Chasing Amy-Lou

Takeo Province, Cambodia:

I thought I’d escaped the treacherous mini-bus journeys of South East Asia. Turns out I spoke too soon. This morning saw me and my volunteer compadres boarding yet another rickety, over-crowded and squashed mini-bus in the direction of Takeo where we were to begin our volunteer activities. Luckily, despite being packed together tighter than a tin of sardines, the journey only took two and a half hours, so I’ve no real cause to complain – and there was no waiting around this time – it was like clockwork which I found to be pleasantly surprising.

We crawled through Phnom Penh at a snail’s pace – rush hour here is possibly worse and more dense than Ho Chi Minh City – although with less scooters and more actual cars – big fancy cars at that; think big Jeeps and Aussie-style Ute’s, 4x4s, Toyotas and Hyundai’s. It was a rich man’s paradise but ironically as the expensive cars stacked up, gridlocking the streets, the obvious poverty and filth was still very much prevalent and in stark abundance.

Eventually escaping the traffic we made it out onto the country roads and continued south, still in our sardine like fashion. Along the way we passed by small villages and farms; crop fields and rice fields, communities and families; all going about their daily routines. It was a joy and a privilege to see. And after the intensity of our important historical education yesterday, I felt lucky to be able to witness and take in such joy and normality in a once destroyed and saddened countryside.

We reached Happyland around 11am. Our official volunteer journey had begun.

Happyland is a volunteer led initiative that aims to help educate and develop the social skills of the children from the surrounding villages near the town of Takeo; its main focus being the gradual practice of English, as the better a Cambodian child’s English skills (the more fluent they are and the more they practice) the better chance they have of getting a good job in the future which in turn will allow them to provide for their families creating better lives all round.

Happyland also concentrates on another key element – happiness. The initiative’s Program Leader (we’ll call him Swansea) prioritises fun, laughter and play over actual classroom learning (but not in detriment to); if the children want to play, they can. If they want to learn, they can. If they’re too tired from a day at their normal school then they can just come and hang out and have conversations with the other volunteers.

The ages of the children who come to Happyland range from 2 – 17; and their backgrounds, family life, education and social skills all vary immensely too. Some of the younger children have little or no English; some show extreme talent and promise, and have picked up the language in no time at all; for others, Happyland is a place they can come and escape – they can play, they can do arts and crafts, play ball and learn music – but most of all, they are being stimulated, they’re interacting, and they’re learning, even if the learning isn’t wholly curriculum based.

For the older kids, Happyland is a more relaxed environment in which they can converse and practice English at a conversational level. Their passion is unprecedented and their desire to better themselves is heart warming. And they always have a smile on their faces.

On arrival we were given a lengthy brief from Swansea: Happyland was not somewhere for us to come and relax or mess around, it wasn’t going to be an easy ride and it wasn’t to be seen just as a place for us to go to save a bit of money (we wouldn’t be spending very much at all while we were here) – it was a place for the children – they came first, always, and we came last. Everything we did had to be done with the children in mind. Just like I’d done when I’d taken part in Camp America all those years ago (twelve to be precise): I wasn’t there for me, I was there for the kids.

Once we’d settled in and had found our feet in terms of our sleeping arrangements and where everything was kept around the place, it was time to meet the kids.

They usually started arriving early afternoon – the younger ones around 12:30 or 1pm in order to play, use the computers for Microsoft Paint or for trying out new games; the older ones around 3pm once their school day had finished.

It was daunting – we were thrown in at the deep end straight away, not really knowing what to expect, not knowing how many kids were going to turn up, and not knowing how they were going respond to a load of new faces. There was no time to be worried or fretful though as we had to just go with it (my South East Asia mantra had returned with force!). And go with it we did.

One of the French volunteers who’d been there a few weeks (we’ll call him Toulouse) took four of us to the local village. There were a group of girls who hadn’t been to Happyland for a few days and Swansea thought it would be beneficial if we went to see them, to let them know we were still there for them and we wanted them to come back…if they wished to of course.

For almost an hour we played jump rope with them, gave them piggy back rides, chased them around the grounds outside their houses, tried to chat to them in English, laughed with them, and stood there in hysterics as they pinched us and shoved us out of the way as we attempted to join in with their skipping; they were mischief, trouble and very cheeky – we were going to have our work cut out.

Managing to persuade them to come with us to Happyland we arrived back at the site and were launched straight into arts activities and colouring, reading and computer time. The afternoon passed pretty quickly and not only were we bombarded with young kids who wanted attention and needed constant stimulation, but eventually the older children turned up and wanted to know everything about us; asking us questions about where we were from and how old we were, asking to talk with them about school and what they wanted for the future.

It was absolutely mesmerising; some of the older kids had a level of English that was superb; I took to tutoring two girls, helping them with their grammar and their sentence construction. It was wonderful. I felt stimulated, I felt good and they responded really well to my instructions; we conversed and we laughed, and I felt like I was really helping them.

I’m not for one minute saying that the first day at Happyland was a walk in the park – it wasn’t. By the end of the day we were shattered. And our work hadn’t even finished. As a group of volunteers living together, there were also chores and domestic activities to be taken care of. We weren’t just volunteers for children, we were cooks and cleaners, housekeepers and labourers. And as I lay my head down to rest at what was probably something like 10pm, even though I knew the week would be challenging, I also knew that it would be very very rewarding.