BAPworld: Goodbye UNICEF :-(

Saturday, August 29, 2009

Goodbye UNICEF :-(

I had my last day at work! I'm so sad. I am really going to miss all of the people that I worked with. Ana and Elayn and Jini were like my Cambodia moms. Ana literally saved my life when I had less than no money, Elayn and her husband gave me a free place to live and delicious meals and were amazing, and Jini gave me a job when I needed extra money and always brought me snacks and peanut butter sandwiches to work for snacks. They were all incredible, as well as everyone else I was working with and I was incredibly lucky to meet them.

The week ended well, I attended a training that was the very first thing that I worked on when I started. It was pretty cool to see a bunch of judges and prosecutors sitting there learning about appropriate child interviewing skills from a presentation I wrote. Yaay me for being effective! :-D

On Friday we all went out to lunch at a fantastic restaurant that is a staple in Phnom Penh dining. The two Friends International restaurants are delicious and extremely popular (and too expensive for me to afford), so they took me and Kimsray and Jini (it was all of our last week) to the Khmer Friends, Romdeng, for lunch! Friends is actually one of the best NGOs in Cambodia, they get street kids off the streets and train them in cooking, service, sewing, etc. They also have a store that's just as expensive and do-goody and with really nice stuff as the restaurants.

The Friends restaurants specialize in all sorts of traditional foods, including fried tarantula. Yes, they ordered it, and no, I didn't try it. Sorry guys. However, the rest of the food was delicious (especially this amazing beef curry-ish dish that I couldn't get enough of) and we had a fantastic time. They even gave me a beautiful bracelet! I'm really sad to be leaving UNICEF but psyched to be leaving Cambodia and wicked excited to be getting to South Africa!! I have one more night in Phnom Penh and tomorrow I fly to Bangkok and Monday I fly to South Africa. Woohoo!! Time marches on people, time marches on.