Reading rooms, scholarship girls, and the truck ride from hell

Yesterday was an amazing day and another that I’ll not soon forget.  We started the day with a trip to a school where we were greeted by a huge group of students, parents and officials. And, they taught us to dance in the traditional style, or, to be more precise, they tried to teach us to dance. The result was amusing for us, and moreso for them. We got to talk to the local committee that chooses recipients for girls’ scholarships and got to hear about how they handle the process and what their experience has been. Unfortunately there are so many needy girls that not everyone that needs one can get a scholarship, but we got to meet many girls that are attending school because of Room to Read.  The question that we got most often is “why are there no scholarships for boys?” It is a difficult question when you are looking firsthand at a boy that cannot attend school because of finances, but the statistics show very clearly that an educated girl educates others in turn, and that without a program to support girls specifically, female enrollment in secondary school would be far lower.  Many of the girls live very far from the school that they attend, and those that live reasonably close get a bicycle to take to school, while others are offered boarding near the school.  We got to visit a house where a bunch of the girls room together and were greeted very warmly.  They talked about their plans for the future (I want to be a teacher; I want to work for an NGO) but the visit was short because they had to go take an exam.  The girls gave us a book full of letters expressing what their education means to them, in Khmer and English, and drawings.  It was amazingly touching.  From there we went to lunch and then to a more remote village where we saw more girls in the scholarship program.  To get to the village we had to abandon our bus due to the condition of the roads; instead we took a ‘truck’ which was more of a mix between a tractor and a tank. All of us loaded into the back, packed like sardines and proceeded down the road that jostled and threw us around and, ultimately got stuck in the mud. So, we walked. Unfortunately there was not any water apart from the half liter bottles that we were carrying and the weather was extremely hot and humid.  It was a bit painful. When we got to the village though, we had an amazing time.  The girls invited us to their homes and talked to us about their experience in the program and their dreams for the future.  We talked to an 8th, 9th and 10 grader.  Outside we met a lot of cute little kids, again fascinated with digital cameras. I got a lot of great shots of them, but I think that they enjoyed it even more than I did.  We were thrilled to see our ‘truck’ arrive in the village about the time we were ready to leave (and it started getting dark); we were about 17 km from the bus.  Our excitement was short-lived; the truck quickly became mired in mud and stuck, and we were back to walking.  We walked for a long time and were all really tired and thirsty.  A good portion of the group were in flip-flops and they were serious troopers. Eventually we heard the rumble of our newly-freed truck approaching and the timing was good because we watched the last slivers of sun slip away as we bounced our way back to the bus. I have bruises in more places than I care to mention, but all in all it was a phenomenal day.