Extended traveling is a lot of things. Exciting, boring, exhausting, relaxing, scary, amazing, humbling, new, and same-same but different, to name a few. But one thing I always find about long-term travel is the constant desire to have purpose.
Finding a path to not only concentrate your efforts in a healthy, helpful way in the community is – yes – dining at locals’ restaurants and enjoying art, culture and history of the place you’re in. But sometimes, you feel the tug to do more. To give more.
Our new friends Danny and Kristi told us about their experiences volunteering through a collective website when we were hanging out at the Everest Base Camp guesthouse we shared. I wrote it down in my journal, and put it away for 2 months. Finally, I signed up, and a few weeks later I got a message from Mr. Kim.
He wanted to know if Adam and I might want to volunteer with poor and orphaned Cambodian children at his center. I asked him a bunch of questions, fell in love with his cause, and told him we would let him know when we were close by.
We were looking for a volunteer opportunity but it was hard to know which place would benefit most from our time. The more I talked with Mr. Kim, the more sure I was that this was our place. We packed up and left the big city comforts of Phnom Penh, and made our way south to Takeo.
We showed a tuk tuk driver a note on our phone we couldn’t read, written in Khmer, by Mr. Kim. Phone calls started being made, and negotiations with drivers on the streets were being made on our behalf. Eventually we got a ride and trusted we were being taken where we wanted to go, we hit the road.
To our surprise, the driver dropped us off right in front of the center 1 hour later.
We were shown around by Louis, a French guy who had been at the CPOC for 2 months. We got straight to work building some raised beds in the garden.
When David, the full-time native speaking English teacher, arrived we were introduced and he asked us if we would like to participate in his class. We said absolutely, and joined him.
There were about 15 boys and girls (who split themselves into boys on one side, girls on the other) from ages 13-16. David instructed all of them to introduce themselves to us and they all told us their names, ages, nationalities, siblings, and parents jobs. Then, then asked us about ourselves. The amount of English they understood was impressive and they loved repeating our words to try to get their pronunciation honed in.
When David pointed at Adam, then at me, and said “Sanlanm” the class started giggling and blushing. David explained that he told them we were sweethearts and then maybe we started giggling a bit too.
We then joined the younger class (8-12) where we were able to ask them their ages. They struggled more and were shy, but loved asking us questions. When asked what I liked to do, I said “draw” which immediately turned into demand for drawings. Oops. As I started drawing simple things on the board they were screaming out their guesses in English! “Tree! Sun! Monkey!” It was the best pictionary game of my life.
After classes, we had dinner with the rest of the awesome volunteers, set up a mosquito net around our mattress, and passed out for the evening.
The rest of the days were spent painting, gardening, playing with the kids, cleaning, building, and helping Romain make a video about the center. See below!
The center is helping kids create a future for themselves. Families who otherwise would never be able to give these children an education can send their kids here to learn English for free. Mr. Kim has raised money to buy bikes that the kids and use to come attend classes. See how they get ready for their day here.
It’s an incredible place full of happy children who come everyday on their own accord to learn English after their Khmer classes are finished for the day. We couldn’t have thought of a better way to spend our time helping a community in need. If you would like to get involved, please contact Mr. Kim to find out the many ways you can help the school, and the children.
Mr. Kim Ny
CPOCinfo@yahoo.com
facebook.com/caringforpoorandorphanedchildren
http://www.gofundme.com/j1eogc
One Response
Comments are closed.