Tree Planting in school

So the Children's Forest Program went to 4 primary schools in the last few weeks and held environmental workshops with the students and then planted over 700 trees around the school grounds.

I went along last Tuesday to help with one of the tree planting sessions, it was great to see the kids so involved in the project.

The head teacher was really keen to support this project and the kids did a really good job of planting over 200 trees.

Tree planting lunch.

Lunch time with all the volunteers on tree planting day, crickets and frogs were on the menu and tasty they were...

 Crickets

 Yummy frogs

 Locusty/large crickety things - crunchy not as nice as the smaller crickets

Rice with a few crickets and some mango and chilli salad, more tasty than it sounds - honestly.

Tree Planting...

One of BSDA's newest projects is the Children's Forest Program - CFP, which is sponsored by OISCA and is run by Panha. The main aim of this project is to educate the school children and members of the communities on the environmental importance of trees and other environmental issues such as recycling and global warming. Our first tree planting session took place at a local park area which they call Tuk Char Resort. This area is located around a few lakes which provides a good sustainable supply of water but mainly this area was chosen so that we could raise awareness with the local communities in the area and also target all the people who are visiting the local tourist spot about the the project and about trees - sounds a simply and it is but effective.

So we managed to rally up a good amount of volunteers from the office on a Saturday a few weekends ago and some volunteers from a local university and set off early in the morning on our motorbikes following our truck which was laden with saplings, buckets, tools, stakes and sacks full of water bottles - it is hot work planting trees..

Unloading the truck - 240 saplings in all, then we had to prepare them by cutting the bottom of the plastic covers, we left the covers on as they help to retain the water when it rains around the roots of the saplings.

The lovely Panha and his wife Dany, who have both studied in Japan with OISCA the sponsor of this project.

Heng, one of the workers from our Health projects that volunteers for this project. All of us spread along the road side planting.

Pheara, an old BSDA staff, now working for Pepper Klaus but he comes back to volunteer and then Simon looking slightly mad which is worrying as he has an axe in his hand.

Dany busy planting and Sokhoeun our MKK PC helping out as well.

The Heng, Somaly and Sopheara styling it out for the photos...

Men at work that's what we like to see, honestly I did do some work as well as taking photos.

At the end of a long day......

Ahhh I forgot to say that we had a visit from the Chief of the Tourist Department, who is backing this project and they brought a film crew and we found ourselves on the evening news...

The hard working BSDA volunteers.

The Chief, Simon and I planting a tree for the cameras...

Busy at work...

Baking at Smile

Simon has recently been showing his baking skills to our resident chefs, Narong and Pheakady at the Smile restaurant along with some of the trainees, old and new.

Lemon Meringue tarts, pineapple upside down cake and custard tarts were the order of the day..

Love this - Simon was peeling the pineapple but then Pheakady had to take over to show it should be done properly... and to be fair she was damn quick at it.

Baking in our tiny little oven here at Smile - not much is baked at the restaurant so only a small one has been needed.

The finished Pineapple upside down cake...

The finished Lemon Meringue tarts - very tasty.