Diana At the Crossroad: My Village Then and Now

Here I am, closing out on two years. Tomorrow is my last day in the village. A lot of volunteers blog about their feelings at this point. I’m not ready to do that. So instead, I’m just going to talk about how my village has changed since I've been here.

If Diana from 2 years ago could time travel and see my village now, it would be nearly unrecognizable. When I arrived here, an older volunteer said something to me about how whatever volunteer was put in my village would have to be a really strong volunteer. My site was joked to be the armpit of Cambodia. But now here I am two years later, thinking about the possible future volunteers who will come to my village. And I think they are going to be quite comfortable here!

So, here is a list of some major differences just in my village

Place	Before	After
The road to school	It was dirt and dust (mud ankle-deep in the rainy season) and always filled with potholes	A paved road!
The “taxi station” at the fork in the road	Dirt.	A tiled park. Flowers are planted in the middle, and there is a painted statue of a woman harvesting rice. The kids come here every evening to try out their new roller skates!
Bridges	Old, rickety, wooden bridges that constantly had nails and such sticking out	They are building 6 new concrete bridges
Tela Mart	The closest one was 15k (9miles) away	A new Tela just opened 4k away. Not only does it have air conditioning, but this one even has FREE WIFI!!! Sometimes.
Houses	Almost all traditional wooden	New concrete houses are popping up everywhere!
Market	Open air, dusty/muddy. And the fruit and vegetable section didn’t have a roof.	They covered the entire market with a roof, so that rain can’t ruin the dirt pathways in the market. Rumor has it that they will also make a concrete floor soon.

My provincial town, Prey Veng, has also seen some incredible changes.

Place	Before	After
The roads	Half dirt, and half really poorly paved/rocky roads	ALL paved roads
The Riverfront	Dirt.	They tiled a long stretch of the riverside, and put benches. They even just recently installed trash cans all along the riverside.
Road to “Monkey Island”	A bumpy dirt road in the middle of nowhere, only accessible during dry season.	A new road that actually allows cars to cross, that will also be accessible for more months of the year.
The Park	A decent tiled park in the middle of town.	They planted new flowers and trees, and even installed a sprinkler system!
Government Buildings	Old and falling apart	Many different government offices now have new buildings, some of which are even more than 4 stories high! There is also a new post office.

And these are just the differences I’ve noticed!

Now, some people would say that these improvements are political. That they are only happening because the current Prime Minister is trying to gain some last-minute support before the election next month.

And to that I say- I’m not allowed to have an opinion. Ask me again next week.

As always, here are some totally unrelated photos from a few months ago

Leah and Garrett riding and elephant in Mondulkiri

We rode elephants through the jungle for about 2 hours

We were guided by the natives, who actually have their own language and culture, separate from mainstream Khmer.

Our destination was this hidden waterfall

Leah went swimming!

So did Saeed and Garrett! And me too!

Garrett and Leah

One of many model-shots. Thank you Garrett lolol.

HOTTuh!

Diana: Should I jump off the waterfall?

Everyone: No.

Diana: You know, now I have to just because you said I shouldn't

And I did it repeatedly until I got a good enough picture

Diana and Leah getting sunburn

Garrett and Leah getting sunburn. And looking good while burning!

After the afternoon at the waterfall, we had to go find our elephants. That's right! We let them roam free, and then we had to track them! We hiked more than 1k until we found them! Surprisingly, finding 2 elephants in a jungle isn't as easy as it sounds.