So after over 4 months of unemployment it was time to brush off the cob webs and get back to work, well, if only for a week.

Kim had found some volunteer work for 'Cambodia World Family' a dental charity in Phnom Penh, run by an Australian guy. I managed to find a voluntary job as an English teacher! Below is a little summary of our time in the capital.

Kim: My days began at 7am, which was a shock to me. I took a 10min tuk-tuk to the clinic, each day we would see about 60 kids from various different centers around the city. Treatment primarily involved pain relief and trying to save the first adult molars and central incisor teeth. Somedays the kids might have to wait for 1-2 hrs for their turn but were so well behaved when having any treatment. We would treat kids from various orphanages, disabled schools and centers caring for scavenger kids (These kids previously worked on rubbish dumps gathering plastic bottles and cans earning about $1 per day, just enough to live of. Most have parents who still live and work on the dumps, the center cares for them Mon- Sat giving them shelter/food/education and then they spend Sunday with their families.) The clinic also sees adults from the womens crisis center and land mine victims.

Dr Robert (the Director) has invested a lot of time and money into "his baby", he has developed a model were he employs bright young girls from orphanages or from difficult backgrounds and then trains them as nurses. Some of the older girls are now themselves directors of the clinic and very skillful therapists so the project has a sustainable future. The girls work in the clinic from 6am- 1pm, they have time in the afternoon for homework and then are all attending college in the evening. Dr Robert has huge enthusiasm for the work he's doing, he even had Brian and I painting the clinic on the weekend!!

Most evenings we ate out with some of the other volunteers. The nurses joined us too and were able to take us to local restaurants and do all the ordering for us. Cambodias list of bizzare foods is incredible, they eat all sorts of insects, duck egg embryos. I even tried fried trianchula!! Yum! BBQ'd frog was also consumed and was pretty tasty.

Brian: I spent a couple of days at Save poor Children in Asia Organisation. It is set up by a Cambodian man who looks after 17 orphaned or disadvantaged kids from all around the country. Donations allow the kids to attend school and also volunteers come to teach in some of the 5 classes per day. I was lucky to have met a few teachers from Bangkok at Oktoberfest on the weekend, so they had lots of teaching techniques to tell me. After introductions and question time we worked from a text book and then played some games. It was a fantastic insight into how these resilient kids live and how they are determined to grab themselves a better life.

Our last night was spent at a disco for the local kids in one of the slum areas it was run by one of the of the charities who were treated at the dental clinc during the week. It was probably the rowdiest disco we've ever been too, lots of kids jostling for attention, all were amazing dancers and loved to show off their break dancing.

We said a sad good bye to all the staff and remaining volunteers and headed north to Siem Reap.