Homestay and moving to Mondulkiri

Saturday 16^th October was our final day of language training, and on Sunday we went on a home-stay to a nearby village to practise our Khmer and to experience how most Cambodians live. I was looking forward to it although we left very early, arriving at the village at 9am, and I wasn’t sure how I was going to make my Khmer vocabulary last for a full day.

VSO had arranged for us to go in pairs to different families, but some of the volunteers were very ill over the weekend so couldn’t go, so Dave, Ingran, David and I each had a family to ourselves. We were met initially by the village chief and various members of the commune council in quite a formal welcome ceremony, where we introduced ourselves in Khmer. The families were waiting at the back and our names were called out one by one, and I went with Leandra (who was just coming for the morning because Andre, her husband, wasn’t able to go) with an old-looking man who led us to his house about 200m away. This was a little bit worrying because I’d brought a beach ball set and a small plastic football with cartoon characters on it as a present for the children, and I wasn’t sure this 64-year-old retired farmer was going to appreciate it. Luckily Leandra had also brought biscuits and fruit, and when we got to the house there was a fourteen-year-old boy – too old for the toys, but young enough for everyone to laugh about it.

The family was quite a small one, with the grandparents, a mother and the son. The boy’s older brothers were all working in Phnom Penh, and his father had moved to Canada where the family were hoping to move the following year. They talked a lot about this and were clearly looking forward to being able to go, with little awareness, perhaps, about how difficult it can be to be an immigrant in a Western country. Anyway, I hope it works out for them.

After looking round the house and sharing photos, Leandra had to leave, which caused lots of confusion as they had assumed Leandra was my wife (despite her having showed them a photo of her actual husband, Andre, and not me). I think they eventually understood, or else they assumed we’d had some kind of domestic.

All in all it was a nice experience – delicious food, friendly people, a nice trip to the wat in the afternoon – but also quite difficult socially, as I really couldn’t understand enough Khmer to be able to sustain the conversation. I enjoyed helping the son with his English, though, and remembered how much I actually like teaching (easy to forget when you’re an NQT) – when he left for school the next morning I wanted to go with him and offer to teach his English class!

Surviving volunteers and villagers as we were about to leave

After that we had a day of motorbike training and then headed back to Phnom Penh for a few final days of briefing and shopping for our houses, and on Saturday 23^rd, Daniel and I came to Mondulkiri. We had quite a lot of luggage and I was concerned about fitting it all on a minibus, although I shouldn’t have been – minibuses usually have up to about 35 people, plus furniture, pigs, chickens… VSO had booked an extra seat each for our luggage but in the end we had spare room, so we invited someone who was squashed with two others on one seat to sit next to us. It was fine until he took up all the leg room and started sleeping on my shoulder, but unfortunately I didn’t know the Khmer for ‘I’ve changed my mind – go and sit on the floor’. Seriously, though, I was almost glad to have a slightly uncomfortable journey because nothing about my experience so far has been particularly uncomfortable – not really what I was expecting from volunteering.

We arrived at around 4pm and I spent most of the weekend cleaning because my house hadn’t been occupied for a few months so there was dust and lots of cobwebs. On Sunday Tak moved in which was good – I’m really glad I’m living with someone rather than on my own, and he is also a pretty good cook, which is nice. I am getting a bit sick of rice and noodles though so I reckon his Christmas present might be a Delia Smith. We also went for a swim in Sen Monorom Falls with the other volunteers, Jeltje, Charlotte and Daniel, which was lovely.

I’m a bit apprehensive about starting work as the more I’ve learned about my job, the more I’ve realised it’s got nothing much to do with education and much more to do with community work, which I have no experience of. Luckily Charlotte seems to have set up very good relationships with schools and communities, and Tak has been working on the projects all year too, so I will be able to rely on him.