A weekend at the beach and english speaking soldiers

Two months yesterday it was! Incredible how that time has past in a blink and incredible that I’ve actually been disciplined enough to keep writing my blog – are you impressed Miss? :o) A new group of volunteers arrived from Australia this week one of whom is coming to work here with me – YEAH! It will be good to have someone just to bounce ideas off, go to lunch and have a laugh with. Don’t get me wrong, I have laughs with some of my other workmates, especially Khun (see photo in post dated February 10) he’s got a great, dry sense of humor and quite often cracks me up. The week has kind of passed in a blur – a long weekend down on the coast at Sihanouk Ville and back to work Tuesday where things have gone into bedlam mode as we prepare for our AGM next week. It’s the 20 year anniversary of MEDiCAM this year so the Health Minister and other important government types will be attending, important stuff! I have been organizing placement of the NGO’s exhibitions as well as designing brochures and flyers for our own exhibition – it's great to be involved and to feel like I'm adding some value. The Trainers I came here to support finally arrived this week so I’ve also been trying to get some organization happening there, creating an action plan, finalizing the curriculum etc. But now onto more important topics – our weekend at the beach! I’ve really never thought of myself as anything other than “odd” and the fact that I hate sand, swimming and waves yet still LOVE going to the beach only proves my theory! Our taxi ride down was uneventful other than the normal “oh my god, we’re going to die in a head-on collision” scenario and the fact that the driver drove for km’s on end with his indicators on while I slowly went mad with the noise of it! Rear vision mirrors are optional it would appear as ours had been covered with an LCD screen and we enjoyed Khmer Karaoke for 4 hours – did I say enjoy? We picked up crazy Cara at Kampong Speu (affectionately known as the Spew) enroute, and landed in Sihanouk Ville and more precisely, Serendipity Beach around 7.30pm. Our accommodation was fine, if a little rustic (the toilet seemed to do a little dance underneath you as you sat down or moved) but with an awesome view of the ocean. We were drink in hand at one of the numerous bar/cafes on the beach by 8pm and were absorbing that sublime “I’m at the beach atmosphere”. Our waiter, a western guy was clearly living on planet “I’ve been here smoking awesome weed for the last 6 months man” managed to keep the drinks coming in a steady stream. The stream consisted of beers for 50c and spirits for a dollar! We moved onto a venue with a dance floor (all on the beach) where a young, friendly but crazy Israeli backpacker was dancing with two young Khmer girls showing them his crazy dance moves. The girls were having an awesome time, crazy dancing, throwing ice and water at him - all innocent fun but you couldn’t help but think about how easily they could be exploited in a country notorious for it. Thankfully we discovered there was a couple supervising the them who they eventually left on the back of a motorbike with. The rest of the weekend followed the same kind of theme, beach during the day, dinner, drinking and partying until the wee small hours. For some of us the hours were weer than others – hey, I need my beauty sleep! :o) We did get a bit of rain over the weekend which was unusual but nice to hear it pattering on the roof as you lay in your hammock or mosquito net covered bed. Sunday we discovered Otres Beach which was truly gorgeous compared to Serendipity. Harder to get to and therefore less people which is turn means less pollution. Serendipity is a fairly typical touristy beach in SouthEast Asia in that there are too many tourists, hawkers and a rubbish situation that is not well managed by the local authorities. Get past that and it’s not that bad. Otres on the other hand, had clear waters, fine sand and few "you want to buy braclet or sarong" sellers to annoy you as you louged. The sauna was complimentary on the return bus trip to Phnom Penh as the air conditioner struggled to throw out anything other than a warm-breath kind of breeze. That was not to be the end of the fun on our bus trip though, we broke down about 10km out of P.P. Ot bunyaha (no problem in Khmer) , as we completed the last part of our journey in the slowest Tuk-tuk known to man while the bus continued to bunny-hop (a pretty impressive feat for a bus) in the car park where it had chosen to end it's journey. I managed to get in some exercise time during the week to try and offset the abuse I had put my body, my temple through. Let us just say the temple needed some minor repair work and a good hose and scrub. Thursday night four of us joined a group from the Australian Embassy on a practice speaking English event at a Cambodian military academy. They put on a BBQ and drinks for us and all we had to do was stand around and chat with the soldiers. It was actually quite interesting and fun. I taught one of them to say “laid back” he thought it was a great saying. I love the way they are not bashful or shy about expressing their emotions – one of them who’s Khmer name means February (as that was the month he was born in – makes sense) said he reads the English papers every day to help learn English and explained that it makes him very sad reading the papers and he in fact quite often cries. Maybe some of it was lost in translation but it was still touching that he would even talk about it. From what I could gather the majority of them only join up to gain the free education with learning English at the top of the list. They can also gain scholarships to go and train in places like the States, China and Australia. They all talked about their villages and want you to visit them there. February invited me to come and visit him on my way back from Thailand at New Year (he lives on the Cambodian/Thai border) and said he would make a party for me listing all the meat he would provide. They politely told us it was a pleasure to meet us and to please make sure and come back next month. A lovely evening. Thought I'd include some photos on this week blog: First - daughter helping Mum on her stall at Psar Órsay Second - the trusty Scooby Third - at work Last - Another stall at Orsay Market - love those pink eggs!