Day 9 - Be nice to the monkeys!

Today we had a day off from ministry work (well except for English teaching in the evening). We started the day not with a sleep in, but with an early rise, for a big walk up Santuk Mountain. There were many steep stairs, but we made it to the top! On top of the mountain were many small temples and.... MONKEYS! The monkeys were cute and even brought tears to Lauren's eyes.

After some exploring at the top of the mountain, we found a big rock to sit on and had a worship session. However unfortunately it was interrupted and cut short due to a large monkey approaching us, and our crazy tour guide lady telling us to quickly move away. After more walking around, getting close to many other monkeys and our tour guide falling into random fits of giggles, we began the journey back down to the bottom of the mountain. Once at the bottom, we went to one of the little rest stops there which was a hut like structure with no walls but lots of hammocks strung between the poles. As we took our shoes off and got up onto the bamboo floor, we noticed that it was quite fragile underneath our feet. Next minute, one of Careena's legs "Literally" fell through the flooring. A Cambodian man rushed to Careena's rescue, breaking more of the floor to get her leg out. It was hilarious, and Careena now has quite a decent bruise on her leg. The hammocks were incredibly comfortable and some of us even fell asleep. It was a very lovely and relaxing rest had.

In the afternoon we just chilled at our hotel and played Taboo. It was a lot of fun and we saw many of the teams competitive sides! Then in the evening we went off for the second time to do English teaching. This time though we split into three groups. Two groups went to the church, one for the little kids and one for the teenagers, and the other group went to Samuels children's home. I went to the younger kids group at the church and we taught them body parts. We thought we would teach them the song 'Heads, Shoulders, Knees & Toes' but they already knew it! So we just made it harder and taught them words like 'Tongue' and 'Fingers'. Those who went to the children's home found it a bit challenging because there was a variety of aged children there and at different stages of English. However they ended up working it out by taking the younger children out and doing a seperate English class with them that was appropriate for their level.

Then to finish off the day we headed back to the Love Cafe for dinner! Yum!

- Jess Dubbeld