Today we sent some of them back to homeland at around noon. The lucky ones are Alvin, Jay, Raymond, Qasrina and Ming Yong.
It was very nice farewell at the airport. AFter that, we had all the time to ourselves. Let's go shopping!
PS: Their flight got slightly delayed
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Friday, April 9, 2010
9th April
Today’s agenda was to visit the floating villages, to explore their way of life and try to understand it. It was quite a journey from our guesthouse and our tour guide for the day was Azim. I think it’s spelled like this. He came with us because the Kampong kluang or floating village is his hometown. We saw the village via a bumboat, slightly better than those you see at pulau ubin. Anyway, the water quality itself was seriously bad. It was totally light brown in colour. Haha, exactly like Milk tea. Since it was the dry season, all of us could see the wooden supports the people built to support their houses during the wet season. The difference in water level during these 2 seasons is just remarkable. This was not all! As we delve further, we saw literally floating villages. The only means of transport is by boat. Imagine a house surrounded by water. That’s what we saw, but just many of them scattered over the place. The life of the people there from our view is very primitive, and the way they can survive is just mind-boggling. The whole journey took about 2-3hours. After that, we help distribute some donated clothes to the villagers of Kampong Kluang.
Oh yeah, Sarah sprained her ankle when alighting the boat. Luckily it was well taken care of by the people around her especially Hayley, Ranie and the first aiders.
Cheers to the team and wish Sarah recover asap
Oh yeah, Sarah sprained her ankle when alighting the boat. Luckily it was well taken care of by the people around her especially Hayley, Ranie and the first aiders.
Cheers to the team and wish Sarah recover asap
Thursday, April 8, 2010
8th April
What a day! We visited a catholic village in the morning to help out in the rice soup programme. We actually had plans to help out in the chopping etc, but there was some miscommunication in the instructions given to the driver, so we ended up in the midst of visiting Angkor temples aka stones.
Upon arrival at the village, which was 1 1/2 to 2 hrs journey from our guesthouse, some of us helped out in chopping of pork meat, while the others kept the kids entertained in a really big building. However, there were just too many people inside that it was very stuffy! Those chopping the pork were literally sun-baking too! Either way, it would make you perspire alot. This however wasn't the worst. There was this "chamber" where the cooking of the porridge was done. In the room was 3 FREAKINGLY BIG wok, and LOTS LOTS of smoke and fire. Some of us went in to help stir the porridge and we soon suggested that the room should be term as "Cambodia Sauna room". Since the place was built such that smoke wasn't really allowed to escape, those who helped out found that it was eye hurting. The heat from the stove could be felt from like 1 meter away. I think the leg hair of the guys who went in to offer help have twirled up! Once the porridge was cooked, we helped distribute it in bowls and bring it to all the kids. It took us quite some time, but working as a team made things happened really fast. Next was refilling of porridge for those who wanted some more. The porridge was really tasty, I tried a little bit. Haha! Shhh….Now, after the mass eating, we did the mass WASHING! 11 of us went into action to help wash the hundreds of bowls and cutleries. Let me tell you, it’s really a lot of bowls. Record breaking numbers. It’s like for every one bowl you wash, 10 new bowls pile up. Haha! We enjoyed though. Weird huh
Now moving to the farm, we had our lunch there. The food was delicious and their hospitality was just good. We were given a tour around the farm after lunch, exposing ourselves to different type of plants, information on how long they take to ripe, and some fruits to try. I remember the Cambodian apple, it’s a really small fruit, roughly the size of my pinky fingernail. Small yet sweet! (:
That’s about it for today. Debrief as usual and then sleep time!
