So this is it, my last official day finishes in 20 minutes. I’m quite sad because I’ll be leaving a fantastic team and I’ve really enjoyed my work. It is a shame I can’t stay for the extra month I was planning on, but I have plans to be back in Cambodia in August and September. So who knows what will happen. I will still do work back at home for Khmer Silk Villages and help them get more recognition because they are doing a fantastic job with the revival of Cambodian silk. 
Oh how sad, I don’t want to leave.
I have 12 spare days now where I will hang out with my friends here, go to the coast or Kampot for a bit and just enjoy the last of what I can get of Cambodia.
Those who haven’t been here yet, or just popped in for Angkor Wat, Phnom Penh and Sihanoukville backpacking, I would recommend staying here and doing some work and getting stuck in with the culture and the country’s people. It was the best thing I decided to do all year.
Peace  

I had to write this.

I bet any of you who have ever written your thesis/dissertation have never done it like i have today (I wrote this last week whilst out in the rural districts). Visiting a village to give a mulberry farmer some new cuttings, I realised I was surrounded within 5 minutes of about 25 villagers who have never seen a white person, or ‘barang” before in their life. It was such a remote place that I completely understood that, I bet some of you, including me, would have got embarrassed or not sure what to do; but I gladly showed them my funny features : blonde hair , nose piercing , white skin . It was quite the most enjoyable thing that happened all day, especially when the ‘Ming’ (word for Auntie, older female term) gave me and my boss a coconut each to drink.

I think both sides learnt a bit about each other’s culture. What a great way to sit down and write a final dissertation. So, hopefully I beat anyone in effort in studying for their finals and being a group of people’s first ’ barang’ sighting.

This probably sounds corny, or stupid to some of you, maybe all of you, but it beats sitting on my ass doing nothing in cold England hey. The work I have

been given has been an absolute privilege.

Education, look at me now, giving me fails, E and D grades. I can make it without you. Anyone can if they try hard enough.

Peace

Just sat in the office. I have so much to tell but I keep going away and forgetting what to type when I get back . Since I last spoke , I have been back down to Otres beach just off Sihanoukville along the coast with friends and my sister to take a relaxing weekend after a hectic, rural week . Everyone down there is doing great and the new guesthouses they are all building look amazing so I will be down there for the opening in a week and a half, pictures will be included of course. Now I am finishing my final official last week of work with Khmer Silk Villages. Which is really sad, but I have some more work for them which I will do in my spare time, like redesigning certain things, creating a new website for them so they can start selling especially to the UK.
I should get going, 1 hour left until I finish for the day.

Peace