School in Cambodia

In January 2024 my eldest left at 19 to explore the world. I panicked as I realised that I had missed the window to travel with him and that I needed to travel with my 2 girls before they would be travelling without me. I booked flights for myself and my two daughters to South East Asia for two months the following winter. Very quickly plans just fell into place, the most significant and unexpected of which was a trip to the Kulen mountains in Cambodia to volunteer in a school. Luckily for me a friend of mine (Jan Dillan) had been there the year before and had fallen in with Nasonn of the Clean Kulen Center Recycles. Nasonn, a Cambodian/Khmer woman brought up in Belgium after fleeing Cambodia, as a young child, during the war, returned to Cambodia 5 years ago to run a recycling project and teach English in a school in the mountains. I introduced myself via text and she welcomed me with open arms, so enthusiastically. We had irregular, half messages during the year which left me knowing very little except that there was a sacred waterfall and that it would be ideal to bring some hair lice shampoo for the kids and design some teaching days. How a waterfall could be sacred, I had no idea.

Cambodia was our first step. I was delighted that my girls would be exposed to something so new to them. We packed as well as we could, full of nerves and excitement, particularly about teaching in the school. And as excited as we were, much more excitement was warranted. What a wondrous treasure was awaiting us!

I felt quite ignorant when the girls asked me in the airport the name of the language in Cambodia. I had no idea. They speak Khmer and are Khmer people. The Khmer people are beautiful, kind and warm hearted. There is a soft innocence about them. Or maybe a better description would be, child-like joy and curiosity.

Nasonn was a vibrant and powerful woman and a wealth of information. We drove an hour and a half with Jan, from Siem Reap to a small village up the mountains, just beyond the tourist area to her house. One road, so very quiet except for the school and Nasonn lives right beside it, almost in the grounds of it, where we all stayed together. We were woken every school morning at 6.45 with the sound of scooters roaring, right under our window. Scooters topped with older kids driving their younger siblings and neighbours. The sound of chatter, laughter and excitement of school children, a beautiful sound to wake up to. As Nasonn was the only English teacher, and had to teach outside of school hours her classes were limited in numbers. Only kids who knew the alphabet in English could join. There were 2 classes based on skill rather than age. But before we were to work with them we taught a class of younger kids from a different village and we met them at the waterfall.

The waterfall, the sacred waterfall, is a tourist spot for swimming, washing and picnicking. Nasonn usually held this class in someone's home but with us it was a day out on the rocks. We played cards and worked from their textbook and played tickling games. The openness, the sharing and the drive to learn was an honour to be part of. My girls were in their element, full of awe and wonder as were the Khmer kids. The kids showed my girls their world of river banks, rocks, climbing trees and chasing butterflies. All the while doing their best to speak English. It was glorious. What an experience for them all!

When we got back to Nasonn’s, we would rest shortly before starting at 3. Jan taught them how to make juggling balls and juggle. We taught bracelet making and braided hair. From there we played word games of various kinds. Harder games in the second class so my girls had to get more creative and think more widely. We were learning and they were learning. Their will to learn could be deemed as unnatural if you based it on our society. Their gratitude to Nasonn for offering her time was shown through their respect and dedication. And even the kids who weren’t accepted into the class would stand at the door and peer through the glassless windows and listen. Their participation, enthusiasm, playfulness and thirst to learn was such a pleasure to be around. Even the principle came to the classes to participate and learn.

Sadly we had no idea how amazing this was going to be and had planned our travels so that we had to leave after 4 days.

We left the mountains and Cambodia and headed off to Thailand, which had some things to offer us but after a short while we realised that finding that same joy, wonder and fulfillment was going to be difficult and booked ourselves right back to Siem Reap to head up to the mountains with Nasonn. We were welcomed with open arms by them all (including all the staff in the hotel in Siem Reap) and got straight back into classes. My girls were getting more confident and creative and the Khmer kids were more interactive than before. The week before we arrived back they had taken a test. The kids with the top 18 scores were accepted into the computer class that Nasonn (and someone called Ben who we never met) were beginning. They only had 9 laptops, there would be 2 teenagers to a laptop and therefore 18 kids could join the class. This was the first ever computer class in the mountains. The first time they had ever opened a laptop or got to type on a keyboard. An idea so foreign to us. The class was on Friday at 5, taught in Nasonn’s home. One of the girls had to sleep in the school overnight to make it possible to attend the class because her family didn’t have a scooter and she lived too far away to walk.

Nasonn has recycling projects, such as teaching them to sew bags from old fabrics to sell so they can fundraise for themselves. They are working hard to make English and IT accessible for them to widen their opportunities for their future.

As you can see, funding would be so welcome in this school. We are in the process of collecting laptops and working out how to ship them over. We would like to increase their chance to learn English, to have more computers to work on, to make it so the kids can turn up whether or not their family has a scooter. They need funds for the internet, electricity bills, updating laptops, replacing water filters. 

There are so many plans a-foot. This workshop is free. Everyone is welcome with or without donation because already your presence on the dancefloor is an added value to the room. If you have something that you would like to throw into a pot that will be by the door, I and they would gladly receive it.

Taking it in from the outside

Learning by the waterfalls

Watching computer class as the sun goes down

Teaching each other pronounciation

Counting in English

First computer class on the Kulen mountains