Volunteering in Phnom Penh has been an entirely different experience from our village experience. Comfort-wise its been infinitely easier; we have a wide-range of eating options (versus being limited to the orphanage’s cooking lady), we have a nice room and bed to go back to (versus sleeping on a beach mat on a tile floor with no electricity), and we only helped out about five hours a day (versus 14 hours). Our work has been considerably different, as these city kids lead completely different lives than their rural counterparts.

            Even in an orphanage, the differences between urban and rural life are clear. The city kids are much better educated, as even the tiny ones in the Phnom Penh orphanage had better English than the village teenagers. Besides English, it was clear that they knew quite a bit more about hygiene and cleanliness. They dressed more what we would consider “normal” and spent time watching tv, helping fix motorcycles, or hanging out and listening to music. The downside to all this is that the kids were a lot more restless because they didn’t have a big yard to run around and burn off energy. That was more Joylani’s problem than mine though, as we taught two groups in PP. Joylani got the little ones and I got the older teenagers, which was fine with me. Teaching the older kids was much easier than teaching little kids, urban or rural. The older ones spoke pretty good English, so we mainly just concentrated on expanding the vocabulary. One day, we did internal anatomy; respiratory, circulatory, nervous, and digestive systems, along with bones, joints, and random things like how blood works. I think I got too carried away on space, although my world geography lesson went pretty well. Despite how much easier it was too teach these kids, I didn’t feel as if I was really needed at the PP orphanage. These kids had plenty of education and international volunteers constantly visited to help. The village kids barely ever got foreign volunteers, much less Khmer staff. Actually, we learned that Kompong Chnang orphanage had its entire staff replaced recently due to some shady things that went down and the kids had only first seen foreigners about a year ago; apparently they’d seen a few since then, which is why they didn’t inspect our big Caucasian noses and white skin. The kids in Kompong Chnang weren’t very educated, but they always wanted to learn and study. Although anyone could teach the basic English we did, if we weren’t there, this curiosity to learn would’ve been wasted. In Phnom Penh, the kids were plenty educated and weren’t nearly as enthusiastic. Plus, the Phnom Penh orphanage had a full time teacher already. Not feeling very useful, Joylani and I helped a bit in the office on our final day. We helped them with basic things like networking the printers, showing them how to share files on the network, and use Excel more effectively. Not as altruistic as teaching orphans, but at least we felt that we were doing something of value.

            As Joylani mentioned in her post, it was nice to have a routine. Usually a quick breakfast, before catching a moto to the orphanage. Teach a couple hours and then break for lunch, internet and rest. Then another couple hours of teaching, before heading out for some dinner and a night at our nice hotel. Staying in the same place for awhile and not doing anything but working, it has been nice to indulge in some creature comforts like tv and good bed. Like Joylani mentioned we splurged on an AC room our last night, which was glorious. I guess I don’t have to much to write about PP, because there’s not much to explain. It’s a city and most cities are the same in many respects. We volunteered, but I covered details of that in my Kompong Chnang post. It was nice to have some routine, but it wasn’t a great routine.