I've had so many things happening since my last blog that I was worried that I'd left it 3 weeks by mistake! I did check, and it really is only 2 weeks it's just been very busy.
On the Sunday after I did my blog I went to an Indian Bazaar with some people from church- Cambodia and especially Phnom Penh has lots of Indian influences as it's so close by and this Bazaar was the annual event of the Indian Association of Cambodia. I had a really nice afternoon; it was lovely to have some time to chat to people from church plus the food was amazing! Very delicious and lots of flavour, especially in comparison to the watery soup we often get at the home. One of the women did henna on my hand (see fb for pics!) which was cool, although now 2 weeks later there are still some smudges on my hand, so I look a little bit like I've got something wrong with me! Not that that would be anything unusual here...
That week was fairly normal, we had our usual programme of teaching, hospital and office. On Thursday I organised a Christmas craft, making and decorating Christmas baubles which went really well. Glitter went EVERYWHERE though, including all up my arms and legs, in my hair and all over my face... This was partly (completely) my own fault for getting the glitter out in the first place and then we were tidying up the big pile that had got spilt on the floor i picked up some and gave Srun Chu a very glittery face! The baubles all looked great though, they'll be going on the Christmas tree when we get it out.
In typical Cambodian style Friday morning was a spontaneous whole-orphanage trip to have their ears cleaned, and we weren't told about it until we were about to go to the other group home for our morning classes! So all of my class planning is a bit changeable. Every week when I plan there is the possibility that I might not actually have any of those classes, or that I might suddenly be given some more! This week we've taught 1 out of 4 pre-school classes as they keep on being called off for different things. It's all good experience though- teaching a class in Britain where I knew that I was definitely going to have a class when I was scheduled to have one, and where they could all understand (any!) English would be a doddle after this.
We had a long weekend so we decided to go to Sihanoukville to catch up with Eiben and Jess, 2 other project trust volunteers. Sihanoukville is Cambodia's main seaside town, so it was very touristy but the sand and sea were gorgeous, and it was a very chilled weekend. I did get slightly burnt on the Saturday though, despite wearing suncream and sitting under an umbrella, so I was confined to trousers for the rest of the weekend. It was really good to see another area of Cambodia, and it felt like a proper holiday being there, it was very relaxing being on the beach.
While we were in Sihanoukville we went to church with Eiben and Jess to see a special christmas service that some of their students were helping to run. When we arrived we were taken straight to the front of the church and placed in the front row which was a bit embarrassing and made it much harder to pick up on cues from the Cambodians such as when to stand and sit! It was amazing to see a church in such a different culture and place, that included lots of people who lived in the supported home attached, and how similar it was in some ways to St Mungo's- despite the fact that the songs were different and all of it was in Khmer! The nativity was hilarious, especially the angel gabriel and the shepherds herding their flocks by hitting them with sticks (very gently!) as well as the very convincing King Herod.
Monday meant back to Phnom Penh with the feeling of going home after a holiday, and it was lovely to see all the kids again- I'm going to miss them so much when I leave at the end of the year! We were supposed to be back to work on Tuesday but then they all went to the dentist in the morning so we didn't have any classes to teach and went along with them. They were all so brave about going to the dentist- a good few of them had to have teeth pulled out or work done, and none of them made any fuss about it at all, even the tiny 4 year olds. Whilst there we met an Australian dentist who helped run it (they go to a dental charity to be seen) and he invited me and Flo to a party on Christmas Eve with "10 or 12 young australian volunteer dentists"- should be fun! Not exactly what you expect to get out of a trip to the dentist.
The rest of the week has been fairly normal with a few minor disruptions (like classes being randomly cancelled at the last minute! On Friday afternoon we had a meeting with Denisa to get some information and talk to her about what we were doing in Magna- there are lots of communication problems in Magna but as the director everything goes through her so she could give us answers to our questions. We found out that in 2012 some Magna staff will be going, including the pre school teacher we work with and one of the "counsellors" at the hospital. It's called "counselling" but in reality the only bit that is actually that is the one morning a week adolescent group counselling- the rest is just colouring in, jigsaws and DVDs to keep the children occupied while they're waiting to be seen. I don't think it will make too much of a difference her going, but the pre school teacher is another story. It means that now Flo and I will be solely responsible for the education of the little kids when they're at the group home (they go to pre school for half the morning) which will definitely be a challenge! I'm looking forward to it though, challenge is what it's all about, right?
I've been a bit ill this week with some problems with my lungs that has developed into a cough. Not very pleasant but it's got better since I started doing all the things my Mum told me to (taking the right inhaler/medicines and doing a steam bath). Unfortunately yesterday (Sunday) I fell out of bed in the morning and broke my toe! I was trying to get out of the gap where the mosquito net wasn't tucked in and ended up getting tangled up in and and falling onto the floor, breaking the mosquito net and my toe in the process! I've been doing sensible things since then though; putting it up when I can and taking regular paracetamol and ibuprofen. It feels like I've not been completely well and un injured for a long time!
