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So, so much rain. So much. The last 4 days have been constant monsoon - really heavy and never ending! It rained so much on Sunday that the school was flooded with about 15cm of water. We had to trudge through the deep murky flood to get to lunch and there were snakes and cockroaches and bins floating down the road! Also, the second day we arrived in Sihanoukville, Claire's bag got stolen which had both our cameras and my mp3 player in it - foolish kids bringing it all out with us! So we haven't got any photos of it which is annoying! Finally though, the sun is OUT! It's back to being ridiculously hot again! Claire and I moved finally from our rooms in the technical school to our joint room at the hotel school with the other volunteers which is such a relief because now we can unpack properly and decorate our rooms - we're going to head down to the market this afternoon to pick up bits and bobs for breakfast and decoration with Anya, a volunteer we share a kitchen with. Tuk-tuk is in order I think because it's way too hot to cycle the many hills we have to cycle to get into town. We've done it a few times and have pretty strong legs now, i'd like to think, but the rain's prevented us from our fitness regime for a few days and we are dreading attempting the main hill again!
All the students are back from their holidays now and there was a big assembly to welcome back the 2nd year students and greet in the new ones which I can only describe as painfully surreal. Our whole time in Sihanoukville has been pretty surreal thus far but this ... we were told to attend at 7.30am so we arrived and sat with the other teachers and watched as the flip-flop clad students wandered in wearing their pink t-shirt uniforms. The assembly started with the longest speech, all in Khmer. They would then pass over the speech to another person who would continue to ramble in Khmer for an excrutiatingly long time! If we could only understand, it might have been bearable. They all started to sing the Cambodian national anthem at one point as well which was extremely odd to witness. It was pretty amazing but so draining and I can only describe it as surreal, like I said.
We no longer eat breakfast, lunch and dinner with the priests now which, although it was possibly the most awkward dinner table silence I've ever experienced, is quite a shame. We'd grown used to the spinning table and dishes of fish soup and rice, and the repetitive cricket chirp in the background that tried to drown out the silence. Now we're all a little confused as to where we eat, but we'll get the hang of things at the hotel school soon enough, I hope.
Today I spent the day helping Claire mark test papers for her students who have to be set into ability groups before she can teach them, and also I spoke with Father Eugene to get myself a schedule! So I finally know when I'm teaching and who but I have no idea what - apparently the volunteers aren't given a syllabus so we just have to decide what to teach ourselves! I'm quite happy with that I think but I'm gonna try and plan loads of material for them over the next few days, just in case they already know quite a bit. I have no idea of their abilities yet so should be interesting! The students here are all really friendly, we've been over to the boarding house to meet a few of the girls staying there. There are 9 to a room, with their beds all joined together. There are no mattresses, only wooden planks covered with a kind of stretched, woven sheet thing. They all seem happy enough to be here, only some extremely homesick; some of the provinces these people have come from are on the other side of the country. It's nice to see all the students around now, the school has come to life, it was slightly eerie when it was only me, Claire and 4 priests. The Christianity side of things is a bit hard to get my head around because the students are Buddhist but must go to the church at the school I think every night? I don't really understand it but that's how it works and the students are grateful to be able to learn. They study things like secretarial skills and mechanics at the technical school and over at the hotel school learn housekeeping, cooking and front office too. All really practical things that will hopefully get them a job afterwards! They're all aged between 17 and 23 and so burst out laughing when Br. Roberto told everyone in the hotel school that Claire was only 18 -  I am dreading when my students find out! I'm sure it will be okay because they are all nice enough, discipline is what I'm worried about though! My first real lesson starts at 7.45, either this Friday or Monday morning, depending on when the school is ready - at the moment the students are gardening and cleaning, preparing the school grounds for the year ..
We've explored most of the beaches, even stumbled across a strange pathway, decorated with flower pots and statues, where we were chased by dogs and Claire got bitten! We were on our bikes so cycled away quickly and luckily the dog didn't break the skin so, instead of rabies, she has a dog-mouth sized bruise on her leg! That pathway did not lead to a beach. The beaches near to our school, which is about 20 minutes out of Sihanoukville, are pretty dirty, littered with syringes and old takeaway boxes - we'd like at some point to do some kind of beach clean up, because it would be so beautiful without it. What's surprising is that it's the local beaches that are in the worst shape - the tourist beaches are a lot tidier although filled with persistent bracelet and fruit sellers shouting "you remember me - you buy bracelet!" for literally hours. We were told that the locals just don't really take care of their beaches and a lot of the touristy ones are looked after by hotels.
Right, to the market!