The price for a one month tourist visa for Cambodia is officially $20, however the country has a strong tendancy of government corruption. This means that the border officials have no problems at all with bullying travelers into paying sometimes as much as $35 and pocketing the profits. We had heard about this scam a hundred times and were determined to beat it. When it came down to it, despite our positive attitude, it's quite difficult to negotiate when you're trying to cross a border and five very stubborn and greedy government officials have the key behind a little closed door! After an argument and a long mexican stand-off, we eventually settled with $25 without a photo. A two-hour taxi ride packed with four other Cambodians later, we arrived back at the village.

Feeling a bit less connected to the staff and villagers because of all the side trips away, we made a conscious decision to spend at least the next few weekends in the village. Our plans were shattered when Gil-ad, the project director, insisted that we all come to Sihanoukville for the weekend. The plan was to farewell his aging Israeli mother, as well as to have a bonding session and discuss our views on the effectiveness of the whole volunteer project. It was also a good chance to say goodbye to one of the other volunteers, Almog, who is headed back to Israel.

One positive thing that we achieved in the few days that we spent back in the village was to kickstart the community centre project. The concept was initially Bar and Almog's, and comprised the construction of a teenagers centre with separate areas for arts, craft, sports and study. The idea was to really get the community involved and to create a social space for the teenagers to use creatively. With all the fuss over the recent donor visit as well as the New Year celebrations, construction was stalled. Since the holiday we have been helping a few of the staff to build the structure, Cambodian style! Just in the last week we managed to organise a meeting with some of the community group leaders, and asked them to encourage the families of the village to donate home-made grass-thatched roof panels to cover the building. They responded really well and it was agreed that the donation would help to create a sense of combined ownership amongst all of the village.

We have also started to teach Capoeira a couple of times a week. The classes are aimed at the older teenagers and adults, although like everything else we do here, it attracts the kids more than anyone else. Either way, the classes are great fun, as well as a real test of Aidan's handle on the Khmer language. The kids are much more athletic than most of us westerners, having spent half of their lives climbing trees, and are picking things up pretty quickly.

Now really really keen to get stuck into more projects here in the village, we are once again riding out of it, this time in the back of Gil-ad's truck.