Posted by Zoë Condliffe, May 2012

On Sunday afternoon Mayibuye Cambodia had its first ever concert. Turns out a concert can be quite a turning point. It was an experience that none of the students had ever had before. Sunday morning we were at Sorya School bright and early to practice. We began the day with some hardcore Khmer dance lessons for the senior group, and then some outdoor practices with EVERYONE...50 littlies and 30 biggies, all practicing at once in the hot hot sun with the big big speakers on the trailer (Cambodia style).  And the seniors stuck around till 12 bless them, diligently practicing.

We were ready. We were set. We were...oh no, it's raining. And this was supposed to be an outdoor concert. We had two hours for the rain to pass over. Monsoon season having begun recently, the rain usually comes around 1pm and passes over within a couple of hours. But today of all days the rain decided to stick  around...all night. But this is Cambodia, these things happen, the show must go on. We migrated to the silk-weaving building. A few parents decided to wander in eventually. You know how parents at home get all in a tizz about going to see their special little ones perform in concert, or at saturday netball, or school choir, or whatever? Well, Cambodian parents are opposite of that...not so interested in indulging themselves in their children's performance successes. Oh well. The kids were just thrilled to be in a concert. 50 under-12s (many of which I had never seen before) came to perform, and WOW they did amazingly...they followed all their steps perfectly, with HUGE SMILES on their little glowing faces, all lined up and looking up at me attentively (tear). And their buzzy-excitingy energy permeated into everyones being and NOONE could suppress a smile at their cute little booty shaking in the "Hokey Pokey", or their unwavering enthusiasm in "Jai Ho!" And the seniors, so proud in their crispy new Mayibuye Cambodia t-shirts were appropriately nervous, and put on a very entertaining performance as they showcased a very impressive repertoir of dances they had sweated over all year. Well Done!

Oh, we were so so proud.

Thank you's to Mr. Thoeun, who was instrumental in the organisation of this, without whom we could not have done this. Also to Linden who helped make it happen and was disk jockey for the event. And to Julian for running around like a crazy man and taking the photos. And to Kim Nget for the translationing of invitations.

Posted by Zoë Condliffe, May 2012

One of the things I was most looking forward to experiencing in Cambodia was living simply. Without the hustle and bustle of city life...just cooking, teaching, going to market, etc etc, days passing as they should, slowly and without stress. My life would be all early mornings, early nights, hand washing my clothes, bicycles, gardening, neighbourhood chats...

And it is. This is exactly what our life here has become. A beautiful slow-moving existence. Yes sometimes there are still things to stress about but it's the kind of stress that remains in perspective, doesn't blow up into a huge, all-encompassing bubble threatening to burst all over my life and ruin everything (you know the one?). The world is not going to end. This has been a great learning curve for me.

But the simple life doesn't come without its own challenges. Sometimes I don't feel like hand washing my clothes in the hot hot sun. Sometimes cooking with the exact same ingredients twice a day, day in day out does get tiresome (well, I'll assume it does. Linden does most of the cooking...) Anyway, the point is NO MATTER where you are or how you live there are always going to be annoyances, and I'm pretty sure even if you have all the money in the world this isn't 

 It just isn't a thing to have a nice garden here, or to have a big closed in concrete house. It doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense in terms of the environment, the weather conditions, financial situations, family situations. People live the way that makes sense, and being excessive for the sake of it doesn't.  I want people to see the people here as people living their lives, not poor people who somehow manage to smile their way through life even though they live in these horrible conditions. Because it's all relative. These conditions are fantastic if you value family, health and the environment.

We love our simple life.

Written by Linden McHenry March 2012

Our village is called Tropeang Trea. 

It’s about one hour south of Phnom Penh on a poorly air-conditioned, karaoke music saturated bus. One of the pros of the bus though is that holding a ticket entitles you to transport as much luggage as you can get to the bus station.

This is sometimes problematic when you’re forced to ride in one of the small buses and everybody is keen to take some bulky loot from the city back home.

Even more so when either gravity or the driver has decided to put a truck THROUGH an integral bridge, and the stretch of highway you need to travel on is no longer accessible.

When we do get there, we tell the bus driver to stop at Psar Che Trop (‘Psar’ means market, I think it might have its root in ‘bazaar,’ but nobody has confirmed this for us yet).  We then haul all of the things we’ve collected back to our house.

It’s pretty decently sized. Actually, it must seem ridiculous to every other person in the village – two people living in a huge house when most families sleep in one room.

We have a kitchen and a bathroom towards the back, then a sort of ‘dining room,’ which isn’t really serving any purpose at the moment. Two bedrooms run off this.. At the front of the house is a huge open foyer filled with desks, seats, shelves hammocks and bicycles. There are also some stairs leading up from the foyer to the attic, which is divided into several sleeping spaces. 

Our yard is inhabited by many new "friends" – there are five dogs, and at least three mother chickens escorting their little chicks around in search of food. There is usually a cow handling the gardening for us, and we’re visited inside at night by frogs, toads, and lizards ranging in size from “oh, isn’t it cute” to “oh god, I think it could swallow my hand.” And then there are the insects.

We go to the market every day to buy fresh vegetables, and rice if we need it, and cook it all up for our meals. Occasionally we indulge ourselves with delicacies we’ve brought back from Phnom Penh – I think I’m doing quite well with the rural Cambodian pasta sauce.

On our street there are two schools - the public school, and Sorya’s Tropeang Trea school. This means that several times a day, streams of students will pass our house on bicycles and motos, all wanting to say hello and get a look at our house (and what we’re doing inside it). I think it was for this reason that Zoë erected a barrier in our foyer when she practises dancing.

Our house is about five houses from the main road - and three houses from Sorya in the other direction.  We teach three dance/art/life skill classes there a week, and I teach two English classes a day (Monday to Thursday) whenever I can.

We’re starting to form some really great friendships with the students and the staff at Sorya, as well as a relationship with the community.

I think we’re beginning to see the difference between just partnering with an NGO, and partnering with a community as a whole. This is assisting to grow Mayibuye here and our own personal journeys.