Katerina – Day 5 Chicken liver Chicken liver Chicken liver

Of all the things that could be considered challenging for me, the one thing I think I deserve a commendation for is eating food that I would never dare try. I don’t know whether I can safely say that I’ve learnt anything from my little incident, but probably that I should find out something before jumping right into your assumptions? Or maybe “try, you’ll like it” is not true. Either way, I’ve somehow unintentionally made myself step out of my comfort zone, which was what Challenge Week was for anyway.

Somya – Day 6 “It’s not a good-bye”

Today was our last day at Sok Sabay. The past few days with the children were amazing. Not only did they learn from us, but we learnt from them too. Saying “good-bye” is quite a hard thing to do, I realized. However, this wasn’t a good-bye. We promised the children that we would come back and we would not break our promise. They were quite smart actually, because the older ones told us how in the past when a few volunteers came they told the children that they would come back again, and they did, but after that they never came back again. The children were not exactly trying to make us feel guilty, they just want to know that they have people who love and care about them. So, this is one thing I have learnt; “empty promises”, never make them. As a group, The Hebat has decided after IB we will definitely go back to Sok Sabay because we support, care, and love these children. 

It was our last day to actually see Phnom Penh and so we went to the Central Market to do some shopping. It was more or less the same as the Russian Market. Kate and I were feeling a little light-headed due to dehydration and the heat so we decided to get lunch. We went into a shopping mall and had pizza’s at Pizza Company. Yes, I know what you are thinking…why pizza’s in Phnom Penh? Well, we were just craving for something western. After that went to the National Museum of Phonm Pehn. I was quite tired so I didn’t really concentrate on what I was reading or looking at. But, we took a lot of good pictures and I also met a Japanese man and had a conversation with him in Japanese. It is a significant part of our trip; to meet new people. One thing our group found quite challenging was the beggars. We found it quite hard to ignore many of them and so we had to give up a lot of change this whole trip. We just felt heart-less to not give them even a dollar, so it just got me thinking…how do people live here if everyday they have people coming after them for money. How can people have the heart to just ignore someone who is in need of food and shelter. I guess this was quite the challenging bit. 

At night we met our old P.E. teacher Mr. Rowdie. He took us to a nice Khmer restaurant, where we sat on the floor and ate. The food was delicious. The best meal we had so far in Phonm Penh. We talked a lot with him, asked him how his life was in Cambodia etc. I was quite fascinated by his courage of living in a LEDC country like Cambodia. Moving from Singapore to Phnom Penh must have been a huge change. He told us that the other night there was burglar in his house and that he jumped off a tuk-tuk because he was going to get beaten up. It was just amazing, hearing all his stories. I was inspired by the way he was living his life. And with the laughs, the gossip, the screaming, our day ended. 

Day 4 – Vinay: Little Heaven

Phnom Penh is one city which struck me as unforgettable. For one, I have never seen so many SUVs in a single city! Look left, there’s a Land Cruiser. Look right- it’s a Range Rover. The whole city is crawling with them, and I guess the low fuel prices have something to do with that. Pollution? Who cares, they say. Social awareness certainly isn’t what you find in the average resident of Phnom Penh. With its illicit child trafficking, rampant illegal narcotics industry, coupled with the horrors of the Pol Pot regime, Phnom Penh is no utopia city. Unlike one city, where you get caned for shoplifting.

Despite these, places like Sok Sabay are beacons of light in the otherwise dark city. We were left at a loss for words for Marie, the founder of the organisation, for her laudable contribution to the city’s society. She has created smiles where you would least expect it- on the faces of mistreated children.

The children are so enthused by the atmosphere there. Sok Sabay really exemplifies the ‘home’ aspect of a children’s home. In the edges of the walls, you find a lush row of foliage, and through there are trees placed in comfortable locations all about the main square. This multipurpose square is a familiar sight to every child- you see it as you enter, and you play games, paint, make music and assemble there. Everything works well here at Sok Sabay; the dining hall is compact yet conveniently located, plus you’ll find a well equipped computer lab and music room. There’s even a library here. Harmony is omnipresent; the eleven feline residents here get along perfectly well with their two canine counterparts. In the words of Dara, a 10 year old resident here, it’s a ‘little heaven’.

