Angkor Wat Bike Race 2012

The past weekend, 17 members of Team Anjali (also nicknamed ‘Team Zebra’ by our students due to the matching zebra shorts the team wore) took part in the 100km Angkor Wat Bike Race. It was an early start for everyone, with the students and teachers meeting at the Young Adult House at 4am to eat a meal of fried egg, pork soup and rice prepared by the Young Adult Boys. After a quick briefing on ‘stretch, drink lots of water, stick together’, everyone rode to the police station where we were met by the truck which was going to transport us to the bike race. At that point we realised we had already lost two students, so the older boys formed a search party and warmed up on their bicycles whilst looking for our students who had gone astray.

After we had finally located the students, it was time to head to Angkor Wat! It was a squashy truck ride, as 17 bikes combined with 17 people makes for little moving room. The students, despite the early hour, were excited for the ride as we saw many people also travelling to Angkor Wat. When we arrived and unloaded the truck, we split into our ‘Fast’, ‘Medium’ and ‘Slow’ groups, however due to the crowd, most of the team were split up straight away.

After a ‘Gangnam Style’ flash mob held by the organisers, the race began, with the most competitive people getting a big head start. The students also raced ahead, most of them in ones of twos, as they tried to catch up with the fastest competitors. The first lap went fairly fast and smoothly, however a couple of students ran into trouble on the second lap. One of the boys was kicked by one of the fast cyclists who was trying to get him out of the way, resulting in him falling of his bike and hitting his head. Luckily, as he told the teachers later, “I was wearing my helmet, so I was OK”. Then, another student fell off his bike and scrapped his face and arms. Once again, the trusty helmet saved him. Then a third student went over the edge off the road as the ‘professionals’ tried to push him out of the way, however he managed to jump off his bicycle before it hit the ground.

Three students finished after lap two (50km), due to one having a broken bicycle and two others being tired. After the third lap, 13 more students finished (75km), as many were tired from riding so fast, or, despite the endless amounts of water they had drunk, were dehydrated. Only one student made it to 100km – small boy. Small boy is the 13 year old cousin of one of our students who had joined us for all the training sessions. He has an incredibly amount of energy, is always polite to his team members and never gives up. We were speechless that out of all the strong students who participated in the race, the youngest, and skinniest, was the one to complete the whole 100km!

In the evening, Team Anjali went to Tonle Mekong Restaurant for a buffet dinner. The students kept piling their plates high with food, with the winner being Pheaktra, who ate no less than seven full plates of food. After the dinner, the team went to 60 road where they jumped on the trampoline (surprisingly with no food coming back up), drove the dodgem cars and rode the rollercoaster. It was a magnificent evening to celebrate the end of three months of training for the bike race. We are SO proud of our students and the physical and mental growth they have shown over the past few months. When we started this project, we knew there would be some changes in them, but we had no idea that it would be to this extent.

Thank you to Janet and Allen for supporting our bike training, Kristy and Grant for also being part of Team Anjali, and of course, our sponsors who enabled us to raise £3,360 for our ongoing running costs. We couldn’t have done it without you!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Young Adults Get A New Library!

Our Young Adult Boys are always enthusiastic about learning new things, however lack a dedicated study area at the Young Adult House. This has now changed, thanks to some sponsors and the hard work of some Young Adult Program students and staff!

Over five days, three staff members and numerous students scraped the walls of the previous paint job, cleaned the room, painted four coats of blue and green on the walls, and laid down a floor covering. Once again, we are very proud of the teamwork demonstrated by our Young Adults – they really are maturing every day!

The library will be used by the boys staying at the house, and in the near future we hope to open it up to the other Young Adult Program students as a place to study on the weekends.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Anjali Boys Visit Angkor Chum!

The boys at the Young Adult House have a lot of commitments. Between work, study and their chores, they aren’t left with much time to play football, visit their families and relax. Regardless, they jumped at the opportunity that was presented to them over the past two weekends to visit Angkor Chum and paint the maternity ward of the hospital.

