An excursion Cambodia style!

I am sitting at Siem Reap International Airport awaiting my flight to Kuala Lumpur, where I will stay overnight and depart via Malaysian airlines in the morning for Brisbane.

Yesterday I said goodbye to the children at the orphanage…whilst shedding many tears…..

…..but first I need to go back to last Thursday afternoon.It is the end of the wet season in Cambodia and last Thursday the rains made a grand finale exit to 2011. The heavens opened and Siem Reap was flooded…or as the locals say “Siem Reap float”. The already pot-holed roadways and dirt paths that snake through the city have overnight become raging torrents and red muddy concourses. In most places water is ankle to thigh deep!! The locals placidly continue their daily tasks ( selling products at the markets, transporting goods on tuk tuks and mottos, feeding their families and manning street stalls etc) whilst waving their smiling hellos with consistent grace and composure. No insurance cover here just determination to keep going.

An excursion for the children had been planned the following day. The rains were not going to stop this adventure! The outing was a result of funds raised by Rotary in Sydney. 2 Aussie girls ( aged 22) had been volunteering at the orphanage while I was there and one of the girls’ grandmothers was a member of Rotary. She and her friends had raised money and donated it to the orphanage. The girls bought food, teaching resources and a roof for the kitchen with the donated money. The Rotary club ladies had also hand knitted a soft toy for every child in the orphanage which the girls proudly distributed to the children. It was just wonderful to see 2 young women so actively engaged in social action- inspiring role models! At home the girls work with disabled young people. Within 2 days of donating the funds to the orphanage the kitchen roof had been designed, timber purchased and constructed!!! No building plans and engineer reports needed here!! A team of eager teenage boys from the orphanage erected the new roof much to the delight of the 2 resident orphanage mothers who no longer had to cook in the rain. The girls used the leftover donated funds to take the entire orphanage out on an excursion for the day.

Due to the distance we would be travelling all 38 children slept at Savong’s home the night before the excursion. His wife and the older children cooked for them. The following morning a truck loaded with all the children collected the girls and I…..screams of delight could be heard from the back of the truck as we made our way out of Siem Reap and through the countryside to Lake Tonle Sap. The sky had now cleared and we loaded 38 children into what the locals call “river cruise boats” but what I perceived to be canoes!!! I was the only adult on one boat and had 21 children with me. All scampered in single file down the pier and stood to attention in front of me as I laced them into life jackets. The boat was made of wood ( with a very crude looking motor) and I was worried sick the children and I would fall through the middle-it looked so rickety. A young man about 20 was the driver of my boat while the girls, Savong and the remainder of the children travelled on the other cruise boat. The atmosphere was intense with the crackle of the children’s excitement and my raw fear -this was an excursion like no other in my experience!!

School excursion habits from home instinctively had me counting heads constantly! The children laughed when they saw me doing it and used the opportunity to practise their counting skills aloud. It wasn’t too long before they were chanting the numbers in unison.

Upon arriving on an island in the middle of the lake we all managed to disembark with backpacks, drink bottles and 38 buzzing, deliriously happy children in tow. Savong’s wife had cooked a meal for each of the children and they all assembled on the timber floor of the hut to eat an absolutely delicious feast of rice, satay chicken and fresh vegetables(provided with funds from Rotary). Without instruction each child cleaned their plates, put their rubbish in the bin and recycled the plastic bag their lunch came in latter in the afternoon for the wet clothes. A lesson Aussie kids could learn here!!

The afternoon was spent playing in the lake ( with me still furiously counting heads!!!). The children had no swimmers or towels so jumped in regardless. Within minutes they screamed for me to join them and I thought well this IS supposed to be an immersion experience so in I went-fully clothed! ( I might not have been quite so enthusiastic had I known what swims freely in the lake…..found that out latter!!!). The boys were leaping out of a tree overhanging the water and paddling a small canoe they had found hidden under a tree. Some kids fished while the younger ones amused themselves hanging off the aussie girls and I ….singing ( and performing actions to ) the PlaySchool song “Bears now asleep” which the girls had taught them the day before when they distributed the teddy bears! What an afternoon!!! Pure joy-untill we commenced boarding the truck latter in the day to return home. Savong had received a call to say that the orphanage and school had flooded. So the children returned to his home for another night.

As we gathered for an excursion photo adjacent to the pier the heavens opened again. Within seconds we were drenched and the kids were all dancing in the puddles ( while I danced with them but kept counting heads!!) The 2 aussie girls and I could not stand the thought of the younger children being in the back of the open truck in the rain so we swapped seats with them. What an experience that was!!! Having never travelled in the back of an open truck before ( let alone in the wet season in Asia) I was dumbfounded but had an absolute ball!!! The rain pierced our bare skin like needles but no one complained ( so typical of Cambodians!) and all laughed as we hit cavernous holes in the road and fell on top of each other ( yes, I was still counting heads in case I lost anyone off the back of the truck!!).

Exhausted and euphoric we all made it back to Siem Reap late in the afternoon. The truck dropped me of at the guest house where I was staying…..the flood waters had risen since the morning so it was a mission to get me home. The staff at the guest house and neighbours came out in the pouring rain to greet me and wave furiously at the children who were nearly falling out of the truck yelling their goodbyes to me. All I could see was huge chocolate eyes with massive smiles!!

This was an excursion like no other I had experienced in my 30 years of teaching. I feel asleep that night counting little heads!!