and its really different to teaching in thailand where they had a basic curriculum and resources, and we had so many different classes, so it was the other end of the scale in terms of experience! the children are so sweet, they bring us drawing and presents all the time! we are looking forward to throwing them a little party on friday for their last lesson!
so, working 6 days a week for three jobs hasnt left us much time,and on sundays we just sleep in our hammocks and relax! but i have managed to fit in some shopping at the night market, where there was a local fair with the worst singing i have heard so far (and thats saying something here!) and the next three days there is a festival so we shall try and see some of that, no doubt more terrible cambodian pop music!! had a great day yesterday going to our friends (the builders) houses around the countryside, fishing (chris caught the biggest, two inches!!) and went to a great restaurant with hammocks over the lake! we went to an angkor temple comlete with two (?!) libraries out in the country which the king resided in whilst overseeing the building of angkor wat, surely he was too busy for reading, let alone two libraries full of books!! back to work today and only 5 days until we embark on ourfourth and final adventure, Malaysia and Borneo! i am so excited to go to Borneo, i have really missed our jungle adventures back in Thailannd! Firstand foremost though, we are off to Kuala Lumpur the first big western style city since Bangkok. I havent missed the city but it will be an interesting change... most imprtantly...they have TOPSHOP!!! i know thats awful when i'd normally be ranting about the evil spread of corporations and the western world taking over the east.. but Fe tells me its half the price. I know, im a bad person, but i think ive been good so far! Chris mum and dad fly out on the 4th october (how can it be october already?!) to meet us and we have a plush hotel with hot water and aircon!! (they may not be plush to others but weve been living in a sweatbox for a month! Joe you would not handle the foist- it may be worse than africa! so we reluctantly leave cambodia but with excitement head off to malaysia - we have loved the opportunities weve had in cambodia and will return! lots of love to everyone, thankyou for the msgs we love getting them! XX
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