Big News
So it's happening - I'll be home by the end of the week, in all likelihood. VSO are trying to book flights for us Friday or Saturday.
I ended the post this morning saying we'd found out that we were having all of our sessions cancelled. Because we had no more work to do on that front for the foreseeable future, our TL told us to get onto our 'leaving paperwork'. This includes our personal reference and case study, where we reflect on what we've learned and how we've grown, as well as what we've achieved. We also need to prepare handover documents for the next cycle so that new subteams know where to start and what we've covered. We also need to find a way of getting any remaining review resources to our students.
The mood in the office was not the best. We all had a kind of sense of impending doom, and paperwork isn't particularly fun when you have a feeling that things are ending early.
Zaynab, Tey and I also needed to get our debrief report (which we were supposed to have four weeks to finish) started so that we have something to say about our work in case of having to leave early.
We worked all morning in a low morale atmosphere on these various 'wrapping up' documents, and then went off for lunch at 12ish.
I had found the morning quite frustrating and sad but was grateful to Connor and Alex who tried to cheer me up, and then the three of us and Liv cycled up to the restaurant together for lunch. We were all talking about how much we don't want to go home. How hard it will be to go back into a different UK from the one we left - let alone adjusting back to a normal life, which would have been tough enough. We were talking about how it would feel like a lack of closure and how we felt like we wanted things here to end properly.
We all spent the afternoon slogging away at more paperwork, but in a slightly better mood. We hadn't had any further updates and we were discussing tomorrow being our social day and how we would spend it - we had been banned from leaving community, so the social we had planned for this week was off the table.
At 4.30 pm - 3 hours ago - we set off for a bike ride up the hill to the pagoda at the top of community (Tey, Heng, Alex, Zaynab, Tim, Liv, Connor and me). It was lovely. It's hard work getting to the top of the hill but it makes you feel better after a rough day. The pagoda was very peaceful.
After the difficulty of the day, we had all started to unwind. Relaxing a bit. Getting into a better headspace. Taking lots of photos because we still had a feeling things were ending.
We were going a roundabout way back into community, planning on stopping by some rice fields for a quick game of rounders, when we got a phone call from our TL, telling us to come back to the office for an update. At 5.30 pm, that was a pretty unusual request, so instead of stopping at the rice fields we carried on back to the office. We were all pretty crushed. Discussing how we'd started to cheer back up and we knew it was going to be bad news. Talking about the things we hadn't got to finish, the conversations we hadn't had, the friendships we were still growing. We still haven't got our pottery back from our social!
When we got to the office, Thailong, our Provincial Coordinator gathered us together and gave us the news. VSO has decided that we need to leave. I'm not sure entirely of the reasons exactly, but I'd guess it's to get us out before we're stuck, to get us back to the NHS and before its banned. It was pretty emotional. All of the UK volunteers and half of the Khmer at least teared up, and several of us were just crying.
We took a load of photos together:
I ended the post this morning saying we'd found out that we were having all of our sessions cancelled. Because we had no more work to do on that front for the foreseeable future, our TL told us to get onto our 'leaving paperwork'. This includes our personal reference and case study, where we reflect on what we've learned and how we've grown, as well as what we've achieved. We also need to prepare handover documents for the next cycle so that new subteams know where to start and what we've covered. We also need to find a way of getting any remaining review resources to our students.
The mood in the office was not the best. We all had a kind of sense of impending doom, and paperwork isn't particularly fun when you have a feeling that things are ending early.
Zaynab, Tey and I also needed to get our debrief report (which we were supposed to have four weeks to finish) started so that we have something to say about our work in case of having to leave early.
We worked all morning in a low morale atmosphere on these various 'wrapping up' documents, and then went off for lunch at 12ish.
I had found the morning quite frustrating and sad but was grateful to Connor and Alex who tried to cheer me up, and then the three of us and Liv cycled up to the restaurant together for lunch. We were all talking about how much we don't want to go home. How hard it will be to go back into a different UK from the one we left - let alone adjusting back to a normal life, which would have been tough enough. We were talking about how it would feel like a lack of closure and how we felt like we wanted things here to end properly.
We all spent the afternoon slogging away at more paperwork, but in a slightly better mood. We hadn't had any further updates and we were discussing tomorrow being our social day and how we would spend it - we had been banned from leaving community, so the social we had planned for this week was off the table.
At 4.30 pm - 3 hours ago - we set off for a bike ride up the hill to the pagoda at the top of community (Tey, Heng, Alex, Zaynab, Tim, Liv, Connor and me). It was lovely. It's hard work getting to the top of the hill but it makes you feel better after a rough day. The pagoda was very peaceful.
After the difficulty of the day, we had all started to unwind. Relaxing a bit. Getting into a better headspace. Taking lots of photos because we still had a feeling things were ending.
We were going a roundabout way back into community, planning on stopping by some rice fields for a quick game of rounders, when we got a phone call from our TL, telling us to come back to the office for an update. At 5.30 pm, that was a pretty unusual request, so instead of stopping at the rice fields we carried on back to the office. We were all pretty crushed. Discussing how we'd started to cheer back up and we knew it was going to be bad news. Talking about the things we hadn't got to finish, the conversations we hadn't had, the friendships we were still growing. We still haven't got our pottery back from our social!
When we got to the office, Thailong, our Provincial Coordinator gathered us together and gave us the news. VSO has decided that we need to leave. I'm not sure entirely of the reasons exactly, but I'd guess it's to get us out before we're stuck, to get us back to the NHS and before its banned. It was pretty emotional. All of the UK volunteers and half of the Khmer at least teared up, and several of us were just crying.
We took a load of photos together:
... and then went our separate ways. Channa and I are gonna stay up late and have a movie night, so we bought some snacks on the way home.
We had to tell our host family the news, which was sad. And I've spent a lot of time updating friends and family about the situation, as has Channa.
We've had dinner, and tomorrow we're planning a fun sports day together, with some rounders, and the Thursday we're going to be blitzing the paper work, and then I should be back by Sunday.
Well done Mol, you're looking well. Hope you can make the most of the time you have left. It must be strange for the Khmer watching it all unfold!
ReplyDeleteThey understand quite a lot - we discuss everything we can with them. The last few days we've been explaining the situation in the UK. I think the news wasn't completely unexpected to them either. But its definitely tough for them. They're worried about their families too.
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