Those who wanted to help out

Some of you have written me asking whether you could help out with gifts or donations for the orphanage. There are a couple of ways you can. If you like, you can transfer money to our bank account (email sberends(at)gmail.com for the ebanking details), or you may be able to send some things with Matt, Maree, Ana and Simon when they go to Thailand (we'll meet them there), or with Bill and Henny Berends when they come to Siem Reap in August. I am not sure how much room any of them will have though.

If you send us money, we'll donate the equivalent amount in US dollars to them (After all the costs for withdrawing money, it comes to roughly AU$1=US$1. You can choose to give your money to a specific purpose if you like. You can also email us a photo and we'll give them that so they know who the money comes from. We'll also email you a photo of your receipt.

Here is some of their needs:

Here are a few more pictures of the orphanage:

This is their kitchen when looking down from their large bedroom area.

This is their dining room (you can see the kitchen in the bottom left).

Looking from the dining room to the back fence. You can see their bathroom as well.

Looking from the garden back to the house. You can just make out the desks in Stan's classroom above the blue chair.

Here is the sign we paid for. It seems to help as we had a family who was passing by stop in and donate a suitcase of old toys.

Teaching and playing

Before we start, we'd like to thank people for their emails encouraging us or asking how they can help. We will put a post up detailing all the ways you can help if you are interested.

There are two groups of children at the orphanage. The younger children are taught upstairs on the veranda. They are generally about 5-10 years old. But there are some who are older who have stayed behind as they still cannot do their ABC's or counting yet. There are about 16 children in this class. Down stairs, under the orphanage, the older children have a classroom. They range from about 11-14 years old and have about 12 students in the class.

Nicole teaches the younger age group while Stan teaches the older children. We also have one or two of the orphanage staff members sit in during the teaching. They help to translate and keep the children in order.

Class begins with all the children standing up with their hands together in a "prayer position". All together they count, "one, two, three", then say "hello teacher, how are you today?" We then say "I am very well, how are you?" The kids then say "I am very good" and we ask them to sit down. After a break, they still all stand and say something similar.

Nicole has been going through the ABC's with the younger class. While they know the ABC song, most of them still cannot associate a letter with a word. They know "D" is for dog, because everyone who has taught them uses this example, but they wouldn't know "D" is for desk because it is not something they have been taught. So far Nicole is up to "D" in the alphabet. She has them all come up with "D" words, as many as they can think of and then Nicole adds some more. Nicole is also helping them count. They can count to 100, but after that they thought the next number was one million.

Nicole's class doing a dot to dot exercise.

Khammar using the crayons donated by the Jam Factory in Melbourne.

Sai and Khmoury working on their dot to dots.

Stan has the older children. After discussing what the students need to learn with Mum and others who help at the orphanage, Stan was told that the students should learn to talk in English to each other (rather than just to the ex-pat teachers). Stan has been trying to get them to talk to each other in English, but they didn't want to do it till we turned it into a game. Everyone makes a circle around the classroom by sitting one per desk. Stan starts it off by saying, "Hi my name is Stan, what is your name?". The next child turns the the person behind them and says says "hi, my name is _____, what is your name?" We go around in a big circle till the final child asks Stan again. This wasn't that fun until Stan brought out the timer. Once we started timing how long it took to go around the circle the kids had a ball. Those who forgot the words had 11 others yelling out what they should say. Every time we beat our time, the children would cheer and pound their desks. Stan then asked them if they thought they could do it in less than thirty seconds. They looked quite doubtful, but we gave it a try. Eventually we got to 31 seconds and you should have heard the groans at coming so close. Some of them started yelling at the ones who had forgotten the words and had slowed them down. So we gave it one more try and did the circle in 27 seconds. There were kids jumping up and cheering, pounding their desks and all bragging that they were the quickest. It was quite fun.

We then did a circle race asking how old people were. Some of the children would say, "I am one hundred, hundred million years old". Then the others would all yell at them and tell them off because "one hundred hundred million" took a lot longer to say that "twelve" and they wanted to beat their previous time.

Stan's class has also been working on expressing their feelings in English. We write down 12 feelings on the board, such as happy, sad, angry, sick then make up an action to go with each feeling. Then as a group we say "I am feeling _____" and do the corresponding action. Once everyone knows the word, the meaning and the action, Stan hands out a card with a feeling on it to each child. We then go around the room asking everyone "How do you feel?" The child stands up and says "I am ____" and does the corresponding action on their card.

