Author: s1khom

On the 30th of April, my team set foot on Chous school in Takeo province. Our main objective is to set up the pi computer and have it done in one day. We are a group of students who want to try to input a new English curriculum in government schools. Chous school is in a remote area away from town so electrical access is scarce, so we had a company install a solar powered system into the school to provide power for running the Pi computer which is contained the English program, Edemy in it. Turn out the electrician nor the solar company was there, so there is no way to turn on the power from Solar, which also had its converter broken.  We had nothing to do except our second objective which is to introduce the students to Edemy and how to use a computer.  It took a while because there were three big group of student to present to and two group of student we still need to measure their level of English to input in the systems. Meanwhile, Waseem, a Liger facilitator, and a couple of students including me check the work of the electrician and turn out a lot of his work need some securing. Therefore we spend our whole morning and afternoon just to secure and fix the electrician wiring work.

On the 28th February 2018, our literacy class have a collection of shows and acts about the ancient Egyptian process of bringing the dead to be judged by Osiris in the underworld, for whoever wants to go to the afterlife, in short mummification. Everyone creates and join teams of numerous people depend on what they plan for the play. My team contains four people including me. We plan to do not just the process of mummification but also create a story about a noble journey after his death, in the underworld he meets strange creature, spirits, and gods of the underworld themselves. But the most important point is the mummification process which includes taking out the brain and organs, then dehydrate the body, then clean it, then oil it, then stuff it with special stuff, then wrap the body, then masked it, then put in coffin with the noble belonging and in the end in the pyramid. In the play, we were required to make a lot of crop as representative of the real material used in ancient Egypt.

On the 28 of January 2018, I went on an observation tour of the Journey of Change business. It is a requirement if I want to become a real tour guide for them and earn money. I went with a few friends, so we divide different sections of the trip to talk about. We all did 2 places on the tour. The tour was supposed to be on bikes but we did it on the bus since it is convenient and cost less. I did agriculture in Cambodia, how Cambodia farm? What type of plants? How to plant them? Why choose that plant? How much money made from the plant? There were three plants to talk about, each of them are a bit long in words but doable. They were mango, banana, and lemongrass but in the process, you can point out plants all around. After the agriculture places, I talked about traditional healers in Cambodia. Most of Cambodians won’t go to the hospital instead they go to the healer because they believe in spirits and ghosts. Traditional healer uses medical herbs to heal and ritual to dispel the possessed spirit. After that, we return safely returned to Liger.

On the 19 of January 2018, my group, whose working on human health focus on diseases that spread between animals and humans mainly on rabies, goes to a mission hosted by PPAWS in Mondulkiri to help dog and cat there get rabies vaccination and desex the animal so that their population won’t skyrocket. On the mission we divide into groups with specific tasks, group one and two are in charge of notifying the people around the area that there is an animal clinic nearby that help your animal for free. They will have to walk across the town in the far distance to advertise the mission. While group 3 will be handling cat and dog that arrive, help translate words from the foreign doctor, help take care of the finished surgery dogs/cats and help hold the dogs/cats until it was put to sleep. The surgery was thrilling, it was so bloody real that I almost faint when I help to hold the dog for surgery. I really don’t like the surgery because I pity the dog so much, imagine if all the sudden your parts removed and you don’t even remember it. It is scary but because it helps the society from getting more infectious diseases from dogs/cats. My team goes on this mission with two purposes. One is to learn how to start and operate a mission because we will be hosting one on 7 February 2018. Two is to help the dogs/cats from getting diseases to us, human, and experience the mission itself. After the mission, we took a day off and visit the elephant track where hike up mountain to a waterfall waiting to feed and clean the elephant. We feed the elephant with banana fruits and stems. When we bath the elephant we can ride them as well. Going on top of a giant feel like you can do anything and you can see anything. After that, we safely return to our school and continue our own journey of life.

On the 22 to 26 of November, I was really frustrated about study and workload so my teacher Karen invite me to this amazing opportunity in Kep told to release your stress, to realize your true self and to relax your inner soul. At first, I don’t even have any idea what meditation is and because of the long ride to the place, also because it is 7:00 night time; I sleep through my first meditation experience not knowing what to say when I woke up, except sorry. After that night there a little challenge I need to face every day, the food. The food there was vegan, I never in my life had no meat so it is really hard to adapt to not only the vegetable but the foreign taste as well. But I got over it anyway because I can’t do anything. The yoga and meditation went pretty well, I didn’t sleep this time, I was simply relaxed. I also find myself learning about myself through the zodiac sign of Greek mythology. I really like the myth of the lesson and how it has interaction with our soul. I got a lot out of the experience, I think if you are interested you can go to the place itself cause I can’t really tell how nice it was for me to relax after so long period of study.