Saying goodbye to our quiet, simple and relatively untainted village was difficult. Although we were tempted to stay longer, we felt that the timing was right and that we had put in a pretty good effort over the past three months. Our decision to leave was made easier by an invitation to our friends wedding in the Philippines!

So after a few tears, beers and parting gifts, we're now riding away in another squishy share taxi. However, partly to lighten the load, and partly for an excuse to drop in again, we left a backpack full of winter clothes in the village. The goodbyes were made slightly easier knowing that we'd have to come back again a few months later.

So, what else did we get up to since our last SB blog? After sorting out a few stomach troubles in Phnom Penh, we returned to the village full steam ahead in preparation for the new community centre open day, as well as plans for a round of hygiene lessons for all the local school kids.

In a rush to get the community centre finished for the open day, we eventually finished pouring and leveling the last slab of concrete by hand. After another big lunch and a siesta, Aidan wandered over to admire the handiwork. Shockingly, one of the local stray dogs had left his mark in the wet concrete, with scratch marks and paw prints all over it. Although devastated, we were busy all afternoon with a sanitation lesson, and had to let the chief builder deal with the setback on his own. Mr Lat grumbled his way through the afternoon smoothing out the damage. Our meeting next door was interrupted by another dose of heavy rain. The noise of rain on the tin roof made it impossible to communicate, so our meeting was paused. Aidan peered out the window to see how Mr Lat was doing and all he saw was a balding head sticking up over a low wall, obviously sheltering from the rain. The concerning thing was that the head belonged to the local drunk, and was sticking up just above where Mr Lat had been working all afternoon! After the rain subsided and we finished our meeting, our suspicions were confirmed. On the edge of that last troublesome slab of wet concrete was a perfect butt-sized groove. The drunk denied all responsibility but eventually shuffled off looking quite guilty. We all had a good laugh about it and decided to leave the groove there as a reminder of our troubles.

The community centre open day was a real success. In the morning we helped the children decorate the centre. They drew pictures to stick to the walls, and made mobiles from leaves, sticks and pieces of recycled plastic. After lunch we gathered most of the willing villagers on the back of a truck and took them to the centre. It was hard to build enthusiasm for the event, and many of the adults stubbornly refused to be dragged from their hammocks. We waited for a good crowd, and a few families lost interest and walked home, but in the end the kids showed up in force as usual. Mr Atnoch, an important head in the community, made a short speech and cut the red ribbon. After this we helped the kids build a flower garden and plant a bunch of young fruit trees around the centre. The day was rounded off with some sugary fruit drink, loud Khmer pop music and wild dancing.

Since then Chen and Soly, the two keen young English teachers, have been running classes in the centre, and Aidan has moved Capoeira classes inside to make the kids comfortable with the new space. More and more kids, and even some of the 'too cool for school' teenagers have started using the centre to hang out in the last few weeks. Although this may be mostly due to the installation of a powerpoint for phone charging, it is great to see that our hard work didn't go to waste. We're hopeful that the next generation of teenagers in SB will grow up together with the fruit trees and use this centre for whatever they choose.

After finishing the adults sanitation lessons, we focussed our attention on the children of the village. We tried to make the lessons kid-friendly by creating picture cards to help the children discuss rubbish disposal, hygiene and water sanitation, then played a mud finger painting game and encouraged everyone to wash their hands properly.

To kickstart the lessons, we had a meeting with the school director, who reluctantly agreed to let us take up a few school hours to run the lessons for all of the six school grades. This didn't seem like too much to ask considering the entire school had shut for a day the week before so that all of the teachers could get drunk at a friends wedding!

Despite this, the lessons all went really well and the kids were very well behaved and interested. It was only the last lesson on a Friday afternoon that put a damper on things. Our lesson was supposed to go from 4.30 until 5.30pm, even though the kids usually knock off at 5. The teacher in charge wasn't really interested and wouldn't let us start until around 4.45. Ten minutes later we were told that everyone needed to come outside for the daily flag lowering and national anthem, which they usually only do once or twice a week. We argued and the teacher stormed off. Thankfully most of the kids hung around and appeared interested while we rushed through the last part of our lesson.

We've also been busy in the mornings, continuing with our group development project. The idea behind this project is to help motivate some families to make the most out of the land and materials they have been given. Out of a total of 18 family groups in the village, we decided to focus our attention on four of the most problematic, each group comprising about ten families. The idea is that all of the volunteers return to the same group over four mornings in a month to help them out in their fields. As well as helping to cut grass and build rows, we have developed a short group discussion session for each of the four mornings. The frustrating part of working with these 'problematic' groups is that most of the time the worst families are out selling labour at the nearby sugarcane plantation (for about $2.50 per day), or simply not interested. Incidentally the intended benefits of the program are misdirected to the more cooperative families within these groups, and not the ones that really need it. We're thinking that for next time around, it would be better to focus on a few of the better groups, in an effort to further improve them and set an example for others. Seeing as we're leaving though, this will be an exercise for the next group of willing volunteers.

