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Hi to all our friends and family,
This week we have had 2 new volunteers arrive who will take over from us when we leave in 2 weeks time. One is Sam and he is English with a broad London accent and the other girl is Jill with a broad Irish accent! Sooooooooo after 2 months with our "perfect" Aussie accents, the children will now have to get used to completely different pronunciations of the same words! Just as well we English speaking people all spell the same! (well, most words we do!!) Anyway we are thrilled that there will be some continuity when we leave.
We are now into our 7th week and can really see that we are making progress and that the children have actually learned lots and are speaking beautifully in their Australian accents. We have also improved our Khmer, but still have a long way to go. We have learned so much more though than the language and will really miss the children and Cambodia when we leave. We are preparing photo albums for them and will have a party with them all before we go.
On Wed. we visited a drop-in centre in town for Street Children and they had a photo exhibition that a volunteer had helped them produce and workshop. There was a caption explaining the background of each of the photographers. Most of them with stories of violence and abuse at home and then life on the street where they either sniffed glue or took drugs in order to cope with their pain and suffering. We spent some time talking to the social worker who runs the centre and he said that the children can come here during the day and they provide 1 hour of schooling and try to educate them about HIV, drugs and paedophilia. The Centre has some funding from USAID and several other organisations and has just received a grant from AUSAID. However they are unable to offer them a bed at night (they can come and sleep during the day) - and they have no money to offer them any food. So they either have to scavenge, beg, steal or sell drugs or their bodies, in order to survive.
Krousar Thmey (where we are volunteering) also has a Street Kids Centre near our guest house and the 2 new volunteers are going to teach English there 2 hours a day. Some of the kids sell postcards and despite them not having any formal education, some of the kids have amazing English skills which they have learned from the tourists. First they come up to you and ask where do you come from? Then they deliver in rapid fire English an impressive list of facts. eg. "I know-how-many-people-live-in-your-country - 24 million-and-your-Prime-Minister-is-Mr-John-Howard-and-your-queen-is-Elizabeth-and-she-has-four-children-and........" By this time you are so impressed , how could you refuse to buy some postcards!
Today we went back to the Children's Hospital to donate blood. First you have to fill in a form which includes your date of birth. When the nurse saw that Barry was 65 y.o., she consulted her chart and said that he was too old to give blood. After putting on an Academy Award winning performance, letting her know in no uncertain terms that he was very disappointed and assuring her that he was fit and healthy - they finally decided to check his blood to see whether his blood count was adequate enough to accept. Naturally, my age was fine, she said! Anyway they then checked both of us for our blood types and other mysterious things before pronouncing that Barry's blood was acceptable, HOWEVER, MINE WAS NOT GOOD ENOUGH!!. Of course Barry was very modest and did not give me a hard time about this at all!
We were both very impressed with the standard of the hospital which seemed very high tech and Barry had no hesitation in giving blood - I of course would have equally had no hesitation if I had the opportunity! I did come in some use however whilst there - one of the nurses came up to me with her English book and I gave her a free lesson!
Almost forgot to mention that we actually had some RAIN this week. It only lasted a few minutes but was enough for us to know that we do not want it to rain again whilst we are here! The pot holes in the roads filled instantly and the dust immediately turned to sloshy mud and was very slippery and dangerous trying to keep the moto on the road. I now know why Cambodian people always take their shoes off inside! We can also now imagine how difficult life must be during the wet season here. There are few paths in the town and none at all in the villages. There is no such thing as a lawn outside people's homes and the village houses are completely open to the elements and not at all waterproof.
Well that's about all from us for this week.
See you soon.................heaps of love.............Barry and Rhon xxx
This week we have had 2 new volunteers arrive who will take over from us when we leave in 2 weeks time. One is Sam and he is English with a broad London accent and the other girl is Jill with a broad Irish accent! Sooooooooo after 2 months with our "perfect" Aussie accents, the children will now have to get used to completely different pronunciations of the same words! Just as well we English speaking people all spell the same! (well, most words we do!!) Anyway we are thrilled that there will be some continuity when we leave.
We are now into our 7th week and can really see that we are making progress and that the children have actually learned lots and are speaking beautifully in their Australian accents. We have also improved our Khmer, but still have a long way to go. We have learned so much more though than the language and will really miss the children and Cambodia when we leave. We are preparing photo albums for them and will have a party with them all before we go.
On Wed. we visited a drop-in centre in town for Street Children and they had a photo exhibition that a volunteer had helped them produce and workshop. There was a caption explaining the background of each of the photographers. Most of them with stories of violence and abuse at home and then life on the street where they either sniffed glue or took drugs in order to cope with their pain and suffering. We spent some time talking to the social worker who runs the centre and he said that the children can come here during the day and they provide 1 hour of schooling and try to educate them about HIV, drugs and paedophilia. The Centre has some funding from USAID and several other organisations and has just received a grant from AUSAID. However they are unable to offer them a bed at night (they can come and sleep during the day) - and they have no money to offer them any food. So they either have to scavenge, beg, steal or sell drugs or their bodies, in order to survive.
Krousar Thmey (where we are volunteering) also has a Street Kids Centre near our guest house and the 2 new volunteers are going to teach English there 2 hours a day. Some of the kids sell postcards and despite them not having any formal education, some of the kids have amazing English skills which they have learned from the tourists. First they come up to you and ask where do you come from? Then they deliver in rapid fire English an impressive list of facts. eg. "I know-how-many-people-live-in-your-country - 24 million-and-your-Prime-Minister-is-Mr-John-Howard-and-your-queen-is-Elizabeth-and-she-has-four-children-and........" By this time you are so impressed , how could you refuse to buy some postcards!
Today we went back to the Children's Hospital to donate blood. First you have to fill in a form which includes your date of birth. When the nurse saw that Barry was 65 y.o., she consulted her chart and said that he was too old to give blood. After putting on an Academy Award winning performance, letting her know in no uncertain terms that he was very disappointed and assuring her that he was fit and healthy - they finally decided to check his blood to see whether his blood count was adequate enough to accept. Naturally, my age was fine, she said! Anyway they then checked both of us for our blood types and other mysterious things before pronouncing that Barry's blood was acceptable, HOWEVER, MINE WAS NOT GOOD ENOUGH!!. Of course Barry was very modest and did not give me a hard time about this at all!
We were both very impressed with the standard of the hospital which seemed very high tech and Barry had no hesitation in giving blood - I of course would have equally had no hesitation if I had the opportunity! I did come in some use however whilst there - one of the nurses came up to me with her English book and I gave her a free lesson!
Almost forgot to mention that we actually had some RAIN this week. It only lasted a few minutes but was enough for us to know that we do not want it to rain again whilst we are here! The pot holes in the roads filled instantly and the dust immediately turned to sloshy mud and was very slippery and dangerous trying to keep the moto on the road. I now know why Cambodian people always take their shoes off inside! We can also now imagine how difficult life must be during the wet season here. There are few paths in the town and none at all in the villages. There is no such thing as a lawn outside people's homes and the village houses are completely open to the elements and not at all waterproof.
Well that's about all from us for this week.
See you soon.................heaps of love.............Barry and Rhon xxx
1 comment:
extremely perceptive those cambodians. australian blood should normally be rejected unless you are absolutely sure of its provenance. soon change those childrens accents with imminent arrival from blighty. you want rain you come england - been raining here since october. off to the sun soon to do some missionary work in the west indies. love lttle bro xx
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