We kicked off day 7 in regular fashion with an early rise to Chambok Meas. It was just 3 hours in the garden in the morning, but the heat was already in full force. This was to be the last time we would work on the garden, as the rest of our schedule involved English teaching, interviews, and expanding our project to other schools (a day 9 adventure).
At lunch we enjoyed some of our produce grown from the garden we were sitting right across from. We ate 'Morning Glory' (yep we hear it too) which was cooked to perfection, maybe tasting even sweeter knowing its sentiment.
The afternoon was set aside for 2 hours of English lessons. Romy and I are no teachers, but I have to say it was a huge success. I personally didn't let my dyslexia, nor my not knowing any Cambodian, tamper the success of the lessons. If anything it added to the flair of my performance, both in presentation and style, as we covered numbers up to 20, colours, some short sentences, and animals.
After school finished at 4pm, Romy and I popped over to the Buddhist temple next to the school. Roughly 95% of the population practices Buddhism, one of the worlds largest religions originating 2500 years ago. Our Sustainable Cambodia rep (who was previously a monk) told us the story of Buddha seeking enlightenment (nirvana) on the paintings that wrap around the inner walls of the small ancient temple. It was a short, but richly educational, pit stop with a beautiful meaning to end the day.
We started day 8 with visits to three of Chambok Meas' student's homes, throughout which we had primary school teacher, Lun Cheaven, translate and direct us around. In the afternoon, after another round of successful English lessons, we got the chance to interview Lun, as well as three students, and La (one of the top dogs of Sustainable Cambodia).
La described his life journey from poverty, making us appreciate our charity partner's roots even more; knowing how much passion and personal connection is behind their rural community development here in Pursat.
We had an emotional goodbye leaving Chambok Meas. In such a short time, and despite the language barriers, we'd made a real connection with this school and particularily the kids (some of them even cried when we said goodbye).
Romy and I finished the evening with a stroll through Pursat, making a loop around a 'floating island' called Sampov Meas, thinking about how lucky we are to be on such an incredible trip.
Lot's of Love,
Toni (and Romy)