Category: A Bite of my Journey

Running and jumping is hard. I need long arms, long legs, long body to reach the disk. However, frisbee makes me want to grow–not taller, but stronger as a human being.

There are not many women who would play sport since some Cambodians still believe that women who are muscular are all ugly. And the man should be the one who participates in those activities. But, I think that anyone can be anything. Sport is not just for tall or short, fat or skinny, black or white–it is the action of making you healthy and to release some stress; even more is to meet new people and to create new friends.

I had fallen in love with one more sport besides basketball, and that is Frisbee. There are not many Cambodians who know about this beautiful sport. I am just one of the trainers for BeeForce for about 5 months. However, I had learn to work as a team, be integrity, and be respectful to the other team members.

My teammates and I wanted to bring this sport to young Cambodians. So we had decided to volunteer and spend our weekend to teach CAMKIDS’ students of how to play frisbee. The students were very excited and nervous at the same time. It was a big baking day where we were running back and force on the field to catch the frisbee. I was very grateful to see how much they love this sport and wanted us to come back again.

I got some beautiful drawing from the student’s their for a thank you.

Frisbee was not one of my favorite sports. Because I am small to catch the disk, to block the offense, and actually to throw when there is a defense with the long arms to block you. There are lots and lots of running, jumping, catching, and throwing the disk. But at last, I was selected to be one of the frisbee players to go to Malaysia.

I was very impressed by the view in Malaysia and the people there. Most people know how to speak more than two languages: English, Chinese, Malaysian, Korean, Japanese and others. Their food was very spicy and salty. I like those tastes but I don’t eat spicy that well so I ate always have sandwiches for my breakfast and lunch.

Besides the food, people are friendly there. I was lost on the second day because my roommates had the key to get in. I used the elevator to go from one floor to another to find them. But I am stuck on one of the floors because I don’t have the card. I asked the people there and they help me out. I was a bit scared by finally them come back to the room.

However, we played three games on the first day and another three games on the second day. We won the first game and lose to the rest. But we had learned a lot from other teams with their techniques. We have always had a spiritual game after the game. The captains were the one who said about positive things and how thankful we were to play and learn from them. They usually surprised of how young we are; we are 14-18 year old and they are about 22+.

It was a great trip and I wish to experience more games in the future.

On November 2nd, 16 students had including me had attempted the festival called “Reader and Writer” festival. It had been 4 days that all the students had experience with the poetry slam and art. 

  On the first day, we went to the pepper farm called “SOTHY’s Pepper Farm”.

 We interviewed the owner and also explored the farm.

One of the interesting things is because of the special rock or soil that has only in Kampot and has been used for pepper purpose, makes the quality of the pepper become higher.

But because of the climate change, the traditional way of growing the pepper is very harmful to the business.

Continue reading “Kampot Reader and Writer Festival”

On August 3rd, 2017, I went the book launch called the Mekong Shadows, Tales from Cambodia with my father and sister. I was the second winner in writing the short story under the theme “Noir”. There are about five or six Cambodian who wrote the story including me. I was the youngest author in the book and it made me nervous and excited.

My short story called “Little Girl and the Hat”. It was about the life of a little five-year-old girl who suffered from the loss of her mother and finance problems. The story express the feeling of younger with an adult mind because of the experiences she has been through.