Yesterday, it was our first day heading down to the Bakong Technical College (BTC) and boy, what a warm welcome we received from the kids! They were lined up along the road, maybe a couple hundred of them, to clap and cheer us on while we entered. Then, in the main auditorium, we took turns singing the Cambodian, Canadian and American national anthems, respectively. It was quite neat to see the collaboration between these organizations and people, Ronnie, the BTC staff and the Toronto Rotary Group, in the form of the actual college.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The college looks great but there’s still a long way to go. Ronnie mentioned that they were aiming for the grand opening sometime in March 2013. Hence, we wanted to get right into the work. It was a rough start to get settled in but we did some neat tasks: making cement tiles, pulling nails, moving pails of sand, brick work and more. I got a better view of what the women did, since we did happen to split the work groups by gender. With the help of the local workers, we made a ton of bricks, way to go ladies!

After a delicious lunch, we headed down the road on some oxen to see some temples and visit a crafts workshop; they worked with stone carvings, weaving and leather goods. We were met with hoards of little girls and boys selling postcards and scarfs. These kids had learnt some English to communicate to tourists. For instance, I was continuously being greeted “hello lady”!

Overall, it was a light workday but we did familiarize ourselves with the worksite and some BTC employees. I look forward to our next day at the site and I’ll make sure to report back with some more tasks and photos later on tonight.

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