When I decided to donate a well during my stay at the Journeys Within B&B earlier this month, I asked John if I could visit the site of my future well. He said he could do one better: I could spend a morning visiting new wells with the scholarship students who oversaw the project....
While visiting Cambodia earlier this month, I had the opportunity to meet some of JWOC’s loan recipients.Here are their stories:Kheng Lerb lives in a small, thatch-walled house with her husband and eight—that’s right, eight—children. She operates a makeshift general store on her porch,...
It’s our last day working for JWOC, and the month seems to have gone by in no time. We’ve been massively busy this last week, trying to wrap up everything before we go. So for the micro credit project, we went over all the different documents we’d created, making sure the scholars felt...
We’re halfway through our third week, am I’m amazed at how quickly it has gone. Being part of the well testing and scouting has taken up most of our mornings. The work we’ve done has been really interesting – always varied, and I feel we’ve accomplished a lot. By now we have tested...
Week 3 is already over. On Thursday, Friday and Saturday we are going to visit the temples of Angkor. After 20 days in Siem Reap we will at last discover its major attraction! Still, quite a few things happened in this very short week. Sunday afternoon, JWOC held its second presentation...
Markus Wegelius and University Scholar Se in back with children from Dai Thmei Village, Siem Reap, Cambodia. Already the end of the second week! It is Sunday and we surprisingly were able to wake ourselves up bright and early to start another busy day of work at JWOC. I can’t even...
I had the pleasure to volunteer for the Village Microfinance Fund project for about 3 weeks. I worked closely with another volunteer and both were encouraged to discuss any changes that we thought were needed. We also got to interview villagers with the scholars.Early on, we realized that it was extremely important to provide a basic business & finance training for the scholars....
It’s now the middle of the second week we’ve been working with JWOC, but already it seems much longer. This is partly because there’s been so many tasks and different types of work to do (from teaching how to print without a printer with which to demonstrate, to testing well water for arsenic and e-coli), but also because John and the scholarship students we have been working alongside...
It is now the end of our first week volunteering and I have been extremely busy. Splitting my time between teaching ever eager English students and sifting through applications for future scholars, there has been little time to reflect. The others in our group have been testing wells...
By Michael Brodie – My First Day: 7/8/07After a day of introductory discussion, where we got to grips with the way that JWOC works, today we began our four weeks of volunteering. My name is Michael Brodie and I am part of a group of seven Oxford University students, representing the...
For me, the most rewarding part of my experiences in Cambodia so far has been teaching at the schools of Wat Chock and Wat Thmei. Every day has been an adventure at Wat Chock. It is located about 15 minutes outside the village of Siem Reap, surrounded by farms and fields. The tuk-tuk...
Well, we just arrived in Cambodia and I could tell immediately after leaving Siem Reap International airport that we were in a developing nation. The six of our group piled into a taxi van with all of our luggage and the feel of the air conditioning blasting from the vents was such a...
Our trip to Cambodia has, in many aspects, blended smoothly into what I already know about the less developed countries of the world. That is unfortunate because it bears many of the hallmark plagues of such a country: rampant corruption, a young population that is growing rapidly,...
July 9, 2007 TokyoAfter seventeen hours in the air, I doubt hell is that bad. No doubt, the high schoolers (of which there was around 30) combined with those sitting next to me, made the journey nothing short of memorable.July 10, 2007 Bangkok AirportWell, the day started in the Hotel...
Describing a week in Cambodia teaching at a free school for area children and living in the heart of what was once dense jungle is a mountainous task in itself. As an American college student who has never traveled remotely near Southeast Asia before this, I hadn’t really anticipated...
Since my arrival to Journey’s Within’ Bed and Breakfast, I have only been treated with the utmost respect and hospitality. The facilities are extremely nice and homely. The staff is warming and treats their guest like a close family. Throughout my stay, I have been afforded the opportunity...
By Brett BriardLast summer, I spent 18 days in Cambodia as a volunteer at an English school. Traveling by myself, and being so far away from my parents was a little scary, but I had a really good time. The school I taught at was just a single room with some beat up desks, and some old,...
By JOHN F. GREENMANJanuary 14, 2007 SIEM REAP, Cambodia – P. Sopany, an entrepreneurial woman in a squatter’s village near here, peers into the opening of a shallow, dug well. “Water from here is not beautiful,” she says. The well is flush with...
