“Beach day everyday – beach day everyday!”, an ironic shout sung daily by all the monitors in Sihanoukville! Ironic as it tends to rain a lot in this region, but still chanted because when the pooring stops, beach day every day with the children becomes a reality! Sihanoukville province, situated in Cambodia’s south-west coast, is home to two PSE programmes run by around 40 monitors, half European and the other half Khmer.
A different landscape, a different scenery!
Away from the roar of Phnom Penh city, the two camps in Sihanoukville province offer a calmer, more relaxed atmosphere due to the Coastal setting and the fact that the team is smaller and therefore relatively closer. 40 monitors remain here during the entirety of the summer camp: cooking, working and sleeping together, creating a team that looks more like a family than anything else!
Meeting the kids!
“The people here are very welcoming and very close to each other, like a little village family” Theophile, coordinator
The two programmes are located a mere 15 minutes away by car but are completely different in scenery! The first stands on a long dirt road facing a railway station where cargo trains stop for a few minutes a day. Looking across, you can notice a small cafe where the monitors go to get their well deserved – daily dose of coffee and sugar during siesta time.
Around 100 kids attend this programme everyday, many of whom walk there as they live along this dirt road facing the rails, and about 20 other kids come from J35, the nearest village.
Théophile, the coordinator, explains how most of these children are very close as they have been neighbours for so long and see each other all the time.
What a day in each camp looks like
“We have a jungle in the backyard!” Iñaki, monitor in the Sihanoukville central camp
The Central Sihanoukville programme takes place at the main camp where the monitors eat and sleep. Around 200 children come here each day, but the numbers fluctuate depending on the weather. Laura, the coordinator of this sub programme tells us that since access is harder, many kids cannot come when it rains heavily. The team spends the week doing activities with the children, big games, beach days and Olympics.
“Due to bad weather, we sometimes have to adapt and change all outdoor activities into indoor games. It adds fun and charm to this camp! Remi, monitor in Central camp
Slightly more kids come to this camp per day due to its vast size and outdoor area! An advantage? A lot more outdoor games! During the Olympics on Fridays, Sihanoukville’s main PSE centre is full of outdoor activities, parkour obstacles and impressive dance battles! This programme, with its natural setting, conveys an open and friendly atmosphere. One where the kids are free to roam and spy on their friends from group ‘bay’, 3 in Khmer, and where the monitors get the benefit of living in a small group, creating support and a united team.
As we arrive in the small camp, run by Theophile, a very different ambience takes over. The children are all sleeping soundly, whilst 3 monitors prepare the afternoon snack in complete silence.
No need for words, they know exactly what they are doing! The camp is very charming: 3 small indoor rooms and 2 outdoor spaces can all be reached within a few steps of each other. It’s even easier to see through each room due to the absence of walls, making the atmosphere here even more intimate!
Beach day
Both camps then decide to meet at the beach, and what a sight this is! Hundreds of children all lining up together, waiting to be counted so they can start the activities on the beach and eventually run frantically into the water!
“I’ll never forget the moment when I allowed the kids to go in the water for the first time and they started sprinting like Usain Bolt. It was such a special moment, there and then I understood what the name of this NGO truly means.” Théophile, coordinator
Seeing all the children running to the beach as the monitors break their starting line is a beautiful moment! One that turns any frown into a glowing smile!
When it’s time to head back, both teams separate and go back to their camps where the children will start going home.
Whats for dinner tonight?
Every day, 2 monitors are in charge of choosing a meal, and cooking it, after Gonzalo from logistics manages to find the ingredients that is. Preparing a meal and eating it on the floor of the kitchen due to lack of tables is truly something a family would do. Sometimes there’s even dessert: pancakes with oreos as a topping along with the communal, cultural favourite: sweet condensed milk!
The big difference?
Apart from the location, the landscape and the team, there is one big difference that adds the last extra touch of charm to the Sihanoukville sub-programmes: the kids!
Their calmness and non confrontational reaction makes this camp feel like a vacation for everyone! The tropical air, making you sweaty and tired is balanced by the fresh coastal air you breath when arriving at the beautiful white sand beach! And the greyness you feel when the rain pours down on you, sometimes from dawn till dusk, forcing you to stay indoors, is replaced by the indoor bonding which follows.
The sponsor
With the collaboration of the Fundación Telefónica volunteers of the PNBI team, who carried out and designed marvelous solidarity actions that made these subprogrammes possible.
A day at the camps
