A New Chapter

“Stop being afraid of what could go wrong and think of what could go right."-Anonymous 

     Hi, my name is Berkeley Kelly and this is my third trip with CGA, I have been to Nicaragua, Cambodia and I am excited to go to Tanzania this coming summer.  Currently, I am in the Civil Air Patrol cadet program (CAP), Speech and Debate, and hockey. I am delighted that I am given the opportunity to try something new this year, Speech and Debate will be a great experience. Also, I think that my hockey team is really strong this season and I am looking forward to this coming season. As for CAP I am weary on the program, I really want to become a pilot and CAP (being a cadet program), is very similar to the Air Force, I thought this would be a great way to get a head start on being a pilot, unfortunately our CAP squadron is fairly new and the meetings are inconsistent, my hope is to stick with it and become a pilot one day.  My mom and my dad are fairly concerned with me going on this trip, considering how much conflict there is in Africa, but I know that I will be safe. My brother, Declan, is 11 years old and is in 6th grade, which means he can go on a trip next year. I really hope he will go, I think it would be great for him.  I hope to share our experiences one day and talk about how they were similar and how they were different.      

     Last year in Cambodia I learned so much  about the history, what the Cambodian's went through, and also about who I was. My last trip was a huge turning point for me, I learned a lot about who I am and who I want to be. It brought to my attention to how much I second guess myself; I have grown from this and try to be more confident in my daily life. For example, this year I have felt that personally I have gained a lot of confidence, just this past weekend my hockey team played New Mexico, the best team in the league last year. I could remember last year, how I was so sacred and how they towered over me like giants, but I was able to be confident in my team and myself,  we beat them 2-1. Also, it showed me that whenever I am in doubt now I just remind myself of what I have learned, I look down at the bracelet that Srey Tom gave me, and take the risk, "... think of what could go right."

     Cambodia was such a life changing experience for me, which is why I am excited to be back with CGA and going to Tanzania. We will be teaching at L.O.A.M.O school in Arusha, Tanzania, I am excited to teach again, knowing that last year teaching was a challenge for me. I am excited to advance and learn new teaching strategies so I can improve my teaching skills, so that I can help out in the classroom. I am also really excited for the home visits, in Nicaragua it was so eye opening to see the living conditions, and to meet the families; I can't wait to meet new people and to make new friends. In all, I am very excited for the adventure that's awaiting me in the challenge of fundraising and the new experience in Tanzania.

The hardest word to say is goodbye

                A tear falls down my cheek as I realize that this is goodbye, but a smile lights up my face as I realize who I met and what I experienced. It’s crazy how much I already miss all of the kids and I haven’t even left Cambodia yet. These children will have a special place in my heart forever. They have taught me to be confident in what I say and what I do and that is very valuable for my everyday life.

                I could tell that everyone at the orphanage knew it was our last day there. There was a sad awareness of the goodbye that loomed ahead. It motivated me to live in the moment more. When we went up on the stage to dance I didn’t think about what was going to happen or what had happened I just thought about dancing with everyone. We stayed longer to watch their performance and have a small goodbye party. In their performance they did traditional dances, a pop song dance, and a comedy skit. The skit was in Khmer but Mimi, the main actress, was such an amazing actress I was able to get the gist of the whole skit. Srey Tom sat on my lap and watched the act, she was laughing and smiling. It made me laugh and smile too, not because I understood what they were saying, but because it showed me how these kids opened up and let us into their lives. That is something really hard to do, it takes so much to show someone who you really are. I feel like that trust was everywhere in every hug and in every smile. The trust wasn’t only with the kids it was with our group too.

                At dinner we were asked personal questions so we could get to know each other better, everyone answered honestly. I was still scared to answer the questions but seeing how honest everyone was I felt I was able to open up too. Maybe not as much at dinner but I feel that I can really be myself with these people. My friends being open and the kids being open has really showed me that if you share with others you can make once in a life time friends.

                At the end of the day we sat in a circle and they handed out paper chains and cards that they had made especially for us.  Then they presented the picture boxes. I didn’t really know what to expect, but when they rolled out the picture box it felt like our whole trip was put into it. There were pictures and names in the boxes and each one told a story. In each picture there were people smiling. Usually in pictures, you are just told to smile and you do it, but these smiles are different they’re genuine and they tell a story. They show what a person has been through, and they show how the person has persevered and how grateful they are to be there.

Saying goodbye to everyone was a lot harder than I was expecting. Everyone was crying, I looked around saw all their faces for the last time and I started to cry too. Srey Tom who is at the orphanage with her sisters and her mom welcomed me the first day and stayed by my side for the whole trip. Saying goodbye to her was like leaving a piece of my heart there. In a good way. I left them with memories of me and they filled my heart with memories of them. We went to the temples for the last day. Seeing all the temples and visiting a nice hotel made me feel guilty. At the orphanage we visited the slums. The people live in tiny tin huts with barley enough to survive, and I’m here never missing a meal of going hungry, and I have an extraordinary family and home to go home to. The guilt I was feeling led me to be very appreciative of what I have and I’m glad I was given such a great opportunity as CGA to come and help the people of Cambodia.

