Today, a cook

Today, instead of teaching as usual, all of the volunteers at the guesthouse, plus Lori and Ponheary, went out to Koh Ker school (pronounced Ko Kay). This is another school supported by the PLF but one that is 3 hours away. (It really not that far by our standards, but the last third of the drive is on an unpaved road.) We left at 6am, loaded with uniforms and flip flops, for students who had outgrown their current ones, as well as 700 packages of ramen noodles, about 25kg of beef, plus tons of carrots, cabbage, garlic and other veggies. The students at Koh Ker get breakfast each morning, but when the PLF visit the school (which they manage about once a month during the dry season) they also take lunch. Noodles are a big thing to the students....rice is the regular fare around here, and for poorer families, rice can be grown. Noodles have to be purchased. 

As soon as we got there, we started opening packages of ramen noodles and chopping veggies. Some of the older girls at the school came to help as well. In the kitchen (a shelter with a fire going ) some adults got out a massive iron pot and started cooking up the garlic and seasonings. When everything was ready, we mixed it all together and it was placed in buckets and taken around to the classrooms - every student had a bowl and they waited patiently while we served. Once served, we received a bow and an enthusiastic "Som oh keun", which is a polite thank you, and then they ate like crazy. Even the littlest ones came back for thirds. While they were eating I was able to take some pictures with them - apparently they used to be terrified of Lori and everyone that visited, but now they love seeing us and they love hamming it up for the camera. We got choruses of thank yous, and goodbyes from each classroom as we headed out.

It's a far different school now than when Ponheary was first asked to provide some assistance. It only went to grade 3, had very few students, a missing principal and teachers who showed up once a week or so. Because it is so remote, there had been volunteer teachers, with very little stipends to make it worth their while, besides the fact that it was in an active landmine zone. 

Now, with thanks to the Canadian government, the area has been cleared, teachers receive a monthly pay from the government, (which is still very small, so the PLF pays them monthly as well), they have increased classes up to Grade 6 and recently, four students graduated and will be attending high school - the first students to graduate and continue on since before the genocide of the 1970s. Unfortunately there's still a lot of work to be done - the PLF is currently supporting the initiatives completely as some organizations have declined to be involved due to the isolation of the school. But things are looking up it seems, and today was a great opportunity to meet and chat with the students and teachers. 

After, we stopped at a temple for lunch and to tour around. Ponheary, who is actually a tourguide amidst all of the work she does for the foundation, took our group around, giving us the details of Cambaodia's ups and downs - between its troubles with the Thais and troubles with the Vietnamese, and how Angkor Wat and the other temples eventually made it back into the hands of the Cambodians who built them in the first place.

It was a long day, but the more time I spend with Lori and Ponheary, the more I understand how much work the foundation has done in the past few years - how much change they have managed to initiate. 

More later!

J.