I'm the farmer, I work in the fields all day.

It's been a busy few weeks so I haven't been able to write for a while! All is going well at the orphanage, I'm getting the hang of teaching now! I'm sad that I've only got a week to go with the kids. My morning class is great - I only have one girl so it's more of a private tutoring session but she's very bright and speeds through the work I give her. She's very lovely, except for the odd occasion where an extra student joins us, and then she sulks because I can't giver her my undivided attention!

A busy morning class. Usually I only had the girl in the mornings.

The afternoon class is getting better, we have about 12 students monday, tuesday and wednesday, then on thursday we have 25. The large class is a nightmare, but this week we took them outside and played left/right/up/down which they loved. We had a sad moment earlier this week when the mother of one my favorite students died so he had to go back to his family for a few days. It's easy to forget that these kids are some of the poorest in Cambodia and don't have a proper family who can afford to look after them. But then again it shows how well the orphanage is doing - it's because they look so happy and content that we forget how much they don't have.
Last friday we covered the road outside the orphanage with new earth and stone so that when the rain comes in a few weeks the kids can still get to the local school. It was fun throwing dirt around with the kids and having wheelbarrow races, and the road looked great for a while but now it's getting worn and we don't really see how it will stop the path turning into a stream of mud in the rain! This friday was digging day! We spent the day in the orphange's greenhouses weeding and hoeing the vegetable patches to get ready to plant spinach. It was rediculously hot and sweaty, we could only do about 15 minutes at a time before we had to have a break! Our co-ordinater said I was an excellent farmer though! It's a shame we only have a week left and won't be able to see anything growing.
Last weekend myself and some of the other volunteers took the night bus to Siem Reap and did the temples at Angkor Wat. They were pretty impressive! We watched the sunset on our first night, then the next day got caught in a rain storm at Angkor Wat itself, and had to shelter in a tiny temple for an hour. The rain was like nothing we get in England, huge great big raindrops coming down by the bucket load! We went to the temple where Tomb Raider was filmed, although I'd never seen the film so that meant nothing to me!
This weekend we're staying in Phnom Penh and having a lazy couple of days - today I had a massage and then spent the afternoon at a lovely bar that has a really nice pool. We didn't get any sun though, it was a lot cooler today and it was so nice to not be covered in sweat (lovely). I think it's going to rain tomorrow, but if not it's back to the pool! We've been having temperatures of about 40c, according to one local this tuesday will be 50c! If it's that hot we're not allowed to go to work thankfully!! So I may be back in the air condidtioned internet cafe all day tuesday uploading all the photos I haven't managed to yet!
Hope you are all enjoying the lovely weather I've heard you're having this weekend!!!xxxx

I'm the farmer, I work in the fields all day.

Phnom Penh, Cambodia