Change of address

Magna, Children at risk.
House 3, Street 75
Sangkat sras Chork,
Khan Daun Penh
Phnom Penh

Week 23

Our luxurious new room

Beds!

Pao (translation-chubby)

Sothy and Sayha

Nary and Srey leap

Srey mom

We’ve been living in GH2, now the group home, for two weeks, its lovely but quite a change from GH1. Mostly due to our 5am starts. The young children are all up at 5 ready to be showered and fed so we, rather bleary eyed help with this. The children all have nits which seem to be thriving at the moment. The caregivers don’t really see it as a problem but the expats do, so we have been trying to encourage hair to be tied up and we are trying to get hold of knit combs. Most mornings I spend my time brushing and tying up hair.  Another big change is the lack of water and electricity, for a huge majority of the time we don’t have one or the other and sometimes we don’t have either. We have been told that although this is because we are further outside of the city now, it is also the case that as peak tourism season ends, as it is doing now, water and power cuts become more frequent.  Almost every mid day recently when there is no electricity to feed the fan I decide I can’t hack it and I’m getting the next plane home to lovely cold England, I change my mind pretty quickly though.

Since being in the new group home we have discovered lots of nicknames of the younger children. The most entertaining being Dannet’s nickname, pi roy ha (250). Apparently his mother was told by their relatives that magna had payed the family $250 when they took him in. The children seem to respond much better to their nicknames, apparently when Dannet and Somnang (Che leang- big eyes) went to school the teacher though there was something wrong with them as they didn’t know their own names. Bun Sathya had a bit of a sad week this week as his father died. We were slightly surprised when he came back from a family visit with his head shaved and wearing a black ribbon, the symbols of mourning (I didn’t hesitate to show my disgust at the new hair cut, ignorant of its meaning) as the files say both his parents are dead, but apparently magna suspects a few of the children’s relatives have lied about parents being alive.

We have had a couple of trips out recently. The first was with a couple of the older children to a promotional thai trade fair, at Key’s suggestion. It seemed a very strange place to take the kids as there was just a large amount of stuff that the children didn’t have the money to buy. But they really enjoyed it and when we got back all the children that hadn’t gone were asking to. I think they just like getting out of the orphanage.  We managed to make it fun, by trying all the free tasters we could find. The Children couldn’t believe they were allowed to try food without paying and were extremely reluctant at first but they got into it by the end. We had a trip to a large and extremely impressive playground with the younger half of the children. They loved it! I really enjoyed myself as well. We had a mid morning snack of bread bananas and a big dollop of condensed milk (very popular in Cambodia) which was really tasty before using the last of or energy in the playground. The children were clearly exhausted as they spent the very noisy, bumpy tuk tuk journey home fast asleep, whilst I and the ma watched in great amusement as they fell off their seats.

We have had the rather exciting job of preparing for the wedding recently. An ex magna teacher took us to buy material and then to the tailor who took our measurements so she could create our outfits. We were rather shocked by how much it was going to cost us, but apparently we are paying no more than the Cambodians do, and I am pleased about where the money is going after seeing the tailor’s house. We picked up the outfits today after making a few adjustments and I am very impressed It is a work of art and must have taken great skill.  I’m not sure I really like my outfit though; Cambodian traditional dress isn’t really my style.

Week 21

Bedroom at GH1

My favourite orphanage meal

We've had quite an eventful couple of weeks. We had a visit from our project trust desk officer, it was really strange having people from back home in the orphanage but it was lovely having the visit especially as they bought us two tasty dinners and brought us chocolate magazines and newspapers. I've never enjoyed reading a newspaper so much, it's so nice to be back in the know, there is a Cambodian  newspaper in English but  it's not the same.

We also had a couple of visits from huge swarms of flying ants that seemed to hatch into our room. The swarm was so big their wings banging together made me think it was raining and you could hardly see through them. It was disgusting and when they finally flew off we were left with a thin layer of dead ones covering the room.

