Category: Exploration

Have you ever wonder about how electricity works and what creates electricity? And How Cambodia have their electricity? That was what we learned in an exploration called “Electricity: Economics, Infrastructure & Access” It might sound so long and complicated, but in an easy way it is about what is electricity and how it works. We were also focusing on electricity in Cambodia. We started the exploration with basic lessons about electricity, like its history, how it works, and we also have fun while experimenting with the Leyden jar which is the bigging of electricity. It was hard at first for me. I didn’t know where to start or what should I work on, but as time goes on my interest started to grow as well as my understanding of it. 

Finally, our first trip came. It wasn’t a far trip, it was just nearby here. We went to the energy lab. We got to know even more about electricity resources around the world as well as in Cambodia. After that, we went to ISPP which is an international school in Phnom Penh to see their Mini solar farm. I personally never know ISPP used solar as their main electricity resource, but they are and it was on their school building rooftops. It was amazing. I was so curious about everything related to solar and it was still on my mind even after the trip. 

After a while of studying different types of electricity resources, we were learning about solar, hydro dams, Thermal, Nuclear power, and more. I was fully into solar. It is a great resource that people should be using because it used sunlight which we will never run out of. In class, we were dividing into a team to work on one of those resources that we were interested in, and just like that Solar was what I was working on. In my team, we were writing an article about solar. The article includes how it works, the advantages and disadvantages, different types of solar energy systems and solar energy in Cambodia. Everything that I was curious about started to become like a solved riddle or an open book. The article helps me to understand more about solar and I got to improve my writing skills which I was not so confident with too. 

Another unforgettable trip came. We got to visit Okra solar mini-grid in Kompong Speu province, Okra solar is a solar company that provides accessible, available & affordable energy to the people living in off-grid areas. Solar mini-grid is one of the different types of solar energy. We also went to interview people who use electricity from solar mini-grid and I got to understand that besides important things for people’s life like food, electricity is their needs. Electricity also parts that help economic growth, with electricity they said that they can earn more than they used to. 

This is a whole new perspective I have toward electricity. I thought that without them we will just need to live in the dark, but now I got to know that electricity is a part of life without them life will be more difficult and nothing could be improved or develop. I learned that we need to save them because they are important, saving electricity for today so then we can have a better tomorrow. When some people have electricity to use, they didn’t know or think about the people out there who are living in the dark with no hopes of improving their life and no hope of getting off from the darkness that they were in. After understanding and learning all of these, I wanted everyone to know about it and to care about it as much as we do.  Now that we got to learn about it, I felt lucky and somehow connected to the people out there, connected because I felt like I got to show people out there that they are not alone, we understanding how they felt and there are always people who wanted to help and are caring about them. This seven weeks exploration was passing by like a dream, I can’t get enough, but at last, I wanted everyone to know that this learning experience didn’t only help me with my education, but it makes me realized how lucky I am to have almost everything I need in life. It teaches me to appreciate everything I have and to help save and take care of everything I have.

 

 

Outdoor leadership

Nature is a broad topic to learn and talk about, but nature is what everyone should know and understand about too. Living in Cambodia lived as Cambodian(Khmer) we all know that Cambodia is a country full of nature, so do you think everyone knows about and understands about nature? I am myself as Cambodian and I still have a lot to learn. Learning doesn’t have the expiry date which means ages doesn’t matter. The early it is the more information you will learn. Learning about nature doesn’t always mean you have to be in the forest. The word “nature” is defining different meaning by different people. Nature to mean things that are not man-made and are the living things that are known as natural to many people but for me not only those but also for many other things such as weather and mostly something that humans can’t control or change.

Climbing up hills or mountains, not taking a bath for days, trekking in the woods and staying, walking together as a group to explore nature is what I have done. It might sound weird even myself feel like it is impossible for me to do those activities above, but I did and by that, I and my friends have to go through many new experiences. Some people consider bad times as bad luck, but to us, bad and good time are all considered as experiences. Staying together as a group was not that hard since we have stayed with each other for years, but that doesn’t it is easy either. Facing many problems don’t make us stop from what we are trying, in the wood, there are many animals that we are scared of, afraid of, however, those animals are nature, the feeling we have toward them is natural and because those animals are nature we have to step out of our comfort zone and learn more about it and the environment surrounded. The weather can’t be control what we should do is to be prepared for times when the weather doesn’t go well and it causes many problems for us like our tents and clothes are wet, but thanks to those moments we’re able to have that experience and learn from those moments. That times I can see myself being a self leader and a problem solver also as a group we have used communication skill too.

