Cambodia volunteer

Salt stands for sport and leadership training. However salt effects what I would say in a big long run the world. It has affected me and it has been one week and one day now. With out a doubt it effects Cambodia. With extreme it effects battabang ( the city it is based in) and most importantly it completely changes the life's of every Cambodian involved and saves life's and minds of many young girls.


To learn threw my eyes
The first day I started. I learnt how trafficking works. The main reason I learnt it is because one of the up coming Mighty girls ( mighty girls - they are the girls that stay at a house and are the main Cambodian girls soccer team. half of them have been in some type of trafficking and the other half would of had the likely hood of it) was sent off to child labor. Which then usually forms into trafficking. Trafficking is very grey. No one ever knows how it exactly happens. In All most all cases it dosent happen how you think it does. They don't get kidnapped. Examples of how it happens: girl comes to practice and says Susie went to visit her uncle in phenom Penn. We never see Susie again. Girl dosent come to practice so sam (founder of salt) goes to her house and the mother says she has gone to grandmas house never to hear from her again. Example on Monday ( yes this happened my first week) Susies family sent her to go work bc her father is in debt. She now works in a factory or a rice field or both. She works anywhere from 12-20 hours a day making 100 a month. Sam talks to the father to try and get her back and get her in the program somehow or get him another job. The father was hard to track down but finally found him he says no not tell I pay off my debt. Then world vision offers to help the family but they won't help the family in tell the girl is back but the girl can't come back In tell debt is paid so sadly to say currently she is still working and not back.
Girls that have been trafficked sexually usually start off young selling flowers on the street or some form of labor like this. Then they get more and more brain washed and make more money threw sex so who ever is in control of them then pushes them into some sort of sexual activity. There is more trafficking in thialand then in cambodia. however they get the girls from cambodia, but make more money and harder to track in thialand.

Now cambodia is extremely corrupted mainly due to the Khmer rouge.( see last post) if you think about it that means everyone right now that lives in cambodia is effected by it. The parents of the kids went Threw it. Naturally you will not be the same when you go Threw something like this. Also if you think- they tried to kill every intelligent person. Every head person and destroyed all schools churches. There not very religious here they don't no who to trust and they are extremely poor. It's a third world country. Description- a few paved roads zero street lights , 50 percent of homes have electricity, cows chickens dogs everywhere; garbage everywhere-- it's all set back 900 years ago or more. They are just so poor. That is why they sell there kids. They can't afford to have them with them.
Culture- girls are suppose to have there shoulders covered and knees or shorts that go to knees. They are raised to never show affection towards a boy in public. They aren't suppose to smile and be out spoken.

Back to salt and how it helps change the community
Salt is also a football organization. They have 1200 kids enrolled. These kids mostly come from other organizations. The other organizations are orphanages, schools, churches, and clubs. Salt rents the field space and gives the kids jerseys and try's to give out shoes as well. ( I say try bc it's hard to give some kids shoes bc they may get stolen; sold, or grey area Susie quote on quote lost them) salt also employes coaches and refs. This is a huge deal that salt employees them. They get trained and they often times have a co volunteer coach with them to coach. With doing this they learn responsibility, they don't get paid if they don't coach or ref. It also creates a job for people and allows them to stay in school or let there family stay in school. All of the mighty girls do this. It also creates respect.

Soccer field- you have heard the saying : when I am playing ..... Hockey soccer bla bla I love to go to the field or rink bc it is the only time of day where I don't have to think about anything else. Now I want you to take that expression and times it by a million. That is what soccer means to these kids. (9-20 ages) boys and girls play together. They show affection. They don't have to have shorts or pants that go to there knees. When there at the soccer field its like all of there rules have disappeared. It has started to rub of in battabang. The city is hundred percent different then other parts of Cambodia I believe it is due to salt and the other amazing organizations in this area that are helping to make a change.

