...and a bit more

For a country that has had its heart ripped out, it must improve and will do so because of the wonderful children who want to learn anything and everything.  Tuk tuk drivers can quote Australian Prime Ministers (the last 6) and Opposition Leaders!! The team have given wonderful support and left a lot of love to beautiful children in ophanages and on the street.

Jill

Well done all the team for this years Cambodia Trip. All those involved pat your self on the back. Thanks to all those who assisted in any way whether they were in Australia,. in Cambodia or part of the team. Thanks also for the Cambodian people for there warmth, and that was not just the weather, and kindness.
Paul

Our time in Cambodia has been truly amazing. The way that that the students gave so freely of their time and energy was inspirational. Thanks to all of our fabulous team for a wonderful experience.
Mel

....and one from the leaders.....

Another fantastic adventure is coming to a close.  It has been a privilege to travel with this group and whilst they have had their ups (lots and lots) and downs (only a few), they have really shown what they are made of.  Great job guys.

Shaz


As 1 of the leaders of the Cohuna group it has been an amazing experience to work with the kids from Kerang and the Northern territory. The kids blended and became a tight knit group, working together to do everything asked of them. it has been the most experience for me to be able to work with these amazing young people and get to know them. You should all be very proud of the fantastic kids you have raised!

Mandy.


An amazing trip, with an amazing group of young adults, it was great to see them grow over the two weeks. Even more amazing was how happy the Cambodians are with life, with the little that they have. Something for us all to remember.

Craig "Bos"

Something I have wanted to do for many years and now it has come to fruition. A wonderful group of students in a fantastic country full of history, eating places and everything was more than I ever dreamed. Long live the "schoolies alternative"

Philip

Final Thoughts

Ah Cambodia, the land of the 40 cent Coke can,the $5.00 steak and most importantly a priceless experience!

Jack B


13 days have passed and it has come time for the Cambodia group of 2012 to leave. Coming home to a country where we don't realize how lucky we are. We will go home to where our families are waiting, we will do so while these kids wait for one day they might be lucky enough to live in a house no bigger than my room at home.

Green Gecko was a place we all visited where there was about 60 kids full of hope and ambition, kids that decided to follow there own dreams and make something of themselves, a choice many don't get and many take for granted. This trip has given everyone a new perspective on life, and it was definitely a once in a lifetime opportunity.

Luke O'Brien

I will always remember the kids from Green Gecko. All of them have touched my heart and hopefully I will return to get my rainbow wrist band back.
Also love the new nickname they gave me *Gangnam*

Craig Gangnam Conny

Being in a different country with people that I've just met and in only two weeks it feels as if we are all family has been the most memorable time of my life. I will never forget the way we all pulled together when it came to  tackling and overcoming any hurdles that came up in the two weeks we were all together, even though we had only just met one and other we all stood strong and supported each other like a true family would. Being in Cambodia has made me think a lot about my life and how far I have come and all that I have achieved.

Looking at how people over here live and what there day to day life is like makes you realize that life is to good to be taken for granted, We only live life the once so go all out make mistakes and learn from them, take a few risks to live life and make sure you live your life and love each day.

Live Life With No Regrets!

Raymond (rayray) 

I have had a lot of grouse experiences on our trip to Cambodia, from meeting the interesting town folk to visiting some very special places. One thing that will stick with me is the Orphans that we befriended and got to know, they are all very special people who have had an impact on me and everyone else.

Jake Riley

It has truly been an experience of a lifetime being over here in Cambodia, along with the amazing team that I am thankful to be apart of, especially with the new friends I've made the humble Khmer population of Cambodia have made me feel right at home in this beautiful country.

The children here especially at the Orphanage and Green Gecko along with those beggars who seem to always be out the front of our hotel have really changed my perspective on life, their want to get to know you, to smile even when they have so very little compared to us Australians, who have hope even though things may seem bleak... they are truly the most inspiring part of this journey

It has been spectacular over here, I don't doubt I'll be back again soon :)

Tegan Southern

When I look back to my "Schoolies" adventure in 20 years time, I will be glad to remember the families we've helped, the people we've met, but most of all the experience we've had. As a team, we have given about 70 people a roof over their head, an orphanage somewhere to store their bikes and grow their crops. For the four days that we worked, the results show we have done so much. The great people we've met and shared these amazing two weeks with will defiantly be remembered forever. There isn't much more I can say without repeating what everyone else has mentioned. This has been the experience of a life time!

Kirby Lightbody.

Although many people got sick during this trip, we all had a lot of fun helping build and playing with the orphans. it will be good to get back to Australia and tell more detailed adventures of our time here and I definitely recommend this trip for anyone in future years.

