March 2011



Another good use for rice sacks.



Sports Day.2011. Borkeo District

The first time 3-legged races were held in this province as far as we know



This is the school in the background - its a Lower Secondary School for grades 7-9

 Here are the pictures from Sports Day that I was unable to publish last month.
A big thank you to Clare? London VSO who has read this blog and sent David some sports equipment. Hope I am being a good girl with the accounts of life here in Cambodia and  writing  my monthly reports to everyone back home!

Jumping - it was too dangerous to attempt high or long jump - have you seen the ground and footwear worn?

March has been very eventful and sadly we missed the wedding of Anna, daughter of some very good friends Carol and Kenny. I have seen a few pictures and it seems they had a fabulous day.
Good luck and happiness in your new life Anna and Chris.

I have been to Phnom Penh for almost 2 weeks in March - firstly to an education meeting for all VSO volunteers and then for another 6 days of extensive language training which was very hard for me - some of our group were very good and to me they sound pretty fluent. I am still on 2/3/4 words in a sentence! I was brave enough this time to borrow a bicycle to get around so that I could shop, meet friends and sight see. The traffic is awful as I have remarked before there are no rules except for size, and a cycle comes last.
We were a brilliant group that arrived together in Sept and it was so good to catch up with all the news. We come from very different backgrounds, careers and ages but had great fun together.I am sure VSO realise that some life long friends will be made with this experience of in-country training for 7 weeks at the start of placements.
Our group all stayed in the accommodation above the programme office and it was decided that we would hold our own "Come Dine With Me" competition over 4 nights. We set a few rules such as $2 per person and cooking in pairs. The whole 4 nights of cooking and eating and scoring were filmed and Ingran a very talented film director is at this moment editing hours of film to produce a version we can show to all. So watch this space. Ingran by the way has a day job of being a paediatrician in Stung Treng Province. I won't tell you any more except to say my good friend from Yorkshire Kath, who is working with the Cambodian Midwives Ass. and I won on the final evening with our "dress up and eat posh food" do. Some complained we could not have made a 4 course meal for $2 per person but as we all know experience wins through!

Our other good news is that VSO and CARE have got together and found a brilliant job for Dave. He is now a proper recognised volunteer with an allowance. he works 3 days a week for CARE and 1 day a week in a school as an unpaid volunteer. Thank you VSO and CARE.
His project is to promote sport and in particular girls leadership through sport in 6 remote schools within the indigenous population. Some days he works in the CARE office and we go off in the mornings together on our motos with laptops in bags across our shoulders. What a difference a year can make to our lives.

At the end of March I held a 3 day workshop for 30 contract teachers - these are teachers who have completed only 3 years of school themselves!! Can you believe it? But there is such a shortage of teachers in this province and these are better than no teachers, actually they seem fairly dedicated compared with some of the qualified teachers I have met. This is hot, sweaty me presenting one of the teachers with a chalk board to use in the classroom. they were so pleased. There are 116 contract teachers in this province. They only get paid after one year and recieve may be $100.

This is the view from our balcony - each morning the monk and his caller come to ask for alms .About 7.30am.



Whilst I was in PP David attended the wedding of Paul from Australia to a Khymer girl. This picture is of April May a girl from the Phillipines who is working for Health Unlimited here in Ban Lung.

This is Narin my translator. He is building his own house and Dave has been helping him - last week they were concreting the base, all mixed by hand of course and no tools. We needed you Kenny!