The Water Festival

It has been 2 weeks since my last update (much better than the 4 week gap last time!), although it feels like more than that! After I wrote the blog we had a really lovely week; it was the Water Festival which is a national holiday celebrating the end of the rainy season, so we had Wednesday, Thursday and Friday off! Magna is so good for giving us holiday when it is a national holiday, usually just a day or two tagged on to a weekend when we can visit some more of Cambodia. Because of the holiday we were only teaching on Monday and Tuesday so our lesson plans got a little bit altered (as we had forgotten we were going on holiday when we did our planning!). That week with the younger class we did Body Parts- they can now sing "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" very well, and know some of the body parts. The class is very mixed and it varies in composition from lesson to lesson so we can never be quite sure who we are going to get- half the class attend school and are more than able to learn basic English, whereas the other half only go to preschool and as the youngest of them is only 3 they seriously struggle to do anything that requires attention! Different kids go to school in the morning or afternoon, and some only on certain days, and sometimes they just don't go (we've not quite worked out the reasons behind these mysteries yet!), meaning that we can plan a very basic lesson, assuming that the "littlies" will be there, only to walk into the 'classroom' to find a completely different bunch of kids and have to change the lesson plan in the 30 seconds we have before they start to demand things to do! It can be a challenge, to be sure, but it's lots of fun too and great when it goes well.

The week of the Water Festival we did a pretend café with the older ones. We have a "Morning Class" and an "Afternoon Class" and conveniently it worked out that we would have a lesson with each, so we revised the food and drink vocabulary they had done, learnt "Please may I buy…" and "How much does it cost?" and then got them to act out coming to our "café" to buy things. It was pretty successful and was the first week of us splitting the classes up into a more able and less able group so that we could each teach one. There is still a bit of moving between the groups as we work out who would do best in which group, but mostly they are settled and we teach them the same topics separately. The kids seem to find it better too as before those who found it easy would get bored and those who struggled would get panicked that they couldn't keep up or were holding the class back.

On Monday afternoon between classes it was suddenly announced to us that there was to be a leaving party for Sorn leaving. This came as a bit of a surprise to us, both because we didn't know about the party, and because we hadn't known until Friday that Sorn was leaving! He was the "OVC Co-ordinator" and one of our 3 main go-to people for when things go wrong and up until that point had been our major contact at Magna. So naturally we weren't expecting to hear that he had come to the end of his contract and was finishing with 2 working days left, mentioned just by-the-by! The party on Tuesday was nice though, we had tasty skewer things with rice and vegetables and some curry, with fizzy juice and ice. It was lovely for the kids, they all seemed to really enjoy being able to stay out late and have a treat.

On Wednesday, after our very short week of teaching we were off on holiday to Siem Reap! Our plan was to eat breakfast at Group Home 1, then get a moto into Phnom Penh, visit the bank, buy bus tickets for the 10.30 bus, pick up some snacks for the 7-hour bus journey and go. As it was it didn't quite happen like that! We got to the bank and then to the bus station to buy tickets without too much hassle, but when we got there we were told that the first bus with seats available on it was the 1pm bus! We had a quick rethink of our plans, and as we were really close by we decided to go to Sorya Mall (one of the very few shopping malls in Cambodia). It was actually a really nice morning- we went to see "Real Steel" at the cinema (half price because it was a Wednesday!) then had lunch in the food hall, popped into Lucky Supermarket for snacks and made our way to the bus station. When we got there, we were greeted by pandemonium. There were people and bags everywhere, and a worrying number of people sitting on their bags and eating food with the look of marooned travelers. After talking to a few people, we learnt that there had been a "bit of a problem" with the buses and none had turned up that morning. So when the first bus to Siem Reap arrived at the bus station at 1.20, it was the "10.30 Bus"! We were very glad that we hadn't managed to get tickets as we would have been stuck waiting for 3 hours rather than being able to get things done. The next bus which came was the "11.30 Bus" but had some spaces on it so they let us on which was great.

