Tuesday we were on our way to breakfast when we were told the director's grandfather (not actual grandfather but the man who looked after him when he was orphaned as a child) had died. He had died at 5am and at 7am all the kids from the orphanage and us were on the way to the funeral. The men and women separate - we joined all the women in the village to make food. We just chopped veg (attempted to... we couldn't really do it at their speed so we were relegated to peeling garlic!) and cleaned dishes to feed about 300 people while the men MADE THE COFFIN on the other side of the garden and drink rice wine. We had our first experience of eating with our hands! We were given bowls of noodles for breakfast and everyone just tucked in from the same bowl eating with their hands lol. That continued all day while monks sat in the house and chanted with the body and a funeral director sang which is projected on a loudspeaker. The next morning we got up at 4.30am for the ceremony to start at 5. The kids walked in front with flowers and incense and we pulled the coffin which was on open hurst-like thing. By the time we were near the pagoda it was daylight. We stopped and people got down and prayed then we turned off the road to make our way to the pagoda. It was up a slight hill so we had to RUN to get enough momentum to get the coffin up it. When we got there, the body was soon put in the crematorium and people who weren't family were free to go. That afternoon we were asked if we wanted to make an offering. We went over to the grandfather's house where the monks were still praying. We sat with the women and they gave us scarves to wear diagonally across the chest (they wear them like that when praying). We were then given a bowl of rice and money. We went up and put a handful of rice in each of the monk's bowls and put the money on a plate. We then went and sat down again and a man brought over a candle. It was passed round in a circle and we had to take it with our left hand, pass our right hand upside down over it and pass the candle on. This was repeated several times before holy water was splashed on us. After that, it was time to go back to the orphanage.
The next day was class as normal except that one of the girls had been brought to hospital while we were at the funeral and diagnosed with Dengue fever. The team leader went with them which left just three of us so we had to teach all day.
Friday was our last day and two of us woke up with what we assume was food poisining so missed our last day of school :( I thought I had seen someone in the room a few days earlier but thought it was probably a dream. I was asked was that dream before or during we fell sick. I said before and was then told that it may have been a ghost as ghosts predict illness! I'm not sure what has happened since we left but I think the family we were renting the house of were probably going to get the house blessed!
Left on Saturday and spent two days in Phnom Penh before leaving. Went to the S21 Genocide Musuem and the Killing Fields. It was horrendous - similar to concentration camps except here they were more interested in kiling. Women and children were brought to S21, photographed, documented then taken straight to the killing fields. Men were normally held in s21 for a few weeks/months, tortured then brought to the killing fields.
Now in Vietnam. Have sailed along the Mekong Delta. It is part of a tour - we thought we were meant to be doing things all day today but we have been dumped in a town where there is bugger all to do hence time for a long and, if i may say so myself, pretty impressive update!
el martes ibamos a desayunar cuando uno de los profesores nos dijo que el abuelo del directo habia muerto y tuvimos que ir al funeral enseguida. cuando llegamos a la casa del abuelo todas las mujeres estaban cocinado. tuvimos que ayudar ya que estabamos preparando comida para todo el pueblo. Los hombres estaban al otro lado de la jardin construyendo el ataud. los monjes salmodiaba todo el dia. el dia siguiente nos llevamos a las 4 de la manana para traer el ataud al templo para la cremacion. despues dimos una ofrenda a los monjes. les dimos dinero y arroz.
el dia siguiente una de las voluntarias cogio fiebre del dengue y yo y otra chica intoxicacion por alimiento. habia tenido un sueno la noche anterior y habia pensado que habia un hombre en la habitacion. la directora piensa que era fantasma ya que fantasmas predicen enfermedad (o por lo menos esto es lo que creen los en el pueblo)...
el proyecto termino el martes. pasamos dos dias en el capital, phnom penh antes de ir a vietnam. vimos el museo de genocidio y los campos de exterminio. ya estamos en vietnam. ibamos en barca por el mekong delta y ahora estamos en saigon!
