Sraee school and New Year

Happy New Year to everyone. It’s been a very busy week since Christmas. Last Tuesday Jeltje, Tak and I went to visit Sraee, a remote school in the jungle. In the rainy season it is too difficult to get to, but it’s been dry for a few months now and so the paths are passable. We decided to walk rather than go on the motorbikes, Jeltje and I ganging up on Tak who claimed his Cambodian legs were too short to get there, and it was a beautiful walk through the forests.

In the end it didn’t take too long and we probably could have walked there and back in a day, but we’d arranged to stay overnight at the school director’s house. He is a friend of Tak’s and is really nice. His wife also runs the shop, which I think was the source of all the beer that kept appearing. Lots of fun and a really great experience to stay in a remote village overnight. The night sky was the most amazing I’ve ever seen.

I can't remember why, but at some point a tortoise appeared. It is upside-down in the middle of the picture.

And this is the rice field at dawn.

We also did some work while we were there. The following morning, while Jeltje did a lesson observation, I met the school director and two members of the school support committee, and had a very positive talk. I was impressed, first of all, that they had a school support committee, and they were very interested in getting the community involved in the school, arranging a village meeting for the following day. I think that their isolation means that the village has to be self-sufficient, and so the community are more cohesive and perhaps better at supporting their school than other villages here. Anyway, I left feeling very positive about the school (which is extremely poor, with eight kids on benches designed for two and very few resources), and we’ve arranged to go back next week.

After a busy Thursday of workshops and meetings, Tak and I left at 5am on Friday morning for Phnom Penh. We were going by motorbike, and it was absolutely freezing for the first hour before dawn, but it was great to be driving along empty roads as the sun rose. It was a long drive (I think it’s nearly 500km), but I really enjoyed it: having left early we could stop whenever we felt like it and driving a motorbike is lots of fun. 

Breakfast at Kaev Seima, about an hour from Sen Monorom.

We got there around 1.30 and I met Ingran and wandered around Phnom Penh. We had a drink at the VSO office before going to meet Tak and some of his friends at his mum’s house at around 6pm. I don’t quite know how we managed to drink so much, but by 9pm Tak was fast asleep, I was asleep next to him and Ingran, probably feeling a bit awkward sitting watching us with Tak’s mum, was shaking me awake and insisting that we went to meet the other volunteers until Tak woke up.

We did so and, although I was annoyed that Ingran came back from the bar with beer when I definitely asked for a cup of tea, it was nice to see all the other volunteers. More drink wasn’t a good idea though – at some point I think I wandered outside to use the phone, and at about 11.30 I was lying on the grass near the river front, a worried tourist waking me up, muttering, ‘It’s no way to spend New Year’. I would have felt very ashamed if I’d been capable of thinking, but just then Tak phoned so I went to his and we met his friends at the coffee-sleeping place which I’ve mentioned in an earlier blog. I was very pleased by this as coffee and sleep were the two things I wanted, but we didn’t stay long and were soon going for food, bumping into other friends of theirs and going to a club. We went to sleep at 5am, 24 hours after I’d woken up, and I was really annoyed when Tak woke us up at 7.30 insisting we go for breakfast.

New Year’s morning felt like it usually does – painful and blurry, but Ingran and I invested in sliced bread and butter and had tea and toast which helped a bit.

The rest of the weekend was fairly quiet until Monday, when Tak, his mum and I went to meet his girlfriend Eng’s family to discuss their marriage plans. I felt quite awkward about going, especially as I couldn’t really pretend to be a relative (although I’m working on the tan), but I feel like Tak is a bit like a brother from another mother so I went anyway. It was quite a long drive in Kampong Cham province, along terrible dusty roads (apparently the government doesn’t invest in the area because it is an opposition stronghold), but Eng’s family were very nice and the food was delicious. We swam in the nearby Mekong river in the afternoon and ended up staying overnight as Eng’s brother Hong (whom I know well as he lives in Mondulkiri too) wanted to come and drink with us.

It was interesting to listen in on the marriage talks, which felt like something from a Lorca play: Tak and Eng had virtually no part in the negotiations, and it was eventually decided that they should get married before Khmer New Year to avoid the year of the tiger, which would apparently make the marriage an aggressive one. Tak and Eng were both very happy though as they are keen to get married as soon as possible; it will probably be in February or March. I am obviously very happy for Tak although also sad that he will be moving out; I’ve really enjoyed living with him and will miss him a lot.

We left early the next morning, drove to Phnom Penh, picked up our stuff and drove out again, arriving in Mondulkiri at around 8pm – a fourteen hour trip!      

Tak on the way back with his mum, who is staying with us for a few days.