One, Two, do the Kung Fu….
on Meg's Cambodian Adventures (Cambodia), 24/Oct/2008 12:26, 34 days ago
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Well Tai Kwan Do actually but theres no song about that! Well we’ve been back in the sleepy ‘city’ of Kampong Cham, where there is not much to do apart from go to Khmer classes in the mornings, practise Khmer in the afternoons and look at the river in the evenings. Apart from the fabulous company of the fellow volunteers, this all gets a bit samey and I can imagine that if we were here for much longer we would all go more than a little crazy and start talking to the coconuts for abit of different company! But this stint in Kampong Cham has been a little more interesting since Claire and I found a Tai Kwan Do class, so now we are not onlysharing skills and changing lives,we are also learning Khmer and now we are learning tai kwan do- in Khmer. Yes I think we are pretty amazing, haha. Its very challenging trying to learn a martial art in our broken Khmer, we can pick up words here and there, and we try to make up the rest of them. Our teacher only knows two English words, which he says in a distressed frustrated way… ‘Noooooooooooooooooooooo! Wrooooooooooooong!’ And I think we might upset him a lots with our lack of ability, despite the fact that we are the only ones in the class above the age of 5! The kids are pretty amazing, especially compared to us, doing the splits and stuff, our teacher doesn’tappreciate that we are not quite as bendy and when we are stretching he will often come and kick out feet further apart, which induces tears in our eyes and silent wincing…. But the pain will be worth it, I have full faith in us gaining our black belts by the time we leave Kampong Cham next Friday!Apart from that our days are filled with washing clothes the old fashioned way - in a tub with a lot of stamping! Lots of cycling and getting food at the market. The heat can be unbearable at times, especially since we are all being culturally sensitive by covering up at all times in the baking heat, no vest tops and shorts :o(. As soon as we get in our hotel rooms though all the sweaty clothes come off immediately and we are all much happier in sarongs and kroma’s (the traditional Cambodian scarves).
