Kampot part 2...

• Dunkersandbish's Profile
• About this blog
• Entry from Kampot

Trip Start Dec 05, 2010 Previous
Entry Trip End Aug 05, 2011 Next
Entry

  Kampot, Cambodia
Sunday, May 29, 2011

Sadly after 11 nights in intriguing and gripping Kampot we have left for Kho Kong in the wild west to explore the mangroves and beaches but here are our thoughts on a place that grabbed hold of us and we didn't want to let go. It'll be in our hearts forever.

Volunteering at the ASPECA orphanage was an experience that we’ll both cherish forever. The children were incredibly inspiring and although we couldn’t communicate much verbally with them, we shared many good times and felt humbled by their life experiences.

One of the youngest children was a 12 month old boy who spends most of his day banging his head against the floor or sticking his fingers in his eyes (he is blind). The older children all look out for him and care for him as best they could, plastering up the cuts on his head and washing his clothes. But sadly this boy was on his own the majority of the time, he didn’t cry or reach out for a hug he just led there with his dummy.

I managed to spend a lot of time with him and towards the end of our time together, I took him outside and ran around the playground with him in my arms, he began laughing and I pulled his dummy out to see a huge wide smile. This was the first time I’d heard him make a noise since meeting him. I sat with him on my lap bouncing up and down and didn’t want to let him go, knowing what he was going back to.

The teaching we did was pretty adhoc with a single textbook we’d bought and some colouring things. Most of the children were able to repeat back what we had taught them but couldn’t read English letters or words so it was more a case of them learning through rote rather than through understanding the language.

The children seemed to have a single teacher who didn’t appear to do any actual teaching whilst we were there. I think she takes more of a pastoral role as a 'Mum’ rather than teaching academic lessons that other Cambodian children would be learning. When we arrived most days the children were lazed out watching tv. There was a school attached to the orphanage but those children and especially the teachers did not interact with the children we were working with. One of the teachers did come over and chatted with us, eager to learn some English. Sadly he arrived every day to meet us to practice but was too nervous to talk to us and soon left!

Russ enjoyed the teaching and found favour a little boy named 'Tien’ who we were told at the start of the week couldn’t write English or speak English. By the end of our time there, he hung off Russell’s high 5’s and was able to copy writing and say some words in English too. It was a lovely feeling knowing that he’d been inspired and was more confident.

By our last day, the children were clinging to us, eager for us to give them ‘high 5s’ for the English words they’d learnt and cavorting around desperate for us take their photos, their photo with russ, their photo with me…..they loved the camera, and the camera loved them. One girl who had been a bit abrupt with us at the start, had made me, her and another girl, crowns made from flowers and braded flowers through my hair. The girls sang traditional Cambodian songs for us and insisted that I should keep the flowers in my hair and my glasses off, as I was ‘most beautiful’ that way. Lovely!

We both felt strongly that we wanted to contribute to the orphanage in a way that would benefit the children rather than line some corrupt manager’s pocket, so we bought 200kg of rice for them. Apparently this will feed the children for 2 months. The director of the orphanage presented us with a basket of bananas, t-shirts and traditional Khmer scarfs. We were overwhelmed and didn’t want to leave but we had already told the children we were leaving so we rode off on our rickety, rusty bikes feeling sad and looking back over our shoulders.

When we’d finished at the orphanage, we had a day out nursing our wounds seeing the sights on a tuk tuk. Our tuk tuk broke down with a dodgy gear after the driver had filled up the water tank 3 times in a couple of hours that morning and appeared to have at least one slow puncture. Without all the bureaucracy of back home we pushed the bike into the next small village and a mechanic arrived in minutes, fitted a new gear mechanism and we were on the road within the hour.

Back on the road we stopped at some fruit farms and tasted to infamous ‘Durian’ fruit which I agree smells like baby poo but Russ loved. We picked mango fresh from the tree and went to a pepper plantation which was awesome. The area produces tonnes of ‘Kampot’ pepper for export; the peppercorns we tasted were incredibly fiery!

So sadly, we had to leave the lovely Kampot, the beautiful funny kids, the great Captain Chims restaurant, the luxury of cosy elephant guest house, and riding around on our beat up old bikes. Thanks Kampot for the great memories x

Slideshow Share

Post your own travel photos for friends and family More Pictures

ASPECA orphanage, Kampot, Cambodia	parking of the rickety bikes, Kampot, Cambodia	ASPECA orphanage, Kampot, Cambodia	ASPECA orphanage, Kampot, Cambodia
ASPECA orphanage, Kampot, Cambodia	ASPECA orphanage, Kampot, Cambodia	ASPECA orphanage, Kampot, Cambodia	ASPECA orphanage, Kampot, Cambodia

Previous Entry Next Entry