Hung out at hostel this morning as we were going to school for the first time this afternoon. Jess went off to another school with the Spanish guys as she's looking to swap cos her monk school is a bit odd. Joni decided to cone to shcc this afternoon with us instead of going in the morning. Turned out to be a good plan as when we got there at 1 we found out it was a buddist festival day so no kids had came to school in the morning. Sambath thought the same might happen in the afternoon so organised to have a staff meeting and decided to just show us round today. One of the local teachers took the 4 of us out on bikes to cycle round the villages and meet the local people that the school helps. Incredible journey on bikes riding on bumpy dirt roads with the most amazing scenery and local people smiling and waving and shouting hello to us. The houses are just sheds made from straw or wood or cardboard and there are no shops or home comforts but amazing happy people everywhere. We stopped at a shcc school building that is much further out than the one we are in and so doesn't have volunteers working there, immediately we were surrounded by about 60 kids all saying hello or standing and staring at us. 4 or 5 teenage boys didn't come over but just hung about the big tree and acted really cool while trying hard not to let us see them looking at us, was really funny to see that no matter how remote a place is you still get the wee gang who are too cool!
Cycled back to the schoool in time for afternoon classes starting but fully expected no one to turn up however the kids love the place so much that over 200 turned up so while the teachers had their meeting the trainee teachers plus me and joni did games outside. Lewie went off and played football with the boys while tess joined in with the games. Both of them just took to it really quickly and had a great time. After playing games all afternoon the kids lined up to say bye and sing some songs, after 3 songs one of the teachers said that the chidren wanted joni and I to sing them a song..we were totally unprepared for this but 5 minutes later found ourselves standing in front of 200 Cambodian children singing head, shoulders, knees and toes to them - their teacher insisted that they knew the song and would join in but obviously they decided it would be much funnier to just let joni and I duet really loudly, and really badly! It was really funny though, a great moment!
Due to the festival/holiday day today we weren't told what we would ne doing for next 3 weeks so sambath arranged to meet us for dinner at jasmine lodge and go through what our jobs would be. Although we enjoyed playing with the kids neither joni or I could see ourselves as teachers which I think the staff must have realised so when we had dinner sambath gave joni the job of helping set up a new tour programme of the villages while I'll be helping to get the organic farm up and running - quite a bit of manual labour but will be really worth while and I think I'll feel more like I've achieved something rather than just standing in s classroom speaking English all day. Lewie is on football duty (he's clearly pleased with that) and Tess is helping in the classrooms with games and English but they can join me in the garden whenever they like.
Just stayed in tonight with the kids, joni and jess. A few other people arrived who are also volunteering on various projects so was a good night just sitting round chatting to each other. We've all arrived at the sane time and are all doing approx 3 weeks work so it should be good staying here and coming home fro
work every day to friendly faces.
Agreed to cycle tomorrow with dee and naseem - a one hour trip on dirt roads - and it's now started pouring with rain. Should be a fun ride!