Our first village visit in the tuk tuk

Our first village visit in the tuk tuk

Exciting days for Tuk Tuk theatre. We did our first test run out in the village of Svay Ath and let’s just say that the results were successful, but how could they not be? Coming into the village we played some music so that everyone came out of their huts to see the noise. Once the kids saw us they waved and started to run after the tuk tuk down the road to the small school grounds in the village. There were kids coming down the roads and through peoples’ properties. The excitement was easy to read and inspired us to get on with the job.

Starting to set up we realised that we didn’t have the right cable to run the new stereo system we had just finished installing to the TV. I guess our preparation style after being in Cambodia this long was traditionally quite Cambodian; as in more time sleeping in our hammocks in the mid-day heat and less time preparing for our first adventure. Lucky for us there were no weddings or funerals in the area (which would have meant extremely loud music to compete with) and so the TV’s standard speaker system was fortunately powerful enough.

We played a simple Cambodian game with the kids first that is similar to “Duck, Duck, Goose” while we set up the Cinema.

Today’s choice for the kids is “The Lion King”.

We are of course experimenting in this early stage with what to show and were a little worried it might have too much dialogue, nonetheless, the kids loved it. Beyond loving the movie they also loved to use us all as their personal couches. Cambodian people are very affectionate and love being around people and so we felt accepted by them as we slowly transformed into their personal furniture. With only 10 minutes left of the movie, the clouds opened up and we had to stop, much to everyone’s disappointment. We already look forward to our next visit with them next month.