Doing something you have never done was one of those uncomfortable things for us, especially when you have to get through something you’re afraid and scared of the most in life. I just want to point out “Dalen E” She is my close and best friend all along the time I know her I know about her biggest fear and that is the animals that are boneless like worm, leeches and more. She never stays any closer to them by 5 to 6 feet meters, but on this trip, we have to get through a lot of leeches and worm. I know it is hard for her and this would give her a really hard time, there are time that she cries and also time that she doesn’t want to stay there any longer, however, I really appreciate her that she can step out of her fear even with tears, but that shows the confidence she has. This is an exploration that I think has taught me a lot to look at myself and other good work and try my best like them too.

My goals for these trips were countless because I want to explore everything I could,but after everything I’ve faced and seen I know my specific goals now the only goal I had all along, but I just didn’t know, however now I understand that I don’t want to just learn about nature, but I want to learn to love nature . The forest, waterfall, was not on my mind if people ask me about the place that gives me peace, but instead, I would think in a room with my device, but things changed me over time after this exploration and now I have learned to love the peace that nature gives to us. I learned to love the waterfall, to love what we have and we all should protect them. 

Overall this exploration taught me many things, I have learned about nature, my interest, about other people and importantly I have learned a lot about myself. I think I know myself best, but now I think I have a lot more to learn about myself and who I really am. I know that nothing is enough almost everyone needs improvement. I know I have many things to improve on, but as I know that improvement doesn’t always come by itself and it is not easy, but I have to step out of my comfort zone so that I can improve on what I need to and one of the goals that I have to improve is on my leadership styles and one of those which is designated-leader . I am a person who doesn’t like to control or being told to do something so when we are in a team I never wanted to be a leader who tells other people what to do because I really don’t like it so I feel like if I do it what will other people feel like? However, now I am trying to be one because in a team there always should be one so that the teamwork is stronger and the work gets done better. , but now I started to understand that as a leader, you don’t always tell others what to do,but you are the person who respects other people’s opinions and tries to ask all teammates about their ideas and you are the one who voices your ideas the most and now I wanted to try to become one because it might something news that I like.

Photos & Captions

                                     “I can’t believe I climb those mountains, but I did !!”

                                       “Be like the sun, it set, but it will rise again”

My exploration is called ”HOC” which stands for Humans of Cambodia and we got inspire by Humans of New York. In this exploration, we learned about the human’s life story. Why do we want to know about other people life story?  Well, we can not judge people by their covers there is no way you should judge people by just what they look like because you’ll never know what their story is. I am as a Cambodian I feel like there are many people out there that have many interesting stories and we’ll know and learned about them because sometimes it helps us to understand about them also the social and what the outside world really means. For these seven weeks explorations I have explored a lot of things and learned about many stories, but what I get and from this exploration back is I know more about myself and my country. Because of this exploration, I know that I am really passionate about interviewing and asking people for what they have experienced and ask for some advice. I feel really connected to other people even though I never experienced something like they did, but it makes me feel empathy and know how it feels. There are people out there who want others to know about their story because their appearance made some people judge them by the cover. Sit there Listen to their stories because it is a lesson which we called the life lesson. There is a quote say”Share“ Tell me the facts and I’ll learn. Tell me the truth and I’ll believe. But tell me a story and it will live in my heart forever.” This is my favorite quote ever because it is real in real life like me if people tell me their stories I’ll remember those stories forever. Thanks to this exploration a lot because I found my passion which is interviewing people, but it the friendship way in the way where it is like the normal conversation, not the one that we called as the professional interviewing. This way I felt like I and the other people are connecting to each other even I never know even this is might be the first time I met them or heard their stories, but it made me feel like I know who there are and what their stories are.

