Field Trip to Anlong Veng

Hi Everyone

We've had an adventure since last being in touch as last week Geoff and I travelled 2hrs east of Samraong in work's land cruiser to visit several villages. It was a remote and poor part of the province and the idea was to support some motivated villages who with the support of our project team have improved the health of themselves and their families by for eg. covering water jars to prevent mosquitoes breeding, started to boil water and possibly built a pig house to keep people and animals separate!

We had large meetings of about 30 villagers with the village chief and village health support workers, who work voluntarily to improve their community's health.People from unmotivated villages were invited to hear and then we all walked around the village, the idea being that everyone would see what was good and bad and come up with an action plan as to how they could bring about change in their own place. These people are a tough lot, living in the middle of nowhere, in the most basic of houses, eating what they grow, in an area still being cleared of landmines and with the sun beating down. We sat under thatched shelters though, had tea and biscuits as a snack, and a lunch of rice and a leafy vegetable soup provided by our project. There was lots of laughter too which is typical of life here and people listened intently even to the session on domestic violence!

After 2 days of these activities, the project manager took us off for a bit of macabre tourism - this area was the last stronghold of the Kymer Rouge in the late 80's. We saw Pol Pot's grave and the house of his 2nd in command, Ou Moc. It was up a mountain, the first hill we'd seen in 3mths, and the views south over a flat, largely deforested Cambodia were stunning.

On the home front, our landlord has built us a thatched shelter on the flat roof which is lovely to escape the sun and get a breeze in the evenings. It's difficult to tolerate being in the house during the day as it is so hot and humid, usually about 33c. Geoff has got going with his teaching, 3 sessions each week at my work place, at 7am! and an advanced english language group at home 3 times a week. He'll be home 2nd July for 2wks to see Nic and his Mum.

I'm rushing this as we're out tonight at a friend's leaving do, a lovely German Girl whose been here for 6 mths building the admin. capacity of an international NGO. We leave for Kratie tomorrow, a town on the Mekong, where we hope to see the rare irrawaddy dolphins. Its a buddy week, arranged by VSO to see how other volunteers work.

Hope all's well with you all and that the sunshine is still with you!

With much love from us both
Carol and Geoff xx