June is the rainy season time and we discovered what means « tropical storm » and all the water that can fall from the sky in few minutes. The floods are coming soon.. Some kids of the village and almost all the volunteers received a present from the mosquitos : dengue fever ! Fever, hospital and rest for everybody. In the meantime, we protect ourselves as best as we can despite the 40°c outside : socks, pants and long-sleeve t-shirt are our allies in this mosquito-war. Fortunately, to soften our days, sunsets have never been as beautiful as now.
Once the plastic workers were ready to help us we studied together the shredder and decided to use an electric motor instead of a thermal one. We went to Kampong Cham to buy it and created new plans. The shredder has been finished in 1 week and is today working well : it easily shredds bottles, caps and straws !
Since we came back from Koh Rong Samloem and Kampong Chhnang we talked a lot about where we felt it would be the best place to set the next part of our project. We decided to go to Koh Rong Samloem for these reasons : the impact of tourism which causes a big plastic pollution, the geographic zone (an island with a little recycling system, where everything is sent on the mainland or in the worst and the most frequent case thrown into the ground and goes directly in the ocean), and the independance we'll have on the project.
We left Chiro once the shredder was done and had to prepare our departure to Koh Rong Samloem. Living and setting up the project on an island means a lot of logistic. We had to carry many things on our way to come there: 19 bags in total : tools, welding machine, motor, gear motor, metal barrels, food, some clothes and books (and mosquito spray). We missed the fast boat from Sihanoukville to Koh Rong Samloem because our bags were too bigs and finally took the refueling boat with khmer music and joy ! We were happy to arrive and put all our stuff at Andrew's guesthouse who will welcome us untill the end of the project. There we will set up a workshop and build the machines.
Installed since a few days on the island we are starting to plan our next months there. How do we organize ourselves to bring the needed material to the island ? (metal, wood, bricks, and ciment) We first want to build a shed to store tools and also machines in case of a storm. Once the shed will be finished we will start the machines.Those ones will be built on the slab that already exists at Andrew's house. On the other hand we will organize a plastic collect and install gargabes for the locals. Furthermore, to create relashionship with cambodian people it is now easier, since that we know how to speak kmer and we already have some contacts with the expatriates on the island.
Wish you a beautiful summer,
See you next month !