DAY 5 - PIO Schools and Cheoung Ek

Day 5 of our trip was a day full of the most incredible highs and also some emotional lows.

We spent the morning visiting two schools that were built and are run by the People Improvement Organization and their founder, CNN hero Noun Phymean.

Two-thirds of the students went to the dump site school called Stung Mean Chey and one-third of the students went to the slum school known as Borey Keila. In both cases, our groups were warmly greeted by the staff and students of the respective schools.

The CIS students broke up into groups of 4-6 and went into different classrooms where they worked directly with the PIO students through lessons, activities and games they had prepared in advance. Talk about an incredible experience. The PIO students were so excited to learn from us that the school was literally buzzing with excitement.

The CIS students who had gone to Borey Keila joined the others at Stung Mean Chey and we were treated to a talent show by the PIO students. We watched in awe as we were entertained by both traditional Khmer dance routines as well as break dancing and other modern styles of dance. Those PIO students who were not in the performance were quite often seen in the audience holding the hands of our students or sitting on their laps. The culmination of the show occurred when the CIS students were pulled from the audience and joined the others on stage for a celebration dance.

After we had said goodbye to the students at the school, we paid a short visit to the nearby PIO orphanage where 55 of the students live. We participated in a group sing-a-long before boarding the buses. As we left, Jack(or was it Marco?) said, "that was the highlight of the trip so far!". But as they will see shortly when they do the housebuilding, the best has yet to come...

Choeung Ek

After such an emotional high in the morning , our post-lunch trip to the killing fields at Choeung Ek brought us right back down to earth and helped us to understand why the country is in its current level of under-development.

What happened? Well, during the period from 1975-1979, almost 2 million people lost their lives either directly or in-directly at the hands of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. This tragedy was perpetrated due to a combination of an extremist ideology, ethnic animosity, and a disregard for human life. The killing fields at Choeung Ek were just one of hundreds of extermination camps in which murder was carried out on a massive scale. Students and teachers alike listened intently and respectfully as they learned from or guide, a genocide survivor himself, how the horrific killings were carried out.

Back on the bright side again, now that we have developed an understanding of the past, it's time to work on building a future for Cambodians. To this end, we will prepare for our house building project by visiting Janne Ritskes at Tabitha tomorrow for an orientation meeting prior to the 'big build'. Can't wait!