Day 83 - Week 3 of Volleyball and saying goodbye again!

Listening to Khmer music on the Tuk Tuk journey to work.

Day 83 - 14th September

After a last breakfast with Abigail, we both headed around to the Globalteer Office so that Abigail could say goodbye to DK. It was about as emotional as the day when Gordon Brown finished his term as Prime Minster. I suppose somethings are just not able to be expressed.

Our weekly Monday morning meeting to discuss the week ahead focused on 'Family'. Skip, aka Charlie explained to the coaches and I the importance of teaching the kids about this child right and we struck up a couple of debates about different types of families.

Our new game for the week was to set up five small boxes with cones on the field, each with a task inside for the children to complete e.g. Box one the child would have to do 25 dokks, Box two 25 push ups etc. Each child would have to complete all five boxes individually within 3 minutes, which is virtually impossible. We then let them go in a pair, which could be a possibility before finally putting them in a small team of four or five.

The idea of the exercise was to teach them that on your own, these 'tasks' are so much harder than it is with support from others, or with the theme in mind, in life things are harder alone than it is with a family, who give support, guidance and love. It's subliminal in the games we play but the kids go away with something to think about.

I had a meeting with Charlie to discuss my experience so far. As expected, I gave him nothing bad - this project is amazing and every day is more fun. I also took on some basic admin tasks to help out - keep the skills varying I say.

When I finished the meetings, I came back to Bou Savy to go for lunch with Abigail. We went to a Khmer BBQ place and I took on fried rice with river fish. I'm glad I did, it was belting.

The trip to work.

Then my afternoon began at one of the projects, an hour away from us in the centre of Siem Reap. The kids here are incredible, with such a great attitude to sport and learning. It's always good fun to visit them. 

I had a game of volleyball with some of the kids, a teacher and DK. Normally, I managed to spike the ball backwards but I had my A game on and hit a few shots like a pro.

The first lesson progressed well but we found the kids were finishing the drills alone too quickly. We managed to get the social message across which was good but in our second session, we whittled the time down to a minute and a half and found the kids struggled a lot more on their own, which of course was our intended plan.

Srey Mom's daughter provided the entertainment on the way back. After a milk snack, she nestled between me and DK and started playing on her mom's phone and singing whilst music played. She is adorable and a very strong, little lady. She doesn't mind pulling the hairs out of your leg so you scream just like her - I tell you, it's painful.

Abigail and I went to a restaurant for a final meal. I had a Khmer speciality, Bok Choi which was really good - it's a bit like a herby, fried chicken with morning glory and rice. It could be a new favourite!

Then the tears flowed again. No, not from me, but from Abigail. She didn't want to leave and I couldn't really blame her. It's awesome here. But I did tell her she had been an awesome adversary for me in her three weeks here and that she and Dan would see me again, somewhere, somehow.

Best of luck with the masters and be good to Paul, Abigail.

I settled in for the night, writing a little more. I need to get this TV script finished by the24th so every minute is crucial.

So alone again, a new adventure begins . . . Bring it on Cambodia!

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