We're looking forward to Christmas here, with a party planned for Thursday for all the kids, and then probably going out for dinner with some people from church on Christmas Day! Not quite a White Christmas, but maybe a little bit closer to the weather of the first christmas? Hope you're all enjoying the season, and thank you so much to anyone who's sent things, it's so fun going to post office to get parcels!
Monday, 19 December 2011
Saturday, 3 December 2011
The Beginning of Advent
For a change I haven't been on holiday or had any time off since my last blog update! We seem to be in a bit of a run of power cuts at the moment, which adds a bit of excitement to our daily schedule, like the constant risk of flooding did. Thankfully we no longer have a risk of floods as the season has just changed to the "cold season". This would have sounded ridiculous to me before I came out- after all, it stays at around 30 degrees for most of the day, and quite a bit hotter at noon- but it's actually quite accurate, I do feel cold in the tuk-tuk on the way to work in the morning. The power cuts mean that we have no fans though, so it can get fairly warm, especially at GH2 which has had the power out for most of the past 2 weeks.
We are supposed to be moving into GH2 at some point, but I have no idea when as yet. When we arrived at Magna we were told that it would be 1 or 2 weeks before the problem with the bed bugs was sorted out, but here we are almost 3 months later, still camped in the "classroom" of GH1. I think classroom makes it sound like a much bigger space than it is- we have a double bed (between the 2 of us) and it takes up about half the floor space. It's alright though, it's nice and homely with all our stuff in it, and the food at GH1 is so much nicer than GH2 that we can cope with being a bit cosy.
We were talking to Khy, the group home manager, the other day and she commented that the Ma's really liked having us living there- the only thing they wanted us to do differently was shut the curtain when we were getting changed. To which we replied that we would love to, but we didn't have a curtain! In the typical Cambodian way she thought this was hilarious, and found us a "curtain" (it's actually a scarf, about the same size as a pashmina and only covers the middle part of one of the 2 windows, but what can you do?!). Cambodian attitudes about things can be very different to ours in Britain- last Friday we got up in the morning and had breakfast as usual, but when we went to get in the tuk-tuk to go to GH2, we discovered it was broken so we all just had a day off at GH1! we taught the half of our students that we were with, but all our lesson things were at the other group home, so a bit of improvisation was required. Much like today really. I have 2 older classes that I teach, my morning class and my afternoon class, both for 2 lessons a week and I repeat the same lessons for them. However, when I got to GH2 this morning I found all the students of my afternoon class were there-apparently they swap around at the start of each month, but nobody told us that!
So I had a quick think, and we ended up doing the verb "to have" and had a great lesson, much more fun than I had thought I would be able to make grammar! And they were all on excellent form, writing out full sentences that were almost completely correct. The younger class today was interesting too. Rather than there being 10 kids as there usually are, there was only 3 of the oldest in the class, with all the rest of them being "at the hospital". They all have to have check-ups once a month to monitor the ARV treatment that they're on so it's not unusual for one or two to be missing, but there are usually enough left to form a class! There was a hilarious moment at the end of the class when Flo went to switch on the ceiling fan and all three kids rushed to stop her, miming enthusiastically something about the ceiling fan and Somnang (one of the younger kids) and then all rolling their eyes, sticking their tongues out and drawing their fingers across their necks. It looked uncannily like a mime for "Somnang was beheaded by the ceiling fan" and certainly made me laugh! Although they reassured us that Somnang was actually fine!
On Thursday this week we had a big party at the hospital for World AIDS Day with all the kids from the group homes as well as those on the Magna home based care scheme, for them to learn about HIV/AIDS and how to look after themselves as they are all HIV+. Not as some American doctor said "it's AIDS Day so you thought you'd bring some kids to a hospital for a party"! We did a cool activity with the 6-10 year olds (with the occasional sneaky 3 year old!) to teach them how to wash their hands- we put glitter on their hands and then showed them how to wash it off with soap and water. The glitter stuck to their hands well, so they really had to try hard to get it all off, and hopefully got the message about how well you should clean. It's especially important for them as HIV weakens their immune systems, and the ARV treatment has lots of side effects like causing tooth decay, so they need to be particularly diligent.
Last weekend we stayed in Phnom Penh to get a bit of a break from the orphanage and stayed at a guesthouse- in a twin room! So for the first time in 10 weeks, we each had a bed to ourselves! We visited the Night Market for dinner as it was near where we were staying and had Cambodian kebab things and shared a plate of fried rice. It will be so weird when I come home to just have a plate of food to myself, here we just get a bowl of everything and split it between us. The food at the group homes has been so tasty these past 2 weeks too- today we had chicken in this delicious spice mix, with chopped up omelette and sliced cucumber/carrot/ginger/Cambodian vegetable for lunch (with rice of course) and it was so delicious! It doesn't really sound like anything special but in comparison to bone in watery stock with some bizarre veg, it was very good!
This weekend we are going to see Twilight at Sorya Mall, which is the main (one of only 2!) shopping centres in Phnom Penh, followed by dinner at Suki Soup- I'm not entirely sure, but I think it's quite similar to a steamboat in Singapore. It looks tasty and fun at least! We're going with 2 people from church who go to my home group that I joined this week. Amazing enough the woman whose flat it was at used to go to St George's and had several of the same teachers I did!!