                So as I finish up this trip I know that I will try to remember this for as long as I can. I will remember every name, so I can label every picture, I will remember all the songs, so I can find them at home, and I definitely will remember the connections and relationships I made with all of the wonderful people I met.
 

Living life to its fullest

                Going through the open gates of the orphanage opens up the gates to my heart. All of a sudden, the world starts to revolve around only the kids and nothing else. There is still a little annoying voice in my head that’s making me be less confident and is making me second guess myself. I am working hard currently in Cambodia to break free from that voice. I am holding back and I don’t want to do that here. I don’t want to have regrets when I leave to go home.

                When you walk into a classroom all the kids faces light up because they have a new teacher with a different teaching style and there excited to see how that class will play out. Unfortunately, when I was teaching I lost control of the class. I broke the class into three small groups and that helped quite a bit, because all the kids started to focus on their small group teacher. I now have a greater respect for all my teachers because I have experienced how hard it is to keep a class going in the right direction. After attempting to teach them how to say ‘tree’, I realized that I need to focus more on how I pronounce words so that I can teach the pronunciation right.  Now whenever I say a complicated word I notice how my tongue and my lips move to make that sound. Tomorrow I will be very passionate, fun, and interesting and get them excited about what I am teaching. This morning in the tuk tuk I got a lot of tips and I was able to make a great lesson plan for teaching packets and I feel a lot more confident and prepared. I really hope that will show in my teaching tomorrow.

                Today and on the weekend we were doing manual labor. I like having a structured day normally when I am doing a task. Doing the manual labor there isn’t a schedule and sometimes I feel like I’m not doing enough. I guess I am just scared to mess up because these kids have so little compared to me and I feel like I need to be perfect for them. I learned today that maybe I don’t need to be perfect; I just need to learn from my mistakes. That’s going to be really hard for me because I hate it when I mess up, I feel  really guilty like I let everyone down. That is my goal now, I want to be able to be more confident, not second guess myself, and learn from my mistakes. This confidence will help me in my everyday life. I won’t second guess that I did my science project wrong or second guess my answer to my math homework. This will save me the time I waste when I re-recheck my work even after I’ve checked multiple times.

                Nothing will hold me back when I teach these kids tomorrow I will prepare lessons and teach them to the best of my ability so that they can learn all that they can from me. When that voice comes back into my head, I’ll just have to ignore it. I’ll assure myself that I am capable of doing the right thing and I can get the correct answer without over checking my work. I will buy a souvenir here to always remind myself that I am capable of great things!

The start of an adventure of a lifetime

                 After 8 months of preparation and over 30 hours of travel, I’ve finally made to Cambodia. It is amazing being here all of the preparation, every minute, every second, was worth it.

                On the first day we went to S-21, a genocide museum, and the killing fields. Cambodia has had a very difficult past that started with a genocide lead by the Khmer Rouge in the 1970’s. At S-21 they would torture the innocent people until they got confessions out of them, like they were CIA spies or Russian spies, if the confession was not what they wanted they would keep torturing the person. After they got a confession out of that person they were taken to the killing fields. At night the Khmer Rouge would play loud music and a diesel engine to drown out the noise of their screams. The music kept the secrecy of what was going on in the killing fields. They had an audio recording of what it might have sounded like and it was haunting, it sent chills down my spine. All I could think of was these innocent people not knowing what was going to happen next and then they were beaten to death. It brought tears to my eyes; I just can’t comprehend how people can do that to their own kind. All of this happened from 1975-1979 so it wasn’t that long ago, and now the killers and the victims all live together, and that astonishes me.

                Now knowing the background of the people I feel like I can understand more of why there is so much poverty. We arrived at the school and all the children ran towards the tuk-tuks and were yelling hello. A girl named Sery Tom pulled my hand and introduced herself. She was so welcoming I knew I would be able to remember her for a lifetime. Teaching in the classrooms involves a lot of repetition, it is read and repeat read and repeat. This is the one time out of the whole year that they get a native English speaker that has come to teach them, so I am glad that I can help them with their pronunciation. Today I did some manual labor around the orphanage. I didn’t know that I could sweat so much! All of us had sweat dripping down our faces, but at the end of the day the feeling was so rewarding when you see the kids smiling faces and you know you what you did was for them.

