An experience of a lifetime in Cambodia

My adventure had already begun over a year ago by the time I was waiting at Heathrow airport on Saturday the 28th July 2018 ready to fly to Cambodia. Prior to this, I had been successful with my application to go on a Greater London Kent county selection weekend and was then chosen to be one of the girls who would take part in a Girlguiding LaSER long-haul international service project and trip. At the regional weekend, I found out that I would be part of Team Cambodia! This was the first time the fourteen girls and four leaders met each other. Throughout the rest of the year, we bonded as a team through three planning and preparation weekends and a day event. I also raised £3000 to cover the cost of the trip through many fundraising activities and grants - I am incredibly grateful to everyone who supported me and made it possible for me to go on this life-changing trip.

After many hours of travelling, we finally arrived at our hotel in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. Over the next three weeks, we learnt a tremendous amount about Cambodia through our project in the school, our visits to cultural landmarks and historical sites, our meetings with the Girl Guide Association of Cambodia and our willingness to immerse ourselves in everything we came across.

The project - The school on Silk Island

Every day for the first two weeks of the trip, we took the ferry to a school on Silk Island which is located in the middle of the Mekong River. Each morning, we taught English lessons to the children in the 7th and 8th grades, which had an age range of 11-15. Over lunchtimes, we took lots of opportunities to plan our lessons and activities and talked about how we could improve our methods of teaching each day. The classes had 40-50 students in them, and the students who struggled the most had to sit at the back. Combined with the language barrier, this meant it was a challenge to effectively communicate our lessons to the children, but after a couple of days we got the hang of it! We taught two lessons a day in pairs and rotated around topics and classrooms, and over the course of the two weeks, I taught the topics of colours, animals, nature, numbers, jobs, countries, daily routine, verbs and tenses. Teaching the children was a very rewarding experience. It was amazing to see them making progress, with their pronunciation and class participation improving over time. We also made sure that every individual spoke at least a few words of English out loud. Our teaching style was very different to what the children were used to, as we played games and had interactive class and pair activities to help them remember vocabulary and practice having conversations. By the second lesson we taught each day, the children had already been in school for four hours since 7am, often with no breakfast, so we had a more relaxed lesson – we usually played a game called “board slap” which was very popular! This involved two teams competing for who could slap a word written on the board in English the fastest after it was shouted out by one of their classmates. This often resulted in much laughter and competitive screams from the students!

In the afternoons at the school, we helped the school community by working on the construction of a concrete path and painting classrooms. The concrete path was a mammoth task as we did not have cement mixers – everything had to be done by hand! In addition to this, we were working in mid-thirty degrees heat with high levels of humidity and the occasional extreme downpour of rain late in the afternoon. We needed to build the path so the children could walk to their toilet block without getting muddy when it rains. The process involved digging up grass and evening out soil, smashing up countless bricks with sledgehammers to lay across the path to save on cement, carrying many buckets of sand, cement and stones to the path before mixing the components together to make concrete to lay on the path.

The process of painting the classrooms involved scraping down the walls to remove the dust from the rooms, then applying two coats of paint to the walls and using brushes with bamboo sticks as extensions to reach the areas in the top! We were very proud when we finished painting two classrooms, and when we finished the construction of the path we were able to write our names in it as a memory of our time in the school.

In addition to teaching and construction, we had the opportunity to play sports games with the children. In a number of England versus Cambodia football matches, we almost managed to beat the boys but were thoroughly thrashed by the girls! The girls played barefoot or in flip-flops and we played in trainers but they still beat us every time! We also played traditional games with the children, such as the Cambodian version of duck-duck-goose, which involved being hit with a branch as you run around the circle. We were very lucky as we were able to attend the school’s annual ceremony, which was led by the leaders of the school and four Buddhist monks. After this, we went to the Grade 12’s leavers party as they had finished their exams and were about to go on to the next chapter of their lives! We signed lots of shirts and spent time dancing with them. Before we knew it, it was our last day at the school. This was incredibly emotional – I had formed some amazing connections with lots of the children and it was very sad to leave them. Many of the children gave us handmade gifts and messages. We took photos with them and signed their shirts and arms. Some of the children cried, and their reaction to us leaving made us realise the positive impact we had made. Writing this now, I am smiling as I think about so many of the wonderful children we met - their personalities, kindness and positivity will always stay with me, and I hope that sometime in the future I can connect with them again and see that they achieved all that they wanted to in life.

