Back in Kampong Cham

So we have managed to find a house and it is beautiful – it is too good for a volunteer to live in but it is cheap as chips. I am sharing with Emma which is great and will mean that I shouldn’t get as lonely as I thought I might do. We have an amazing view of Samrong ‘lake’ from our really massive balcony and it’s going to be great for having parties on – I guess we’ll have to make some friends!! It feels great to have it sorted anyway and I’m excited about the prospect of getting up there.

As well as the two VSO’s and Tito (ZOA) there are also quite a few NGO’s in the area with the international ones including International Child Support, Malteser and Les Enfants Mekong so there are a few people to meet and get to know and hopefully we can begin to co-ordinate some of the projects to avoid any overlap and learn from each others successes and failures.

So after a week I returned to PNH with a lot of reading and preparation to do alongside ICT. After a few days training on first aid kits, establishing yourself in the work place etc. We have returned to Kampong Cham to get on with the Language. In PNH I also had the opportunity to meet with Community Forestry International who were very nice and are currently funding some work with CDA. They have there own Non Timber Forest Products (NTFP) Team and I think that we could well organise some training with them as they seem to have materials etc in place.

It’s nice to be back in Kampong Cham and I was quite surprised that I actually quite enjoyed language class yesterday. However I am still a long way off being able to communicate properly as they find my accent very hard to understand despite my best efforts. However some of it ios beginning to make a bit more sense and hopefully it will all click in to place at some point. To be honest I really just want to get up there and get cracking as although I have agreed to do a couple of things for them and have a massive amount of reading to do it’s frustrating not actually being in the house yet etc. However I know when I get there I will miss all the VSO crew etc so I will just have to enjoy it and make the most of this time as possible.

Today has been a good day off - cups of tea and pool by the Mekong River - good stuff. Going to ride out to an éco village' when the sun dies down too - then back to the Khymer tom!!