In this exploration, we went on trips a lot because we want to interview people for their story and here are some pictures from the trips:

We were interviewing a grandpa at the Russian market.

we went to helping hands which is an organization, but it is more like a school.

We were interviewing a grandma whose house got fire in Steung Meanchey

 

Liger students in HOC exploration and the Helping hands. And also in this exploration, all the information and people stories are going to the blog Called Humans Of Cambodia.

Here is a link to our Blog: http://humansofcambodia.ligeracademyblog.org/

There are many people and stories out there, spend your time listening to their stories because it might be your inspiration to the other day!

This round exploration  I am in the”indigenous exploration and this exploration we are learning about the indigenous people in Cambodia. There are so many indigenous groups in Cambodia, but most of them are not really known well so we want to promote their groups, their culture, and who they are. We are focusing on two groups which are Kui and Stieng. We’ve been going on trips to learn about them and our main goals are to make promote them so we came up with ideas that we should make books about them and also Videos to share to other people who interesting and want to know about them.

For Kui, we went Preah Vihear to learn about them. In Preah Vihear a province that is not so far away from Phnom Penh which is Cambodia capital city, however, Kui is not only lived in Preah Vihear, but they also lived in some other parts in Cambodia, but we only went to Rovieng District, Preah Vihear. When I first heard of Kui In my head I saw the picture of people in the town wearing their traditional clothes and live in the traditional houses etc, but When we arrived there everything is so different from what I thought it is. The town seems to be just like Khmer town, I wouldn’t know it is Kui town if I didn’t hear people there speak another language which I don’t even understand. People there wearing the same cloth as we did, normal clothes, normal houses, and everything seems like nothing different between Kui and Khmer, but as we met and got to interview them we started to know more about them how they lived and more. First, the land they lived in is a shared land which mean all the people in the town is part of the land, they are all the owner of the land. They shared the land together as one, however, they divided and put the fence around their own houses because of protecting the plants and things from the animals, but the land is still everyone land. Kui is amazing everyone knows how to speak two languages including kids and old people. They speak Kui at home and with their family, but they go to school to learn Khmer at school which is a really amazing thing. Not to mention their foods which is the most amazing food I ever had if you ever go there don’t forget to try out their foods. The traditional dances, instruments they used are also what make them who they are. Not only they still have all of those things, but they still have their traditional ceremonies, habits, language and more. The more that you get to know them the more you feel close that is when you know that Kui is really friendly. We as students really want the world to know what they got and who are they, so after we gather all the information we make it into books about Kui called”Kui indigenous community Cambodia” After that, we went back to Preah Vihear to verify the information again before. Kui is one of my favorite indigenous group in Cambodia and I believe that if you get to know them as I did you will also like them as I did.

Kui people( Credit: Cindy Liu)

The second indigenous group that we have learned about is Stieng. Stieng is a group that mostly lived in Kroches(Kratie) and Mondulkiri, but we only went to Kroches province.

Stieng is one of the indigenous group that I never heard before. I am really interested in this indigenous group since I first heard their name. When we went to Snuol district, Kroches(Kratie), we finally got to know them, but there are so different from what we thought. When we step off our bus there is nothing different between Khmer and Stieng, everything also the language people there speak Khmer just like we did, their houses, clothes there are so hard to find out they are not Khmer. When we interviewed they said that only the old people who can speak Stieng while others don’t even understand especially their new generation, but some of them do understand, and some even can speak, but they are shy to speak. They also said that most of Stieng wants to be Khmer and some even said they are Khmer now. They went to school the same as Khmer and also learn Khmer. After we collected information about Stieng we created Videos about them by themes such as Education, Food, Economy, etc. This is also the reasons why we want to promote as who they are because some of them doesn’t like themselves as who they are. Times to times changes always happen to protect, and keep what they have is the best. I am as a person have knows these indigenous people I feel like I am really lucky, and I want other people to know about them too. By these trips I am learning something new, something different, and also precious memory that I will keep it with me forever and I will always remember them.

 

 

Stieng people( Credit: Cindy Liu)