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Cambodia 2023
  • Katie Burke

Cambodia 2023

My second trip to Cambodia with UniSQ as the supervising academic for a group of pre service teachers to experience cross cultural teaching in Treak Community School. Read more
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  • Trip start
    June 15, 2023
    Katie BurkeCambodia 2023Traveler

    Day one - arrival in Siem Reap

    June 16, 2023 in Cambodia ⋅ ⛅ 26 °C

    A fulll 21.5 hours after leaving home on Thursday afternoon I landed in Siem Reap, greeted by a wall of hot and humid air that was quite the shock! Flying into Siem Reap this time was also very different. Last year we arrived in Monsoon season and journeyed over the most incrediblely vast inland lake. This year, near the end of the dry season, the country appeared so dry and barren. Having said that, Siem Reap still feels very lush, and we had a short burst of rain around 4pm. I met the wonderful Kirsty, our onsite program coordinator for the first time at Singapore Airport and the two of us have barely drawn breath since meeting - such easy company! It was so wonderful to return to Moy's where I stayed last year and be greeted by familiar faces (the video is the view from my balcony). Kirsty and I spent the afternoon strolling around some of the city, enjoying our first lunch in the same place I first visited when I arrived last year (creature of habit!) Our strolls were sadly curtailed by me getting blisters from my thongs, which I guess arose because my feet were stll a little swollen from the flight). After a bit of a soak of our feel in the pool, we journeyd out again for a foot massage, and then enjoyed dinner in a Khmer restaurant (which only had tourists as patrons, so not sure how "Khmer" the locals think it is!) Then, early to bed - absolutely exhausted!Read more

  • Katie BurkeCambodia 2023Traveler

    The students arrive

    June 18, 2023 in Cambodia ⋅ ☁️ 31 °C

    The students this year all arrived within an hour of each other, so we made our way to the airport to welcome them, and whisked them and luggage back to the guest house via a combination of tuk tuk and mini bus. For many of the students, this is their first international trip, so navigating the international transit by themselves was quite the feat. There is a combination of heightened excitement and trepidation among the group. After our initial settling period in their shared rooms and a welcome talk, we walked together into the centre of the city (well, the "tourist centre" - known around the world as "Pub Street") for lunch and some initial exploration. After a return to our accomodation for a rest and swim, it was out again for our welcome dinner at "Khmer Kitchen". A fabulous feast, followed by more strolling and then grateful collapsing into bed at the late hour of 8pm. School starts Monday!Read more

  • Katie BurkeCambodia 2023Traveler
    22

    Day one at Treak Community School

    June 19, 2023 in Cambodia ⋅ ☁️ 32 °C

    Bright and early, we boarded our mini bus to Treak Community School for our first day in which the first half was devoted to learning about child safety and Cambodian history and culture. Then after lunch, the students headed into their allocated classrooms to begin the real reason for this adventure... classroom experience! Some were thrown right into it and were asked to teach a lesson while others were just asked to assist by interacting with the students. I was happily surprised at how those who were asked to teach without warning were so excited and positive about the opportunity. We enjoyed another group meal that evening at New Leaf cafe, one of the many social enterprises here that operates with a focus on empowerment for locals and low environmental impact. After that, students explored the city and weren't afraid to try a number of new things, as the photos will attest!Read more

  • Katie BurkeCambodia 2023Traveler
    2

    Day two at school and village tour

    June 20, 2023 in Cambodia ⋅ 🌧 31 °C

    The students have settled into the life of Treak School so quickly. As some interesting background, Cambodian government education is only run half a day, six days a week, owing to a lack of government funding for anything beyond this. As such, Treak School runs their program in two half day sessions so that children can attend in the opposite half of the day to learn English (and Maths, Science, and Personal Social Health Education). They therefore run the same program twice a day. Our days are therefore long: mornings from 8-11, a two hour lunch break, and second session from 1-4pm. The heat makes it tough going.
    Day two saw our UniSQ students learning just how flexible teachers must be, with one of the staff members sick and a hasty reshuffling of classrooms conducted five minutes before the day began. The mid-morning break was filled with play, and the UniSQ students loved joining in, playing badminton and jump rope. Each day, we are also treated to lunch with the teachers, cooked by the school director, Salin, for whom no dietary requirement is too much hassle. In the afternoon session, the students were pulled from the classroom for a village tour by Salin (wearer of so many hats - I'll share more about her in coming posts). The students were shocked by the disparity between houses of those with some means and extreme poverty, all side by side. The tour finished at the local pagoda where the school originated almost 20 years ago. It was first started by a monk who saw an opportunity to both continue his English skills and share the language with children.
    It was then a much welcomed free evening, and for many, a much-needed early night!    Read more

