Volunteering at CPOC Foundation in Cambodia

Two Rascals...

12/6/2015

Clash of Clans

The most valuable service is one rendered to our fellow humans. - Cambodian Buddist

Dara: "Do you have any games on your phone?"
Me: "Yes, I have puzzles."
Dara & Long: "Do you have clash of clans?"
Me: "No, what is that?"

That is how it all began...

DAY 2

Cooking is not a skill I possess, nor one I am interested in obtaining, but we offered to make the breakfast for the volunteers. With limited ingredients available - duck eggs, tomato, cucumber, onion and garlic - what initially was going to be an omelette quickly turned into scrambled eggs as there definitely wasn't enough for everyone. Devouring our small portions of breakfast, we ventured over to the neighbouring shop for what is a cross between bread and a doughnut - very delicious.

One of the cool things about volunteering at CPOC is you can basically do whatever you want with regards to helping out, essentially choosing which skills you want to use to teach others. (For instance, gardening, building, teaching, etc...) As the prime native English speakers at the orphanage during the time we were there, naturally we decided teaching English was a skill we could share. With that said, out of the days we were there, three of them the students were on holidays for the water festival.

As our second day was a holiday, there wasn't an English class scheduled and not much for us to do. But not to fret! Throwing on the Disney movie Robin Hood, we took what was a lazy holiday for the kids, as they were lounging around and made it into a teaching moment by going over what they watched in the movie. Capturing things such as the moral of the movie, the types of animals, the colours of clothing, and the actions the characters were doing. We really wanted to make sure the kids understood what they were watching and to reinforce the English words they already knew.

As the day progressed, I obtained two new friends, Dara and Long, who made sure it was Facebook official. These two best friends are definitely smooth talkers and little hellians when together. Winning me over, I agreed to download Clash of Clans on my phone, which to some might have become a bit annoying when they ask to play it all the time, but to me it was endearing. Honestly, it worked to my advantage as I could get them to do anything and it was a great laugh. They did offer to teach me how to play, but I kindly declined.