Hi, I’m Anaïs, I was a communication volunteer from November 2021 to August 2022 here in Siem Reap, Cambodia!
Traveling During the Pandemic
I started volunteering for Anjali House during the Covid period. I had to start my adventure with a one-week mandatory quarantine in Phnom Penh. I was lucky, the government had reduced the quarantine from two weeks to one for vaccinated people prior to my arrival. So it was one week after my arrival in Cambodia that I was able to start volunteering for Anjali House!
Classes and Communication
These 10 months went by so fast! I didn’t see the time passing! My main mission was related to the communication of the association. I was in charge of the newsletter, social networks, and others. On Mondays, I held craft classes with the students of the Young Explorer program. The aim was to create different items out of recycled objects to decorate our garden.
I loved being in contact with the children, they gave me a lot. Communication was sometimes difficult because of the different levels of English, but we always managed to understand each other…. I think haha. We had created real bonds with some of them and it was very difficult to say goodbye.
The fact that we could work with different nationalities, obviously Khmer, but also American and English, was really enriching. And despite the difference in culture, our exchanges were always friendly.
A New Community of Friends
In my personal life as an expatriate, I was very lucky to have been quickly integrated into a group of friends thanks to Léna, who had started volunteering a few months before. We also lived in the same residence with other French women. This residence was superb, it was like sharing a flat, but we each had our own privacy thanks to our respective flats. We often met on the rooftop in the evening!
This residence was next to a market, every morning I would walk through it and buy my breakfast from the locals. It was a really nice little routine.
The Beauty of Cambodia
Cambodia is really a beautiful country, I was lucky enough to be able to visit it during my holidays.I traveled to Kep, Kampot, and the Koh Rong Islands. Koh Rong Samloem is paradise in Cambodia. And living next to the beautiful temples of Angkor is so amazing!
I think this experience has given me a lot, both personally and professionally. I am already nostalgic about this adventure and I think I will be for the rest of my life. I hope everyone has a volunteer experience like mine.
Thank you so much to Anjali House for this experience! I miss you guys so much!