The day goes smoothly until about 3pm. At this time it is usually incredibly hot and the children are tired and sick of class. The only way to keep them with us is to come up with a fun activity to keep their interest. One day Stan's class learned how to tell the time and then played "What's the time Mr. Wolf?" Well, the moment we started that, Nicole lost control of her class. They all crowded to the side of the veranda and begged Nicole to let them join in.

Stan's classroom is under a tin roof. This means that when it rains it is impossible to hear anyone. The roof also leaks onto a couple of desks. The water pools in the front of the class and Stan teaches standing in a mud puddle. About ten minutes later, a long hoe appeared between Stan's legs and "Dad" made a little trench to drain the water from the front of the class. The mud remained behind though.

Stan's teaching spot

At the end of the day, as we leave, about 20 kids line up on the veranda and yell, "thank you Stan", "thank you Nicole", or "bye Stan and Nicole". We walk away waving and yelling "byeeeeeeee" until we are out of sight.

Well, this is getting a bit long, so we'll stop here and add more later.

Food and night life

Hi Everyone,

We have been teaching again today and it it exhausting. The heat and the active kids really takes it out of you. We'll do a post shortly about what we have been doing at the orphanage as well as put up some videos (if we can work out how to do that).

Today I will write about the food and night life in Siem Reap. Every evening we walk about 5 minutes from our hotel into the centre of Siem Reap. The main street in town is called "Pub Street". At night, this street is closed to traffic and it is thronged with tourists.

Apologies for the bad photo of Pub Street, we were playing around with night settings.

Along Pub Street there are mainly restaurants (the expensive ones where meals are about $5-10). There is also a few shops and every evening a group of land mine victims play some music in the centre of the street.

All these musicians are missing a foot or an entire leg. 

On the way to Pub Street we pass a lot of cheaper stands where the meals are about $2-3. They don't look like much, but the meals there are delicious, especially the fried rice.

Cheap, but clean and yummy.

BBQ

Those wanting to spend a little more on a BBQ meal can go across the street and get an all you can eat buffet BBQ for $5. The $5 includes beer as well.

One comes to the buffet and gets all the food that you want to cook, then you bring it back to your table where you have a "mini BBQ" to cook your own food.

For people a little more adventurous, there are many other foods to try out.

Mmmmmm, frogs in marinade at only $1 each!

Snake, ostrich, kangaroo or crocodile is also on offer. We can recommend everything but the snake which makes you feel like you are eating a tyre because it is so chewy.

Well, that is some of the exotic meals available in Siem Reap. There are also a huge variety of local curries and soups. These are what we mainly live off. Stan has been drinking a lot of beer. This is of course to "save money" given that it is cheaper than water in restaurants. Nicole drinks water, lemon juice or "expensive" cocktails at $1.50 each.

Non food related information
Now for something totally not related to food, but something we found amusing while walking home from teaching at the orphanage. How does a fisherman check his nets if he can't swim? Well, in Cambodia, he straps a lot of empty 2 litre water bottles to himself and goes out into the river confident he cannot drown. This may not pass an OH&S audit in Australia, but we thought this an ingenious Khmer invention.

Ok, we'll leave it here for now. In our upcoming posts we will discuss some of the work we are doing at the orphanage. It is truly rewarding and humbling to work with these kids. It is also very sad because they are missing out on so much. We have also had a request to write more about the people we have met. People like Sinath who are trying to make a living despite the tremendous hardships they have survived. We will try and do this. Indeed, every day we come across many people who are suffering. Many of these people are very bravely trying to make a living rather than resorting to begging. It is hard to write about these people in a way that will personalise them to you readers. This is because it often takes a photograph to make their story "hit home", so to speak. Often, a camera is not the best thing to pull out when helping these people. But we will try and bring you as many "people stories" as we can. Some recent things we have done:

• Last night we took some drinks to some homeless children who were sleeping on the streets. Nicole had noticed that one of the kids was trying to get some water to drink from the air conditioner condensation hose at a restaurant, but was chased off by staff. We bought them all a can of coke. Not the best thing for their teeth, but the kids like cans as they can collect the aluminium and turn this in for money.
• At lunch time we often have people injured by land mines approach us trying to sell us books or paintings. We will invite them to have lunch or a drink with us.

