So it was an hour drive outside the capital and has been made in to a village. The nearest shop is about 15 minute walk away and anything after that you need transport.
When I arrived Mia was there waiting and came running over because she was so darn excited to see me. I got introduced to a few people and my bedroom. The one in the picture wasn't the one I started with. The first one was an old hospital bed but these got changed a few days later.
The orphanage was started up 2 years ago by John and Kathy from America. They have been working as Christian missionaries for 10 years in Cambodia, setting up new projects to help children with no parents. This one is called 'New Hope for Cambodian Children' which works with kids who are HIV positive and have lost their parents to the same. There are 132 kids who are HIV positive on the camp and about 20 odd who are not. The odd are on the books to be adopted but the others will live in the camp where they are treated. As long as they have their medicine everday then they will always be ok. They are cared for until they have finished school and have a job. The kids are from babies up to 18 yrs old. Money comes from all sorts of fundraising, and is also funded by the 'Clinton Fund'. Basil is a baby who came to the camp at just a few weeks old. He was the first Cambodian baby to have both TB and HIV treatment. Bill Clinton came to visit him at the camp and there's a picture of it in his book apparently. Basil is now looking really healthy (the bottom picture). He's coming up to about 2 now. He's famous as well, as whenever visitors come along he gets picked out and shown off.
Basically here was a typical day:
5am - wake up
5.15am - electricty turns on, so lights turn on (it was still dark at this time). Wash/go see if there's an internet connection, which most the time there wasn't most the time but it was a good way to wake up a bit.
5.45am - Electricity turns off.
6am - Breakfast - rice with egg
7am-10am - nursery with the tots. Age about 2-3.
10.30am - lunch - rice with veg and some sort of meat
11am-1pm - own time (not much to do but read and chat with the other 3 girls)
1pm - 4.30pm - english lessons with the older kids
4.30pm - dinner - rice with veg and meat
5.30pm - Electricity comes on. Watch a movie and have a wash. Get ready for bed.
8.30pm - Electricity off. All lights out. So we had to get to bed or we couldn't see a thing. And it wasn't great to use a torch either because all the bugs would home in on it. Even when under the sleeping net. You put the torch on to read and a hundred bugs were there trying to get in to the net. Best just to sleep. Or listen to the monkeys in the nearby forest. Or the storm that happened most nights. Or the ghost in the bed next to me...
So it took me a few days to realise that there weren't any ghosts in the bed next to me. Stephanie had a bad cold and it was her heavy breathing that did it. But it was a bit creepy there for a couple of days. We were the only hut not to have a 'ghost light' outside which sent my imagination off on one when I heard about it.
Back to the orphanage though. It was easier than I thought working with the kids. But only because you forget that they're ill. You wouldn't know it if you hadn't been told. They all looked perfectly healthy. The nursery was like any other nursery. Kiddies playing, or stealing toys from other kiddies, or peeing/pooing/yakking on other kiddies or other volunteers. Mia and I started to pull all their shorts up really high. They looked cuter that way, haha. It's only because one of them used to be dropped off like that because he was so little. He was SO little that one day he was just running about and he shorts just fell down. Little Simon Cowell, bless him. Mia fell in love as well and I had to make sure she didn't take him in her backpack. No Mia!
And the teaching was good. I was meant to be doing this teaching at the start of my trip and forgot how much i'd enjoyed that week in the school. I planned a couple of lessons and felt really good about how they went. Something to think about for the future maybe. Still don't know. My career plan hasn't come to me as yet. Still waiting for that one. So that's how our days went. Mia was really sick for a while. It was gutting as it was her last week there and she'd been there for 3.
There were 3 other girls. Lorraine was from Ireland and had randomly been to Sidcup before, and she was there for 3 months. She's going home to do some fundraising for the orphanage. Then there's Steph and Ruth who are there for a year. I take my hat off to them. I enjoyed my time there and would do it all again and more, but a year is a long time to live as basic as that. The shower was a troth with a bucket to use to pour the water over you. Actually I really liked it. It was so so hot that you looked forward to chucking frezzing water over you with a bucket a few times a day. And the bugs. They have such a short life. When we watched films in the evening, they'd die and fall down your the back of your top. So i'm not so bad with bugs anymore. But would prefer them not in my top thanks.
One day a bunch of students came from Hong Kong to visit. We set up some lights on the basketball court and played music all evening. Everyone got out there and had a proper dance. And a few clubby tunes actually so was some good moves being thrown about by us haha. The kids loved it though. It was meant to go on for longer but then the heavens opened as it did every night there and so we had to scoot back to our hut to enjoy the last bit of light we had left for the evening.
Oh and one evening I quite randomly went to a party thrown by the Australian embassy. Steph knew someone who knew someone and she had been invited to go with Ruth. But Ruth didn't want to go for some reason, and Mia was unwell, so me and Steph headed to Phnom Penh for the evening for a wicked night. We were VIP's at an Cambodia army graduation. So much food, nice wine (slight highlight for me as I hadn't had much nice wine since leaving UK - that's if you class the stuff we get in The Portrait as nice wine!). We learnt Khmer dancing and danced all night. In the rain. But it was fun. And we slept in some really nice room as well. Well it was basic but compared to where we'd been staying it seemed pretty luxurious!
And another morning I went off to the market to get our water for the next few days. I hopped on the morning truck at 6am and off we went to the market - about 20 minutes drive. I got dropped off and told to be there in an hour or so and had a wander. Everyone was looking at me as I there was only locals about. I bought a few apples and weird rice cake things (didn't think we were getting enough of the stuff) and then back to the village to keep sick Mia company for a bit.
So the day came to leave the orphanage. It had been a great experience and I loved all the time with the kiddies. They're really great, and very brave. And I found myself thinking how lucky the orphans inThailand are compared to these.
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