Wednesday, July 28th through Saturday, July 31st: PSE camp initiation

We arrive around 10AM by tuk-tuk at the PSE campus, our backpacks bursting at the seam. Within minutes somebody from the camp management directs us to the engineering building, where we meet the volunteers who have arrived before us. About half are already on site, they seem a happy bunch. We get assigned a floor mat where we can leave our belongings. Wow, we'll be sleeping in our sleeping bags on a concrete floor for the next month? My back is going to suffer.

We go through the initiation video that gives a bit of background about the PSE camp and eat lunch at the canteen. Some Cambodian girls join us for lunch, they're all excited to get to know us. They're the interns, the girls that live on campus year-round. After lunch Blandine and I ask a moment to speak in private with Marisa Caprile, the camp manager, it's important that we inform her about Blandine's condition. I'm a bit nervous, this conversation could go in any direction, and really we're at the mercy of Marisa as to whether Blandine still qualifies to work as monitor as a pregnant woman. Marisa react with nothing but joy: everything is going to work out well, as a matter of fact, she will separate us from the rest of the monitors to put us up for the duration of the camp in a little on-campus guesthouse, together with some of the other older "more mature" people. OMG, an air-conditioned room that is used as practice ground for the students that choose to major in hotel management. With free maid service! I can't believe our luck.

Thursday morning we visit the dump site. The reason why we are here is more apparent than ever. Though the site has been closed since last year and some of this miserable has been covered with grass, the place evokes great sadness. We visit some of the shacks that are built against it and the people in rags that live in them. Trust me, when you see this, you KNOW how good our European life is. I'm taking a minute to absorb this place, and see that none of us PSE monitors smile at this point.
In the afternoon the monitor group is split in 8 smaller groups. We've introduced ourselves, and have chosen a project. There are sites in Sihanoukville, Siem Reap, and Phnom Penh, each under the lead of someone who has been on the camp before. For convenience (we're happy to remain in our air-conditioned room) we've chosen to both stay in Phnom Penh. Blandine has taken on the arduous task of dealing with the - sometimes capricious - interns, upon suggestion of Marisa. I've joined the largest of the 8 groups, the one that organises all activities on the main campus in Phnom Penh, under the lead of Pablo Alonso, one of Marisa Caprile's kids. We'll deal with the most kids, about 700/week we're told. I've volunteered to be the paillotte-driver for the first half of the camp, a position that doesn't give me constant exposure to kids, yet I'll shuttle around food and the PSE monitors from the main campus to the "paillottes", little PSE school yards in the surrounding area. The last two weeks I'll be a real monitor and organise activities for kids. My dream is to get these kids up and running with some basketball.

First we spend a few days on a retreat to Sihanoukville, though. It's a little seaside town, a three hour bus ride away from the campus. We use this time to introduce ourselves to all the other monitors and learn more about the camp organisation, eat local food, get drowned into the touristy beach culture of this town, as well as be introduced to the educational aspect of our function as monitor through a series of meetings and games. It's all well organised, really. The oldies, who have come back for a second, third,...10th time are happy to see each other again. Sure, the "oldie" Spanish seem to hang out with the Spanish, the "oldie" Frenchies with the French, yet neither group get so clique-ish that we newbies feel completely left out. It's all good fun really.
Saturday afternoon, before we head back to the main camp, we say goodbye to the Sihanoukville group. They'll spend the next 3 weeks dealing with kids in a villa near the seaside.

As of tomorrow things will get more serious.