I am pleased to spend time writing this email to you to share the interesting things that happened between mid-May and mid-June. Last month, I shared with you about my study at the end of the term, the trip to Oddor Meanchey province, and my meeting with President Isabelle from Rotary Sanaray Bandol Ollioules in France.

I have just finished my semester at PUC (my university), so I have also started my new semester as well. I still take 4 courses as I commit to managing my time for them. You may want me to remind you about how my results looked like last semester; therefore, let me tell you about this again. The school sent me the results a bit late, as they had been waiting for the update from each professor too. I got an A+ from my Statistics and International Organization course, an A from Communism, Fascism, & Democracy, and a B+ from the United Nations System course.  This is the first time that I got a B+, as previously, I always got A+, A, or A-. However, this doesn’t disappoint me, as I have done my best with it class and I also learned numerous things from it. I have been doing extra assignments from the UN class as well, because this is the requirement from the professor if I want her to review my grade. Excitingly, I also enjoy learning from my 4 courses this semester, including Economic Development, Economic Politics, Human Rights, and the Politics and Economics of Major Regional Power. Wow, I meet Professor Dara Tong again. I love to learn from him because he is very open and loves to share his experiences. He seems to know a lot about the world’s current situation. I am into his voice of talking about the world and opening my eyes to see the world. Also, I have another new professor from Phnom Penh City, that’s why I attend online classes because he teaches both Economic Politics and Economic Development. He is nice, not too strict, but the students need to get involved too. Oh, one thing I need to review is basic mathematics like logarithms to calculate the HDI, GNI (Gross National Income), GDP (Gross Domestic Product), and so on. That’s not a big deal, as I love math. On the other hand, I meet Professor Kimleng again in Human Rights class. It is not too different from the previous one. That makes this course easy for me. I know education is very important to share with you, so I will keep you updated.

Maria is the Charter President of Rotary Passport Melbourne, and she came here before and after the Rotary Convention in Singapore. You know what I did with her? I was the Tuk Tuk driver and took her to Sret Secondary School for years. She came to the CRST campus, and I met her there. Talking to each other for a while, I asked her “Maria, could you please share with me your story of coming to Cambodia and your background if you don’t mind”. The reason I was curious to learn from her was because I wanted to make a better connection with her. Then, she was happy to share it with me. One thing I admire about her a lot is that she came to Cambodia more than 15 years ago, especially to join the Marathon at Angkor Wat temple. She has been working on the Well Project to drill countless wells for the families in need here. She and her friends raised the funds to run their project. On the day I took her to Sret Secondary School, I met with the school directors and teachers there. They know Maria very well, just like friends see each other. We went to the computer room, and the computers were too old already, but useable. Maria also donated some money to support the facilities at school like fixing the computers and buying printers. She wanted to donate some computers to this school as well, so she asked me for advice on which one was worth giving the computers for the computer class or proving to the teachers for their work. I told her that we would provide computer classes as the students need to learn, yet we cannot provide them to the teachers because I think that they cannot afford them. One more thing, we can provide some to the school office and keep them as the school property, so that the teachers can access to using these computers, not belong to anyone. We then came back to Siem Reap and had lunch together at a small Khmer restaurant. We discussed for more than 1 hour during lunch too. I am sorry for the low-quality photos in the attachment before I took them from Facebook.

After the Rotary Convention in Singapore, we hosted Jennie, Deb, Maria, and Helen. Jennie came to Cambodia for her first time here, so she was emotional to see what we had been doing. The upcoming president will be her, and soon she will hold on to all work after Aviv moves to another position. Maria is the person I mentioned in my second paragraph. And Deb, and Helen come from the Rotary Club of Keilor East. They come here very often too because they support our projects here, especially the WASH project to install clean water filtration systems, toilets, and rubbish incinerators at the rural 4 schools in Siem Reap province this year and next year, and the Rotary Passport Melbourne will support another 4 schools too. This is so respectful when people love each other, and share happiness, and peace, even though we are living in different parts of the world, but globalization makes us close to each other. They participated in many activities, such as planting trees at Run Ta Ek town, school visits, family support with delivering food supplies, and temple visits, especially meetings with all Rotaractors. We met each other at the CRST campus where we normally meet because it saves our budgets if we meet here. Once they arrived at the campus, we played a game called Hot Potatoes, meant we combined many papers with questions/instructions and made it like a ball. We played the music and passed that ball from one to another while standing in a circle. When the music stopped, the person holding it needed to open and read what was inside it.  Some needed to sing a song, dance, and answer questions related to Rotary International such as the new theme, reasons for joining Rotaract/Rotary, or giving a flying kiss to 3 favorite persons. It was fun so the guests were excited. Then, we asked Maria, Jennie, and Deb, to share their feelings and their advice. Unfortunately, Helen had a sore throat, so she could not talk. We love to hear from them, and I felt happy to meet them.

Let me share my short, exciting day with the school agreements. After receiving the approval on the Global Grant for the 11 schools in Siem Reap province with the WASH project hosted by the Rotary Club of Phnom Penh Metro, I participated in making the school agreements with these schools as well by following the MOU we have with this Rotary Club. A very impressive thing I want to tell you is that among the 11 schools, there is a high school where I used to study for 2 years in grade 10, and 11 before I was selected to be a CRST member. When I arrived at my school, I recalled all the memories I had with my friends and teachers there. At that time, we didn’t have enough school equipment or other things compared to the schools in the city, but we were in peace and we drew the memories together. Some of my friends now dropped out of school, or they can’t continue with higher education. Some got married, I guess. However, I am fortunate to walk into this school again with what I dreamed of when I was there. The teachers still recognized me and are proud of where I am standing today. While we were at the school for the school agreement, I also walked around with the school directors and the commune chief representatives. We talked to see where we were going to install the facilities with toilets, clean water filtration system, and rubbish incinerator. Not only my school, but I also felt good to meet with other schools for the school agreements. I cannot wait to see all the facilities at the 11 schools soon.

Thank you so much for the time to read my sharing activities. I love to hear from you as well. Please also enjoy seeing some of my photos regarding what I have written here.

Have a super day!

Best regards,

Tangly

Tangly Ton

President, Rotaract Club of Siem Reap