Cambodia calling: Week 4 - It's the final countdown

Highlights: A visit to the charities beneficiaries, haggling in the market & a weekend diving trip. Lowlights: saying goodbye to CCAF & being abandonded by a taxi driver.

Monday morning, up bright and early to head down to Kampot with the CEO. Travelling through the countryside is always a joy in Cambodia as the many uses of a motorbike, never ceases to amaze me. They can be piled high with people, animals or goods for market. This mornings winning sight was a motorbike towing a large high sided pen, with 3 oxen inside!

On arrival at Banteay Meas province we went to one of the pre-schools run by CCAF, which provides eductation to 3 to 5 year olds. The pre-schools give access to education, to children who otherwise might not be able to attend early education, due to them being unable to travel long distances. The great idea behind the CCAF pre-school is that all that is needed is a teacher and some materials, to teach the children, with an actual school building being a bonus. The pre-school I visisted was held in the garden of the community chief, and it was a great setting, giving a real sense of community. Here, the children not only learn basics such as days, dates, weather & animals but learn to socialise with other children, learn about hygiene (hand washing and plate washing) and get health checks from the community doctor.

I was greeted with a song and smiles before the children settled down for a spot of rice and vegetables, as school had already finished for the day. Some of the children come from extremely poor backgrounds, living with their grandparents as their parents are forced to work away, often in Thailand, to provide money for their families. Therefore CCAF provide a nutritious meal for the children but sadly this can't be provided everyday due to funding constraints. They all seemed to enjoy their rice and afterwards all got up and washed their plates, and one little girl was responsible for sweeping the mats clean. After another sing-song the children then started to head off home.

We then headed off to meet a family who were beneficiaries of chickens from CCAF and who now had a thriving chicken farm. In 18 months they had managed to increase their chicken stock to 60 from the original 6 provided by CCAF. They ate around 2 chickens per month and sold several, using the money to pay for their childrens education. The CEO told me, that some families have stocks as large as 200. It's safe to say that the chicken farms are proving a success!

For the remainder of the week, I was back in the office at Phnom Penh and this gave me an opportunity to start shaping the financial information required for programme reporting. Like most charities CCAF need financial reports by donor and also need them by programme. This means that the financial records need to be kept in such a way that all reporting requirements can be met from them. Working with Leakhena, we created a spreadsheet to record all costs, and finished off the programme budgets, progrramme cashflows and monthly programme reports work that we had started in week 2.

My main aim was to leave the charity with the basic tools, to focus their thoughts on the programmes they deliver and the costs associated with this, in order to help them plan for the longer term future of the charity. Given my short time with the charity, I feel like I have only been able to point them in a direction rather than start them on a road and therefore I leave the charity carrying a sense of unfinished business. There is plenty more work to be done - I only wish it could be me that stays to help the charity on their journey.

Late Friday afternoon we headed off for a spot of R&R in the middle of the ocean. We had booked a weekends diving trip from Sihanoukville and had a 5 hour boat trip to the island of Koh Tang first thing Saturday morning. The boat trip out didn't provide the hoped for R&R with rough seas leaving me a little green and breathing deeply and a very grey faced Rich alternating between lying down and leaping up, jack in a box style, to hurl his breakfast into the sea. However, once we got over all the swaying and sickness we had a great trip and enjoyed some interesting diving. At night the upstairs deck was converted into sleeping quarters and we fell asleep lulled by the sound of the ocean. Perfect!! I also took the opportunity to take an underwater photography course and now have my underwater papparazzi licence - so a successful weekend all round!

So, without further ado - here's a selection of the weeks photos...