(no subject)
When we got to the orphanage last night, the children were already asleep. I woke the next day to some children coming through my room to get to the bathroom. From that point on, there was no point in trying to get any more sleep - the kids were up and running around, making lots of noise. So I got up and had a look around. The kids were in the garden having breakfast, some with their school uniforms on. I had a look around. The orphanage is in about half a hectare of ground, with a building containing 3 rooms and a larger hall. This is surrounded by further "rooms" which don't have walls, just a roof. The kids sleep in these "rooms, while the manager, his wife and kids sleep in one of the three inside rooms, megan and Joseph sleep in the next one and I'm in my own room at the end. The only toilet on site is through my room though, so kids go through all the time. Outside, there's a big dusty "playground", a waterpump made of two pipes one inside the other, an outside kitchen, a whole load of mango trees with green mangoes on, a chicken coop (which actually contained puppies - the chickens were roaming around everywhere) and a pigsty with 3 pigs in. Half the kids went off to school. not long after I got up. They all came up to me and any other adults, and said "may I go to school. Each child did it with all the adults. When they got home they also came up to us and said I come back from school. Apparently they don't have enough bicycles for all of them so the younger ones only go either in the morning or the afternoon, returning to eat lunch all together. I joined some of the afternoon-schooled kids who were playing a game with some tiny plastic fruit - you had to flick them into a box to win them. I also had a walk down the lane, to see lots of houses of all different types, all with large gardens, some with cows in, others with ponds and lilies. The plants either side of the track were orange because the dust from the track had covered them, as bicycles, motorbikes and tuktuks sped past
Returning Joseph and megan had woken, and we chatted with the manager a little about their story. He had been hired by an american woman who had promised him a salary. However, she has never given him one, and after 6 months here he decided to leave. However, all the children cried and he felt he couldn't leave. The american woman continues to refuse to pay him. They had also been gifted a kitchen, which is being built at the moment. Joseph was complaining that they don't need a kitchen though - what they need is a proper fence to stop people looting them at night
I spent the rest of the day playing with the kids, hanging around and getting a feel for the place. Megan and I went for a walk down the road to get some snacks for the kids. the closest market is right next to us, on the dirt road. It's little more than some tables piled with grocery items, looked after by a few women. We went further though, along a rather wide very straight tarmac road. There was a lot of roadkill on the side - snakes, frogs and even what looked like a bat
I helped chop some of the unripe mango, which they turn into a sweet chilli snack. They wouldn't be able to use all the fruit when it's ripe presumably. Then in the evening I gave them an English lesson before tea. I decided to teach them "where are you from - I'm from Cambodia" and they all wrote phrases - I'm from xyz, drawing the flag for each one. After tea we went to ask some of the older boys if they would accompany me and megan to Ankhor What. We were also treated to some ghost stories told by an 11 year old in patchy but amazingly diverse English. I went to have a shower (pouring cold water over your head with a bucket.
I also got some more good news - they'd got a mosquito net for me! I've just got in it, started to write this out and a massive bug - can't tell if it's a cricket or a cockroach, is flying around, landing on the net just where my head is resting :P. Right, I'm off to sleep. Next door is having kareoke and hopefully they'll quieten down eventually.