Our Time in Kampot

We returned to the building site early Saturday morning and right away started to help carry lumber for the walls of the house. Unfortunately, we couldn't help with the house as much as we wanted to, because most of the builders were out working at the nearby salt marshes. We all decided to go on a long bike ride around the salt fields. Despite the bumpy terrain, we all enjoyed the scenery and had a lot of fun.
Yesterday morning we got up early and headed for the Kampot Pepper Plant. Our tour guide explained the different types of pepper (black, white, red) and how they are grown. He took us to look at the plants, and then we all had the chance to purchase pepper. After our tour, we headed back to the hotel and got ready to go to Epic Arts. Epic Arts is a school for deaf and disabled kids. The kids told us about their life in Cambodia and about Epic Arts, and in turn we explained American society and our everyday life. What we said was translated into Khmer, and then translated again into Cambodian sign language. Then, all of the kids came up with names for each of us in sign language. During our first day at Epic Arts, we didn't really get a chance to interact directly with the kids because most of the time was taken up with performances.
This morning at 8:00 we returned to Epic Arts and got right into group theater games (taught by Mrs. Bovard) with all of the kids. It was a lot of fun, and a new experience for some of the travelers who aren't into theater and dance. We all gave it a shot, and had a lot of fun working together with the kids. Maggie and I got a chance to show the types of dance we do at home. I did a tap demonstration and Maggie did ballet. For the rest of the day we played different games and got to know each other better. By the end of the day we felt we had made connections at Epic Arts and felt sad to say goodbye.
Tomorrow morning we will visit the building site to see how the house looks upon completion. We are also going on a 26 mile boat ride and will get the chance to go swimming.
Hope all is well at home!
-Lauren

Photos from Kampot

More Photos

The group woke up nice and energetic for a new setting: Kampot! As our jet lag started to ware off, we walked over to a restaurant where we would eat our last breakfast in Phnom Penh. It only catered to foreigners, so the cuisine was very familiar but certainly tasty. The car ride to Kampot was about four hours long. We stopped after only an hour of driving to see the killing fields where the prisoners from Toul Sleng were taken. There was one main temple in the middle of the museum that held over 30,000 skulls. While walking around the morbid fields where so many people were tortured, the student travelers met three kids: two 10 year olds and one 7 year old. They spoke very good English because they learned it in school. We gave each one of them a dollar, and when we asked what they were going to do with the money they said they would buy books for school. All of us agreed that whether or not the money would go toward books, it would be a big help. We finally arrived in Kampot by 2:30. Our first priority after getting settled into the hotel was finding a place to eat. There was another foreigner restaurant just down the street from our hotel. Unlike Phnom Penh, the streets are wider and much less crowded. We were all very excited to learn that for the next week we will be using bicycles as our source of source of transportation. It was a low key first day in Kampot, but the next day would be the opposite. We woke up nice and earlier: 6:30am. After a nourishing breakfast we biked down the street to Epic Arts (an organization like Cambodia Living Arts). Our mission today was to help a family build a house. The oldest lady of the house was 70 years old and could not walk because of her knee. The first task was to demolish the current house they were living in which was falling apart and infested with bugs- that was the easy part. We started to build the new home which is not done yet. In the middle of our six hour work day we took a walk through the village. It was beautiful. There was a perfect view of the tall mountains and palm trees sitting on the ground, making for a great picture. Before we left to take showers (which we were all anxious for) we stopped at a school. We sat at the tables where the kids were sitting and asked them questions. Not surprisingly, they all spoke very good English for their age. Tomorrow we will return to finish building the house. This is the first Watkinson has done housebuilding in Kampot. We hope to continue this for the next years.
-Haleigh MacCloy

First Few Days

Following our extensive plane ride halfway around the world, our exhausted group arrived at our hotel around midnight on Monday. After a good night's sleep we went to a breakfast place, where most of us tried out some Cambodian crepes. After filling ourselves, we went for a brief walking tour around the city (Phnom Penh). After a short rest period, we were back on our feet for our next adventure, and it certainly was one. We got to ride through the streets on siklos. Essentially, you sit in a bucket seat attached to the front of a bike and are pushed through town like this. If we hadn't caught everyone's attention before getting in these siklos, we certainly did after. Regardless, the experience was unforgettable and fun. The siklo tour lead us through the history of one of the more recent happenings in Phnom Penh. A building along with a shanty colony, giving shelter to many people, especially artists were torn down. It was sad to see the conditions these people had to live in, but everyone seemed pretty happy which was fairly reassuring. After a nice dinner, our group was treated to a performance by one of the classes at the Cambodian Living Arts. Their dancing, singing, acting and musical skills were very impressive, but after the performance we were more than ready for our beds. After another sound night's sleep we were back in action. This morning we traveled to the dump, which was a true eye opener in realizing how fortunate we really are. To see people sifting through, and living in raw garbage was a sad sight. After we had enough of the sights and smells of the dump, we donated our shoes to the people living there, and we were off to breakfast. Following breakfast we went to the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. This museum was dedicated to the people who had been kidnapped, imprisoned, tortured, and murdered by Pol Pot and his regime. We got to go into the cells, see some of the instruments used and look at pictures of the victims. It was a very morbid period for all of us, dominated mostly by silence. After our visit, we came back to the hotel for a bit of a rest break. Our next stop was Cambodian Living Arts, where we met back up with Seng Song (a Cambodian who had traveled to America and met with our group in the spring). Maggie put on her tap shoes and showed the eager Seng a bit about tap. We then got to meet one of CLA's more talented musicians, a girl who played an instrument similar to that of the xylophone. She was very nice and spoke English incredibly well. We then did a bit more walking and then got some dinner. Now we are back at the hotel, getting ready for bed. It has been a very busy two days here, but we are all enjoying ourselves and learning a lot. We are excited to continue our adventure when we leave tomorrow for Kampot. Haleigh will be making another post in a few days, so stay tuned!
--Patrick O.

A few photos from Phnom Penh

All is well here. We are off to Kampot tomorrow. Should have our first student post up later today, SE Asia time.

Writing in Khmer

Seng taught us to write our names.