Christmas in Cambodia 2007

Some of the students at Sage Cambodia


We all know that Christmas is right around the corner, so I thought it might be nice to write about my most recent passion in volunteerism. As many of you already know, I am about to embark on a new journey to Cambodia to help paint new classrooms and teach children at a non-profit school aimed at providing an education to some of Cambodia's poorest children and orphans. The school is located right outside Siem Reap, Cambodia and is set in a very rural environment with no running water nor electricity. The children ride bikes and/or walk to school every day and are equally enthusiastic about receiving an education in a country that has, quite recently, seen their entire educated class of older people killed by the Khmer Rouge. During the 1970's a tyranny known as the Khmer Rouge swept throughout the country of Cambodia, killing all people who were educated and/or thought to be intelligent. Furthermore, people were forced from their own homes and sent on death marches, hiding their identities of who they once were (teachers, doctors, students) all in an effort to save their own lives. Entire families were starved, children were beaten and killed, and numerous others were tortured to their eventual deaths. I say these things to bring light and truth to a country that has been through much genocide and war. People like to go about their lives and act as if these things had never happened, but they did and they have. And now, after all this time and reading so much about it, I am about to see it. I am about to walk into a country that has been so torn apart but yet so hopeful in wanting to learn. We are at a great opportunity in our lives to help rebuild what was once loss.

As a volunteer teacher to Sage Cambodia (www.sagecambodia.org), I am about to embark on an incredible journey to educate the new leaders of Cambodia. We, my friends and I, are going to give hope to a new generation of Cambodians seeking wisdom and knowledge. We, my roommate Suzanne and my best friend Bryan, are about to begin our weeklong trip to help others. Already, we have raised over 600 dollars to help donate to this school in hopes of providing them a much-needed water pump so that the children can have access to running water. While we are there, we will take many photos and have stories to share. For now, I am hopeful that we can educate others about countries they may have known little about and to just send us on our way with silent prayers and wishes for the children and all that we are about to work towards. Thank you to everyone who has donated so graciously and given us the encouragement to help others at Chrismas: a time when helping others is the greatest gift we can give of ourselves.
Amy :)

Chiang Mai

The Lantern Festival

So, about 3 weeks ago, we all ventured to the North of Thailand via overnight train and woke up in Chiang Mai in time for the Lantern Festival/weekend. There was a group of 8 of us who stuck together the whole time, but practically our entire staff was there as well to enjoy the festivities. We kept seeing fellow co-workers in parks, at temples, and even Starbucks! Yes, disgusting to say, but they do have Starbucks here. Where don't they have a Starbucks? In any case, we had a great time celebrating with others in the finale of paper lanterns that we lit to fill with hot air (from the fire) to eventually float off into the night sky. It was an incredible sight. Literally, thousands of paper air balloons filled the sky, and it looked like a thousand flickering stars. They say that when you release the lantern into the sky, you a special wish for others. :)

Traveling around town to see some sights, like the umbrella market!
Yeah, we're dorks


A Beautiful hand-painted flower umbrella




More umbrellas!


First, I was a size 20 and now look at me a size 4! Weight watchers worked for me! ha,ha! These are actual pants you can buy in Thailand called Fisherman pants. You can pretty much make them as big or small as you want....errr...rather maybe as big as you want! :)


After we were pooped out from shopping, we all hit up the lantern festival and found ourselves walking along with the parade to the field where the lantern festival was about to start!

People walking with kratongs in the parade


Little girl selling kratongs along the parade's route.


Even the monks were taking pics of the parade!







A float in the parade


The Crew (my teacher friends and their significant others)


This is a kratong. You light the candle and the incense in the middle and then float it into the river as you make a wish.


Us and our kratongs


There were at least a 100 monks there, all meditating, and encouraging all of us to share in the calm and beauty of preparing for the final lift-off of everyone's wishes and hopes into the air together.






A cool pic of Radim with all the lanterns in the background


The beloved King of Thailand


Some children and I at the bottom of the temple steps. Here they are dressed in traditional mountain hill tribe (the Karen Tribe) clothing. These children generally ask for you to pay to take a picture of them....little entreprenuers!


The Wat on top of the mountain


Another Buddha statue at the temple on the hill

Kanchanburi

Our trip to Kanchanburi

So, it had been awhile since last ventured out of Bangkok, and Alicia's birthday was just around the corner. So, us gals decided to take a weekend trip to Kanchanburi, which is about a 2 hour bus ride from Bangkok. We made friends with a nice taxi driver that took us all the way to Kanchanburi. He helped Zoey practice her Thai because she's practically fluent in it. On the other hand, the rest of us listened a lot and tried our best at learning new words like pineapple! :)

Poster on various toilet stretches that you can do in a restroom along the way to Kanchanburi


We all woke up the next morning, ready to get a start on our day. We ate at a cool little backpacker restaurant and then decided that we wanted to head to the waterfalls, which were about 50km away from where we were staying. We had heard that you could simply catch a bus there...only 40 baht (about 1 dollar and 30 cents), so we opted for that. As we stood by the side of the road, we couldn't believe our luck! It only took us 10 minutes or so to find the right bus going to Erawan falls, so we were finally on our way. It took about 2 hours to get there, but it was well worth it!

Hitchhiking our way to Erawan Falls....I mean taking the bus to Erawan Falls. Wait for us!! :)


View from the bus on our way to Erawan Falls


This sign couldn't get any better!


No, we did not photoshop ourselves in there!


These fish like to attack you while you're in the water. Well....they don't really attack you as much as they like to suck on your skin!!


Yeah, we swam under that waterfall. :)


You can actually slide down this rock! So much fun!




These are pictures from the WWII cemetary dedicated to the prisoners of war who built the Death Railway when the Japanese overtook Thailand and Burma. We went here after our trip the waterfalls.




Sunset view from our guesthouse


The next morning, we attempted to get an early start, but we ended up being lazy and not managing to get a ride to a place where we could bamboo raft. As a result, we thought we'd check out the Bridge on the River Kwai. Once we were there, we took a mini train across the bridge, which happens to not be the original. It was super touristy, but we ended up making more fun by renting a boat to take us up the river. On our trip, we stopped at a place called the Monkey School. Apparently, you can watch them perform. We didn't see a show, however, we did get to pet Joy! She's so sweet! :)

A memorial to the people who died in completing the Death Railway and the River Kwai Bridge.




View from the boat as we floated our way down the River Kwai


Buddhist Temple along the river


The best way to drive a boat....laying in a hammock!


Meet Joy!




It's amazing how much their hands look like human hands.


Awwww Joy! She loved being scratched under her chin!

Halloween in Bangkok

Batman! (insert theme song here) Believe it or not, my kiddos and I celebrated Halloween at our school. We started off the morning with a great Halloween costume parade with the entire upper school K-6th and followed with trick-or-treating around the school. The kids looked awesome dressed up in all their favorite superheroes, witches, and ghosts! I was really impressed with all the costumes! I was, of course, a butterfly. The kids loved it! They said their signature phrase, "Miss Amyyyyyyyy, you so funnyyyyyyy!" Love it! Here's some pics from our day.

My Class


A Butterfly and a Cat



A ghost!


Trick-or-Treat!


Trick-or-Treating in Ms. Diana's class


Even in Thailand there are pumpkins! Just a little smaller, greener but much better smelling than the ones in the states!