April 26, 2015

We have had a busy month here, with a visit to the Phnom Tamao Wildlife Rescue Center, the Khmer New Year, trip to Kep on the coast, school and teaching English Classes.  I started working with the beginning class this week and hope to try them on Skype in a couple more weeks.  Some of them have minimal English speaking skills, so it will take a bit more to prepare them to skype - however, they try hard and are eager to speak with others in the USA.  The beginners will only speak for 15 minutes with their conversation partner (the more advanced have been speaking for 30 minutes).  It will take us some time to make sure they have the vocabulary for that!

At the beginning of April, the boys and I took a tour of the Phnom Tamao Wildlife Rescue Center with BetelNut Tours.  It took us about 2 hours in the back of an open jeep to get there as it is south of PP in the Takeo province.  We had one other tourist with us - a woman from Florida who was trying to travel for two years on just her Social Security Income.  I may be adventurous - but she has me beat.  She was staying in a hostel with some young 20 somethings who had entertained her the evening before after a night of bar hopping.  Not really my idea of a good place to get some sleep - must be getting old.

The Phnom Tamao Rescue Center takes in exotic and endangered animals that are injured or have been pets and are no longer wanted.  One of them is a tiger that someone was raising in a home in PP until it got too big!  Also there was an assortment of crocodiles, otters, monkeys, birds, deer, an iguana from Central America, boars, snakes and sun bears.  I've posted some pictures on Google Drive under April 6th if you want to see some of the native Cambodian animals we saw.  The first two pictures are of the Buddhist Wat that is close to our house.

As mentioned in my last post, most of the students went home early in April for the Khmer New Year.  The boys and I caught a bus near Central Market the Saturday prior.  Because of the traffic and crowds leaving town, our bus was over an hour late getting there.  Once we boarded however, it was air conditioned and comfortable.  However our 3 hours ride was closer to 5 hours - traffic and occasional stops at various towns along the way to pick up one or two travelers and drop them off down the road slowed us down.  The scenery was a welcome change from the city and the boys had electronics - so we were all fine.

Once we got to Kep, which is on the Gulf of Thailand coast in Cambodia - close to the Vietnam border, we caught a tuk-tuk to our hotel.  I had been worried as you never really know what you've booked until you get there, but it was great.  It was across the highway from the Gulf (rocky area - no beach) and within 200 steps of Crab Market - which we went to for lunch and dinner.  It was about a 15 minute walk to the beach.  We stayed in a nice bungalow - they had about 8 so it was a small place.  The grounds were beautifully landscaped and most days was swarming with butterflies attracted to all the flowers there.  It had a small pool that Jon and I were in every day - some days 3 times.  It also served a nice breakfast and had a good cocktail hour!

While in Kep, we hiked around Kep National Park which is small hills/mountains and jungle.  After walking on a pretty level path about halfway around the park, we decided that we needed to get back to the beginning which we could do by going up and over a very steep, jungle path.  I forgot my camera this day, but just image very steep.  At one point, there was a rope tied between trees to help you pull yourself up.  It took us about an hour to take our "shortcut" - up and down.  At the very bottom of the path was the road.  I was so excited to see it I forgot to watch my footing and took a big tumble.  Both boys were scared I'd really hurt myself - I did get bruises on the back of one knee where I came down on a tree branch and bruises on my rear end (so glad that is padded) - and dirt on my pants, but nothing serious.  There was a small open restaurant  down the road on the side of the mountain also where we stopped for lunch and to let an afternoon storm pass by.  We were really glad we were not on the steep path at that point as it was hard to keep your footing when it didn't have water pouring down it.   It was a beautiful view and the boys and I had banana and chocolate crepes.

The rest of the trip was spent relaxing around the pool, playing at the beach and eating crab, shrimp and squid at Crab Market.  Luckily for the boys and me, several places also offered pizza, hot dogs and hamburgers.  They got what they wanted and so did I!

The upcoming weeks will also be busy as Maureen from Sustainable Schools is coming out to help wrap up some of the projects we've been working on long distance over skype (SSI is located in Fort Collins, CO).  We will be interviewing to find someone to take my place as well as a full time Cambodian to be the Leadership Academy Manager.  Some of the wonderful students here have taken on some of that role since the past LA Manager left early March.  We are also meeting with some government officials, networking with other NGO and working on writing out procedures and policies for the new staff.

Only 5 weeks left!  It's hard to believe it has gone so fast.  We are looking forward to going home but I know I'll miss the wonderful students and staff I've been working with the past 4 months.


https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B_LWGul2UlSaUDZhaWlqcGUtN1U&usp=sharing