What I do:
In the mornings I ride my bike to the office. The first few days my butt Hurt from biking everywhere. ( side note- ha I have a sweet light on my bike for at night. It only works from friction. So I push it onto my tire and it rubs and turns the light on) ok so at office I am in charge of data- this is a new project for salt ( I create a data sheet to send out to all of the kids in salt. I make it in English. Then I am working with a Cambodian salt employee who then translates it into Khmer) the data sheet is to track the kids. We want to know when Kids mainly girls are quitting school or soccer and why. We also ask if they have siblings (if we know they have a sister that is 10 and not in school then we can help to get her in school) So the data sheet is made its basically a big chart asking age and gender school grade ( so if for example if they check yes for sister they will have age and what the sister dose- then we will know if she needs help. Also we ask about the mom and dad to figure out family income. now the data chart needs to be put into khmer. Then I go out and give the sheets and collect which is cool bc then I get to see all of the orphanages and what not. We then once get the info put it into a big data base in the computer. But ha the info will need to be in english in the computer bc other people may use the info and yada yada. Then after I work on that I am learning Khmer to better help these girls then I go teach English. After English class I go to soccer on tues thur Friday with the mighty girls. I play with them and add advice when I can. If I choose to I can then after there practice go to coach with one of the mighty girls at the other organizations. I also can choose to do that on Monday' wednesday and Saturday's After this I sometimes chill with the girls and eat with them. They enjoy my company and some like to practice there English.
So far I have only went to one orphanage to help coach. It was to fun! it was a boys team. They were an under 11 team and looked about 7. Some with shoes some with out. some with shorts down to there knees. My favorite is when they are wearing one shoe and other bare foot????
Sundays are game days. I go watch the kids show up in the back of trucks with about 60 kids in the back.

Things that may interest you or random info
Rice rice rice so much rice that's all they eat. The mighty girls for lunch and dinner always have protein. They get weighed in once a month and I this week am very interested to look at that chart. I compared some old photos and wow : ) they look so much stronger all ready.
The smoothies are so good here!
The eggs on the street have the embryo in it so like a little chick ahhhh nasty.
They eat frogs, spiders and eye balls view blog next week for pics of that.
It is hot. Mornings 80 day 85-105. Right now it is there dry season it's dusty and the field is all cracked. They dont have winter and summer season they have rain and dry. April is the hottest month it will always be 100 even at night and morning.
The girls are typical girls and ask me same silly questions as the girls back home- Jess do you have a boy friend? Jess do you like him? Jess .... Hahaha
One of the girls tricked me today. This little young buck, everyone tells me she is shy but um not to me. Ha so she goes Jess ( khmer something) I say what does that mean she says it means your pretty then she grabs her friend ( a mighty girl) and try's to teach me words and she says Jess you lap lap I say I lap lap ( something not close to that) she laughs and says yep then I say what does that mean she says it means your happy I go um are you lying she goes no tell Susie( by the way no one is named Susie I just say that for you readers because there names are Nhi pa, kun tea, and such) so I tell Susie she laughs and says cha ( cha means yes) then I tell Jamie Jamie laughs and says nothing so I go back and she goes hahahaha it means crazy so I was telling people ( I am crazy)
They don't like to be tan and would like to be fat because then that means they have money. ( similar to way back when)
Part of there culture is to always touch you. It's hard for me. They want to always hold my hand or touch me or squeeze my arm wile speaking to me or riding in the truck. I am all most use to it. Even boys do this but it is boy to boy or girl to girl.
They are always telling me how strong I am and touching my skin as well. Not just the soccer girls. when I bought my bike the Bike girl was squeezing my arm muscle and trying to say strong. Also when I went to orphanage the little boy squeezed my arm muscle and they were in amazement at how big my shoes were.
Cambodia country is very raciest. They only let black people have a visa for 2 weeks.
In general white people are loved here.
They eat on the floor.
The mighty girls shower 2 times a day
I haven't smelled any people on streets even thou very hot I rarely smell Bo
In my free time I plan English lessons, hang out with some other volunteers aka my pals, workout, surf the web, and ya no normal stuff.
They use USA dollars and Cambodian riels. If I go to an ATM it gives me dollars. Which is Weird. 4000 riels equals 1 dollar
I don't think Cambodians consume dairy.
I of course found every store that sells peanut butter and catch this the last one I went to had natural. I mean it's 3 dollars for a tiny jar and 3 dollars is extremely expensive here for one item of food.