i left a little piece of me in siem reap

Well 350ml to be precise... of blood!

Yes that's right, having never given blood before (too gross and scary to contemplate) I decided Cambodia seemed a good place to start!

Alex was up for it, having done it before, so off we went...

It is all safe and above board, well it's in the Rough Guide at any rate.

After a delicious and enormous breakfast at my fave cafe La Boulangerie we went to Angkor Children's Hospital... we were led to this little lab and asked to fill out a form, and then went to a small room together and basically had to watch each other give blood! Seeing me start to look really queasy Alex fortunately let me go first. Thank god!! I may not have done it otherwise. I know it is a really important thing and I should do it at home too, but I have to say I kind of hate it! The sensation of it coming out of your arm makes me feel sick. But I did it! And so did Alex, and we got a t-shirt and everything. Yahoo!

This was my last day in Siem Reap, a day well spent. Of course a couple more frozen margaritas helped it along too....

Temples @ Angkor Wat

So... I could have felt a bit sad and low when the teaching ended... but fortunately my friend Alex arrived the next day! She had been volunteering in Thailand and it was by chance we finished at a similar time. It was lovely to meet another friend in Siem Reap, especially now that I had been here for a whole month. Someone to drink frozen margaritas with and wander round the bizarrely western streets... and of course, being Alex and I we managed to indulge in a body wrap, massage and pedicure on a particularly rainy Sunday afternoon!

But it was not all elaborate cocktails, pizzas and pampering... We got up at 4.30am on the Monday and attempted to tackle the temples with Mr Thy... When Mr Thy had been a bit funny about the 4.30 start we thought he might be busy that night... turns out it was because the weather was rubbish and we may as well have left at 8 as there was no sunrise! Oh well. Being that it was my second time there it was interesting to see what I had forgotten, and it was cool to see them again... Alex and I were in hysterics as we were stuck up "Temple Mountain" the way up was so steep we were panicked we may never get back down... it was almost as funny as the night before when a rather loud lightning storm had caught us by surprise causing me to stand stock still and Alex to run around in a circle, both of us screaming, the Khmer people laughing hard at us from a shop certainly thought it was funny.

The last supper...

On my last Friday I took the Helping Hands team out for dinner to say thanks for all their help, and hey, I am always game for a piss up!

We went to a Cambodian BBQ restaurant and it was awesome, on the outskirts of town and outside. Chanty (Cambodian Director) came with his wife and three gorgeous kids, Thea and his wife, Sopheap, Chanty's sister, and Jenny. Sadly Savanne was busy.

The food was really nice! Although I have to say it's a good thing I like offal as there was a lot of liver, heart and kidney..hmm! But plenty of seafood and veggies too. I think they should start one up in London...but perhaps with the addition of steak....!

We all drank beer (well I say all, it was all the Men plus Jenny and I) and ended up a bit tipsy. Ok I was a bit tipsy and the guys were probably all pretty drunk, I think 12 years of hard core drinking in London has paid off! Always knew it was good for something...

It was a fun night, nice to see everyone let their hair down so to speak and get to know them all a bit better. Also fun was the cambodian "cheers"which means you have to finish your glass in one... Non-surprisingly I was the slowest and as Jenny pointed out I had eleven years more drinking experience than her- that made me feel old ha ha!

Last week at Helping Hands

My last week began on a high as on Monday we weren't teaching but instead were giving out new shoes! So far HH had not supplied the kids were shoes, but some of them do not have any (one little boy on the English Excursion was not wearing any), and I'm sure plenty of the ones who did have could use a new pair. It was quite a mammoth task for Sopheap to organise, as due to classes changing over (each month the public school switches kids from morning to afternoon) for some bizarre reason there were now over hundred kids in the avo, and only 7 in the morning! I acted as his assistant writing down the kids student numbers as they came up to try them on...
They were all really excited, and seemed delighted with their new shoes, again it felt a rare treat to be a part of it.

The rest of the week passed in much the same way as the others. Teaching in the afternoons with Sopheap (I played a good role in the "what's that? What are those?" game- my new found strength in the teaching english world!)...

This week Thea was busy helping various children and villagers so I had a change of driver, Mr Thy was again called! He seemed to quite enjoy the wait for me and was taking lots of photos on his phone of the buffalo and frogs! Afterwards he took me for a fruit shake where we had another bizarre conversation in our broken khmerglish. (well really english since my khmer sucks - it is definitely harder than chinese!)

jenny and i went to a pub quiz on thursday night which was very funny. Her housemates backed out at the last minute so it was only us two- facing much larger teams of 6-10! I was convinced we would probably be last but we weren't, and came fifth. we rocked! I will never now forget where chernobyl is though having originally put the ukraine and changing it at the last minute to belarus..yes- it's in the ukraine!