The bus journey itself wasn't too bad, I had expected it to be worse given how long it was, but we had 2 stops on the way and despite it being a bit hot the bus was fairly comfortable. The road was a bit of a surprise- it was the main road from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap, was roughly the same as a badly repaired country lane in Britain and went along a not-very-big pile of earth in the middle of a LOT of water. To complicate things, there were plenty of cows too so we had to pause a few times while they cleared a way through, and in some places they just hadn't bothered to tarmac the road, so it was very bouncy in the bus! We arrived in Siem Reap at about 9 and went to the guesthouse that Katie and Gabby had organized for us- it is linked to their project so they gave us a special discount as volunteers and the price included a very yummy breakfast! It was a really lovely place to stay; our room had hot water (an incredible luxury to me!), a TV (likewise), and the breakfast, but they gave it to us for the same price as just a standard room at a guesthouse in Phnom Penh. A "standard room" in Phnom Penh would be a room, with a bed in it, attached to a wet room with no hot water, so it was a massive treat for us to stay somewhere so nice.

Siem Reap itself is lovely too. It's far more French and pretty than Phnom Penh is and much smaller too, with lots of interesting shops and restaurants. Because of the size we could walk to the centre of Siem Reap, along the riverside which was especially nice for the Water Festival. Normally there would have been boat races for the Festival but all the celebrations were canceled this year so that the money could be used to provide relief for the victims of the flooding.

We spent most of our 3 days there relaxing and not doing a huge amount although we did do a cooking course one morning and went swimming in a lake (with slightly dubious contents!) with the kids from Honour Village (the PT project in Siem Reap) another day too. It was really nice to catch up with Katie and Gabby (and the REAL, British Dairy Milk Chocolate they gave us was amazing!) and we met some of the other volunteers at their project (Noa and Vivi) too.

By the end of our holiday I was missing the kids back at Magna, so after a slightly more organized bus trip on Sunday it was lovely to see them all again. This week has been good- we have finally sorted out our proper timetable (yay!) so that we don't have any double-booking of activities, and when we went to the office on Tuesday we were paid, finally given the newly fixed volunteers laptop and given a little bit of post that had arrived, 3 things we very much appreciated! In our lessons this week we did food with the younger ones and tested the older ones on what they knew so far, with a few minor events along the way, just to keep things interesting. On Wednesday afternoon we had a grand total of 4 in our older class because the tuk-tuk from GH1 had broken down, and we had no electricity at all in GH2 from Tuesday until Thursday- we got good at teaching in semi-darkness!

This weekend we are able to start getting some things sorted for Christmas here- we are making an advent calendar for the kids to share (one at each home) and we are starting a Crafts and Activities Club, beginning with Christmas decorations so we need to get all the things for that. We have a few other exciting things to do this weekend too, as we bought some oats on Sunday and we're going to make some proper porridge! No more of this rice stuff!

There are so many things here that are totally different from back home that I can't even write them all down, despite the massive length of these updates! There are some new photos of Cambodia on Facebook, but not very many as it takes an age to upload things- enjoy!

Teaching and Dengue Fever

It's been a long time since I did my last blog (4 weeks!) so I thought I'd better do another one. I did try to do it 2 weeks ago, and last week but I was ill both times and ended up just going to sleep!

Since my last update we have started teaching English at Magna, and we are both really enjoying it! We are teaching 3 classes- one is of very little kids (age 2-6) and the other two classes are of mixed ages, anywhere from 8 up to 14 years old! Our first lesson with the really little ones was interesting- as you would expect they have a very short attention span, and they were more than a little bit excited at the prospect of new teachers so they ran around for the whole "lesson" and definitely didn't learn any English! And when I say "ran" I mean that literally, at one point 3 of them were running in circles around the room, and none of them sat still for a minute, unless it was to do something they weren't supposed to!

After the first attempt at teaching them we got much better at containing them and their excitement, and have been doing lots of making things and colouring in since then. We make colouring sheets up ourselves with pictures and then teach them how to say the thing they're colouring in English, which seems to work well.

