Samrong Diary 2020- Month 1
By Léonie Regnault who is volunteering in Cambodia from Dec 2019- March 2020
It has been one month since I arrived in Cambodia and more particularly in Samraong, Oddar Meachney to work on Green Shoots Foundation Agritech Centre. I landed in Siem Reap in the beginning of December. I left the cold and rainy France for the hot and sunny Cambodia.
After a long trip, I really enjoyed the warm sun, which welcomed me in Siem Reap. Then, the two hours taxi to go to Samraong was fascinating for me. We left Siem Reap, a lively city with motorbikes everywhere, to finally arrive in Samraong, a small town in the countryside. During the way, I passed palm trees and and rice paddies. I was amazed by all this green at the horizon. I live in the countryside in France, but nature is definitely different here.
The Green Shoots agri tech center is around twenty minutes by bicycle from the center of Samraong city where I live. At first, I thought that this ride would be long and painful. But once I did it, I saw the beauty of the landscapes and I found that those 20 minutes were a great opportunity to see the countryside with another point of view that we can have in a car of even on the back of a motorbike. It is an invitation to contemplation, with the strong sun in the morning and the sweet colors of the sunset on the way back.
I finally arrived the agri tech center, just after a sandy road, far from the noise and the pollution of the city and the road. I discovered a squared building surrounded by a lot of green on all sides. After leaving my bike, I walked across the little paths in the garden; I saw the butterflies flying over my head and the chicken running everywhere.
Nature seems to be free and express joy everywhere. I then met the children studying with Green Shoots on the first Thursday of the week- classes are held on Thursdays and Fridays at the moment. At first, the contact with the children was a little cold and difficult. I think that the children were mostly intimidated by me, didn’t know how to speak to me, how to interact.
Nevertheless, they kept asking questions in Khmer to the local people about me, and tried to laugh with me. Those children seem to be always happy, laughing about nothing and everything, and extremely kind between them. This startled me the most, the huge difference between French children and Cambodian ones about the overall sympathy, kindness and constant willingness to help each other. Weeks after weeks the children were less and less shy, seemed to be happier to communicate with me, and to improve their English. They always ask me English and French words in exchange of a Khmer world. After that, they kept saying proudly the few French words they knew, that were of course drowning in bursts of laughter.
Soon I realised, I’ve made a few friends who wanted to share with me about their lives. After a class they decided to drive me to their school, around 20 minutes by motorbike. Here they made me meet their friends and teachers who invited me to attend to an English class and asked me to speak English with the students. After that, the little girls decided to sing me English songs and offered me Cambodian foods, mostly fruits. I have been touched by their pride to take me to their school to show me the details of it and their will to introduce me to everybody. They were also very proud to show me the garden that has been made with the help of Green Shoots and to ask me about each type of thing they harvest.
Obviously, they were far better than me; unfortunately I couldn’t recognize the eggplants! Green Shoots helped them by giving them little plants, and assisting them with the plantation and to look after it.
During the first weeks, an unfortunate and unexpected cold snap killed most of the little chickens, around 6 of them, in the agri tech centers. After that this little tragedy, we took care of the remaining two ones. They are now in perfect shape. Furthermore, the new ones born a few days ago seem to be in very good health.
In the garden we cultivate a lot of vegetables: sweet potato, salad, long bean, eggplant, onion … We’ve harvested sweet potatoes, to finally eat them with the children, who were really happy to eat what they’ve cooked themselves. They started to take it back from the ground, then they cleaned them by putting it in three different containers, made a little fire and put it with boiled water. They also did a long bean salad, which was especially spicy. As the potatoes they harvested it, cleaned it and them crushed all of it in a huge bowl and added the peppers. They were very proud to offer me a bowl of it!
During the last weeks, we started to plant cucumbers. We started by clearing the area, then we put good mulch, watered it a lot, planted the sprouts, added hay and watered it again and again. We did the same for the salad, which seems to grow well in the garden so we planted it in different areas. With those vegetables we can do a big salad with all of them, served with rice, obviously!
Looking forward to sharing more from my time here with all of you.
If you would like to volunteer in Cambodia then please email volunteer@greenshootsfoundation.org