This week we had a visit from a Slovakian donor. Everyone was slightly stressed about it and the morning had a strong feel of a a school open morning. We were all rushing around trying to look and make the children look as busy as possible and stopping them doing the various strange things children do e.g. I caught one of the older! children drinking from the bucket of water used to flush the squat toilet!

The children, caregivers and Beth and I went to a concert at one of the children's schools this week. According to Soklin the band were superstars!
There were approximately 40 Khmer dancers on the stage. Khmer dancing is very slow walking in a circle twiddling their wrists and hands very elegantly. It seems to me that Khmer dancing is predominantly to show of the women's beautiful hairstyles, makeup and outfits. It was really fun though and I spent my time deciding which hairstyle and outfit I would like because.......we've been invited to a wedding!!!

A couple of the children and I had a rather traumatic experience this week. Cambodian roads are known to be dangerous and you frequently see minor accidents. On the way to Gh2 we drove past a horrible accident, a middle aged woman was literally sprawled in the middle of the road in a small puddle of bright bright red blood. No effort had been made to protect her from view and there was just one policeman guiding the traffic around her, it was horrible it made me feel quite sick. A couple of the kids and I welled up so we had a cuddle. It shut the children up though which was a relief as they had been winding each other up a treat before hand. I am now a strong advocate of helmets!

Last weekend I had a very dodgy tummy. It was horrible, I spent Friday either sitting on the loo or with my head hanging over the loo, I even had to give both a go at one point. And then spent a big chunk of sunday night and Monday sitting on the loo. I brought a massive pack of tummy medicines with me which prove to be  useless against what ever I had.

We've had some very bad news, Phearun, the only teacher left of 4 is leaving. Magna staff seem to have almost halved recently. Phearun has been working here for a long time so is very well bonded with the children, who will be extremely sad to see him go. He is also very good and therefore hard to replace. It's also worrying for Beth and I as we not sure he will be replaced very quickly leaving us solely responsible for the children's education outside of school which we do not have the skills or language for. It is Phearun's brother's wedding which we are going to.

We are still having problems with the budget, we haven't had the educational budget approved since we arrived so no educational materials at the orphanage. A source of much frustration for us and Phearun. I discovered the first two Harry Potter books have been translated into Khmer so I have persuaded dad to pay for them, hopefully if the children enjoy them they can be persuaded to try to read the other in English.

The past two weeks have been dominated by meetings about the move and preparations for the move. The house looks amazing the kids all have colourful bunk beds with colourful sheets and we have decorated the house with posters and pictures by the kids, it has also been furnished and we have created a small library. Im very impressed with how homely it looks now, probably due to the way we have decorated and arranged it, the house has quite a western feel now. The kids haven't managed to move school yet so some of the children are still living in gh1 until next week. After 5 months of waiting Beth and I were not going to wait another week so we moved yesterday. Out new room is luxury, we have separate beds with real mattresses and sheets (though not proper cotton) , a bathroom with a toilet that you don't have to hurl yourself of to decrease the pain of your bum cheek being caught in a crack, more space, a powerful fan. It is absolutely lush. It is amazing what a difference such minor things make. Only problem is the frequent power and water cuts. I had to wash outside under a hose coming from the water butt last night. Takhmao is a really nice place to live, it is more rural and prettier with a nice cheap food Market I'm very happy to be here.

Rachana is doing well her behaviour has improved a little she didn't protest last time she had to sit on the naughty spot and apologised without being asked to, she has also learnt to count to 4 I was very proud of her and gave her a sticker which she then went and showed off along with her new skill to the caregivers. Sothy, I'm still struggling along with, I find it painfully frustrating working with him due his complete incapability, i have much respect for people that have the patience to work with children with severe disabilities full time. I haven't given up on him though!  We are very excited to have met a woman setting up a school for blind and deaf children so hopefully we can get him going to school soon.