Upon arrival at the village, which was 1 1/2 to 2 hrs journey from our guesthouse, some of us helped out in chopping of pork meat, while the others kept the kids entertained in a really big building. However, there were just too many people inside that it was very stuffy! Those chopping the pork were literally sun-baking too! Either way, it would make you perspire alot. This however wasn't the worst. There was this "chamber" where the cooking of the porridge was done. In the room was 3 FREAKINGLY BIG wok, and LOTS LOTS of smoke and fire. Some of us went in to help stir the porridge and we soon suggested that the room should be term as "Cambodia Sauna room". Since the place was built such that smoke wasn't really allowed to escape, those who helped out found that it was eye hurting. The heat from the stove could be felt from like 1 meter away. I think the leg hair of the guys who went in to offer help have twirled up! Once the porridge was cooked, we helped distribute it in bowls and bring it to all the kids. It took us quite some time, but working as a team made things happened really fast. Next was refilling of porridge for those who wanted some more. The porridge was really tasty, I tried a little bit. Haha! Shhh….Now, after the mass eating, we did the mass WASHING! 11 of us went into action to help wash the hundreds of bowls and cutleries. Let me tell you, it’s really a lot of bowls. Record breaking numbers. It’s like for every one bowl you wash, 10 new bowls pile up. Haha! We enjoyed though. Weird huh
Now moving to the farm, we had our lunch there. The food was delicious and their hospitality was just good. We were given a tour around the farm after lunch, exposing ourselves to different type of plants, information on how long they take to ripe, and some fruits to try. I remember the Cambodian apple, it’s a really small fruit, roughly the size of my pinky fingernail. Small yet sweet! (:
That’s about it for today. Debrief as usual and then sleep time!
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
7th april
Today, we held a party for the kids cos it was our last day that we were gonna spend at the orphanage!
So we woke up as usual and had our breakfast as usual. Then off we went, with our close to ONE MILLION riels of groceries. :) we had almost 200 BOTTLES of coke, 10th kilo of chicken, spaghetti (tomato sauce and aglio olio), korean type sushi, chicken alphabet soup and lots of baked beans oh and there was tuna mayo and egg mayo too! Can you imagine all of these with goods plus TWENTY fully grown people in a bus that doesn't even have much walking space. Hahaha..
Can u guess what's the next worse thing that could happen to us.? Halfway thru the journey, the front tyre punctured. -.- lucky for us, it punctured just before we turned into the village road, while we were still on the main road. So we all got off the bus and then some hid under the shade, some went to the nearby local market, and some stayed by the driver to render whatever help they could possibly offer, and also to fan the driver. Our driver is a neat guy. This hair is always neatly combed and gelled up, he is always in a long sleeved collared shirt, always in long pants, and always in loafers. Nothing less. Even if he were u walk down orchard road, u'd never guess that he's a bus driver in cambodia. His dedication and seriousness to his job, no matter how simple it is, is something we all should learn from.
Then the bus was rolling! We finally reached safe and sound! at the orphanage, we had a forklift to help us unload the coke cartons from the bus. A human forklift. Haha :)
It wasn't long before the food team had to prepare the Yummy dishes for the Party later in the evening. They really had lots lots of food to prepare, example like 4 packets of garlic to chop! As the food team gets down to serious business, the others helped out in the entertaining portion. We did the friendship dance, which goes "As we .... walk to the left, as we walk to the right, as we ......" Yup yup! IC of this operation was Ming Yong, Germaine and Lovell. Others went in between the kids to mingle and teach them. It was a very awesome dance which everyone did. At the end, we had a Friendship marathon, we did all the moves on shot! It was tiring.
Next activity was Balloon wars! You know, the classic tie a balloon to your leg, protect it but DESTROY other's balloon. Few of us went off to prepare the Tang Yuan which later some of the kids will get a chance to help roll it into balls. Of course they have to wash their hands before we allow them to touch anything, so our washing team took over after the balloon game.
All's left was to PARTY the night out! With the music Booming, it certainly set the atmosphere for some partae! Coke bottles opened one after another, dishes of food gone by the minutes and people dancing all around the floor. It was plain fantastic!
We all ended with a few words by each of us to the kids and then we bidded farewell in a very touching way. Some cried but lets leave it anonymous
It was no surprise as it was our last day there. The kids sure did enjoy our company like how we enojyed theirs.
Boarded the bus, which drove through the quiet road that laid under the blanket of stars. We fell asleep...
