PP days 9 & 10

Wednesday was the last of our busy ‘normal work days’. We completed the usual morning class with the littlies, who were doing art (Christmas cards) and active games in the classroom. there was a change for lunch – no soup surprise, but BBQ chicken with rice and pickled vegetables.

In the afternoon, S had to go to another meeting, so the four of us took the class – which happened to only have three students, since the rest of the class had gone to rugby training. The three girls were very shy at first (and who wouldn’t be, with ‘teachers’ outnumbering students!) We spent time on revision of their ‘after school activities’ phrases, made sentences with flash cards, and read them some of the books we brought with us, both iPad and hard copy versions.

Instead of supervising the dance in the evening, some of the teachers were invited to join Scott in his evening rounds around the rubbish dump. We weren’t prepared for the emotional effects of this, even though the others had warned us!

Homework time

We started off from CCF5, walking along the new concrete road and into the ‘new’ areas of reclaimed dump site. We met various families of the students who were learning and living at CCF, including a couple of girls completing their homework sitting on a rock in the muck, and then we bumped into one of the girls I’d met at CCF2 during my time there. She was apparently supposed to be staying at the CCF, but her father had taken her home to the dump site. This was the part that really brought home to me that these were real people, not some strange post-apocalyptic movie set.

After shower time at the satellite school

Strangely, even though we saw a lot of tangible evidence of Scott’s work here, the part that really brought it home to me how much of a difference he is making, was when we walked into one of the satellite schools in the dump site. After picking our way through the mud and the stench and the smoke, we emerged into a clean, brightly lit area redolent of fresh paint. It was the paint smell that set me off – such a new, bright scent after the smoke and sewage.  It really showed me that there are incredibly valuable programmes being implemented here, and that my decision yesterday to sponsor one of the children in one of the classes I’d been working with was a good one.

Computer class

Meeting the rest of the group for dinner at the Hotel Anise restaurant was a bit surreal afterwards, as we were all pretty shell-shocked by what we had seen.

To add to the strange things seen on the roads here, on the way back from the dump site, we passed a scooter with four people on the back, which alone wasn’t at all strange, but what did make us blink was the IV drip hanging from a pole between them!

I shook off some of my residual discomfort by retail therapy – near the restaurant was a shop called Smateria, which is a Cambodian-based, Italian-designed company which uses recycled materials to make bags, accessories, compubags cases etc, and supports women’s employment. Great Christmas pressies to bring home.

One of the gorgeous girls at CCF 2

Thursday’s teaching load was much less, with only the one morning class before saying a tearful goodbye to our students and the CFF staff and heading off to participate (or watch!) a soccer match between our kids and some of the CCF kids. We were soundly trounced!

Our students all dressed up and ready to rock!

Then a quick lunch and on to prepare for our concert! Our kids had been working hard every night to learn two Khmer dances to perform, and needed the obligatory hair and makeup prep. They looked amazing, and danced beautifully, no matter how uncomfortable they may have felt!

After our last dinner at the Star Restaurant, we returned to the hotel and spent time debriefing the day and the week and a half we’ve spent here. There were ‘warm fuzzies’ to write and hand out, and everyone left the meeting with a real sense of fulfillment and inspiration.