  • Katie BurkeCambodia 2023Traveler

    Day 3 at Treak Community School

    June 21, 2023 in Cambodia ⋅ ☁️ 32 °C

    Today was a day that, in many ways, represented a microcosm of our trip, with highs and lows all squeezed into the one day. Our day up to 1pm was spent at the school. The initial shyness for many of the Cambodian students has quickly faded and the UniSQ students are now the "cool kids" in the playground that the children love to play with. Our day at the school ended after lunch so we could visit The Lake Clinic (TLC), an NGO in Siem Reap that provides access to health services for the thousands of Cambodians who live in very remote and underserved regions of the Tonle Sap Lake Area (aka "floating villages"). This was the "tough part" of our day that saw most of us really struggling. Not only were we all experiencing fairly intense physical discomfort, crammed into a closed room in high heat for two hours to hear about the clinic's work; there was also a collective sense of grief hearing the stories of the poorest people and the work that TLC conducts, and viewing the photo gallery depicting the lives of those in the floating villages. The night brought a welcome cooler evening after an intensely hot day, and we visited Phare Circus; a group formed originally in a refugee camp after the Khmer Rouge regime. Now a successful social enterprise, Phare trains up many young performers with skills in music, acrobatics, art and dance to give them a living wage and hopeful future. The performance was spectacular, and the story of Phare, shared during our pre-show back-stage tour, was equally inspiring.Read more

  • Katie BurkeCambodia 2023Traveler
    11

    Day 4 at Treak Community School

    June 22, 2023 in Cambodia ⋅ ☁️ 29 °C

    I feel like the students have turned a corner today. There is a sense that they're feeling quite at home in the school and with each other. They are developing an understanding of the rhythms of each day, and the heat, which - while a significant challenge - is something we're all becoming more accustomed to just being here. Today I wish to introduce Salin; the director of Treak and the wife of Michael, who is the CEO of ConCERT (Connecting Commuity, Environment and Responsible Tourism); a dynamic woman whose heart is for her community and who is constantly attempting to find new ways to make the lives of people around her better. Among the many initiatives Salin has developed to empower local people, one is "Treak Creations", where she trains women to make a range of garments and items to sell online. This provides jobs, and proceeds then go to the school. Most of us have engaged her services for made-to-order garments. Please visit the website to see more: https://www.treakcreations.org/ Our evening meal was at Haven Restaurant, another social enterprise dedicated to training children who grew up under the care of programs and for whom there is little future once their program ends at 18. Graduates finish their training with chef or front-of-house skills and many now work in top quality hotels. The final image is of Kirsty and I wearing our new wrap-dresses at Haven with the beautiful Salin.Read more

  • Katie BurkeCambodia 2023Traveler

    Day 5 Treak Community School

    June 23, 2023 in Cambodia ⋅ ☀️ 35 °C

    I thought you may like to join us on our daily trip to Treak Community School from our lodgings in Siem Reap. It's about a ten minute drive (but you get to do it in a pleasant 45 seconds!) and the roads at the moment are pleasantly quiet during the "low season" when few tourists are visiting. Friday was a tough day, weather wise, with our hottest day yet, with a real feel of 43. At 9pm it was still 37 degrees. However, I spoke with an Australian man who lives here and he mentioned that it got up to real feel of 57 degrees earlier this year, so perhaps I won't complain any more!Read more

  • Katie BurkeCambodia 2023Traveler

    Weekend - downtime?

    June 24, 2023 in Cambodia ⋅ ⛅ 27 °C

    The UniSQ students have worked so hard this week, and while they were all quite physically tired, they packed their weekend full of the wonders to be seen and experienced. Their mantra appears to be "we're not missing any opportunity while on this trip; sleep can wait!" Saturday morning we piled into our mini van at 5am in order to catch the sunrise at Word Heritage listed Angkor Wat, along with our wonderful guide Chhuer (who is also a teacher at the school, AND a tuk tuk driver at night AND a guide on Saturdays AND a teacher at a pagoda on Sundays!) We also visited two other temples by lunchtime, when we all decided it was too hot to do see any further temples and headed back to the guest house. Saturday afternoon and Sunday was free time, which was variously filled with whatever the students wished, in groups according to their desire. Some of the highlights for the students included a trip to a nearby floating village, touring the small Siem Reap Killing Fields, local pagodas, and Kulen Elephant sanctuary. I took a much needed opportunity to get some alone time and spent Saturday afternoon strolling around the city. Sunday, I hired a bicycle (which was an adventure in itself!) to explore further, including the Apopo Tourist centre, where I learned about the amazing Apopo rats who are helping to clear the many landmines still buried across Cambodia. Their noses can detect explosive from metres away, but their light body weight does not detonate the mines, meaning they identify landmines so much more readily than use of metal detectors. I may also have had a 2 hour massage and a yoga class - ahh serenity! It was a jam-packed weekend for all, but I feel invigorated by the downtime, ready for more action in Treak Community School!Read more

