Saturday, January 17, 2009

Buh Bye Cambodia...

Wow packing was a mission! I didnt realise just from staying in this room and having kubes not with me to carry half my luggage actually how much stuff I have, although it was easier than daph who had 8 months of things to sort!!!

Made even harder by the fact that we had both gone out for a final night of goodbyes before starting packing and our 5am wake up to leave by 6!!! Around 3 stumbled into bed and jumpped up and made a final batch on pancakes before waving goodbye to svay rieng again.


Goodbyes are always hard, I had a final lunch with my khmer family and will miss them a lot again, although I didnt stay with them this time because they had a fully set up house and I didn't so much feel like crashing with my sister! Next to say goodbye/mend friendships was the hairdresser people, the lady on the left in the yellow is the owner, then her niece and nephew in spiderman suit, next to me is Sothea who is what the khmer people now as gay, and nz "trans" basically a guy who wants to be a girl and dropped outta school early to work in the hairdressers, he/she is amazing at hair and styles and who I was hoping would have cut my hair! Next is the actual witch who did it! Poor lady i really embarrassed her, so went back for a final straighten and to make amends before I left.


Final day consisted of rush rush rush, straight from hair to Lekena's house for an amazing lunch her and her mum cooked for Daph and I, it was typical Khmer food loc lac, basically fried beef, lettuce, tomato, onion and french fries eaten with rice - delicious!

This is Minnieroat, Lekena, Pi (lekena's mum) after lunch before Daph and I had to zoom off to Reda orphanage to catch the kids before they went back to school.




And at REDA again, with some of the kids, it was so wonderful to go back and see all the kids many of them in my mind looked significantly happier than when I first arrived at REDA, all were better dressed, better housing and I think better fed. The only one child I was worried about is Sokha, who is the slightly older girl in the picture, she is the only girl aged 13, the other 2 girls are 5&6, her friend who was the same age as her had to move bck to the village to live with her aunt, so unfortunately sokha is on her own, and I think very lonely.




From REDA kids, to NZ kids, this is Hannah and Lucas who are Shane and Gaylenes children, the NZ family I was staying with, I taught Lucas how to play dodgeball, and Hannah is very arty and right into mozaics.

Final English class, I didnt actually do any teaching this time as Daph pretty much had it covered but it was nice to return and see some familair and new faces at english class, which has expanded to nearly 80 students, sometimes we thought the floor might collapse, people sit outside if there are not enough chairs, its amazing!


Yay, for Borey and Thea who are two of the best english students and Borey like a little brother to me, stayed behind afterwards to say goodbye and then came back first thing in the morning for my pancakes and to wave goodbye!


After final English class, about 30 of us went out for desert, so we decended upon this poor little desert shop completely took over and ate rice and ice, jelly and other weird yummy khmer deserts, these girls are mostly around 16-17 but have amazing english considering they have not been learning for that long!


And my final and saddest goodbye to the IT crew again, Smooch on end in the black singlet I saw quite a bit and although he has not kept up with english class still makes awesome company and heaps of laughs hes such a joker! Next to smooch, is rathana, who I saw a lot and his english is really improving, always so friendly calls me 'girl' and won't stop smiling whenever I see him. Pisey dissapointed me this trip we used to be best of friends but I hardly saw him at all, and when I did see him, he hardly spoke to me, hasnt kept up his english and seems to be more into boozing than studying, but hey boys will be boys! Next is baby sey, who has now got a job and kept up his english so is doing really well for himself we def got closer this trip.


The two guys missing are Sambath, who I saw just briefly and is not allowed out so much, and sothun who is awesome still best mates with him, he even got up early to see me off, many tears and will miss him jong ngoap!

Final goodbyes in PP, Michael and I, (my alaskan peace corps girl) we joked you know I probably will never see her again, but hopefully one day I make it to alaska or her to nz, will be amazing to have her!

After saying goodbye to Michael went and met up with a girl Thida who I am friends with from svay riend but has moved to the city to study banking, we drove along the river front and I took some final snaps, went and had ice cream, took some asian photos and that was it.... I was outta there!

Jumped on my plane from PP international/domestic slash small airport! It was a crazy cheap vietnam airlines flight, people were chatting on their cellphones right out onto the tarmac, hopped aboard the plane smelt like cigarettes... as we were taxing off down the runway, someone stood up to adjust hand luggage and a cellphone rang... awesome! Plus no security screen, which meant when I reached Vietnam got straight through to the intl terminal with liquids in my bag and no one stopped me!


Stopped at Ho Chi Minh - made it, hungry as though I thought I might get fed on the plane but no such luck and a small soup with noodles was close to $10US!!! So found a small dark corner and tried to sleep the 3 hours til my connecting flight to Incheon, Seoul South Korea!

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