Culture

Another amazing part of the trip was the cultural experience we had as a group. On Silk Island, we visited a working silk farm where we saw the entire process from the birth of the silkworm to the scarves being weaved on the loom. Visiting the Central Phnom Penh Market, the Russian Market and the Night Market were all fun experiences which gave us an insight into the Cambodian lifestyle as they buy their food from the markets every morning. The markets also meant we could practice our bargaining and buy some souvenirs. In Phnom Penh, we visited the Royal Palace, Silver Pagoda and Wat Phnom Pagoda, which were fascinating as this was the first time I had seen Buddhist temples and artefacts in real life. One evening, we went to a cultural show that used dance and shadows to depict the ancient legend of how Cambodia was formed. We also visited a Cambodian performing arts school, where the students performed some of the traditional dances for us and taught us how to join in too! Over the course of the trip, we saw a number of dance shows, with my personal favourite dance being one that uses coconut shells as props and percussion.

A significant part of the history of Cambodia is the Khmer Rouge, so it was very important for us to learn about the Cambodian peoples’ experiences during this atrocity. We visited S-21 which used to be a prison used for the interrogation and torture of the victims of the Khmer Rouge and is now a memorial site and museum used to remember the tragic events of the Khmer Rouge. We met survivors of the regime here, and I found it a particularly harrowing and eye-opening experience. Later in the week, we visited the Killing Fields. I was struck by how tranquil the area is now, compared to the horrors that occurred there 40 years ago. Very few people my age know about the Khmer Rouge as it is not taught in school, so I would now like to be able to use the knowledge I gathered to tell more people about the genocide which still impacts Cambodia today.

In Siem Reap, we were able to visit the awe-inspiring Angkor Wat temples at sunrise, and spent the day exploring the ancient temples including the Smiling Buddha Temple. I also made my promise in an ancient library in Angkor Wat, which means I have been officially enrolled into the Senior Section. I thoroughly enjoyed exploring the Night Markets in Siem Reap and interacting with many of the stallholders – people were very friendly! Siem Reap provided many cultural experiences, such as a traditional pottery workshop run entirely by deaf and hearing impaired potters, a visit to the ornate Bo Wat Pagoda, a boat trip to the floating village, a visit to the cultural village and museum and a number of really fun tuk-tuk rides!

An important aspect of the trip for me was the fact that we had the chance to visit a number of NGOs. These included restaurants and their accompanying gift shops such as “Friends International”, which works to train homeless and marginalised people and provide them with a fairly paid job and accommodation. Another restaurant and shop we visited was called “Daughters of Cambodia”, which works to help women out of sex trafficking and forced sex work, empowering them with training and employment after this. We went to at least five NGO restaurants on our trip, all of which have fair employment practices. Not only did we visit restaurants, but also NGO craft and artisan workshops where we could buy traditionally and organically made products. When we returned to Phnom Penh before our flight home, we were able to visit a wildlife centre that helps to rehabilitate endangered animals into the wild. This was brilliant as we were able to see Asian elephants, which are instinctively returning to Cambodia now the conflict has stopped. Being able to support these excellent causes and to see that so many people are working to help empower the marginalised within Cambodia was very special to me.

Of course, my report wouldn’t be complete without discussing the food! I tried traditional Cambodian dishes such as fish amok, buffalo, Cambodian steak, many different curries and steamed rice, black chicken, jackfruit and dragon fruit, palm sugar, coconut ice cream, cashew nut milkshakes, Cambodian bananas, stuffed frogs, crickets and a tarantula leg! I couldn’t bring myself to try durian fruit which smelt like sick, however.

Meeting the Cambodian Girl Guides was another one of my highlights. We travelled for two hours to reach a Guide unit in a village and spent the day getting to know them. During a scavenger hunt around the village, we were invited into their homes and met some of their families. We were able to communicate with each other as everyone got to know each other throughout the day. The Guides taught us how to make a traditional dessert, and then we ended the day by all sharing our hopes and dreams for guiding in the future. Further to this, we were invited to have dinner with the commissioners from the Girl Guide Association of Cambodia. Firstly, we went to Vannath Chea’s house – she told us about her experience with the Khmer Rouge, how she was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize and her work with guiding. We also met a Princess – the King’s sister in law! Meeting and communicating with the commissioners and sharing our guiding stories was a wonderful experience.

My trip to Cambodia was monumental for me. The connections we made with the children in the school and the Girl Guide Association of Cambodia will stay with me for a lifetime as the people we met were truly so kind, full of life and inspirational. I am astounded by how much I learnt about the country itself – the language, people, politics, culture, history, religion, norms, values and lifestyle. I am so pleased to say that as a group we definitely made an impact. I hope to continue to have fantastic opportunities and experiences with Girlguiding in the future, and potentially lead a trip like this when I am older! I also want to work with NGOs in the future, helping to make genuine positive change where needed. The whole experience helped me gain confidence and realise that it is important to maintain a carefree but focused attitude. I have made some amazing friendships which I hope will continue for a very long time.

I am so grateful to have been supported by so many people who have enabled me to have this experience of a lifetime!