Located 54km outside of Siem Reap, it was a two hour ride each way on the moto kongbi. The first weekend there were 11 people on the kongbi – the driver, four staff members, five young adult boys and one of the Anjali kids to keep the driver company on the long drive back. The boys entertained themselves by wolf whistling at any female the moto kongbi passed by, eating cicadas as a snack, and singing loudly to the music they had playing. Eventually, the excitement wore off as the darkness came, and with it, many many insects flying into their faces. The poor driver had to deal with so many bugs flying into his eyes he could have cooked up his own batch of bugs for dinner!

The staff and boys stayed at the home of a VSO volunteer who is a nursing advisor at the Angkor Chum Referral Hospital. Angkor Chum basically goes to sleep at 8pm, so the restaurants were all closed by the time they arrived. Two of the teachers cooked a very basic dinner of sausages and rice, and then everyone rigged up their mosquito nets and settled in for the evening.

The next day everyone was up by 5am, ready for the day! After everyone showered and found old clothes to wear, it was time for the local breakfast specialty of rice and pork. Then, the hard work at the hospital began! First, the paint had to be scraped off the wall until only the cement was left. This was when the Young Adult Boys really proved what hard workers they were – they made sure every last bit of paint was gone, and did it without complaining. Sandi even came up with a new tactic of holding the hose next to the big brush and using the running water whilst scrubbing for maximum effectiveness.

It was then time for lunch, and with money generously donated by donors, a big meal was had at a sit down restaurant.

After lunch, their got started on painting the first coat of the walls, as well as the window bars. Their energy levels were dropping, so they weren’t as productive as they had been in the morning, however a good effort was still put in. In true Khmer style, the day was finished off with a sunset game of football at the local High School, and then everyone walked home and crashed out pretty early from exhaustion.

The next day, the boys and staff members slept in until 6am, and took awhile to properly wake up. After breakfast it was time to continue painting the walls. First, a second coat of paint was put on, followed by the painting of the bottom half of the walls purple and blue. It was much more fun than the day before, and less energy had to be used, which was good. After lunch a second coat was put on, whilst Rith drew and painted a picture of a nature scene with one of the staff members on the wall of the Children’s Ward. After a LOT of cleaning, it was time for the journey home – which was an adventurous one due to the thunderstorm which was driven through. At one point the moto kongbi ran out of petrol, which meant Sandi had to walk in the rain for ten minutes to get petrol. About 20 minutes later, the kongbi again broke down. Luckily, one of the teachers used to fix motos, so he sucked the petrol out, and VOILA, we were working again!

All of the boys loved the first weekend in Angkor Chum, however Sopheak was very taken with the village. He wanted to raise money so every room could be painted at the hospital, and Pheaktra also wanted to fix the broken fans. The countdown was then on to the next weekend, when Ruon was also able to join us.

After another long journey out there, minus Pheaktra and Sandi who had work commitments, more hard work was put in to paint the second room. On the Saturday night a special birthday surprise was planned for the Head of the Young Adult Program, Kyle, complete with brownies and sparklers!

On the Sunday, Pheaktra and Sandi surprised the boys by travelling out to Angkor Chum once they had finished their work commitments – just as the second room had been finished! Everyone was happy nonetheless, as all the boys were together and able to view the results of two weekends of laborious work.

Louise, the VSO volunteer, summed up the commitment of the boys very well. “Thanks for all the hard work I still can not believe how hard those boys worked. They are the nicest boys so sweet and polite and not once did they say a negative word and worked as a team. They are a credit to Anjali and everyone working there”.

We have said it before, and we will say it again. We are very proud of our Young Adult Boys, the maturity they are displaying and the personal growth they are achieving!

New interviews: Rith & Seut

We decided to continue the work that Jenna Hann has been doing with the young adults and we are now making a short interview with all of them. Here are the newest in the series: Rith and Seut. Enjoy!

Rith

 

Seut

 

Please see previous posts for interviews with Sandi & Sophal, and Sopheak & Roun.