Bears Bears Bears!!!

I don't even know where to begin every moment I'm spending at the sanctuary is rewarding and memorable. The sounds they make I never EVER expected to come out of a bear! From the audible "NOM NOM NOM" to the noises they make when sucking a paw, something they learn as a coping mechanism during their previous captive lives.

They act and sometimes look like big dogs, lumbering around, rolling around, playing with each other and chasing around. The younger four year olds make the whingiest noises when awaiting their morning porridge and snacks, they honestly sound like cranky toddlers. 

The dexterity they have in their paws is something that you just have to see to believe, delicately pealing bananas and eating the flesh, holding leaves in between their claws and nibbling on it as a royal would. 

I could watch them for hours and thankfully I CAN! The way they run volunteering here is not as a military would, it's all in Cambodian time. There's no pressure to have something done in a certain amount of time and no one gets grumpy when you take a moment to appreciate what the animal is doing especially when it comes to filming or photography. We can take photographs of whatever we like which is a testimate to the confidence this organisation has in what it does and how it does things. The Bears spend 90% of their day outside in their enclosures, some of which are enormous plenty of room to explore and search for their food which we attempt to expertly hide to no avail.

To be continued...

Differences...

The cultural differences here are so vast from driving to communication the more you see and hear the more you understand.

I explained previously how the driving is here though now it's all about the culture right now, simple things we do can be taken to offence, things like touching a child or baby on the head which is a right  reserved for Monks. Khmer people also do not yell or raise their voice to one another even in heavy discussion or argument it's all very quiet, so when we see a foreigner yelling at a driver over 2000 Riel (0.50c) it's pretty insulting to them and the Khmer people around them seeing this will shake their heads and look at us as if for us to take note and share our disgust of how rude that is and completely unnecessary. 

No matter how regularly a Cambodian may see foreigners they smile and play along if we attempt to speak their language. As with most cultures do they appreciate the effort, currently our security guard here at the house is trying so hard to learn English. Every night he brings his little notebook with the 'Gangnam Style' cover and we teach him new phrases and he practices them with us over and over. Last Friday I spend 3 hours teaching him and he is so eager to learn! To the point where we kind of have to end the session by distracting with something else or he keeps going :) 

He comes in everyday and speaks to us in English the very best he can and he spends his nights practicing his English and pulsing the taser he carries around throughout the night ;)