Michael Gurnett.

This trip has been great fun and has opened my eyes to what else is in the world and how our actions effect others. This trip has been worth all the time and money put into it, this has been a great team this year with everyone having come together and help others who need us. Building houses for families gives you a great feeling knowing that you have been able to save people from the conditions of Cambodia. This trip from the moment we got on the train till we step off the plane has been great and will stay with us all for a long time. Including half a dozen of the same photos on Facebook.

Jack Hughes :)

Two weeks is such a short time out of our lives, but within these two weeks us as a group have learnt and experienced so much. The opportunity to come to the amazing country of Cambodia has been such an overwhelming thing. To experience a country such as this where there are so many different smells, so many people packed into the one car or tuk tuk and a place where road rules do not exist and the history that belongs to the country has no words to describe the feeling of being here. There has been many ups and downs and the emotion of wanting to stay and wanting to go home is so unusual. So many memories have been created and it is a trip we will never forget.

Katie McDonald

Milingimbi Cambodian Adventure Continued ...

Day ... can,t remember.  What a great adventure so far. Today we completed 11 houses, for families in a seaside village just out or the capital. Everyone worked SO hard that we needed to go to a great place to have dinner and unwind, and cure our aching muscles. The leaders choose this out-of-the-way villa with swimming pool included.
You would think us Aussie kids had never seen water or been in a swimming pool. Time for fun and eating!
Should be some crazy pics to add to the blog tomorrow - keep watching for the photos tomorrow.

Milingimbi Mob

Reflections and Realisations

Sitting on the bus home this afternoon and thinking to myself about the past week and a half, what we have seen and accomplished.

Today, it was seeing the pride in our group after building 12 houses in just a few hours. Last week, it was seeing the excitement on the faces of children who have lost their parents, right before we gave out packs filled with simple things we all take for granted, a toothbrush and toothpaste, some shoes, shampoo, soap and a blank exercise book with some pencils.

With that train of thought, I realized that we take far too many things for granted. Family. They will stand by you no matter what, through the highs and lows of life. The houses we live in. We fill them with so any things that we become materialistic, and we often judge others on the appearance of their homes, and the things they own. None of this matters to the extent we think it does. These people, the Khmer people live in a simple manner, a roof over their heads and surrounded by their families, and they are happy with that.

Having said that a balance is necessary, because lets be honest, dirt floors and no comfy chairs to sit on at night isn't all that appealing, but lets keep everything in perspective here.

Over the past week and a half I have learnt a lot about myself, and what is actually important to me. I haven't been on Facebook since I left home, and it feels good! The people, the food, the atmosphere are all incredibly infectious, and I'm struggling to deal with the fact that we only have a couple of days left here. The experiences we've all had here im sure none will forget. Having our feet ate by fish, being followed by small children who insist we buy whatever they are selling and even being offered a ladyboy! The darker memories will remain also, seeing the killing fields, where 40 years later bits of clothing and bones are still appearing, and the horrible genocide museum or S-21, where I saw a short film with horrible images of torture committed by the kmher rouge. A place that should have been torn down years ago.

It sucks we leave soon, but I know this place has captivated me, and I'm sure in the future I'll be back.

From Hugh :)

P.S when I found myself missing home last friday, I found a couple of bags of starburst in my bag, cheers Mum! Good timing!

Cement laying, what a major part of building!

Don't we take cement mixers for granted?! To make the flooring of the bike shed, we carried 32 buckets of sand (yes, there are no wheelbarrows here!) to a pile, and mix, with a shovel, 4 bags of cement mix that weighed 50 kilograms per bag for each pile of cement to be laid. We made a total of six piles, along with two smaller ones. It was hard work! We then had to make a well in the middle of the pile to accommodate water to slowly dampen the cement mixed with sand. Each pile of cement mix took us about an hour, and that only covered 2 square meters! A team effort was required and was sure met. Although I don't think any of the team members were too keen on becoming cement layers any time in the near future!
After that, being rather exhausted, we spent a large amount of time playing with the children at the centre. Laughter has no language, that's for sure! We were blowing bubbles, kicking balls, jumping elastic and pushing swings for these gorgeous children. We were lucky enough to be taught a few Khmer words, especially for body parts and play equipment. But this was not the best part of the day.
As we finished the buildings, we were privileged to a rare blessing from the Monks of the work site.This is a tradition for their religion, each new house or building must be blessed before it is used, it was described to us as what we would call a house warming. They were very accepting of us not understanding their culture and explained it to us, step by step, through their blessing. It was a very special time, as we were all blessed, but we also had the opportunity to experience a major part of their  culture.
We were all exhausted after this third, huge day of building, but the vibe through the team  was beautiful. I assume that each team member was not only pleased with their own effort for the three days, but also the outcome that their hard work had achieved.
I think that's about all for the third day of building. There will  be more posts to catch up the lost days, so stay tuned!
From Kirby  :)
Ps. Robbo reminded me to inform you all of the pot holes in the road leading to the centre. Put it this way, the road was only 32 kilometers long and it took us one hour and 15 minutes each way. Some were big enough for the mini bus to fit in them. These pot holes were certainly against Shire regulations!

