Our first week in Tonle Bati has been a busy one, since our last post we
have done a lot more activities with the kids, from singing and reading to
sports and paddle boarding. Rounders
seemed to be particularly popular with the children as pleas to play circulated
the air from 7am. Throughout the week we have also been in charge of helping
the children to make a variety Khmer treats, as a group we found some very
tasty such as the waffles and barbequed bananas however the 'snowballs' and
cupcakes with chives in were met with less excitement.
We've been experiencing a lot more of rainy season this week, especially on
Thursday where we found ourselves urgently relocating all our beds to the
middle of the room as water took over our bedroom. Our great teamwork skills
came into use as we created a chain for sweeping out the water as quickly as
possible. We're all used to rain halting our plans in England so we adopted the
traditional rainy day plan and put on a range of short Pixar films to keep the
children entertained.
Friday marked the end of our first week of Summer Camp, to say goodbye to
the children we had a party where we displayed all of our handmade decorations,
played a final game of rounders and some traditional English party games such
as musical statues and pass the parcel - with our own in house band consisting
of Helen on guitar, Kat on recorder and Lucy on the bongos. As a group we were
given the intimidating task of catering for 30, after a trip to the market to
gather as many ingredients as possible a meal of bean burgers, salsa, coleslaw
and potato wedges was created with Banoffee Pie to finish. We all broke off in
to teams to create the meal with the aid of some children, most of whom looked
concerned by what they were about to try and confused by the lack of rice. The
rice wasn't far off though as we spied emergency rice being secretly cooked as
a back up. The food went down well with most children, the biggest hit being
the potato wedges and the most questionable being the Banoffee pie which
according to one child was 'too sweet'.
Saturday morning we said big goodbyes to all of the children with promises
to visit again and headed off to Kep on the coast of Cambodia. Our dreams of
sunbathing on the sandy beaches of Rabbit Island were quickly shattered by the
large amounts of rain so instead we found ourselves comfort eating with large
plates of delicious fresh crab at $5 a piece! The rain however didn't
completely dampen our spirits as we all enjoyed a dip in the Cambodian sea. If
anything, it made us all feel closer to home and memories of British wet beach
weekends. We've arrived back in Tonle
Bati to a week of more grouting and preparations for the final three weeks of
Summer Camp which looks set to be a busy one with over 60 children wanting to
sign up!
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