Journeys of L: June 2012

Today was our last day of volunteering at LRDE. It's National Children's Day and they have been planning a huge party for the last few weeks. When we got there today it was a mad house, there was no school so there were even more kids there than usual and a lot of random people there to help. Elle and I were put in charge of making their goodie bags... all 500 of them! We had to cut and package bread and put it all together with a soda, candy, and an apple. All of the kids wanted to be super helpful so it was a little chaotic with so many hands helping but we got them all put together in a couple of hours. There were a ton of media people there filming and interviewing the director. There was a journalist that interviewed us asking about our experience in Cambodia and when I told him I was from Utah he got really excited, turns out he got his degree in communications from the U and now he is working in Cambodia. Small world. We also got interviewed by one of their news channels and it was by far the most awkward and hilarious thing of my life. Pretty sure it went a little like this We were able to leave for a few hours in the afternoon so we got lunch from the same cafe as the other day and we went home to take a much needed nap, since I hardly slept last night. They have siestas every day here and I totally think we should implement it in the states. We went back to the shelter at 3:00 to help finish setting everything up. They were planning on 500 kids and that sound about right, there were so many people there! The kids performed their little program they have been working on, and then we passed out individual birthday cakes to all the kids, sang happy birthday and they all blew out their candles. After, they started playing music and Elle and I got our groove on. They all dragged us out in the middle of the street and we had a huge dance party with the kids while everyone watched and cheered. We had a few fans by the end of the night, a couple of guys came up and were so nervous to talk to us cause they thought we were really good dancers. Obviously they don't have very high standards! It was SO much fun though, definitely a highlight. We said goodbye to everyone from the shelter and then we had to say goodbye to the kids. As we were leaving a couple of the little girls ran after our tuk tuk. We only have 2 days left to enjoy Cambodia and I will be so sad to leave!