After having being told their projects on Monday evening, everyone left for Kep on Tuesday. Kep is a small seaside resort in the south of Cambodia, located between Kampot and the Vietnamese border. Every year it’s the occasion for the monitors to get to know each other better, to play a lot of games on the beach, and to learn more about what being a monitor for PSE actually means.
The monitors left OBK at 5 in the morning, still asleep and walking like zombies to PSE Central, where the buses were waiting. The monitors leaving for Sihanouk Ville had to pack all their things as they wouldn’t come back to Phnom Penh before their camp. Their own bus had been loaded with their luggage and all the material needed – plates, balls, presents for the kids.
The Welcome Committee organized different games whose main objective was to make the people from the different summer programs to get to know each other.
A few hours later, everyone arrived to Kep and discovered to Don Bosco School where we’ve been welcomed these last two years. After a free time for lunch, during which everyone could go and eat in the restaurant of his choice and try Kep’s speciality: Crab ; everyone met again on the beach: the Welcome Committee organized different games whose main objective was to make the people from the different summer programs to get to know each other. Later on, when everyone was just full of sand, the monitors literally ran to the water to swim a bit and play water games. Exhausted by the early wake up and the beach games, everyone went quite early to bed, full or the delicious fried rice prepared by Don Bosco’s people.
Despite the heat in the rooms, the night was quite restful for everyone and every single monitor woke up full of energy and excited for this second day in Kep. Before the workshops started, the coordinators made everyone go back to their rooms and come to the meeting again to show them what is supposed to be a “Welcome”: this moment where, every single morning, you have to welcome the kids with your biggest smile, full of energy and motivation, singing and dancing. “It really is essential for the children because it gives the ton of the day, of the whole summer program” explains Sophie, a veteran.
Every morning, you have to welcome the kids with your biggest smile, full of energy and motivation, singing and dancing.
Coordinators then started small presentations, about the Khmer vocabulary and the main rules to respect during the camps. They’ve also taught new monitors some easy games they can make the kids play to during the School Continuity programs, and more important: how to explain them in Khmer with the limited vocabulary they have.
“The Kep experience was really good to get to know each other, and to get to know your group and start to work together! And we had a lot of meetings and workshops, but they were necessary to know how to deal with the kids. We couldn’t have started with the kids on the very first day without all of these!” Javier, new monitor.
Every project then got a quick lunch together to discuss the daily organization and get on with the different roles before meeting with the others on the beach for a huge team building game. Three hours spent running, catching each other, getting full of sand again, building solidarity and team spirit under the laughter of the monitors. The evening went the same way, full of laughs and smiles from the showers to the little party ending the Kep stay. The veterans, Welcome Committee and coordinators taught all the dances they knew to the new monitors, making sure the latest will be able to dance them every day to the kids and to teach it to them.
“The Kep experience was really good to get to know each other, and to get to know your group and start to work together!“
A long night and good breakfast later, all the monitors went through new workshops, teaching them about the history of Cambodia and the values of PSE. All bags were packed and suddenly it was already time to leave, to say goodbye to the new friends they’ve just made but who were leaving for Sihanouk, hoping to see each other again in Kampot or Phnom Penh during a weekend. Siem Reap and Phnom Penh monitors got on the bus and went back to Phnom Penh, spending the whole journey singing in Spanish, French and English.
