Each spring, KIS students spend one week learning “without walls”. The elementary students (gr 1-5) spend time taking field trips around Jeju island. Grade 6 spent the week in Seoul and Sokcho – both in the northern part of South Korea. Older students travel internationally to Taiwan, Cambodia, Vietnam and Nepal. Cool.
Because my job is to help organize these trips, I got to take one of very few “extra” spots for a chaperone on the trip to Cambodia. I would have loved to go somewhere new, but it was exciting to get out and see some different parts of the sites we visited over Christmas.
The trips focus on global citizenship (new cultures, people, places), leadership, and service. Here are some photos and stories from my time with 7 chaperones and about 50 eighth-graders in and around Siem Reap, Cambodia.
Our hotel – the Angkor Paradise. 4-stars and lovely. The parents demand comfortable spots for their kids during the trips, so the chaperones got to enjoy too.
We landed late on Sunday night. Monday started with a 3-hour cooking class, learning traditional Khmer ingredients and styles. The kids even got dressed up.
We watched a chef make fish amok in banana leaves, rolled our own spring rolls, and got really hands-on making dessert – pumpkin custard. Yum.
We ate what we cooked – pretty tasty – then took a group photo with all the kids and our chef instructors.
We spent the afternoon visiting a floating village. We were in pretty big boats, so didn’t get as close as when Patrick and I visited in December. Here were a couple river-cruising folks next to us.
We made a stop to see a fish and crocodile farm. This girl was making bank by charging tourists $1 to hold her snake. Its mouth was sewn shut – pretty sad.
Evening entertainment was a tuk-tuk ride around the city. 3 people, one driver, and lots of crazy traffic. Sam and Katie “heart” tuk-tuks!
Motor safety is a little different here. Kids and their dad zooming next to us. Dad has a helmet…
After the kids were sent to their rooms, the chaperones headed out to find ice cream. I’ve often been disappointed in Asian ice cream, so I found this instead. Pay $1, point to your fruit of choice and…
fruit smoothie! They add ice, sugar, and sometimes some coconut milk. So yummy. This one is fresh mango and banana. My favorite would also add passionfruit. So fresh, so cheap, so delicious.
For any interested investors out there. Land for sale.
Tuesday was a full day of temples. Here are some of the kids just entering Angkor Wat.
Angkor carvings. The day was about 100 degrees and humid, so the kids weren’t in the best spirits. Not many pictures!
Sitting in the shade and being shy – pretty normal.
Sunset at Angkor Wat. A few of the kids managed to stand next to each other long enough for a group shot. The temple looked awesome in the low light.
I was thrilled to catch this shot on one of the walkways. Robed monks wander all over Siem Reap, but are still exotic to me.
We had some other learning adventures. Here’s the boys ogling over live silk worms.
The cocoons drying in the sun. That’s what silk is made of!
Learning to shoot a bow and arrows at the cultural park.
A Buddha-themed playground! Weird heads and all the kids liked swinging.
We visited a monastery and got to talk with an old monk, and ask questions about Buddhism. Almost half of Koreans are Buddhist, so some of the kids knew a lot too.
Hangin in some of the old ruin-type sections of the monastery.
We ate at really nice restaurants. They make a lot of things pretty by adding banana leaves and flowers.
Pretty spring rolls. Yum.
The best part was all the fresh tropical fruit. This is dragon fruit, papaya, lychee, pineapple and watermelon.
And yet, the kids’ favorite meal was the one night we let them go to the convenience store and buy ramen and ice cream.
The real reason we went: service! We helped at an orphanage. My project was to lead kids building a vertical garden.
Some of the kids helped us hold the pipes steady while we sawed.
We took breaks every day to let the students play with the kids.
Lots of our students had never used a saw before. After an hour or so, they were experts!
One group repaired nets, mixed cement, and fixed big wooden poles around the field to keep the ball from hitting the little kids playing next door.
Other projects included setting up shade screen and building a house for one of the village families. Pretty cool.
Not sure what this was for, but she was laying bricks!
Digging holes. For kids that typically spend about 15 hours a day at the books, this was impressive work!
They built these supports and put them in the half-meter deep holes to support the new vertical garden.
The garden builders with the finished product. Two more blue pipes go above the first. Dirt into the pipes, then one plant in each hole.
My little travel group at the end of their project time.
On our last day, the orphanage staff cooked us an amazing lunch.
local kids enjoying the feast
Our kids were great with the local kids! They couldn’t speak the same language, but were fast friends.
They even brought in a cool machine that juiced sugar cane. Delish!
It was exhausting hanging out with 50 8th-graders, but it was great to see some more of this country.