Day 2 & 3 of our project

We have been having an amazing time so far and have experienced so much of the Cambodian culture already . Yesterday we began our placement at the school, teaching our English lessons with our partners. We were given two topics such as family, food, weather and body parts and we planned lessons to teach the children. Each class consists of up to 50 pupils and it was very refreshing to enter an atmosphere full of people who were all so enthusiastic to learn. We used repetition and fun games which we all enjoyed. Then we left and went to the restaurant which is hosting us during our placement for lunch and relaxed, until the hard work began. We were given the task of making a concrete path from the main building to the toilets. We began by clearing the area and digging a channel. This was very hard work in the hot, humid conditions. We then broke up lots of bricks and rocks using hammers to form a base. By the end of a couple of hours we were all filthy and in desperate need of a shower! We could clearly see what we had achieved during the afternoon. After dinner, some of us went to the local shopping centre and supermarket, we went and got some ice cream for pudding. We were a bit disappointed as it had stopped raining By the time we left the hotel so we didn't get to test out our ponchos!

Today we continued our teaching with more confidence and knowledge and we had lots more fun with the children. We took our improvements from the day before and were much more productive. After another delicious lunch we headed out to the school again for our renovation project. We began to put concrete over the path, which was a challenging experience as we had to mix it by hand with limited tools, but we loved doing it. We returned to the hotel for a well needed shower as we were all very muddy and got ready for dinner. We headed out to the 'Friends' restaurant which provides training and job opportunities for disadvantaged young people. We had lovely food and visited the gift shop to support this worthy cause.