We're back!!

Hi again and apologies for the break in information.

The last 2 days have seen some, if not all members, of the team go through some form of emotional struggle.  2 days ago, we received some terrible news in relation to the death of someone close to one of our team members.  The death was as the result of a tragic accident and involved a young man aged 22 years.  This has meant the update of the blog has been the furthest thing from any of our minds.  The repercussions of such a tragedy are made bigger when we are away from families and for many it has really brought home the reality of family and what it means.  All families have been contacted where it was felt necessary. 

What we have seen, is the respect and friendship that has developed amongst our team members as they have pulled together to support the people who have been affectd most by this accident.

Yesterday we visited the Angkor Wat temple complex and some were able to particpate in a Buddhist blessing to be our way of saying farewell, not only to the young man involved in this acccident, but also to others who have passed before, for whom we may still be grieving.  I know that the small group of students who participated have told me that it has really helped them to begin to deal with their grief and they were thankful to the other students who participated with them.  The blessing involved words from a local elder, along with a band being placed around the participant's wrist, followed by a brief period of prayer/thought and placing incensce at the alter (in front of a statue of Buddha).  The blessing was brief, but hopefully will assist all involved.

Our leadership team has been incredible and have formed even closer bonds with the students. 

We are now back on track and will hopefully begin daily updates again.
Akun
Shaz

Build Day One

Soostay all!

So build day one was an experience to remember. As you have read we were split into two groups for two different build tasks.
The Ag group, spearheaded by the never ending enthusiasm and power of Luke O'Brien, started the day with some very heavy lifting. The boys, with a little help from Bec, lifted and carted 16 solid concrete pillars to their resting places while the girls helped the monks and locals dig the holes for the pillars to sit in. This took up the majority of the morning and then we moved onto sandbagging just before lunch.
After lunch was very tedious; standing the pillars up, putting them down again and refilling the hole with sand and repeating several times. It is fair to say that at the end of the day there were some very tired faces and sore bodies as a result of all our hard work.
P.S - Luke was ready for round two by the time we arrived back at our hotel.


In the bike shed group, we first had to level out the dirt. While some people were doing that, others were carting rocks by using our hands and bags so that they were closer to the bike shed. When the dirt was all even we started to put the rocks down on top of the dirt. When half the bike shed floor was covered with rocks, we started to carry and drag bags of sand over to the bike shed to go on top of the rocks.
After moving the big pile of rocks and sand, the floor of the bike shed was covered. Now the floor needs to have cement covered over the sand. Even though some people ran out of water to drink, everyone still worked really hard :)

The evening consisted of very little. Everyone was keen to lay in air conditioned comfort, many opting for the wonderful massages on offer through our hotel. After dinner we made up our care packs for the orphanages and most then went straight to bed to rest at recoup for another day of hard labour today.

For those who aren't aware, all of the fundraising we did back home was funded all the materials for the complexes we are building over the next few days. The children, the monks and the villagers cannot thank us (students, teachers, parents and those who donated money) enough for all that we've done and are doing. It's an overwhelming feeling to know that we are changing lives with what we do.

It's time to sign off for another day and board the bus to take the very bumpy road (if you think the pot holes on the Murray Valley Highway, you should see these!) back down to the orphanage

Bec and Megan Cain

Life and Hope projects underway

This is just a quick update as we were all exhausted when we got back last night. I will have some student comments added today before we start the second day of work.

It was an early start and we were on the road at 8am. We arrived on the site after about an hour and a quarter after travelling through some of the biggest potholes I have ever seen! 2 jobs to be done.....build a shelter for 5 families & build a bike shed for the orphanage.

Shelter project: start by digging holes for foundations, then fill base with sand, before carting the concrete pylons to the correct spots and standing them in place....all while dealing with an ever moving string line!

Bike shed project: level the floor using sand dug from a pit just behind the site (having to dig the sand out of the pit first), cart rocks to place over the sand, then top fill with a finer grade of sand to prepare for concreting tomorrow.

All this without a wheelbarrow in sight.....just shovel the sand into fertiliser bags then carry the bags and upend them into the correct place.

Every member of this team can stand proud. They worked extremely well together and worked solidly all day. We are so proud of them.

