Journeys of L

We are down to our last week in Cambodia and trying to fit everything in before we leave! We got back to work on Monday and they asked us to write in a little diary for future volunteers of ideas of activities to do with the kids, skills to teach supplies to bring... and there were several entries from past volunteers which would have been very helpful to have received when we started! After looking at some of their ideas we decided to go to a local market to buy toys and books for the kids. It was by far the worst market experience ever. It was definitely not directed toward tourists and the people there were not very keen on having us for customers, which was surprising because white=money and everyone wants money... they weren't willing to bargain at all, that is if they even bothered to give us a price. We ended up getting some letter blocks, puzzles, white boards/markers (you can guess whose idea that was, I LOVE my white board!) legos, toy cars, paper, and crayons. We looked for books but they were all in Khmer, and the few that were in english made zero sense. We got out of there as fast as we could and headed back home to recover. Yesterday we took the puzzles and white boards and they were a huge success! All the kids worked on the puzzle and as soon as they were done another kid would start over. We used the white boards to teach the alphabet and help teach the kids to write their letters, numbers, simple math, and their names. I asked one of the older girls if they knew math and I just used the example 2+2 and she thought I didn't understand how to do it and was asking her to teach me. haha I got a little arithmetic lesson and I just went with it. She also taught me how to write my name in Khmer, their language is crazy! After work we decided to go to this hotel pool that is really popular with all the volunteers. It's kind of far away from the house but really nice! We swam for a bit and then hung out under the cabana sleeping and reading with our smoothies in hand. It's a difficult life we lead. We came back to the house and got ready to head out to dinner with a couple of girls from Alberta who also happen to be LDS. Cambodia is crawling with Mormons, we have seen the elders twice, sister missionaries once, and a senior couple actually came into the shelter yesterday to talk with the directors. Apparently one of our regular tuk tuk drivers is also a member but I don't know which one he is. Anyway, the four of us when to a restaurant called Friends which is a culinary school for street kids where they can come and learn a skill so they can be self sufficient. A great cause and the food was really good! Afterwards we went a got a massage and it was basically the most awkward/hilarious hour of out lives but it was really good! Today we took the paper and crayons to school and that entertained the kids for most of the morning. We stumbled upon this huge cardboard box that hadn't been opened and what was in it? A million english books! So glad we found this with only 3 days left... anyway, there was a huge book with nursery rhymes and short stories so I was reading them to the kids, and there were a couple that were songs. After I sang one of the songs he refused to let me just read them I had to sing them, so I just made up my own tune and sang through the rest of the book. Elle and I were in tears, it was hilarious. I also taught him 5 little ducks and now that's his favorite. We tried walking home yesterday and realized we were just down the street from the Russian Market which was the really awesome market we found on our first day. We decided to go back today and see what other deals we could find. We were standing out by the ATM when this little girl came up asking for money for food. We tried to point her in the direction of LRDE but she wasn't getting it. She kept patting her stomach and asking for food, we were going into a cafe for lunch so I told her to come with us to get some food. She grabbed my hand and walked with us but wouldn't come inside. She kept looking behind her, and I'm sure she would have gotten in trouble if she had stopped begging and came inside with us. The food was great, I got a really good veggie wrap and an awesome fruit smoothie. It came with 2 wraps so I got one to go and took it out to give to the little girl. We looked for her for a few minutes and finally saw her down the street. She came running back to us and I gave her the food. Hopefully she actually got to eat it and not her alcoholic father or something. We spent a couple of hours at the market and as we were waiting for our tuk tuk to leave another little girl came running up to us asking for money. It happened to be one of our favorite girls from the shelter and as soon as she realized who we were she wrapped her arms around our legs and was so excited to see us. I hate that that's her life, just begging in the streets. At least we know the kids we are with are legitimately in need and that we are hopefully doing some good.