Angkor Wat, Siem Reap, Cambodia- by Anna

Ancient and amazing. On Saturday morning, we took a tuk-tuk to Angkor Wat, one of the wonders of the world. When we arrived, the guide explained that Angkor Wat was built over six hundred years ago. Angkor Wat is a complex with thirty eight different temples. Angkor Wat is the one you’d see in most pictures. We walked through the Ancient building, learning a lot about the history of Angkor Wat, then we listen to our guide telling us about how he had been a Buddhist monk for 11 years. The picture quality was amazing and Amelie and Elise loved the hide and seek. After Angkor Wat, we headed to Bayon one of the other temples. Bayon was special because it had faces on it and most temples in the Angkor Wat were Hindu and became Buddhist temples but Bayon was always Buddhist. The pictures there were so cool, fun to take and we photo bombed each others photos. The next temple was called Ta Phrom. This one was unique because there are trees growing out of it. It was also the place were they filmed the movie “Tomb Raider”. We tried to reenact the scene in front of the tree. It kind of worked. Next was Pre Rup. It was one of my favourites because it was huge and the colour of the stone was rather pink. Then we did Banteay Srei. Beautiful as well. We’ve been travelling for seven months and we haven’t hit anywhere nearly as hot and humid as Cambodia. Angkor Wat was truly amazing and packed with history.

Feeding Dreams Cambodia- By Elise

We woke up at 6:30 in the morning to go to the school called Feeding Dreames Cambodia that we were going to volunteer at. We were all really nervous. By the time we got there almost every one in the school was staring at us. It actually felt like you were a celebrity! It was really annoying when every one starts to touch your hair. Now back to the school. We all went to different classes: Amee went to the kindergarten, Anna went to a older class, my dad went to the class with the most kids and my mom and I went to the class below Anna’s class’s level. When we were all finished getting organized we started to teach the kids and we also played some games like :scatagories, hang man and a word game. It was really sad because we went to the slum which is were all of the people at the school’s families live with almost no water. At the end, the school made me feel like we don’t need as much as we have because we saw what the students had and it wasn’t a lot. It was a very good experience!

“Feeding dreams Cambodia” voulenteer school-by Amelie

On the first day of school, I was very nervous. In the morning, we went to their daily assembly. At the assembly, we introduced ourselves and sang songs with the school. After the assembly, Joe (the volunteer coordinator), gave us a tour of the school. Then, we got separated into different class rooms. I taught kindergarten, while Anna, my mom and my dad, taught older groups. On the first day, Elise watched the teenagers train to be a bartender or a waiter or a chef. For the rest of the week, she and my mom shared a classroom and the students looked like they really enjoyed it. The classes knew more English than you would expect because they get a lot of volunteers. The kids were so friendly but they did not have much. One day we went to see where they lived. They did not have beds, they had mattresses on the floor, and their houses were made out of thin sheets of metal, but they were happy. The school was from 8:00am to 11:00am, and in the afternoon the students would go to government school. In the morning, the teachers would ask us if we had anything planed for that day and we would play games. We would teach them new words, do drawings and do math. In the class rooms there were white boards, sometimes aTV, benches, and tables. There was one playground with only a slide, one very new and good looking soccer field and some room to run and play. There were two groups, one came in the morning while the other went to government school, and they switched in the afternoon. We taught the morning group every day and we only taught the afternoon group three times. On Fridays, the school only went from 8:00am to 9:30am and the they played soccer from 9:30am to 11:00am. The school was amazing for all ages and everyone in our family felt like they fit in!!! I would recommend it!!!