My last day going out to the school was much more overwhelming than I would have expected. The previous day Sopheap had spent time with the kids and they all - yes all!- made me a card. I arrived at the school and realised it was a proper party day, Chanty and his family had come out and Jenny was there. Sopheap arranged all the kids so that when I came into the classroom they all yelled out "thanks siobhan you have been a great teacher we will miss you we hope to see you again"

I then had to sit down whilst they all one by one came up and gave me their card saying different things but mainly thank you. it was amazing and completely unexpected! I felt very emotional and even started welling up (not really like me at all!) but it was hard not to. I have only been here three weeks, I can't imagine what it must feel like to be here for three months or longer...
Even though it has been for a short time I do feel like I have gotten to know them and their cheeky smiling faces. so the rest of the afternoon was taken up with games such as tug-of-war, skipping, a bowling stone game, and musical mats (proved to be hilarious cos of the kids dancing to the music).. and it all ended with us handing out sweeties/biscuits. Even with this the kids were amazingly polite and all lined up patiently to get their treat- probably over a hundred of them!

then they all ran off into the sunset (ah how idyllic!) with shrieks of "bye siobhan"and many giving me high fives... as jenny said- it is just so nice when they know your name... i don't know why but it is! I was really sad to go. It went by just too quickly, but oh well. I have lots of good memories!

The English Excursion

Once a month the students are all tested on what they have been learning, and the top 8 all get a day out in Siem Reap. It is hard to believe but even though these kids only live an hour away none of them have been here before. Their day starts off with a quick look at Angkor Wat (which again most of them haven't seen) and they then came into Siem Reap and met us at about 10.30am. The purpose of the trip is not only fun but also so that they can see first hand why it is good/important to learn English, and all the different jobs people in Siem Reap, which pretty much all fall within tourism. So.. we started off in an art gallery, and then wandered around pub street looking at bars and restaurants, and the old market. All of them seemed really quiet, but I guess it must be very bewildering! funniest moments were trying out the escalator for the first time, and also their faces when we walked into air conditioning. Both must seem weird if you hadn't had it before! We then all went to a pizza place for lunch, where they all started to relax a bit and have fun... we then visited a pagoda and finally had a tour round a hotel.

It was a unique experience for me for lots of reasons, seeing the kids out of school, being with a group of people in siem reap, but in the scheme of things it was just another day. Whereas for these kids it must have felt like seeing a different world, I just hope that they had fun.


Pictured with the kids is the other volunteer, Jenny, and Thea and Savanne

Roast Beef and Thy

On Friday night I had the good fortune to be invited for some proper Cambodian food and beers by Mr Thy and Mr Thea which I was excited about.

Although Siem Reap is very nice and has lots of nice bars/restaurants etc, the reality is that the majority of the tourist ones are not often frequented by Cambodians as they are usually prohibitively expensive... a fact that does leave a bad taste in the mouth after a while...

So I was glad to take Mr Thy up his offer (also, they are both close to my age so although I am making them sound old they aren't!).

We went to a Cambodian place not far from the centre of town which was really busy, not a westerner in sight! The speciality is Roast Beef which was delish, they eat it with a small dish of sauce which is apparently some kind of old fish cold porridge?! An acquired taste perhaps, but it was quite nice... you dip the meat and a selection of vegetables into the sauce and that's that! Was nice to have a change from rice and noodles. We also had a pitcher of cold beer the whole time which was good, and even better was the price of $8 for the whole lot - for Siem Reap this is cheap, and it wouldn't surprise me if we had still been charged extra due to my presence.. who knows.

I also met Thea's wife who seemed very nice.

Sadly I didn't take any photos but I'm hoping to venture back before I leave. Alex- get ready!

and then the rains came...

from sweating more than i have ever sweated in my life it has now cooled remarkably... probably something to do with the enormous storms which are now a daily occurence! I have seen more thunder and lightning in the last week than I probably have in the previous ten years... ironically I have also been watching repeats of Twister - the joys of HBO!

Driving from the Landmine Museum, Thy (promounced Tee) and I were hit by a catastrophic storm which had me cackling manically in the back of the tuk tuk wondering if it would not perhaps be better to find somewhere to hide...

It took my mind off the sorrows of the Landmine Museum however. It is an amazing place though, set up by a Mr Akira- a man who was forced to be a child soldier in the Khmer Rouge Army when he was very young. He eventually switched sides and joined the Vietnamese and eventually the Cambodian National Army, and for the last 20 years has been clearing his country of landmines, mainly on his own. With his wife he supports and cares for up to 30 children who have either been injured by landmines or whose families have been killed by them. Thousands of people have been killed by landmines in Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos...many dropped by the yanks during the Vietnam War. People are still being injured and killed in Cambodia, usually it is farmers and peasants who are trying to work on their land. It will be a long long time before this country is free of the landmine.

Which is why it makes me extremely angry to hear that the largest countries of the world- America, China and Russia, are all still actively making landmines. So angry!!