So we woke up as usual and had our breakfast as usual. Then off we went, with our close to ONE MILLION riels of groceries. :) we had almost 200 BOTTLES of coke, 10th kilo of chicken, spaghetti (tomato sauce and aglio olio), korean type sushi, chicken alphabet soup and lots of baked beans oh and there was tuna mayo and egg mayo too! Can you imagine all of these with goods plus TWENTY fully grown people in a bus that doesn't even have much walking space. Hahaha..
Can u guess what's the next worse thing that could happen to us.? Halfway thru the journey, the front tyre punctured. -.- lucky for us, it punctured just before we turned into the village road, while we were still on the main road. So we all got off the bus and then some hid under the shade, some went to the nearby local market, and some stayed by the driver to render whatever help they could possibly offer, and also to fan the driver. Our driver is a neat guy. This hair is always neatly combed and gelled up, he is always in a long sleeved collared shirt, always in long pants, and always in loafers. Nothing less. Even if he were u walk down orchard road, u'd never guess that he's a bus driver in cambodia. His dedication and seriousness to his job, no matter how simple it is, is something we all should learn from.
Then the bus was rolling! We finally reached safe and sound! at the orphanage, we had a forklift to help us unload the coke cartons from the bus. A human forklift. Haha :)
It wasn't long before the food team had to prepare the Yummy dishes for the Party later in the evening. They really had lots lots of food to prepare, example like 4 packets of garlic to chop! As the food team gets down to serious business, the others helped out in the entertaining portion. We did the friendship dance, which goes "As we .... walk to the left, as we walk to the right, as we ......" Yup yup! IC of this operation was Ming Yong, Germaine and Lovell. Others went in between the kids to mingle and teach them. It was a very awesome dance which everyone did. At the end, we had a Friendship marathon, we did all the moves on shot! It was tiring.
Next activity was Balloon wars! You know, the classic tie a balloon to your leg, protect it but DESTROY other's balloon. Few of us went off to prepare the Tang Yuan which later some of the kids will get a chance to help roll it into balls. Of course they have to wash their hands before we allow them to touch anything, so our washing team took over after the balloon game.
All's left was to PARTY the night out! With the music Booming, it certainly set the atmosphere for some partae! Coke bottles opened one after another, dishes of food gone by the minutes and people dancing all around the floor. It was plain fantastic!
We all ended with a few words by each of us to the kids and then we bidded farewell in a very touching way. Some cried but lets leave it anonymous
It was no surprise as it was our last day there. The kids sure did enjoy our company like how we enojyed theirs.
Boarded the bus, which drove through the quiet road that laid under the blanket of stars. We fell asleep...
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
6th April
Here I come Orphanage! There was actually plans to do farming today but the weather was so scorching that you can easily catch fire out in the sun in a matter of seconds. Instead, today we had all our focus on painting and teaching of english lessons like usual.
Deja-Vu! Our superstar Jay went rolling down the stairs! not really roll, just missed a step or the steps was probably slippery. We were all in the addidas shop browsing through when we heard "Boom ba da boom". I guess all our heart went "Blup Blop .......Blup", missing a few beats in the process. Haha! It was really a very scary moment for all of us. The fall echoed around the enclosed shop. It was that loud. As we approach him, his face was seriously pale. Very Very pale, like he just bleach his face or something. Yep, given such a face, you sure know it hurts alot. Especially when he injured the same part. Not really, it was slightly below the previously injured area.
Ms Tan called the ambulance and it was really weird, because 15mins later, the ambulance have not arrived, so Ms Tan called again and guess what the person told her. they said" sorry, just now we couldn't understand english, now we'll transfer you to the english speaker." If it was a matter of life and death, what would have become of the victim? Luckily Jay was a person full of LUCK and perhaps a strong butt too! Haha!
Some of the people in the food department went to buy the food for the party in Lucky mall and Angkor Market. Total expenditure was close to 1 MILLION ..... riels. Don't look down on riels okay! 40 riels = 1 USD. Yup, I was just kidding! ha! It's actually 4000 riels to 1 USD.
Went back to the guest house to store our goods for tmr and back to bed!
