Student voice 11 Nov 2016

My Cambodia experience

By Zoya Menon Gupta, Grade 4 student, TK Campus
Photograph by CIS Communications

During the October break, my mum and I went to Cambodia to take part in a Caring for Cambodia school building project.

As soon as I knew we were going on the trip, I decided to collect some simple English reading books, as I wanted to contribute to the school’s library. My friends and I managed to gather about 50 books.

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A few days before leaving for Cambodia, we were briefed about the task at hand - we were to build a portion of the compound wall of a school in Siem Reap. It sounded like a tough job, but I was really excited about the challenge.

As soon as we reached Cambodia, I started making new friends. I met a team member on the flight to Siem Reap, then made two new friends from Singapore American School at the group dinner on the first day. The next day, we woke up bright and early to get to Kravann Primary School.

We started to build a wall in front of the school so no animals could go inside the school. It was a very tough job - it was hot and dirty. We had lots of things to do: dig, make cement (there were no cement mixers there), carry bricks, lay the cement and many more tasks… We worked in a team with the local workers who helped us a lot.

The most interesting part of our work was making cement and then laying the bricks in an order. We divided ourselves into teams and each team performed a different task. We had two days to finish our work, but because we worked hard and fast as team, we finished it in just half a day!

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It was really exciting to see a totally different kind of school. The classrooms, library and even the toilets are not like the ones we have at CIS. I believe the wall we have built will help protect the school from stray dogs and cows entering the school area.

As we had extra time on our hands after finishing early, we went sightseeing in Siem Reap where we visited Angkor Wat and took a tuk-tuk to tour the town at night.

I will never forget this trip. Besides making new friends and and seeing new things, it was a great experience to help other children in need and work as a team to build something for a good cause.

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