However, despite the seemingly impeccable environment at Sok Sabay, one cannot ignore facts. As I play with the kids, they smile and often laugh at whatever I do, just to please me. Sometimes, though, I see their laughs are feigned, their smiles holding a tinge of resentment. No matter how happy the appear, I still notice at the corner of the children’s shirts, which reads “Center for Mistreated Children” in bold lettering. Their past remains tragic, and their household traumas are not easy to forget. It’s amazing to see how we can move on from such tragedy. Marie gave the anecdote of the evolution of the drawings which children create in their time at the home; and how they progressively lose their pictoral  moroseness. They eventually employ happy images to convey their state of mind. Children at the home, evidently move toward a happier and more promisning future – last year, 11 out of the 13 of the residents of Sok Sabay got university placments, with some of them aspiring doctors and lawyers.

It just makes me wonder, if more ‘little heavens’ like Sok Sabay could open up around the world. A little bit of concern from individuals can create such a better place of societies- supporting the underprivileged, the sick, the mistreated and the lonely. As I would say as a Lasallian, helping the Last, the Lost, and the Least. The opportunity to actually apply this principle pragmatically over the past few days has been nothing short of an honour for me. The smiles and the knowledge I, hopefully, inspired, were not temporary but ones of true meaning. I understand, now, the value of social awareness. It all started with Marie’s concern for the mistreated children of Phnom Phen. The concern multiplies in significance- creating joy, wisdom, strength and resilience. A little bit of concern, it seems, can do so much. Little heavens need to be more prevalant in our world. Let’s make this big world a big heaven.

Day 3 – Shweta “Late”

Expected Wake Up Time for Hebats: 7.30AM

Expected Time Of Departure from The 252 Hotel: 8.40AM

Expected Time Of Arrival at Sok Sabay Home For Mistreated Children: 9AM

Notice how all of that was labelled “Expected”?

None of the Hebat members have been known for having “punctuality issues”; aside from Vinay being ridiculously late and Kenny being overly early, the rest are just about on time (almost) always. HOWEVER, we’ve been having some timing problems since pre-Day 1.

So there we are, having breakfast… at 8.30AM (Okay, maybe 8.15AM, but we’re pretty much lost in time on this side of SEA). Then we reach Sok Sabay at 9.30AM, and right before we entered the home, I went, “Err, what if we walk in and we find everyone seated in patience, and have been waiting for us for the past half an hour!?” Then Kat goes, “Now I feel bad, don’t say that!”
Well, we walked through the gate, and there’s children everyone, so I guess they weren’t terribly bothered by our lack of punctuality. But, we feel terrible anyway, and that’s the point here: Actually feeling SOMETHING about your actions.

Bet you have no idea what I’m talking about, so I’ll take you into a little episode that occurred today, which most of you readers who are familiar with our group members may find highly unsurprising.

We headed off to the Phnom Penh’s renowned Russian Market this evening, and…

Wait, I’ll just touch upon what this Russian Market really is, or else you’re just left thinking that it’s a market filled with Russian businessmen, or if you ever have thought of Cambodia as an corrupt, “inappropriate” nation, NO, it’s not a market for where men sell off Russian escorts for “pleasure, love and marriage”, as some of the Cambodian adverts have referred to this activity to pursue.

The Russian Market is a budget sales square that sells items ranging from factory rejects of branded items, such as Ray Bans and LV, local souvenirs, such as book marks with icons of traditional Khmer characters attached to them or purses and bags made out of recycled material (which I bought a few of, because they’re just THAT cool!). The Russian Market has seen cases of tourists getting their valuables getting lifted out of their pockets, but I suppose we were fortunate to not have lost anything, YET. Obviously, with a name like “the Russian Market” it HAS to be a tourist destination. I can tell you that the sales people at the market were NOT Russian, nor were there many Russian tourists, quite a few Asians actually. Maybe the Russians had that little bit of territory in Russia a while ago, or instead of having a colony that is about the size of SJII’s soccer pitch(es), which is very unlikely, maybe the Russians had some influence in this part of Phnom Penh. But wait… I don’t remember learning anything about Russians in Cambodia in History.
Oh, whatever.

ANYWAY
We’re at the end of our round of the Russian Market, bargained some items, smiled at the sales people who we didn’t give any business to, did some charity work through donations and such… Then we’re waiting for Vinay. Again.