Deja-Vu! Our superstar Jay went rolling down the stairs! not really roll, just missed a step or the steps was probably slippery. We were all in the addidas shop browsing through when we heard "Boom ba da boom". I guess all our heart went "Blup Blop .......Blup", missing a few beats in the process. Haha! It was really a very scary moment for all of us. The fall echoed around the enclosed shop. It was that loud. As we approach him, his face was seriously pale. Very Very pale, like he just bleach his face or something. Yep, given such a face, you sure know it hurts alot. Especially when he injured the same part. Not really, it was slightly below the previously injured area.
Ms Tan called the ambulance and it was really weird, because 15mins later, the ambulance have not arrived, so Ms Tan called again and guess what the person told her. they said" sorry, just now we couldn't understand english, now we'll transfer you to the english speaker." If it was a matter of life and death, what would have become of the victim? Luckily Jay was a person full of LUCK and perhaps a strong butt too! Haha!
Some of the people in the food department went to buy the food for the party in Lucky mall and Angkor Market. Total expenditure was close to 1 MILLION ..... riels. Don't look down on riels okay! 40 riels = 1 USD. Yup, I was just kidding! ha! It's actually 4000 riels to 1 USD.
Went back to the guest house to store our goods for tmr and back to bed!
Monday, April 5, 2010
5th April
As usual we had our Bread toast with cream cheese?soft boiled egg? Hard boiled egg? and scrambled egg? Anything that can be made with egg and goes well with bread u can find it in Bou savy Guesthouse. For those who is Maggie fan, they will have their noodle again!
As instructed by chiew nai we are supposed to leave the guesthouse at 7.30am. However, Jorina our 'livewire' who has a bubbly self unfortunately fell sick. Again, our guardian angel Clara stayed back in the guesthouse with her while the rest went to the orphanage.
Alot of us were not feeling well. Germaine was having a headache, Owen had bad tummyache, sarah was feeling slight giddy. With Clara accompanying Jorina at the guesthouse, we had only 1 first aider with us. Andy was really concern over all our well-being. Over at the orphanage, we had a slight change in plans for the lessons we were going to teach. Origami was on the list and Jay was chosen one to lead this operation. He was no doubt the best person to lead as he had lots of shapes and animals he was able to taught the kids. It was also avery good experience for alot of us who know nothing or very little about origami.
We left the place with the kids waving farewell to us. They always make us feel like we've changed their lives in that short period of interaction in the day with them.
As instructed by chiew nai we are supposed to leave the guesthouse at 7.30am. However, Jorina our 'livewire' who has a bubbly self unfortunately fell sick. Again, our guardian angel Clara stayed back in the guesthouse with her while the rest went to the orphanage.
Alot of us were not feeling well. Germaine was having a headache, Owen had bad tummyache, sarah was feeling slight giddy. With Clara accompanying Jorina at the guesthouse, we had only 1 first aider with us. Andy was really concern over all our well-being. Over at the orphanage, we had a slight change in plans for the lessons we were going to teach. Origami was on the list and Jay was chosen one to lead this operation. He was no doubt the best person to lead as he had lots of shapes and animals he was able to taught the kids. It was also avery good experience for alot of us who know nothing or very little about origami.
We left the place with the kids waving farewell to us. They always make us feel like we've changed their lives in that short period of interaction in the day with them.
Sunday, April 4, 2010
4th April
Today was a really really long day for all of us.
we woke up at o430 in the morning. we left the hotel at 530 cos some people overslept. and we headed off to angkor wat to catch the sunrise! it was beautiful. and alot of pictures were snapped and some of us started to cam whoring with the sun. HAHAHAHA.. then we continued taking random photos around and then we headed back to bousavy guesthouse.
after our breakfast, we started preparing for the coming week's lesson. after spending 3 days at the orphanage, we were more clear of their english standard and could thus use more effective teaching techniques, to the best benefits of the children. we spilt up into smaller groups like english department one group, sports department one group and hygiene department one group and they came up with lesson plans for the next three days of teaching. after that, we presented to each other what we were going to do. after that, we started our planning for our party! food was one big headache. programme was a challenge. all i can say now is that its gonna turn out good! :D
by the end of it all, it was still kinda early, like about 3pm. so we headed down to angkor wat for history lessons since we still had our admission ticket.Jay was not allowed to join the group for the Angkor wat tour since he has hurt his sprain; he could not take the risks of climbing up and down and walking a 'NON- WALKABLE' distance under blazing hot sun.
