Teaching in Cambodia

Today Yike, Tina, HyeJin and Sarah went to the school and taught Art to the students. When we went in the classroom the students were very passionate and keen to learn new skills in drawing. We taught them how to draw portraits of their friends using complementary colors. The children were excited about using crayons and playing around with different colours. Although communication was difficult due to the language barrier, they could still understand our meaning because they were very focused and listened to our instructions very carefully. The children created a lot of artwork and from their painting we are able to feel their enthusiasm and how they are keen to learn more knowledge. By Yike Hong, Year 12

The Children of Cambodia

"What are these children doing playing on the muddy ground without shoes?" was our first thought.

"Why are there so many flies?" was our second thought. "How can you raise a family in such inadequate conditions?" was our final thought as we entered the village that the students call home.

Arriving in a tuck-tuck after a 4km ride from the school, each group was given the chance to view the lifestyle and living conditions of the homes of the children. The grounds were muddy, the air polluted from exhaust fumes and the poorly constructed huts consisted of a leaking roof and four concrete walls. Yet when we met the inhabitants, of what we would call a ‘shanty town’, our first impressions started to change. Families filled the place with warmth – women sitting in circles chatting, children playing joyfully and people of young to old ages laughing at the same joke.

Even within this small village, a range of stories and different tales began to unfold. A boy, as young as 15 and soon to be wedded to his new wife, was collecting water from a basin outside the house next to stacks of litter, possibly thinking of his wife as he did so. Another boy, 3 years younger, without any education, spends the day carrying his sister around the village. On muddy, flooded grounds, standing barefoot, a family mourns a recently deceased 12-year old child, who died of blood fever. A woman sat within a pile of litter, separating the plastic bags, yearning to earn that one-dollar a day. A man lies sick on a wooden bench inside the house, droplets of water seeping through the roof collecting on his forehead. Two men comfort him in the 15 dollars a month rented home.

As we make the final trek back to our tuck-tucks, we realise their lives are different to ours in so many ways, yet there is one similarity between such different worlds - the concept of a family. Look around you, look at the people you love, at the smiles you could not live without and imagine that wherever you are, however you live, not a single day without their love will pass. By Linda Burchhart, Year 12