Charity Cambodia

As promised, here are some pictures from our visit at Angkor Wat outside of Siem Reap. Angkor Wat is the most famous temple in the region and is usually used as name for the entire region. However are there several sights in the area such as the city of Angkor Thom, where the temple of Bayon lies, as well as numerous temples all around. If you want to read more about Angkor Wat and the surrounding temples here are two of many existing links:

 

http://www.angkor-planet.com/UK/region.html

 

http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/668

 

I tried to make a description by each picture but didn't succeed. Therefore I divide them in to four and give you a short explanation before the pictures.

 

These four are from the temple of Angkor Wat. The first sees Angkor Wat from the east, the second a view inside the temple. The third with Henrik an example of a decorated wall and finally the fourth with me looks at the west front side from the temple.

 

 

The following are from outside and inside the ancient city Angkor Thom. Firstly it is Henrik outside one of the entrances, secondly a view over the Bayon temple. Finally the third and fourth picture are inside of Bayon.

 

 

These final four are from Ta Prohm which is also know as the Tomb Raider temple since part of the movie was shot here in year 2000.

 

 

 

 

Alone again. Last night I took the sleeping bus from Siem Reap to Sihanoukville which took about 10,5 hours. The bus ride was pretty alright tough and I was able to sleep away some time. I left Henrik in Siem Reap since he took the bus to Phnom Penh this morning, where he will spend his last days in Cambodia.

 

It was great fun to have a visit and show Henrik around for 10 days. Although the weather god was against us (the rainy season is definitely here) we were able to do quite a lot such as swimming, relaxing, having some drinks, visiting The Goodwill School and of course visiting Angkor Wat.

 

These are some pictures of our happenings. I will make a post with more pictures from Angkor Wat in the upcoming days.

 

 

My time back home in Sweden is reaching an end. I am flying back on Wednesday to Bangkok and then taking a bus ride down to Sihanoukville during a few days.

 

I have had a good time here but I am looking forward to come back to Sihanoukville. It has been great to meet a lot of friends, although I haven't been able to meet everyone I wished.

 

I also want to aim a big thank you to Lisbeth who gave me a donation of very nice clothes which I will bring back to Sihanoukville.

 

Tomorrow I start my trip towards Helsingborg. This means the blog won't be updated as regularly the upcoming time. I will come back to Sihanoukville in the middle of July and continue as usual. Although, some update will perhaps be made during my stay in Sweden.

 

I still have to figure out a good donation to collect for. I have some ideas, but it would be very interesting to hear if you have any other ideas. Please let me know what you think!

I booked a ticket for Sweden today to be home a while over the summer. It will be great fun to see as many of you as possible. I am also looking forward to the wedding in Göteborg I am now able to visit.

I will be flying from here on June 27th and back to Cambodia on July 13th.

Sabine will be back in control at The Goodwill School when I am leaving for Sweden.

Since I ain't satisfied with my Khmer I have now started to force myself into learning by having a small test by the School everyday. I mean it is a School so why should I get away from learning there =) By the meeting I decide together with the staff what my homework for the next day shall be and the next day I am tested. Today I passed the test of counting from 1-10 and tomorrow I must know how to count up to 100.

Hello again!

 

It has been a few days since I visited my first Khmer Wedding. It seems people in Cambodia want as many guests as possible on their weddings (most probably since every guest donates a certain amount of money for the bride couple) otherwise I don´t know why I got invited. Actually I had never met the couple getting married before the ceremony. I got the invitation through The Goodwill School and of course I thought it would be interesting to experience so I accepted the invitation.

 

At 07.00 we met with the groom close to the brides house where everyone got a piece of fruit, food, drink, flower etc to carry to the brides house. Reaching the brides house the item was collected and a soup served as breakfast. Then the bridal couple and their close family spent the day and I went home. What kind of ceremony was taking part during the day, I unfortunately have no idea.

 

In the afternoon (always at least 2 hours after the official invitation time) I was picked up by Lungdy, who works at The Goodwill School and we went to the Hotel where the ceremony was taking place. We were shown to a table and once the table was full we were served several courses of different Khmer meals along with beers. Most of the time the music was so loud it wasn't possible to a have a conversation around the table, which in this case didn't make that much difference for me since most of the guests around the table only spoke Khmer. Instead we were eating, smiling and making toasts with the beers. During the dinner I wondered what happened with all the trash because I didn't see anyone collecting anything from the table but as you can see on one of the pictures below I figured it out.

 

After dinner a cake was of cut and thereafter a bit of dancing. Around 21.15, perhaps after 30 minutes of dancing, I noticed that a lot of people went out to the front yard of the place. I thought there were something happening out there and Lungdy told me we were going out. To my surprise it showed nothing special was happening but instead the people were leaving and so did we. A very abrupt and surprising end to the ceremony I must say. Well, I had a great time and a quite different wedding experience. Here are a some pictures from the day, enjoy!

 

During spring 2009 I went for a travel of 4,5 months through Thailand, Malaysia and Cambodia. When I came back home after this trip I once again started working in Helsingborg. My mind went although often back to Asia and it became a dream to someday move there for a longer period of time.

I remember the first time a mentioned the idea of going to Cambodia and work as a volunteer. It was actually the day I came back from the trip in Asia and I was talking with my cousins girlfriend as they were visiting me for midsummer. She mentioned to me that she had friends running an orphanage in Cambodia and since then the idea has been in the back of my head. Around Christmas last year I realized that the time has come for this adventure, decided to quit my job meaning that the trip started in March and now I am sitting here writing this in Sihanoukville.

I think the many memories of poor children and people hurt from the Khmer Rouge as well as from mines around Cambodia I saw on my last trip are the main reasons I finally chose this country to volunteer in. I guess this is where it is needed the most out of the countries I saw as possible destinations.

Then the fact that there are several nice beaches, lovely climate and friendly people in the area also is a very good reason to stay here.

Until I have started to take new pictures I give you some pictures from my trip in 2009 which gave me this idea.

Hi and welcome,

 

Let´s start up with describing why I have created this blog and what I intend to with it.

 

This blog intend to tell you about my life in Cambodia and my aim to help with charity in this country. I came to Cambodia in March 2011 to find an organization, for which I could volunteer. After a few weeks of searching I came in contact with an organization called Help the Cambodian Children and their school in Sihanoukville called The Goodwill School. You can read more about this organization on their homepage and I will also give you a further explanation about the school in a later publishing.

 

Since I am educated within business I have been thinking long how I can contribute with my knowledge in the best way. It feels to me it perhaps would have been easier if I for example was a doctor or a teacher where I could see a direct result of my contribution. Instead of this I realized that I could contribute with sharing my experience with people abroad who could be interested in how life is for the children attending to The Goodwill School as well as the community surrounding this school.

 

For the upcoming future my intention is to give picture of the everyday life here in Sihanoukville including The Goodwill School as well as other happenings. After living here and taking part of the everyday life around the The Goodwill School for some time my plan is to find an important area where a donation could make a big difference for these people. I don´t know today what kind of donation but I am sure time will show.

 

My purpose of this blog is to create a connection between the aim for a possible charity and possible donors. This way I hope to create an opportunity for people to make a donation and really see the direct result of this donation as I intend to continue with this blog until the donation is carried through. I hope you find this interesting to follow and that we together can find a way to make a difference for some people lives here in Cambodia.

 

Lets go ahead!