More tales from Cambodia

12th October: Phnom Penh
I meant to write more regularly, but there's always so much to do and so much to say. I will endeavour to update more.

This work lark is knackering! This should be my last week volunteering, but I've decided to extend it for another week. I've made some good friends here and I don't feel ready to leave them or the farm to go exploring on my own yet. Weirdly, the thought of just travelling seems a little self-indulgent after this experience. Yes, I am racking up the halo points and I'd better be on the fasttrack to heaven after all this!

My plan now is to go up to Siem Reap on Fri for a long weekend (til Mon) and visit Angkor Wat and the other amazing sights up there. I'll then head back here and work Tues-Fri before setting off to Saigon on the Saturday.

I have been so lucky with the people that have been volunteering with me. We've all got on brilliantly and seem to have similar outlooks even though our ages range from 21 up to the granny that is me. From day 1 we've gelled. I appreciate this even more since new people started a week or so ago. So many of them seem really immature, naive and high maintenance. Three girls arrived to work on the farm. They have moaned constantly about the heat and the dirt, they won't try any local food or try to understand the Cambodian people and they sanitise their hands every 2 mins as they're terrified of catching germs. Why come to Cambodia if you can't cope with heat, dirt and a different culture? Usually by 10am, I have mud (and probably cow poo) squelching between my toes, sweat dripping down my back and a nit-infested orphan clinging on to me. You just have to get on with it. That's what we're here for. Sorry for the rant, but they're so annoying!

I've been learning more about the kids' backgrounds now too. Some of it is quite difficult to take. Tales of kids whose parents were killed in traffic accidents, died of cancer, AIDS or other diseases. Many have parents who can't afford to keep the kids at home.

One of my teen students has been confiding in me. She has a family up north but they can't afford to educate her so she's been sent to the orphanage in the hope of giving her a better life. Her 3 brothers and 2 sisters are still at home and she misses them terribly but knows that she must focus on study. She wants to be a fashion designer. I bought her a sketchpad and some pencils and she came running over to me this morning with a whole host of new dress designs that she'd done over the weekend. She also made me a bracelet the other day out of woven threads and she'd put Pippa - Lucky on it. So sweet of her - and it really made me blub. The other day she revealed that she's been cutting herself. She has a couple of moles on her face and she thinks they're ugly, so she tried to cut one out with a needle. I told her that we call them beauty spots and that they are a mark of beauty. I came in the next day and she'd cut a 2nd one out with a needle. So much for my words of wisdom!

I wish you could have seen me last Friday. Suzanne (another volunteer and now pal) and I were asked to work on the farm. We had to plough a field to get it ready for sowing new crops. We looked around for machinery, but all they have are hoes, picks and rakes. We had to dig up the earth and then weed it all by hand. This experience is certainly challenging.

Five of us went to the beach (Sihanoukville) at the weekend. It was great to get away from the city for a few days. We took a taxi down there on Fri night - $8 each for a 4 hour journey! You couldn't get from Oxford Circus to Covent Garden for that. Unfortunately we woke up on Sat morning to the sound of heavy rain. Being Brits (and a couple of Aussies), we went to the beach anyway. We managed to get a few hours of intermittent sunshine, plus another heavy downpour.

The white sand was just lovely and the sea was nice, even though it's all quite churned up and choppy at the mo. Like much of Cambodia, it all just needs smartening up. The worst part was the hassle that you get from sellers. We felt like pied pipers as more and more women and kids followed us along the beach trying to sell stuff. They won't give up and sat with us constantly pestering us to buy bracelets, manicures, pedicures, scarves etc for the best part of an hour. In the end, I let them thread my eyebrows for $2 much to the amusement of the others. They were pretty rough on the manhandling front and I now have the bruised eyelid to prove it.

Anyway, that's about it from me for now. Please keep your news coming. I hate being cut off from you all.
Pip x