Anyway, we'll leave it there for now. Have a nice day.

Short update

We have had a tiring day. Teaching in this weather is incredibly draining. In the later afternoon, everyone gets tired and it is so hard to keep everyone's attention. The kids get a very haphazard education with different volunteers coming all the time. Also given the large age group in the class, it is hard to teach everyone properly. Those who know the answers shout them out, while the quiet ones are often forgotten. We have to make a real effort to include everyone.

Stan's broken wrist has been healing slowly. He has about 90% of movement back, but no strength as yet. He cannot do simple things like pull himself out of the pool. It looks back to normal other than the bushy black hairs he got under the cast, and the burn marks from when the cast was cut off which will not tan.

Looking better than the pale, shrivelled little arm it was 3 weeks ago!

Nicole was sick very briefly (one evening) with what we think was food poisoning, but we can't pinpoint what it was because we have been sharing our food and Stan was not affected at all. The food here is very delicious. There is a huge variety of flavours to choose from and we try something different every day.

Pork with cashew nuts. A $3 meal is enough for both of us.

Speaking of food, we have had a request to describe the foods we enjoy here. We'll try and collect a few photos and put everything together in the one post at a future date. For now, let us say we are not starved for choice. There is even exotic things like BBQ crocodile, snake, ostrich, kangaroo. No dog thankfully. We (unknowingly) had dog satay in Bali and are not in a hurry to eat that ever again.

People in need

Hi Everyone,

Apologies for the delayed update. First off, we'd love to hear from you if you are reading this blog. Send emails to stanandnicole(at)gmail.com or sberends(at)gmail.com. Tell us what you have enjoyed and what you'd like to hear more of. We're not getting much feedback, so let us know if anyone is reading.

We have been looking at two orphanages in Siem Reap ACODO and CDO. Both have real needs, but we have settled on CDO as it has the lower profile and, in our opinion, the much greater need.

ACODO orphanage gets quite a lot of attention because every evening at 6:30 the children put on a performance, playing local instruments and dancing some Khmer dances. The children seem to have a great lot of fun doing this. Because of this performance, the orphanage seems to get regular donations, though they too struggle for money. The day we were there a little girl had been bitten on the neck by a dog and a little boy had stepped on a nail. We met a little boy who was 12 years old, but only came up to our waists. He was so malnourished before he got to the orphanage it had stunted his growth.

The little boys loved the monkey dance and did a great job of it!

All the kids doing the final bow.

We enjoyed ACODA, but a few doors down there is another orphanage CDO which we only found by accident as we were walking when 20 kids came running up to us as we walked passed calling "hellooooooooo" or "hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii". We stopped and went inside where we met the lady, "Mum", who runs the orphanage. Mum looks after 27 children, some are orphaned and some are from families in rural areas which too poor to look after their own children.

CDO building with "Mum" out front.

While there we met a young Australian couple who were helping out for two days. They had bought some "mattresses" and had helped build some school benches for the kids.

Here you can see the "mattresses". The children all sleep in the one room. You can also see the "library" on the right.

We called in after the Australian couple had finished. We spoke to Mum about the immediate needs of the orphanage. Their biggest need was a sign along the road. All their income comes from donations that tourists leave. Currently, the only way people know that an orphanage exists is when the children call out "hello" to people passing by. We left money for a good quality orphanage sign and some money for some clothes for the children.

We brought the children some toys we had brought with us from Australia. Some we had bought and some Waurn Ponds Safeway had donated. These were a tiny "etcha sketch" with lollies inside and some torches which projected images of smiley faces, soccer balls, cats, eyeballs, etc.  The torches also had a lollipop inside.

Kids showing their toys. Thanks to Waurn Ponds Safeway for providing some of the toys.

Checking the toys out. (This area is the younger kids school room.)

Amah going cross eyed trying to see how the smiley face in the torch worked.

While we were at CDO, Nicole had an opportunity to use some of her nursing skills. We donated a lot of band aids and bandages, so Nicole put to work looking after the scrapes and burns of the kids. One of the kids, Ping, had burnt himself pretty badly and the wound just continues to ooze. We'll keep an eye on this as we continue to work at the orphanage.

Ping with his band aid on and his toys.

