Daniela Papi's Blog

Wow. What a hike. I can't believe I'm back in the land of ringing cell phones and mind numbing computer screens. Sitting here so long sometimes you forget what it's like to use your human power to get from here to there, to have your biggest problem of the day be wading through a shoulder high river with your pack above your head trying to avoid getting latched on to by a buffalo leech, or the site and sounds of the jungle and stars above your hammock. Now THAT is living it. And the leeches, yeah, that's roughing it.

Conservation International is working to prevent the ever growing wildlife trade in the Cardamom Mountains and to protect the last beautiful virgin forests of the area. They are considering bringing eco-tourism to the area through this type of hiking trip, but at the moment, the idea is still in the incubation stages. The trip was VERY strenuous, cutting our team down from 8 to 7 in only a matter of hours and leaving one of our hikers so dehydrated and exhausted that he needed to help helped up the mountain. We often lost the trail, and at times there didn't appear to BE a trail, but our amazing man-of-the-woods, Tony, was able to spot a broken stick there or some patted grass here and lead us on, even in the middle of the jungle. By day four, it was smooth sailing, we were used to the ticks, loved drinking brown-ish water straight from the streams, and our legs were used to being sore... but that good I-just-hiked-up-a-mountain sore that you can only get from moving all day, none of this "hour-run-in-the-morning" sore stuff. The real thing - hurts to the bone but feels real good.

I have to give a quick plug for my Hennessy Hammock. My GOODNESS, have you ever used one of those? It's better than a tent! The hammock is so comfortable that the two of us who had Hennessey’s were hard to wake up in the morning, while everyone else was so uncomfortable in their little hammocks that they were just waiting for the dawn each morning. I think I might even be tempted to sell my tent and just go straight hammock from now on. They are the best!

Anyway, back in Phnom Penh. Water festival is over and the city is beginning to settle into its normal state of chaos as opposed to the heightened state it has been in all week. The PEPY team is getting ready to head up to the school, celebrate the blessing ceremony of the new house on the school grounds, and begin the testing process of all of the PEPY students. We are taking a bench mark of their current reading, writing, and math skills to be able to better judge yearly improvements, learning difficulties, and teaching practices. Our congrats go out to the Cambodian government who just hired a team to create the first set of curriculum standards... before now the only standard was the teachers had to teach from 7-11 and 1-5. Ha.

More to come from Siem Reap!