One of the major problems with a lot of the families here is the inability of most of the villagers to think past their hammock and their next meal. Most of them grew up in the forest, where if they were hungry, they'd simply hunt wildlife, harvest forest fruits or cut down trees for trade at local markets. They lived one day at a time and never had the need or education to think about long term health and sustainable living practices. Some of these families have quickly adapted and learnt to live as a functioning community, but for others it is difficult to find motivation. Perhaps not helped by the fact that the project has given so much to these people and made them a little too dependent, the common difficulty with all of our projects is getting the community to actively participate. The positive thing is that after we tell them again and again, and literally drag them to meetings and activities, most of them seem to appreciate the social environment, enjoy themselves and even learn something. Whether or not our attempts will change the way they live, we have at least made them more aware of how they can improve the livelihood of their families in the near future. Hopefully they can soon do this without too much more help from all of us Barangs.

We were reminded of just how poor these families are when Chen, one of the keen young English teachers, started experiencing some family problems of his own. He's sister and niece both become sick. In order to pay for their necessary medication, Chen decided to drop out of school and join the less aspirational half of the village by working in the sugarcane plantation to earn some quick cash. We became worried when he started gambling the money (a common addiction faced by many of the villagers) instead of coming to our english classes, which he had specifically asked us for. Either due to depression or just exhaustion, our mate was noticeably spiraling downwards.

We decided to try to help out by offering him and a friend to take us for a forest trek. We would pay them $5 each for the day (twice what they would earn selling labour) and make them promise not to gamble the money and use it for school or their families. The boys jumped at the opportunity, although we're sure they would have taken us for nothing. Growing up in the forest, they showed us all the tastiest forest fruits and pointed out some exotic birds along the way. We all returned exhausted but happy and, possibly by coincidence, things seemed to improve from then for out mate.

Part of the reason for paying for a trek was to get the boys used to the idea of guiding tourists. One project that we didn't really get into is the promotion of ecotourism the village. At first we didn't like the idea of opening the village to tourists, but eventually we all started to realise that responsible tourism is Cambodia's best chance for sustainable development, as well as improving livelihoods. The village has a lot to offer for tourists, from traditional basket weaving to learning how to grow rice, and the profits raised could potentially go towards further development of the community. Seeing tourists interested in their way of life might even empower a stronger sense of pride among the families, and inspire them to work harder for each other.

Rony, the newest volunteer in the village, helped to get the idea of ecotourism started. She spent the last couple of weeks teaching four ladies from the community, as well as Yaara, Mary and Jess, how to give a professional massage. The girls all really enjoyed this and were grateful to learn a new skill. We're not sure yet whether they will use it for tourism, or just to please their husbands, but either way it seems like a good skill.

In the week leading up to our leaving, we were given a few more lasting memories of the village, some bad and some good. The worst was the sudden fatal illness of one young lady. She was a relative from outside of the village who came to visit. Apparently she saw a ghost in one of the fields and immediately became sick. Three days later she died. We were invited to the funeral, despite not knowing the family, where it is customary to give money to the suffering hosts. Things got worse at the funeral when we discovered that a five year old girl from next door had been raped that afternoon. The police were called and took the old man responsible into custody. The last thing we heard was that rather than pushing for a trial and possible counseling for the victim, her mother was opting for a money payout instead! It's really sad but so often the way things go with such poor living standards, desperate poverty and lack of education.

The mood was lightened considerably when we were invited to the wedding of Chen's older sister. Khmer weddings are always good fun, except for the usual hosts tendency to sit us at the table closest to the nine stacked amplifiers pumping out Khmer pop music so loud that we would need to stuff our ears with tissue paper and communicate with hand signals! This last wedding wasn't quite so offensive and turned out to be a great night drinking and dancing with all our favorite characters and friends in SB.. (sniff sniff).

We did feel bad leaving the village void of volunteers, but are confident that more help will come. There are definitely some problems with the village, and the organisation made a few mistakes in the initial management of the families, but it remains that SB is a completely unique project and a great example and learning experience for similar projects in the future. Before we left we were able to ask some of the families about their feelings, and were satisfied to hear that they were generally much happier with their new lives since being taken from the forests. After the organisation phases itself out, the dynamics of SB will change dramatically, but it is clear that the community is sufficiently robust to manage itself and hopefully continue to develop into the future of a country with huge potential.