  • Katie BurkeCambodia 2023Traveler

    Treak School Week 2 (Part 1)

    June 26, 2023 in Cambodia ⋅ ☁️ 33 °C

    Week two has been equally as jam packed as the first week; and the action-packed living has been equally exhausting and profound (keeping me from posting more regularly). Monday morning began with plastic brick making at Treak Community School. This is yet another initiative that Salin has created. Plastic is collected from the community, reducing the significant plastic pollution in the area that accumulates because no waste collection services exist. It is then heated and shrunk, chopped into small pieces, and used as aggregate for bricks. In our three hours, we made 155 bricks. It was hard, dirty, hot work! Then it was into the classrooms for the remainder of the day. Our dinner that evening was hosted at the home of Michael and Salin, which is always a wonderful privilege. Their garden is something to behold! Tuesday afternoon, after teaching for the morning, we visited Safe Haven, an NGO that works with children with a disability and their families to make a significant difference in their lives. Wednesday was then a full day in the school. By this time of the week, everyone's energy was flagging, but big days were ahead, so an early night Wednesday was vastly appreciated!Read more

  • Katie BurkeCambodia 2023Traveler

    Treak School Week 2 (Part 2)

    June 29, 2023 in Cambodia ⋅ 🌩️ 31 °C

    Thursday morning our students led a morning of professional development for the teachers at Treak Community School. They presented four sessions on fun with phonics, push and pull concepts in Science, how to teach public speaking, and visual art. It was a wonderful morning and so enjoyable, with lots of hands-on learning. The week then ended with a bang, with "Australia Day"; a day full of fun activities for the students at Treak which our UniSQ students created and ran. The activities were damper cooking, the great Aussie Thong Toss, tunnel ball and other ball games, dancing and singing Australian songs, and art activities using crayon resist and a colour wash. The day was so wonderful, but gruelling, with high heat (made all the more challenging when cooking damper over an open coal fire under a tin roof, or playing games in the hot sun). At 2pm a huge storm came over and that put an end to the outdoor activities, so our students had to think fast and flexibly to continue the final 2 hours of the school day in the small classrooms (which they managed to do admirably).Read more

  • Katie BurkeCambodia 2023Traveler

    A glorious end to the program

    June 30, 2023 in Cambodia ⋅ 🌧 32 °C

    Our program officially ended on Friday with a farewell lunch at Treak Community Centre with the teaching staff, and a dinner at Haven Restaurant, our favourite place to dine after not only sampling the wonderful food, but hearing about the wonderful work they do to educate and train local young adults to give them a positive future. I developed an award for each of the students, based upon their demonstrated skills and strengths and had a lovely little award ceremony to honour their achievements over the last two weeks. There may have been a few tears shed! Saturday was a free day, with one student leaving at 8am, and the rest with a 2pm departure. Most of them used the day to quietly stroll around the city buying a few bits and bobs before departing. At farewell time, some more tears were shed, and I made sure the students got a grand send-off, running alongside their bus waving. What a laugh. I am utterly proud of the way our UniSQ students have conducted themselves and persevered through the challenges presented during their time in Cambodia. They openly admit that the sense of achievement and transformation they feel is in no small part because they faced and overcame obstacles. While they're all very excited about going home, they felt a sense of wistfulness in leaving the peole and place they've come to love.Read more

  • Katie BurkeCambodia 2023Traveler

    My own trip comes to an end

    July 1, 2023 in Cambodia ⋅ ☁️ 31 °C

    I was privileged to be invited (along with Kirsty, my offsider from CIS) on a bike ride with the staff from Treak through Angkor Park. It was a sensational day that left my heart full, and even though it was physically demanding, I felt refreshed and alive. This bike ride is a monthly tradition that the staff enjoy, and an honour to join. We left in the morning from Victory Guest House, our accomodation for the two weeks, and made our way in a convoy through the city and out to Angkor park. One good outcome from Covid is that the Cambodian government had the opportunity to resurface the roads both in the city and the Angkor park, meaning we had beautiful smooth surfaces to ride upon through this incredible shady jungle into which were nestled soooooo many ancient temples (about 40). We stopped for breakfast as a truly local restaurant (no menu here - but locals seem to know what to order!) and then a second pit stop at the bridge to Neak Pean, another ancient ruin on an artificial island. We didn't have time to view the temple, but on the long bridge over the water to this, Salin decided she was hot, and promptly launched herself into the water to cool off. What a gal! I love her free spirit! The convoy then worked its way back to Victory guest house for lunch. It was the most wonderful way to celebrate our time as co-workers in education and new friendships.Read more

    Trip end
    July 4, 2023
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