The students get taught irregularly by volunteer teachers, which happen to mostly be untrained tourists like ourselves who come past. Sometimes they get no one, other times, like now, they have Nicole and Stan as well as a Canadian couple to help. This of course makes it hard for any curriculum to be taught as the current teaching depends on if there are any teachers and what the teachers feel like teaching. We'll be coordinating our teaching with Tina and Andrew a Canadian couple who are here for a short time. We'll be teaching the older students under the orphanage in the classroom, while the younger students are taught on the floor where the "toy photos" (above) were taken.

Stan and Nicole will be teaching from here. Note the new desks which had just been built by an Australian couple.

Anyway, we'll leave things here. We appreciate your prayers, thoughts and suggestions as we start teaching on Monday. Also, if anyone wants to contribute to medicine or food, please let us know. If you like, you will get world wide recognition when your name is included in this blog as we know that people in 5 countries are reading this! :-)

So much to tell (part 2)

We recently visited another interesting place near Siam Reap. This was the Tonle Sap Lake. The Tonle Sap Lake is a huge lake in central Cambdia (we couldn't see the other side as it is over 150 km in length).

Our tuk tuk driver, Hong, took us to Tonle Sap river about half an hour south of Siam Reap where we went to a desk which told us it was US$20 per person to go to the lake (the price has doubled since 2010 when it was only US$10 per person). We paid and got ushered down a steep ramp to the many waiting boats below. Each boat is about 10 meters long and has a covered cabin with some deck chairs. We had one boat to ourselves with a "driver", another young man, the tour guide, who spoke English and a kid about 10 years old to do all the jobs the other two felt were beneath them.

Our tuk tuk driver Hong. A great expense at US$10 per day. :-)

We then started to go up the river towards the lake. Our English speaking tour guide then started to tell us about the lake. During the flood season, tens (hundreds?) of thousands of people live on the lake. They live in floating houses and mainly fish for sustenance. The rest of the year, they move off the lake into the various rivers where the flimsy houses can withstand the winds. We were there during the "windy time" and thus all the houses were in the Tonle Sap river.

Typical floating houses. They are usually built on top of a boat or on top of a few 40 gallon drums.

Apparently three groups of people live on the lake together. They are Cambodian, Vietnamese and Muslim. While going up the river, our guide asked us to guess where our "driver" came from. He didn't have the regular Khmer (Cambodian) features so we guessed "Thai?", "Vietnamese?", "Chinese?". After a few more guesses, by which time there were all laughing uproariously at our ignorance our guide shouted "he's Muslim"! Well, maybe it makes sense to a Cambodian, but it didn't to us. After a few more questions, our guide thought that the Muslims on the lake had probably come from Malaysia a long time ago as traders who had settled in Cambodia.

As we travelled up the river, we saw floating buildings of every type needed to support a community living upon a lake. 

Floating Church

Floating drinking water plant.

Floating Police Station

As we went up, the tour guide began to tell us about the floating schools. The schools are so poor he said, but we would have the opportunity to stop in at a shop (conveniently right next door to a floating school) where we could buy fresh water or exercise books which we could then donate to the school. This started to reek of a scam to us. We went to the shop and immediately noticed that everything was at least 5 times the regular price. Everyone then started to tell us how we had to buy things for the students as the school was so poor they couldn't afford books or water. From where we stood at the shop, we could see bright red donation boxes on the floating school and we asked why we should buy something from the shop when we could just donate the money to the school instead. Funnily enough they said that all the donations at the school went to the teachers, but anything bought from the shop went to the students. We didn't believe them for a minute. We didn't buy anything from the shop after which our guide and "driver" were in a foul mood with us as they had missed out on some lucrative kick backs from the shop. We then went to the floating school where we got to meet the children and see the facilities on board. Stan looked carefully for any evidence that the "donated" goods from the shop were put to use, but none of the exercise books were of the same brand that the shop sold and there were no bottles of water to be seen. Instead, the children drank the same community drinking water everyone else did. We believe that everything you buy from the shop to donate to the school goes back to the shop overnight to be resold to the next lot of gullible tourists who come along. Its very sad really to see the scams that you come across in the rest of Asia (particularly Vietnam) starting to appear in Cambodia.

Luckily for the children, we brought something much nicer than water or exercise books. Nicole opened a bag of candy and was immediately swamped by 30+ kids.

The teacher picked up a stick and immediately they all behaved and lined up for a candy. Perhaps not the best thing for their teeth, but probably better than donating water and exercise books that they would never get to use.

