Almost a Year...
on Sarah G in Cambodia (Cambodia), 06/Sep/2009 02:40, 34 days ago
The volunteer coming to replace arrived this in a week and next week will mark a year since I arrived. Time really has flown and I have already started to reflect on some of the things I have done. It’s been a busy couple of months trying to get a lot of things done before the start of the summer holiday and I have been lucky enough to have some money that my parents raised to spend on things I felt were important and VSO doesn’t have money to fund;First Aid TrainingFirst Aid KitWe offered 26 schools directors first aid training and I was pleased they all turned up, which hopefully meant this was something they were really interested in. Suzanna a VSO doctor from Kratie about 5 hours away kindly agreed to do the training and we funded small first aid kits.It all went great and there were less‘local’ suggestions than we expected. Although the generally accepted way to stop a nose bleed is to hit a person on the forehead which, according to Suzanna, is unlikely to stop the bleeding, but may distract the poor kid. As expected, we were asked about snake bites, and told local people ‘cure’ this by electrocuting the wound, if you don’t have power, no problem, just use the spark plugs from your motorbike! Suzanna suggested they could try this but taking the person to a health post might be a little more effective.School Directors with thier First Aid KitsWe gave them a quick test at the end and only got 7 wrong answers out of 103, and 9 people wrote they had learnt something new about managing nose bleeds; a small success!Libraries at SaHa Kar and Ta LouTeacher reading to the studentsOn 3rd July Narin (my assistant) and I set off on the moto to Saha kar school loaded with– 200 books, 7 metres of floor lino, 5 meters of plastic covering for books, a hand wash bowl, two bars of soap, 1 volley ball, 1 football and 2 straw mats...no I didn’t think it would ever be possible to get two people and all that on a moto either, but this is Cambodia and it’s not unusual to see 5 double mattresses or even a house loaded on to the back of a Honda Dream moto.New library at the schoolWe had a fantastic morning setting up the library; the kids were so excited to see their new books. All Cambodian children seem to read out loud so all you could hear by the time we left was a low mumbling as they all read the books. I got some money to pay for the books from a NGO from New Zealand and the money raised in Leeds paid for lino and mats of the floor and plastic to cover the books.Children choosing booksThis is a temporary library, set up in the back of a classroom. A couple of days later we had a meeting with the village chief and others from the community to talk about building a small, wooden building on the school site to house the library and also act as a community resource centre. I will fund the materials to build this (nails, tin for the roof) but the community have agreed to supply all the wood (not something they are short of in the jungle) and actually construct the building. They wanted to wait until dry season but when they found out I leave in November said they would have it done by then, so hopefully I will be bringing photos home!The roof and beams the community will use to build the libraryA similar project is happening at Ta Lou school which is in a really remote location (2 hours on a moto, a river crossing and a short walk). It is a fantastic school with a really committed school director and great community involvement. They have also asked for nails and other materials but again will supply their own wood and labour to build the library building. I have agreed with them we will fund books and they have requested ones on agriculture, discovery, stories (their words) and a dictionary.Summer SchoolI am writing this the week after the summer school projects and I’m only just recovering! It seemed like I have been planning it for weeks and it great to see it finally happen – 16 Europeans, 10 Khmer translators, 6 schools, 24 local teachers and over 600 children!Our first project in Veirachay school went really well, we hit a few problems– the school was completely flooded so we had to use the pagoda, but it was nice to have the monks around to laugh along to some of the games.Our busiest day was 176 children but we had fantastic staff so all went smoothly– the children were divided into 4 groups to do logic games, sports, arts and music, chosen because currently Cambodia schools do very little of these types of activities. In all the schools we were working alongside local teachers so hoping that they will pick up some ideas.We stayed out in the villages a couple of days sleeping in hammocks and drinking the local rice wine with the teachers! Im looking forward to doing it all again (on a smaller scale) when 3 trainee teachers from Leeds come to visit me next week.