I love spending the end of the day with all of the kids. Yesterday we played a type of jump rope with some 10 year old girls.  The “rope” was like a big rainbow loom bracelet.  They would hold the rope on top of their heads and then they would jump over the rope. This rope was at my shoulders when the girls were only as tall as the middle of my torso, and they were able to jump over it, it was impressive to see how high they could jump. Today we played some volleyball and then we had a dance party. Srey Neath, a girl who lives at the orphanage, showed us all the dance moves. It was so much fun, it felt like all worries, pains, and problems, melted away into thin air.

                To wrap it all up I wouldn’t trade this experience for the world. All these kids have a huge smile and when they smile at you it makes you smile almost as big as them. I love the rewarding feeling of knowing that, I have helped even if it’s only picking up a bottle cap or helping them pronounce ‘very’. I can’t wait for all of the surprises the rest of the trip holds.

So close

     "Everything worth doing starts with being scared." - Art Garfunkel. My fears for this trip are I won't be able to communicate with anyone. I know the basics of Khmer but I am not conversational in it and I don't know if I pronounce the few words I know right. Also, I am kind of scared to teach. When we do presentations in class at school, I get nervous. I feel well prepared, so I know I'll do fine, and I know everyone in the class. In Cambodia, I won't be presenting I'll be doing a whole lesson plan and in front of many people I do not know. I am really nervous for that. But I know that we will be preparing with lesson plans with CGA so I should be excited to teach. Last year I loved teaching in Nicaragua and I hope I'll love it just as much when I teach to the kids in Cambodia.
     I am really excited to meet new people. These people and kids I will meet I will never forget. I have experienced this by going to Nicaragua I still remember them to this day even what they were wearing the last day I saw them. Also, I am really excited to see Cambodia's culture, I know it is very different from mine and it will be exciting to experience new things. One of my goals is to try and communicate with someone so I can know what they experience and maybe just talk to them like I would with one of my friends. Furthermore, I want to be able to look back on this and know that I did the best I could do and gave all that I had. Also I know that from experience I will make great friends on this trip both on my team and with the kids, so I can't wait to see what I learn about everyone and to meet new people.
     My fundraising has been interesting this year some of the things I have tried to do to earn money for the trip, have not worked while others have. I had originally wanted to make bracelets to sell but they ended up taking me to long to make for what I would make from them. Also, selling my hockey sweatshirts has been hard because I thought there were a lot of people to sell them to but I just couldn't find the right way to advertise them, and therefore I wasn't able to get the word out to much. I am going to do concession at a hockey tournament next weekend and I am doing a lot of babysitting. So I am still finding ways to fundraise.
       I am so excited to go to Cambodia! I am really excited for the plane ride, I want to become a pilot when I grow up. I love the excitement of going some where new and trying new things and I can't wait to meet new people.

Learning from the past

     "Life is tough, but darling so are you." Stephanie Bennett Henry. In 1975, Cambodia was controlled by Pol Pot during his regimen 1.7 million people died from being executed, overworked, or starved they were put into mass graves known as killing fields. Everything was under a strict rule even the rice fields had to have a certain checkered pattern in them. Living under his regime was torture all the educated were tortured and executed, children were taken away from their parents to fight for Pol Pot. The country was put into chaos because Pol Pot was taking out all of the educated so he could have an uneducated society that he could mold and form into what he wanted them to do. They did this by closing schools, businesses, and killing all the educated. They took over a high school and made it a secret prison. They called it S-21. At S-21 many were interrogated, tortured, and executed, out of the thousands and thousands of people that were brought there only seven survived. They were innocent people tortured till they gave a false confession. Then they were taken to the mass killing field were a blow to the neck was given ant that was it. These people did not deserve this but the paranoid leaders thought everyone was a spy for the CIA or KGB. But in 1979 Pol Pot fled from the forces who captured Phnom Penh letting Cambodia be free of his tortuous regime. 
      Cambodia's culture is very religion based. There are many temples for Hinduism and Buddhism throughout the country. Cambodian's try to show a lot of respect to others. When meeting someone they greet with Sampeah, this is when they press their palms together and bow. The higher the hands are and the lower the bow the more respect is shown. I find it very cool that there is a way to show more respect to different people by doing a different bow, unlike how in America where we only have a handshake. Cambodia is said to have a collective society, which is when groups are valued over individuals. I think this is cool because it is different then what is in America.
     Cambodia's recovery has been rough. All of the educated were taken out when Pol Pot was ruling and he left the country in a pretty bad state. But just like Stephanie Bennett Henry life was tough but Cambodia was tougher and they will recover and rebuild. Fortunately my life has not has tough and hopefully will never be but fundraising always represents a challenge to me. I am doing fine this year and I am selling sweatshirts to my hockey team as a fundraiser. Through all my fundraising this year I learned that people were a lot more generous when they know that their money is going to a good cause. It was really heart warming to see people donate then add a little tip when they knew where their money was going to a good cause. All in all, fundraising has showed me that there is good in people, and learning about Cambodia has taught me that no matter what you can always learn and recover from your past.