Yesterday was my last day of school, and as it was Chinese New Year I brought coloured paper and glitter glue into school so we could make Chinese lanterns. There was no scheduled classes for the day and when I arrived the children had already been drawing pictures, but they loved the idea of the glitter glue and by the end of the day we all had glitter everywhere! Some of them grasped the idea of the lanterns, but mostly they were happy to make cards and draw pi...

On Sunday Anne and I went to a wedding out in Banteay Srey so a couple of weeks ago we bought material from the market and took it to a dressmakers along with a dress design. We were supposed to be able to pick them up on Thursday but they weren't ready, nor were they ready on Friday. On Saturday afternoon we turned up at the dressmakers and although my dress was complete, Anne's was still in little pieces waiting to be sewn together. When I tried my dress on it ...

This week we have had 11 new volunteers from Britain, Germany, Norway and the Netherlands. Only half of them have been able to fit in the volunteer house whilst the remainder are at a guest house which isn't great as it always means they don't get to integrate so well. I am one of the longest volunteers now which is weird so I have been trying to impart my wisdom to the "newbies". Although they've been here for less that a week I feel like we've done a ...

Last week was a week of goodbyes with four volunteers leaving, including one of my closest friends Fern. On Friday I went to Fern's school with her for her leaving party which was so much fun. She definitely got dealt the short straw when she came out here as her placement, Helping Hands, is a 45 minute moto ride along a very bumpy dirt track, but the upside being that she got to drive past Angkor Wat everyday. When we arrived at her school she planted a tree and...

Yesterday Fern and I took a tuk-tuk to the Cambodia Landmine Museum (www.cambodialandminemuseum.org) by Banteay Srey about 30km outside Siem Reap town. The drive took about 45 minutes and was through varied countryside making it an interesting ride. On the way our driver stopped at a silk workshop so we could take a peek inside, and although it was really interesting, we discovered that it is run by the Artisan's Silk Farm which we visited in our first week, and ...