His guardian angel,Clara was with him throughout this time Owen was with them to wait for the group. After they 3 had separated from the team,they came across a roadside stall selling oil-painting. Clara and jay both bought a few paintings from him. The local guy was exhilirated, he was smiling from ear to ear and treated us cold drinks.
We continued our touring and paused at the North entrance of Angkor wat and we were officially LOST! However, the locals were very keen to help us when we approached them for help. When we were wandering around in the North entrance, we met the Oil paint seller again, this time was different he was with his family(wife and his son.) Then, we begun our camwhoring with his family. YES again!Cam-whoring.
After camwhoring, we went to rest under the shade while waiting for the rest. Owen went to look out for the rest and at the same time.he had his sun tanning session.
Finally , when the rest were back we went to have our lunch, then continued our visits to several temples. Seriously! Angkor wat will attract more tourists if it is air conditioner HAHAHAAH! Most of us were sun-baked. The higher the anticipation, the bigger our disappointment will be. The sunset, that everyone was eagering to see since sun rise to our dismay the weather did not PERMIT! it's reallly Oh MY GOD!!!!!!!Obh my gosh!!!!! Having said that, owen is the sole person in the team who has caught sunset in Angkor wat before LOL!HAHAAHAH! Dont be jealous! come back and be volunteer again!
Then we went to have our dinner......
we woke up at o430 in the morning. we left the hotel at 530 cos some people overslept. and we headed off to angkor wat to catch the sunrise! it was beautiful. and alot of pictures were snapped and some of us started to cam whoring with the sun. HAHAHAHA.. then we continued taking random photos around and then we headed back to bousavy guesthouse.
after our breakfast, we started preparing for the coming week's lesson. after spending 3 days at the orphanage, we were more clear of their english standard and could thus use more effective teaching techniques, to the best benefits of the children. we spilt up into smaller groups like english department one group, sports department one group and hygiene department one group and they came up with lesson plans for the next three days of teaching. after that, we presented to each other what we were going to do. after that, we started our planning for our party! food was one big headache. programme was a challenge. all i can say now is that its gonna turn out good! :D
by the end of it all, it was still kinda early, like about 3pm. so we headed down to angkor wat for history lessons since we still had our admission ticket.Jay was not allowed to join the group for the Angkor wat tour since he has hurt his sprain; he could not take the risks of climbing up and down and walking a 'NON- WALKABLE' distance under blazing hot sun.
His guardian angel,Clara was with him throughout this time Owen was with them to wait for the group. After they 3 had separated from the team,they came across a roadside stall selling oil-painting. Clara and jay both bought a few paintings from him. The local guy was exhilirated, he was smiling from ear to ear and treated us cold drinks.
We continued our touring and paused at the North entrance of Angkor wat and we were officially LOST! However, the locals were very keen to help us when we approached them for help. When we were wandering around in the North entrance, we met the Oil paint seller again, this time was different he was with his family(wife and his son.) Then, we begun our camwhoring with his family. YES again!Cam-whoring.
After camwhoring, we went to rest under the shade while waiting for the rest. Owen went to look out for the rest and at the same time.he had his sun tanning session.
Finally , when the rest were back we went to have our lunch, then continued our visits to several temples. Seriously! Angkor wat will attract more tourists if it is air conditioner HAHAHAAH! Most of us were sun-baked. The higher the anticipation, the bigger our disappointment will be. The sunset, that everyone was eagering to see since sun rise to our dismay the weather did not PERMIT! it's reallly Oh MY GOD!!!!!!!Obh my gosh!!!!! Having said that, owen is the sole person in the team who has caught sunset in Angkor wat before LOL!HAHAAHAH! Dont be jealous! come back and be volunteer again!
Then we went to have our dinner......
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