Volunteer teaching on Koh Rong Samloem

We travelled down to Sihanoukville on the South Coast using the ever so deluxe bus again - only 4 hours this time. We met our contact here and then travelled 2 hours by boat to reach the tropical and largely deserted island. to spend the next 2 weeks teaching English to the village children. I have only one word for this experience - Amazing!
Marine Conservation Cambodia (MCC) set themselves up here about 2 years ago to research the reef and abundant fish life to find out what damage is being done. They realised that the villagers were in need of help too and if they were to educate them in protecting the reef it would be important to work with them. So the organisation work very much with the islanders and have worked very hard to build a good relationship with them. The village has been there 12 years and when MCC first arrived it was filled with rubbish, like most other places. The walkways between the houses and main passage through them was rubbish upon rubbish upon rubbish. They cleared this with the islanders and have been educating them on how to dispose of rubbish in a more environemtally friendly way. It is now sand and beach again and the Islanders work together and take it in turns to recyle cans and plastic bottles, etc.

The village

Our little friend from the pier. We went there every day so became friendly with the family.

On our last morning the old man brought us breakfast to share with him.
He couldn't speak any English but we all got on very well.

There are approximately 160 people living in the village and about 80 of those are children. The village is like one big family and as with most South-East Asians the family is of huge importance. All generations live together in one house; the village has a chief and there are elders.  They sleep generally in one room in hammocks, on cots or on the floor. There is larely no electricity until the generator is put on so cooking is on a wood burning stove. They eat rice, vegetables, seafood and lots of coconuts. When children work, all the money goes back into the family. There are two main livelihoods for the men - fishing and jungle work (most of the island is densely covered by jungle).

The pier where John and I would retire to most afternoons to drink a diet coke in peace!

The men used to drink all the money away and gamble but MCC have been changing this and providing jobs and important income for those families that are most needy. They gave a job to a villager who used to unecessarily cut down a lot of good trees to sell firewood so that now he only needs to do this from trees already falled and only a small amount for his family and the village.  MCC have been successful in educating the Islanders on the environment, over fishing, cutting down trees, health, etc. There can be approximately 20-30 voluteers now on the island at one time mostly diving and carrying out reef surveys so this has brought in additional income for the islanders also. Nearly every other house is also a small shop. One woman used to make 30USD per month and due to the volunteers now makes 300USD per month. We were told to spread the wealth so you don't always spend money in the nearest or the same shop each time.
 The teaching was interesting. It was not part of the school day as I had assumed it would be. Most younger children go to school between 7am and 11am then they can come to English at 11.30 am in the schoolroom with us for an hour if they wish. There is also another session in the volunteers main bungalow in the evenings at 7.30pm. The weekends are free time. The older girls just come in the evning because they work during the day. This meant that varying numbers of children came to each session, sometimes 12 and at other times anything up to 30. Their ages ranged from 6 or 7 up to about 14 so this was very difficult in terms of differentiation.

The school with two classrooms

John playing What's the time Mr Spider? - they don't know what a wolf is!!!



Numpteen working hard

Evening classes

 

The school room

There seems to be very little discipline in the school and children wander in and out the school room when they get bored / have to go somewhere, etc! In their spare time they play football on the beach when the tide is low, or play volleyball, sing karaoke (a big favourite with all the village!), pick berries, or do their chores such as washing, cooking, cleaning or looking after their sister's and brother's.

Picking berries at the weekend

We were staying in a very basic bungalow with a veranda on the volunteer site next to the village which had no running water, so it was cold bucket showers for us! We only had power during the eving from about 6pm until 11pm when the generator was put on. The sea was about 5m away from our hut and all meals were taken together in the main bungalow where the family lived that cooked and cleaned for us.

Our luxurious Bungalow!

Our tiny bedroom

The bathroom complete with a bucket of very cold water!



The communal bungalow where we ate and took lessons in the evenings



Our room mate - Gertrude the 1 foot long gecko that shared our bungalow. She could be very noisy!

The food was great but we'd had enough of rice by the time we left! We also had a lot of spare time where we swam, I went running (such hard work on sand and in that heat!), played with the children, sunbathed, walked around the village or planned for lessons. As we had no internet and largely no mobile phone it was 2 of the most relaxing weeks I have ever had in my entire life!
We absolutely loved the experience and now that we have left we miss the locals very much as we made some good friends and felt completely at ease there. 

Sunsets from our bungalow

On Long beach - nearly always deserted

Taking the older girls and teaching then to snorkel