Placement visit week

We’re now on placement visit week so I am in a guesthouse in Sen Monorom, the town where I will be living. Daniel (the other volunteer coming to this area) and I arrived on Sunday on a bus journey that was nowhere near as bad as I was expecting. Lonely Planet says the place is “only for the hardcore” but luckily they have just finished building a tarmac road all the way to Sen Monorom, so the less hardcore can also come. Unless by ‘hardcore’ Lonely Planet was referring to the megaloud Cambodian karaoke music videos (mostly involving love in the countryside, with lots of tea-towel-wearing and rice farming) which they played non-stop for the entire bus journey. That was admittedly quite a trial.

Anyway, we arrived about 4.30pm and chatted to some friendly motorbike-taxi drivers, which was nice although probably quite annoying for them when it turned out our guesthouse was about 25 metres away. We left our bags there and then Charlotte, the current volunteer who I’ll be taking over from, took us to a house-warming afternoon for a British-Swedish couple and their children. We met some nice people there and had some proper tea with milk, before going to a decent restaurant for dinner.

Sen Monorom is as small as I was expecting and there’s nothing really happening in the evenings (people get up early and go to bed early), but it’s pleasant and lively enough in the daytime. It’s also very beautiful, with lots of green rolling hills and jungle areas not too far away, as well as some famous waterfalls which we’ll see in time. The best thing about it is the climate: it’s much cooler and less humid than the rest of Cambodia as it’s 800m above sea level. It’s about as hot as England in the summer, and in the hot season (March-June) it apparently only gets a few degrees hotter.

We went into the Provincial Office of Education, the office where we will be based, on Monday and met a few of the directors as well as the two volunteer assistants, Tak and To, who are both great. They work primarily as translators and are key people for volunteers coming to a new place for the first time.

After spending two hours in the bank opening an account (they put full length films on at the bank for people to watch while they’re waiting, so I don’t think two hours is unusual), we started house hunting. Quite a few previous volunteers and other foreigners have lived here so there are a few houses available, and the ones we saw are huge! I’m in negotiations about a really nice house which is pretty big and is already set up with things like internet and even a fridge, and if I manage to get that I’ll share with Tak as it’s far too big for one person.

This morning we did a bit of motorbike practice. The motorbikes are semi-automatic so are easier to ride than the ones I practised on in England, and it was fine. We went to Sen Monorom falls, the nearest waterfall which was very nice. The water looks quite brown at the moment but in the dry season it is clear and it’s a good spot for swimming.

The school year starts on Friday so it’s a busy week for people at the office, although I think we will get to go to a school opening ceremony on Friday. Apart from that we might visit another school this week, or will do some more exploration of the area before heading back to Kampong Cham for two more weeks of language training.