We are 14 Girl Guides ranging from 14 - 17 and 4 leaders
from London and South East England (LaSER) and this summer we are embarking on
a trip of a lifetime to Cambodia. Whilst we are there, we will be undertaking a
service project in the capital Phnom Penh, helping local children by renovating
their day centre and teaching them English whilst having fun. These children
are economically disadvantaged so this is somewhere they can go to play, learn
and just be children.
Planning and Preparation Weekend 2
We arrived late on a dark and cold Friday evening to mud,
rain and some other very enthusiastic Guides. Our last meeting was 3 months ago
so it was great to reunite with each other. Firstly, we received our clothing
for our international trip. This was very exciting as we have been in the
process of designing it for several months and seeing it really unified us as a
team. We then watched a film to relax and several people fell asleep by the
end! We all quickly got ready for bed and retreated to our bunks, tired and
ready for a good night’s sleep.
Saturday morning began with croissants and cereal. When we
were ready to begin the day’s activities, we gathered around and listened to
each other’s presentations on aspects of Cambodia that we had researched in
pairs. The topics included ecology, culture, food, Girlguiding in Cambodia,
ancient history, the Khmer Rouge era and the peace period. We then ventured out
in the rain to explore the area and found a trim trail, zip wire and had a walk
in the woods. When we returned we had jacket potatoes for lunch and even
attempted to use our chopsticks to eat them! After lunch we went out again to
explore further and found a swing which we all managed to fit onto. We also had
another go on the zip wire and played hide and seek in the woods. We managed
not to fall over on the slippery mud (just about) but we’d soon got wet enough from the rain and decided to head back inside for hot chocolate and homemade cake. The rest of the afternoon was spent discussing the kit list and health on the trip and the leaders answered any queries we had. After a small period of downtime, we ate dinner which was vegetable Cambodian green curry with rice. It was very delicious. Our evening activity was to make a short presentation on what to do if we encountered a dignitary whilst in Cambodia. This sparked a deep, meaningful and
inspirational discussion on what it means to us to be involved with Girlguiding
and brought an end to our packed day as we all headed to bed.
On Sunday, we woke excited as we knew we were going to have a cooked breakfast. We had lots of hash browns, sausages and baked beans. Then it was all hands on deck to tidy up the hut and wash all the dishes before we could go to the shop. At the shop everyone brought a selection of sweets, badges and small stuffed animals.
Our outside activities for the day were playing on the climbing frame, going on the mini zip-wire and finding the giant swing - this turned out not to be so giant, but still managed to fit all 14 of us!
Back at the hut, after we had dried off, we sewed on our UK badges to our formal shirts.
Throughout the weekend walked about our trip in more detail, we discussed how to pack, how to deal with different medical issues and our hopes and fears for the trip.
Finally, we had pasta for lunch which was very yummy! We then quickly packed and tidied up before the projects abroad representatives arrived. We had a presentation from them with our parents, we were told more about our service project and had all our questions answered.
We said our goodbyes after a fun, jam-packed weekend.
