Team Cambodia January Retreat!

Chum Reap Soo-a!

Last night we held our combination January meeting and retreat at the YouthLinc office. It was a great chance for all of us to get to know each other and set goals as groups. There was lots of delicious food (Thanks so much for the delicious egg rolls and spring rolls, John! And thanks to everyone else who contributed food!)


We started off by re-introducing ourselves and highlighting some of our local service sites. Some of us are volunteering with the English Skills Learning Center, some of us with the Christmas Box House, and some of us with YouthLinc's own local program, Real Life in SLC.




We had a quick language instruction course by John and Wade, and we all had a chance to practice some words. It was wonderful to see all these people trying these words for the very first time. Khmer sounds very different from English, but it's not as complex as you might initially think and it's very fun to learn (see/listen for the pop quiz at the end of the post!).




We learned what committees we will be working in for the trip. I am in the health promotion group and so I will highlight my group this month. Our Mentors are Rich, Bonnie, and Jill. Rich is a practicing pediatrician, Bonnie is an IV therapist and nurse, and Jill is a neuro rehab nurse at IMC. They bring a wealth of medical knowledge to our team. I really appreciate the way that they lead the team because they made it very clear that this is our trip and they are just here to provide expertise, but we are the ones that need to plan our health promotion lessons. There are many health topics that we hope to teach in Cambodia, and among them are: maturation, hygiene, women's health, and HIV/AIDS education.


After we finished up with our groups, the craziness began! First we played two truths and a lie, wherein we learned about people being cheer squad captains, losing teeth, and drinking curdled milk/cow urine delicacies!


The next game we played was "never have I ever" which resulted in many near concussions and a few interesting moments where it was revealed that several men had worn dresses and high heels and some women shave their face (it's okay, YouthLinc is a safe place and we don't judge).


The final game we played was a talking super fast game that resulted in hilarity.

All in all, good times were had by all and to finish this post up I have a pop-quiz for Team Cambodia!

The following three items are audio clips of phrases we learned at the meeting, and so your job is to figure out what they mean (type the english translation corresponding to audio file 1, 2, or 3 in the comments below) and you will get gloating rights for the next meeting! Also, I will update this post as soon as people have guessed the correct answers so you can have them for future reference.

Here they are! (realize they are intentially speaking slower so that you can hear each sound)