We will attempt to put some photos up later today.
Sharon

Tuk Tuk Adventures

Today was a day of Tuk tuks throughout Siem Reap. We started the day with a lovely breakfast enjoyed by everyone! The pancakes were awesome, Jake and Daniel W started the day super early ready for breakfast at 5am.

Monk Y-Nol at the Wat Damnak taught us many phrases in Khmer to help us get through the time in Cambodia from finding out the prices of items in the market to where to toilet is.

• Dah bong koon der anah? - Where is the toilet?
• Dah weir thly pon nan? - how much is it?
• Dah nyak sokeusby day? - how are you today?

After the outstanding lessons, we ventured once more out into the organised chaos of the streets contained within Siem Reap. After a scare involving a rolled Tuk Tuk, safely away from the busy road, we were chauffeured to a pleasant little restaurant called the Blue Pumpkin. Fortunately none of these were served. 

The food was, however, lovely, but a little too Western. We dined on hamburgers, chicken sandwiches and green curries whilst Kirby enjoyed a freshly picked coconut fresh from the vine. The air conditioned upstairs area was a great relief from the astonishing heat outside.

Lunch was followed by a shopping challenge involving a few small groups given commands to buy various goods for care packages for as cheap as we could get them. These included simple things that we take for granted such as tooth brushes, soap, combs and pieces of fabric. 

The sights and smells of the market were nothing like in Australia. Vibrant silks were hung from the corners of each stall, pig carcasses strewn from hooks, row upon row of gleaming knock off watches. It is a truly an assault on the senses.

Following the market venture, we again took the Tuk Tuks, this time to the war museum. This was a far different experience to the joyful markets.

We learnt a lot about the civil war and the reign of Pol Pot from our guide, an ex soldier and land mine survivor, whom stills bears the shrapnel in his upper thigh and shoulder. 

So many utterly disturbing atrocities were committed during Pol Pot's reign, and it is honestly amazing that nearly every Cambodian will greet you with a smile when they have so little and have been through so much.

As we speak or type, we are relaxing on the rooftop lounge area, waiting to go out for tea. This is to be followed by a night market where lots of money will doubtlessly be spent so, expect gifts upon our return.

This issue of the blog was bought to you by today's bored students, Jack Hughes and Daniel Wyatt.

We have arrived!!

After travelling 7 long hours from Melbourne to Singapore, we had some time to spare before our next flight so after meeting the Darwin team we got to know them through an amazing race around the Singapore airport. The Victorian team then departed for Cambodia while the Darwin team waiting for their flight which arrived 2 hours later. After getting off the flight and getting struck by the heat and the humidity we then headed into their airport and got greeted by our transport for the day which was mini buses, we all piled in and were shocked to see no road rules were abided by. After reaching our Hotel Wooden Angkor we were assigned our rooms and had time to settle in while waiting for the Darwin team. While waiting, we went for a group walk to see the surrounding streets which were very confronting and some people were shocked by this due to the extreme poverty and the rubbish lying all over the side of their dirt roads however the locals were so happy to see foreigners. We had a relaxing night and free time to get to know everyone, this included some people going and playing with the children who were in the alley way next to our hotel, the kids were very amused by this and were more than happy to pose for photos.  After our group meal of the beginning of our rice epidemic we all headed off to the showers and bed, ready for our new day of adventure.

Erin Knight, Kellie Perkins and Megan O'Brien.

Singapore...we have arrived

We have all arrived safely into Singapore and the Amazing Race has begun. Teams of 6 have just been dispatched to search the airport for places and items. Who will win?  We will find out in a couple of hours.  Most are sleep deprived, so should sleep well tonight....or is that wishful thinking???

Exams underway and 3 weeks to go!

Well, we are now 3 weeks away from departure.  Doesn't seem like a long time, but for our students it will be the busiest 3 weeks of their lives to this point.  Planning for the trip has just about finished and airline tickets arrived today.  It is all systems go!
We, the organising committee wish all the students the best for their year 12 exams - whether here or on the Northern Territory.  Good luck and we are looking forward to a great team trip in 2012.  See you all at the airport.

Welcome to our 2012 team

Hi all and welcome to our blog for the 2012 Schoolies Alternative team to Cambodia.  We are please to see 30 students from Victoria joining with 9 students from the Northern Territory participating this year.  Our planning is well underway and in under 10 weeks we will be starting the journey of a lifetime.  We would like to take this opportunity to thank all those who have donated towards this project, as without this support form our communities, this project could not happen.  You really are making a difference....not only to the families we work with in Cambodia, but to 39 young Australians who have committed to helping others.  Thank you and please enjoy keeping up to date with our journey.