Cyclo Tour

So what have I actually been doing here other than attempting to survive the chaotic traffic? Well, I have been in training for the last few days, which has been pretty laidback, lots of breaks. These are well appreciated because we're all tired and jet-lagged, but it also makes me feel like I'm not doing a whole lot a lot of the time. We had an introduction to the VSO Programme Office and the different Programmes, which include Health, Sustainable Livelihoods, and Education. My project is in the Education Programme. We also had a safety and security briefing with the Country Director and a health briefing with a local doctor, which were both incredibly helpful. The Country Director is an energetic British woman named Alice and our local doctor is a nice Filipino woman we call Dr. Marissa.

Today we took a Cyclo (which is like sitting in an adult sized stroller attached to the front of a bicycle) tour of the city which was really fun. Because our cyclo drivers are not educated and speak no English, we also had a quick Khmer language lesson the day before to help us direct our drivers which way to go. It was funny, when we first walked out to meet our cyclists, one of them immediately called dibs on me. I'm assuming it was because I am small. Imagine 15 cyclos slowly winding their way around town; we made quite a scene. We stopped for a drink at the FCC and I had a delicious banana coconut smoothie. We wandered around Wat Phnom and visited the Russian Markets, where you can buy brand names like Gap, Banana Republic, H&M, and others at a margin of the US retail price, since most of these clothes are made here. Short sleeve shirts are $2, long sleeves are $4, I bought a backpack for $12. A hot breakfast at the guesthouse is usually $2 and our cyclo drivers were each paid a whopping $6 for a full day of toting us around! Tomorrow I have the day off so I'm not sure yet what we will do.

I am here with 13 other new volunteers and 3 of them have brought their partners. Overall, VSO Cambodia consists of about 100 volunteers spread out over the many provinces of the country and is one of the biggest VSO country programmes. I never realized before just how international VSO is, but even the volunteers are from all different parts of the world: 6 people are from the UK, 4 are from the Philippines, 3 from India, 1 is from Kenya and 1 from Uganda. Meghan and I are the only ones from the US. While in theory, I think this is great, in practice it is frustrating. People tend to stick to their own countrymen and some have a hard time communicating in English. Someone mentioned to me that being in Cambodia was enough of a culture shock without having to deal with multiple other cultures at the same time, which can be overwhelming. The age ranges are across the board too, with Meghan and I being the youngest. Many people are our parents' age, which leaves us with little in common and again makes it's hard to bond... but is also somewhat comforting.