Real Life: Volunteering in Cambodia at 74
It’s a growing trend among the over 50s. But what’s volunteering overseas really like, and how do you do it?
Well, that has to be one of the bravest things I’ve ever done in my life! I’ve just cycled home from the centre of town… wrote Gilli Gladman on her blog last October. Fair enough, you might think. Cycling can be tricky, even on familiar roads, and Gilli’s 74. But this was in Cambodia, where Gilli had taken herself off to volunteer in a small village for eight weeks last year.
‘The traffic there is chaotic,’ she says now, back home in Wanstead on the outskirts of London. ‘Tuk-tuks, cars, scooters piled six-feet high with mattresses… I never saw a motorcycle which didn’t have at least four people on it – mum, the baby in front of her, three or four children in size order clinging on behind her – in traffic that was mind-blowing.
‘I felt as if I’d breathed in years of pollution in a 15-minute bike ride, and, after doing the journey for two days, I thought, “No way!” and caught a tuk-tuk to work. But the younger volunteers, from Holland, Germany, Italy, and mostly in their 20s, cycled everywhere. I’d look at them and think, “If your parents knew you were doing this!”’
So why Cambodia, and why volunteer at all? Gilli has, by anyone’s standards, a full and varied CV. In the 70s, having trained as a catering manager, she and her (now ex) husband ran a beach bar in Spain, then one of the first gastro-pubs in Marlow, and after the divorce, as she puts it, she reinvented herself. She says, ‘I ran a nightclub for a bit, sold insurance – hated that – and spent four years as an accommodation services manager. I also helped to open a hostel for pregnant teenagers, then trained as a massage therapist, and also became involved in co-counselling, which is a network of mutually supportive people, in a successful effort to manage the anxiety and depression that had plagued me.
‘When I reached 70, I made a bucket list of things I wanted to do: see China, South America, the Northern Lights – seeing how people live makes me endlessly curious. I’d heard about ConCERT, an organisation in Cambodia which works closely with local people, helping to create opportunities for them.
‘Basic requirements are enthusiasm, flexibility and patience, and I felt I could tick those boxes, but I’ve also sewn, knitted and crocheted since childhood – I was taught by my mother. So the plan was for me to help set up a sewing school at the Treak Community Centre, four miles outside Siem Reap, for women to gain skills, make school uniforms and earn a living, and I happily went ahead and booked my ticket.
‘Nearer the time, Salin, the director of the project, told me there was one problem – the school hadn’t been built yet! But I was all booked so last October, having had £400
‘I felt as if I’d breathed in years of pollution in a 15-minute bike ride’
of innoculations (tetanus, hepatitis, yellow fever), off I went, without a clue what
I’d find when I got there.’
Thanks to a typhoon and a cancelled flight in Hong Kong, Gilli arrived in Cambodia a day late, relieved to settle in at the Victory Guest House, where Treak’s volunteers stay.
Work began at 8am the next morning: ‘My first task was supporting Salin, helping her to write a business plan for the sewing school, identifying what they wanted to achieve and how they were going to do it,’ says Gilli. ‘In the afternoon, I assisted the Cambodian teacher, who had 48 local children in his class, aged between six and eight.’
Later in her stay, Gilli wrote a Volunteers Handbook for subsequent people who’d be helping in the sewing school, and she worked in the library alongside a young woman, Reaksmey, who made a deep impression on her. Aged 19, she’d been working in the Treak school by day and studying at night, and had applied to a teacher-training college, knowing that there were 648 applicants, and only 25 places.
‘She not only got in, she came second,’ says Gilli. ‘After I congratulated her, I asked her – knowing that her parents had little money – what she’d live off. She didn’t know.
‘She reckoned that, with her tuition and accommodation provided, she’d need $120 (around £90 a month) to live on. So I whizzed off some emails to friends and family, and eight people replied they’d help. Now we each send £15 a month to fund Reaksmey’s living costs. She’s a hard worker, and emails us with information about how she’s doing. She was second in her whole class after the first term.’
Has Gilli’s volunteering experience changed her? ‘I think I got more out of it by travelling alone,’ she says. ‘You meet more people and test yourself and your limits – which is not to say that, on occasions, I didn’t wish there was someone else there, like during the typhoon in Hong Kong.
‘But I’ve come back with enormous energy and joie de vivre. I’m more tolerant and philosophical, and I think that retirement is a massive opportunity to do something
different. Mainly, though, I just keep smiling with triumph. I bloody did it!’
You can read more about Gilli’s adventures in her blog at theladyonthebike.wordpress.com
‘I’ve come back with enormous energy and joie de vivre’