Vinay wasn’t even meant to run off in the first place! But he’s been going on and on about how much he enjoyed bringing down prices at the market and all, I guess we can’t take away that fun away from him, so we let him run off and told him to meet us all back at the place we first got off. And, he’s late.
So we wait.
And we wait.
And wait some more.
And wait, and wait, wait and wait, and WAIT (while Richard heroically goes off to find Vinay… for 15 minutes)

“Let’s prank Vinay”, Kat says. In the meantime, Somya’s going on and on (not aimlessly) ranting about the anger she’s experiencing because Vinay was LATE. Kat resolved that to teach Vinay a lesson, we’d have to make him feel that his lateness could cost a person his or her life – which is very possible because if Vinay hadn’t gotten lost, Richard wouldn’t have had to run off to look for him, and should anything bad happen to our Richard, someone somewhere would fall into deadly depression and… DIE.

SO, when Vinay finally came, he saw Somya looking all fainty, almost dying of dehydration, and if Kat and I hadn’t screamed at him or made a fuss out of Somya over there, almost dying, he wouldn’t have noticed! And, the “sorries” he displayed seemed so… meaningless.

Several hours later, Somya straightened him out, and caused him to have a majorly sleepless night.

Moral: Lack of punctuality only causes disadvantage to “the late one”.

The end.

Ps. Vinay, if you’re reading this:  YOU’RE STILL A HEBAT MEMBER AND WE WON’T ABANDON YOU IN SOME FOREIGN MARKET AND LET YOU GET KIDNAPPED, THEN SOLD OFF TO TEENAGE SLAVERY.

Pps. If he doesn’t make it through Challenge Week, you know exactly what happened. And it won’t be the Hebats’ fault because HE WAS LATE.

Day 2 – Richard, First tuk-tuk ride

Woke up at 6.30 AM today. After the morning shower, I had breakfast at the hotel. The coffee was quite good, definitely better than the one in Tioman Island! I had two cups of it this morning, could not imagine what would happen if I did not take it. It really kept me awake all day. Anyway, this was our first day of service, we took two tuk-tuks to get to our service place, Sok Sabay. At first we were kinda deceived to rent two tuk-tuks, but actually we found that we could fit exactly 6 persons into one tuk-tuk, so the next time, we only took one.

The service that we did was amazing, we had a really insightful time with the children there. The children are those who had been mistreated and abused in their families. So they were taken away and kept safe in an undisclosed location by a French woman called Marie. We did play a lot of games just to get in touch with them for the first time, and the response was positive. Quite happy to see that.

There were two batches of children, the morning and the afternoon batch. In the morning, there were more children, ranging from age 6 to 19. However, the afternoon batch had only 10 children in total. But it did not diminish our excitement and enthusiasm to play and learn together with them.

Basically, today was an introductory day, a lot of games and talking. Kenny, Vinay and I even played ‘mini-soccer’ in the afternoon. Although it was only 9 AM – 2 PM, it was really tiring because of the scorching weather.

After that, we had a lunch at a sports club nearby Sok Sabay. Well, i must say that i was not really fulfilling but it was compromised by the delectable local Khmer food we had in the afternoon at the Sugar Palm. It was really affordable, $46 for 6 persons.

Later on, we alas had a short city sightseeing tour with our tuk-tuk driver, Richard (yes the same name as me). Phnom penh was a vibrant city at night.

Overall, it was a fun day and looking forward to enjoy the remaining days here in Phnom Penh.

Click here to look at the pictures from the second day

Kenny – day 1 the journey

The day finally come for us the fly to Phnom Penh. We arrived at Changi at about midday with the exception of Kat and Shweta who arrived just 5 minutes before the check in desk closes.
Nevertheless we managed to check in and hop on Jetstar’s A320 to Siem Reap. Siem reap’s airport was beautiful but we stayed there only for 20 minutes before we got on the flight to Phnom Penh.
At about 6PM local time, we arrived at Phnom Penh. Immigration was smooth and quick (surprisingly) and it didn’t take us long before we are in the van leaving for the hotel.
First impression of Phnom Penh, Jakarta without the skyscrapers. Traffic jam, traffic jam, traffic jam. The city is not as well developed as Jakarta. Not many traffic lights around and the traffic was just chaotic. We are really looking forward to spending some challenging time here.
The hotel we’re staying in, the 252 is a really lovely one. The owner who’s French, welcomed us really warmly and he even knows Ms Marie from Sok Sabay.
We got on to work straight after dinner and started planning for the lessons tomorrow. We really are looking forward to spending time with the kids. We have also brought with us a bunch of clothes, sweets, pencil cases and coloring pencils for the kids kindly donated by out parents.
So far so good, hopefully it will stay that way.

 

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