The other classes have slightly more discipline but are still lots of fun to teach. It is just as much of a challenge but in a different way- we don't speak that much Khmer and most of them definitely don't speak much English, so we have plenty of miming and pictures. Another interesting element to our teaching is the fact that we have no curriculum so we have to decide what we think the most important words are for them to know and then work out how to teach them it. It's good though, I like it.

However. Over the past couple of weeks I haven't been teaching at all really, as I went down with dengue fever! It's a tropical illness that you get from a certain type of mosquito bite (during the day) and is a bit like bad flu, with a very high temperature, painful eyes and joints, nausea, headache, the list goes on. After 5 days of it I spoke to the Magna doctor and was sent to bed for the rest of the week, on the condition that if I wasn't better in 2 days time I would go see the doctors in the clinic in Phnom Penh. 3 days later I went to the clinic (because I'm a disobedient patient like that!) and they did a blood test and discovered that I had dengue fever, and said that it should be going soon as by that stage I had had it for 8 days. Unfortunately, things don't always do what they are supposed to, and when I went back for a blood test the next day my white blood cell and platelet counts had dropped further (an indication of dengue) meaning that I wasn't getting better yet. Bernie (our country representative for Cambodia) had made the first appointment for me at the clinic and came along to look after me, and said then that I could come stay with her for a few days until I was feeling better, which was great! Just staying with her made me feel so much better- to be cool in air conditioning, not having to sleep on the floor, eating delicious western food and having access to a tv and internet was amazing! I felt better than I had been just because I was staying there! 

One of the good things to come out of having dengue (there aren't many!) was that everyone here was so lovely and so many people did things to look after me when I was ill- from the Magna doctors who did a free blood test and put it through as urgent, to Bernie who looked after me amazingly, to the Ma's in the Group Home who would bring me hot, sweet milk to drink when I was feeling too sick to eat! It was lovely to know that I have so many people looking out for me, and the same with messages from home. 

While I was staying at Bernie's flat it was King Sihanouk's (the previous king) birthday and a national holiday in Cambodia. Each evening of the long weekend there was a firework display over the river in celebration of this, and we could see it from her flat, so even though we weren't around for 5th November we still did very well on the fireworks front!

On Monday of this week, my blood test showed that my platelets and WBC were back to normal, and I was declaring to be "in recovery" by the SOS Clinic's doctors, but warned that I would feel very tired and worn out for a while and should make sure I got plenty of rest. Naturally I took this to mean that it was time to get back to work! I started back at some of the things we've been doing on Wednesday, with filing at the hospital, and went to work on Thursday and Friday too, but only a half day of each day. I'm glad to say though, this weekend I am feeling much better and I'm looking forward to being back full time from Monday! 

Today we went to church in the morning and returned to find the playground (more like a lake at the moment!) very full of water, and a very large puddle in the middle of our bedroom floor!! With a distinctly soggy mattress in the middle of the puddle. So now, for the first time in 4 weeks of being at Magna, we have a bed! Yay! But unfortunately we don't have a mattress currently as it's a bit waterlogged.... well, you can't have everything! It was pretty good timing for our room to flood actually- yesterday I had a big tidy up and took everything out of my suitcase and put it on the shelves, so everything was off the floor.

This week is the Water Festival in Cambodia, a national holiday which we get Wednesday, Thursday and Friday off to celebrate it! We were planning on staying in Phnom Penh for the celebrations but due to the flooding in the provinces the government have cancelled the PP celebrations and used the money to provide aid for the people affected by the floods. So instead we are intend to go on holiday to Siem Reap for 4 days, to catch up with Katie and Gabby and to see a different part of the country- I'm looking forward to it, even if it's not very organised at the moment!

This week we've had a bit more of a taste of Cambodian snacks- we've had deep fried banana (seriously yummy!) and BBQ Corn on the Cob to add to the delicious coconut dumplings that we'd tried before. And now we need to go buy some fruit (hopefully some bananas) so I'll finish this update here! Hope you are all sok sabye!