It was fun starting advent this week- there are advent calendars in each group home that we made by making little packages of sweets and hanging them from a ribbon with numbers on all of them. The kids are all so excited about it, within 10 minutes of us hanging them up they had all memorised what day they got to open it on! We have been planning a christmas party for them too, but no more on that for now!
I hope you can all understand this slightly chaotic blog! Chum reap li-ah!
We are supposed to be moving into GH2 at some point, but I have no idea when as yet. When we arrived at Magna we were told that it would be 1 or 2 weeks before the problem with the bed bugs was sorted out, but here we are almost 3 months later, still camped in the "classroom" of GH1. I think classroom makes it sound like a much bigger space than it is- we have a double bed (between the 2 of us) and it takes up about half the floor space. It's alright though, it's nice and homely with all our stuff in it, and the food at GH1 is so much nicer than GH2 that we can cope with being a bit cosy.
We were talking to Khy, the group home manager, the other day and she commented that the Ma's really liked having us living there- the only thing they wanted us to do differently was shut the curtain when we were getting changed. To which we replied that we would love to, but we didn't have a curtain! In the typical Cambodian way she thought this was hilarious, and found us a "curtain" (it's actually a scarf, about the same size as a pashmina and only covers the middle part of one of the 2 windows, but what can you do?!). Cambodian attitudes about things can be very different to ours in Britain- last Friday we got up in the morning and had breakfast as usual, but when we went to get in the tuk-tuk to go to GH2, we discovered it was broken so we all just had a day off at GH1! we taught the half of our students that we were with, but all our lesson things were at the other group home, so a bit of improvisation was required. Much like today really. I have 2 older classes that I teach, my morning class and my afternoon class, both for 2 lessons a week and I repeat the same lessons for them. However, when I got to GH2 this morning I found all the students of my afternoon class were there-apparently they swap around at the start of each month, but nobody told us that!
So I had a quick think, and we ended up doing the verb "to have" and had a great lesson, much more fun than I had thought I would be able to make grammar! And they were all on excellent form, writing out full sentences that were almost completely correct. The younger class today was interesting too. Rather than there being 10 kids as there usually are, there was only 3 of the oldest in the class, with all the rest of them being "at the hospital". They all have to have check-ups once a month to monitor the ARV treatment that they're on so it's not unusual for one or two to be missing, but there are usually enough left to form a class! There was a hilarious moment at the end of the class when Flo went to switch on the ceiling fan and all three kids rushed to stop her, miming enthusiastically something about the ceiling fan and Somnang (one of the younger kids) and then all rolling their eyes, sticking their tongues out and drawing their fingers across their necks. It looked uncannily like a mime for "Somnang was beheaded by the ceiling fan" and certainly made me laugh! Although they reassured us that Somnang was actually fine!
On Thursday this week we had a big party at the hospital for World AIDS Day with all the kids from the group homes as well as those on the Magna home based care scheme, for them to learn about HIV/AIDS and how to look after themselves as they are all HIV+. Not as some American doctor said "it's AIDS Day so you thought you'd bring some kids to a hospital for a party"! We did a cool activity with the 6-10 year olds (with the occasional sneaky 3 year old!) to teach them how to wash their hands- we put glitter on their hands and then showed them how to wash it off with soap and water. The glitter stuck to their hands well, so they really had to try hard to get it all off, and hopefully got the message about how well you should clean. It's especially important for them as HIV weakens their immune systems, and the ARV treatment has lots of side effects like causing tooth decay, so they need to be particularly diligent.
Last weekend we stayed in Phnom Penh to get a bit of a break from the orphanage and stayed at a guesthouse- in a twin room! So for the first time in 10 weeks, we each had a bed to ourselves! We visited the Night Market for dinner as it was near where we were staying and had Cambodian kebab things and shared a plate of fried rice. It will be so weird when I come home to just have a plate of food to myself, here we just get a bowl of everything and split it between us. The food at the group homes has been so tasty these past 2 weeks too- today we had chicken in this delicious spice mix, with chopped up omelette and sliced cucumber/carrot/ginger/Cambodian vegetable for lunch (with rice of course) and it was so delicious! It doesn't really sound like anything special but in comparison to bone in watery stock with some bizarre veg, it was very good!
This weekend we are going to see Twilight at Sorya Mall, which is the main (one of only 2!) shopping centres in Phnom Penh, followed by dinner at Suki Soup- I'm not entirely sure, but I think it's quite similar to a steamboat in Singapore. It looks tasty and fun at least! We're going with 2 people from church who go to my home group that I joined this week. Amazing enough the woman whose flat it was at used to go to St George's and had several of the same teachers I did!!
It was fun starting advent this week- there are advent calendars in each group home that we made by making little packages of sweets and hanging them from a ribbon with numbers on all of them. The kids are all so excited about it, within 10 minutes of us hanging them up they had all memorised what day they got to open it on! We have been planning a christmas party for them too, but no more on that for now!
I hope you can all understand this slightly chaotic blog! Chum reap li-ah!
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