Cambodia Trip part 1

Hello readers,

During our trip to Cambodia, we had an amazing time visiting Samrong High School over 3 days. On the night before visiting the school, we spent quite an amount of time planning and coming up with activities to carry out for the students whom we would be visiting the following day. Some examples of activities we came up with include 3-legged race, dog and bone, treasure hunt, monkey and many others. These activities were especially catered to address to their culture such that not much physical contact would be involved as after all that is part of their culture.

On the first day of the visit, we started out on the activities that we planned for the students. Of course, some self-introduction had to be done before we could carry out our activities, and from this we already noticed the communication barrier between us and the students there. Nevertheless, we carried out with the activities but we tried to accommodate for the communication barrier by speaking slower and in simpler English, once in a while repeating ourselves. When all these failed, we sought help from the tour guide to translate to the students on our behalf, especially in explaining out the activities’ details so that they would run smoothly.

One of the many things we noticed is that the students were rather conservative; boys and girls did not feel comfortable playing together and it was in a way not carried as we had planned it to be. Besides that, the tables and chairs weren’t suitable for some of the activities we had planned, such as musical chairs (the chairs could not be moved). Fortunately, we had some backup activity plans for such incidences but they weren’t enough to cater for the entire day. Despite that the students still tried their best to cooperate with us and play along with whatever we planned.

On the night of return, we brainstormed more activities and even resorted to forgoing our sleeping time to do so in order to have the second day run more smoothly. We did whatever we could and from there we prayed for the best for the second day.

So came day 2 of visit, we went much better prepared, thus the morning activities ran more smoothly. Everything seemed to run smoothly, until the rain came about, which totally dampened our mood. During lunchtime, we had to come up with activities that could cater for wet weather. Nevertheless, we still came up with the plans and our activities could be carried out once the students returned from lunch, and the day ran smoothly. To our surprise, towards the evening there were some activities planned for us by the Cambodians and this was our chance to have our first hands-on at the Cambodian games. It was awe-inspiring and much fun.

Finally, came day 3, the last day which we could have the bonding with the students of the High School student of Samrong High. However, activities on this day were much slightly different; instead of spending time with the students and planning activities like the previous 2 days, we actually paid visits to some of the students’ families residing within walking distances of the school. We observed, and realized that the houses had no toilets, no cooking appliances, and the living condition was rather cramped as well. After visiting the families houses, it was the finale; the closing ceremony. Samrong High school organized and planned more of their local games for us to experience, and in addition to those games, we learned their way of dancing. Finally, after well over 1 hour of dancing, they expressed their gratitude towards us and the closing ceremony came to an end. It was hard for us, to say our goodbyes, for we knew that, it was not just a goodbye, but a farewell.

Now that we’re back in Singapore, as we make a comparison of the environment between our schools and theirs, we realize the vast difference and how blessed we actually are. For example, Samrong high school had no canteens; during their lunch breaks, they went out of school or even home for lunch.  In addition to that, their classrooms had zero form of electricity, no fans, no air-cons, just the wind. The Cambodian school had very bad sanitation facilities as well; there was no flushing system in their toilets.

To sum things up, visiting Samrong High School really made us look at life from a different perspective. We really learned to appreciate what we are blessed with in Temasek Polytechnic.

Below are some pictures we took of the school :)