Oulin White

5 December 2009

Walking Among the Khmers

Posted by oulin under: travel .

I am sitting in this Belgian café in Kuta, Bali trying to recollect the memory of my days in Cambodia. It feels like ages ago especially with all the half naked blonde people running around on their roaring motorbikes with surfboards attached.

It wasn’t too complicated to cross the boarder from Laos into Cambodia. The $1 bills I particularly saved up for this country became very useful since that point.  US dollar was use just as much as the local currency in Cambodia which was quite bizarre to us at first. With my great travel buddies Lena and Jess, we spent a couple days in Phnom Penh for the killing field and PIO’s orphanage and school at the slum. Learning about the history of Khmer Rough reminded me a lot of the Cultural Revolution in China although it’s a completely different issue. However, the similarity in craziness shook me just the same. Failing to hear back from Riverkids, I decided to volunteer with PIO after my trip to Sinhanouville. Then we headed to Siem Reap. There were still sights of damages from the typhoon all over the country. Red earth was washed off from the mountains and fields covering the main highway as we were riding on a bloody road. It was raining in Siem Reap most of the time. Fortunately it was sunny when we were visiting the most interesting parts of Angkor Wat. After seeing so many images of these amazing wats, it’s still fascinating to be inside them. It was indeed a miracle how the ancient people managed to move those massive rocks and built their holy temples. And the stone carvings were so incredible that I was obsessively looking at them which made my neck ache after the morning. Of course that we couldn’t immune from the lure of the night market and both Jess and I bought many Kramas (local scarf) I have to say the Cambodian food was still my favorite during this trip. It’s so rich in flavor mixed by herbs, ginger, saffron and coconut milk. I attended a cooking class and learned how to make Amok my favorite dish from scratch!! I kept some recipes and would definitely try to cook them later on.

Lena left us for Vietnam after 3 days in Siem Reap and I parted with Jess after our trip to the seaside a few days later. I started my one week volunteer experience with PIO two days after I got back to Phnom Penh. It was definitely the most rewarding experience I had in my life. All the kids were absolutely gorgeous and so eager to learn. They were living in absolute poverty but with dignity. All were very polite with only hope for love instead of any material items. They offered me their great affection and the sweetest smiles in the world. I played with them in between classes and learned their little games. I taught them how to bowl using the plastic pins and balls, and it became their favorite game after school. I wished I had more time for them. I was teaching mostly grade 5 and 6. I tried my best to teach them as much as I could in that week. Not only teaching English language, I also encouraged them to think out of the box, be creative and do more independent thinking. It’s obviously a new concept to them that one question could have more than one answer. Their eyes widened and jaws dropped when I told them they should even challenge the teachers sometimes. Haha… Yes! my dear children, you can be smarter than the teacher sometimes! By the end of the week, I felt so connected to the children especially the six-graders. They all wrote me a note about themselves so I could remember them in the future. Nothing could compare this fulfilling feeling that I might have made a difference in those kids’ lives. This extraordinary experience confirmed my thought of working with NGOs in the future. Quitting my job in Shanghai and seek for change in that direction probably was the most correct decision I’ve made in my life 

Ah, I shall soon send those kids their photos and some gifts before they thought I forgot about them already!

For more photos, please go to: “http://www.flickr.com/photos/37833026@N06/sets/72157622570246371/

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