Hi!

I have had a fantastic week! But have been extremely busy.

I went to Kampot last Saturday (on the public bus which took over 7 hours!!!) to meet Katie who is Helena's cousin. Katie runs the Cambodian arm of a UK charity called Epic Arts which encourages integration of disabled people into the community through art. In Kampot the charity has a cafe which is run by a mixture of deaf and disabled Cambodians. The plan was that I was going to go there and run a few card making workshops with the deaf students (who hang out at the cafe during their lunch breaks and after school) and maybe think up some new ideas for the menu.

I spent Saturday exploring Kampot (as I didn't get much time there on my tour), and went to a stationary shop and bought some card and other stuff to have a practice making some cards.

On Sunday I went to the cafe so that I could get a motorbike out to Katie's house. The only problem with this plan is that the motor bike didn't turn up at the cafe so I had to try to explain to the Cambodian staff that I needed to go to Katie's house. Anyway - 15 minutes later I was on the back of a motor bike with a driver who knew the vague direction of her house! I made it to her house after only one wrong turn (we went one rice paddy field along too many).

Katie and her husband Hal have a lovely Cambodian stilt house by the river with their very own rice paddy field.

On arriving at the house I met Katie, Hal, some of the deaf kids and Polly (Katie's friend who was down from Phnom Penh (PP) for the weekend). By the end of the afternoon it soon became clear that I was going to have a very busy week! There is a lack of accountants in Cambodia so I volunteered to look over the systems in place a t the Cafe, at the office in PP, and at Polly's NGO in PP, as well as run a couple of card making workshops.

That night was really fun. Hal took Polly back to PP leaving Katie and I in the house. I was sat on the balcony trying out car ideas when Katie asked some of her neighbour's kids if they wanted to come around and draw pictures (Katie speaks Cambodian). In the kids came and I gave them some papers, coloured pencils and felt tips to get going with. But they just sat there looking at me blankly so I thought I'd draw a picture for them - so I drew a stilt house. One of the kids quickly coloured it in, and after that Katie took requests from the kids whilst I drew the pictures. The kids were quite particular about what they wanted e.g. a mango tree, a banana tree and lady holding a cat! Given that I haven't drawn a picture for about 8 years (an am not an expert on Cambodian trees) I don't think they were too bad!!

The next day I ran a workshop with the deaf kids. They were great we had glue and paper everywhere - and the finished cards were lovely (pictures to be posted soon). The kids glued different coloured tissue paper onto a piece of paper, then cut out a shape (e.g. hands) from card then stuck the paper behind it - very effective even if I do say so myself!

The staff at the cafe were lovely - one of the ladies gave me a sign name which is either dimples or smiler (I have to point at my dimples and smile to say my name!). They weren't too keen on the garlic bread I made for them though, they prefer to stick to rice.

On Wednesday morning I took a shared taxi up to PP (which amazingly took 2.5 hours!!!). Katie had advised me to get 2 seats in the taxi which was a great investment. The taxi was a normal sized car that in England we would fit 4 passengers plus the driver in. In Cambodia such a car is used for the driver, plus 2 passengers in the front and 4 in the back (plus any babies/kids on knees).

Polly met me at hotel near her house in PP, and took me back to her house on her moto (It is perfectly normal in Asia for 2-4 maybe even 5 people to fit on one bike - crazy!!) . After lunch with Polly and the two Cambodian ladies (Teary and Nary) who run the NGO (a school for kids from a local slum, and kids who collect litter), I did some accounts "training".

Later that day I met up with Hannah - who works for Epic Arts in PP. We had a coffee and discussed accounts then I went to see her house. It is a lovely flat in a French style building.

That night Hannah, Polly and I went out for dinner. We also met up with Vaughn - an Australian business man who spent 7 weeks in Cambodia last year and now seems to know all the ex pats in PP.

The next a girl called Fran arrived at Polly’s. Fran potentially is going to help Polly run the school. Fran, Polly, Hannah, Vaughn and I all went out for tapas that night. It was a fun evening. Some how we ended up getting through 7 bottles of wine with dinner. We were the last ones to leave the restaurant! After the restaurant we went to a bar which was PPs equivalent of the Tuxedo Princess in Newcastle in that it was a boat and it had a circular dance floor! I asked the bar man if the dance floor rotated but it didn't - I took a picture though (I'm sure people will see the resemblance)!

The next night (or afternoon) we went to Raffles "Elephant Bar" for cocktails. It was very posh!

Today I travel to Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam. I start a 21 day tour of Vietnam on Sunday - it should be good!

Love Louise x