We travelled a further up the river handing out candy to other children we passed.

We finally got to the mouth of the river and stopped at a large floating restaurant/shop on the lake. Our guide and driver were still annoyed with us for not buying the overpriced water to donate to the school so they told the little kid to show us around the area. There was a fish farm (catfish) and a crocodile farm on board. 

Next to the restaurant there was a cute girl paddling what looked like a large bowl holding a snake which she was offering the tourists $1 to have a photo taken with. These large bowls are what most of the children used to paddle around in.

Of course, not every child had the luxury of a bowl to paddle in. Some of the poorer ones had to swim through the water and reeds.

We then travelled up river the way we came. On the way, we saw a wedding taking place on one of the large floating community platforms.

All in all, this trip is worth doing. You see an important part of Cambodian life and culture. It is sad to see that they are adopting some of the scams that are so common in other South East Asian countries. We think most people would would welcome the chance to donate money to worthy causes, but when you know that your generosity only enriches the people who are thriving off tourists, you really don't want to give them your money.

The final scam came when we got back to the docks. The "driver" and tour guide told us that they expected a tip, the normal tip being $5. When you multiply this by the number of runs per day they do, they are paid far far far more than the ordinary Cambodian. We told them that we had donated all our money to the school (which we had) and had nothing left to give them. Again they were annoyed with us, but we didn't really care.

So much to tell

We have done so much over the last few days. Rather than sharing it all at once and exhausting you readers, we share it over two or three posts.

First off Nicole was very brave and donated 350ml of blood at the children's hospital. This took about an hour all up. While lying down giving blood there is a maze painted on the ceiling. You are meant to guide a mouse through the maze to a block of cheese at the end. Funny thing is that there was absolutely no way the poor mouse could get to the cheese. Other than that, there was a lot of information on the wall regarding all the people who donated blood in 2010. Of the 1031 people who donated blood, over 800 were foreigners. It is good to see tourists helping out. We tried to see if there was anything we could help with at the hospital (Stan with IT or Nicole with Pathology), but the language barrier was insurmountable and after a lot of attempts and lots of smiling, we continued on.

Another interesting trip we did was to the War Museum here in Siem Reap. This consisted of many old guns, tanks, artillery and other weapons of war which have been collected together and are slowly rusting away. When we entered, we were asked if we wanted a tour guide "for free" (which you are expected to tip at the end of the tour). If anyone ever travels to Cambodia, we would highly recommend that you always take these tour guides when offered. Aside from making the museum more interesting, they always have a fascinating story to tell which personalises the civil war much more than history plaques can do.

Our guide Sinath

Our tour guide was Sinath and his story was fascinating and very sad. Sinath was 10 years old in 1975 when the Khmer Rouge took over the country. Over the next several years every person in his family was killed in the genocide. At the age of 14 he joined the army and begun fighting. He joined so that he could get some clothes and because he was starving. When we met Sinath he was blind in one eye, was missing one leg below the knee and a little deaf. Sinath joked to us that he was like a cat because he had nine lives. And in that he was quite correct. He is lucky to be alive today. He was shot three times and showed us his AK47 scars, two on his leg and one in his stomach. He was also badly burnt when he was behind an RPG that was being shot. The final 5 "cat's lives" were all from either stepping on mines, or being near mines as they went off. He lost his leg when he stepped on a mine. At the same time he went blind in one eye when a piece of his toe bone went through his eye. He invited us to look into his blind eye as one could still kind of see the bone embedded in the eyeball. He showed us all the various bits of shrapnel still under his flesh from the other mines he had survived. Indeed, the ball bearings from claymore mines were easily distinguished, but there were a few other that seemed much more jagged and painful. One ball bearing in his leg had travelled about 8 inches from where it had entered and was causing him a lot of pain. Sinath joked that he would never be able to get through an airport metal detector because of all the metal in his body. It would be so nice to say that Sinath's life improved after the war, but sadly, about five years ago his wife was out walking with his young daughter when she stepped on one of the many landmines in Cambodia. Both her legs were severed and she died very quickly. The daughter had one of her mother's leg bones pierce her abdomen and died after about 15 minutes. What a sad tale. One that happens all to frequently here in Cambodia.

Sinath had many sad stories to tell. Once he and his friends tried to go "grenade fishing". His friend was showing them how to do it but made a stupid mistake. He pulled the pin on the grenade and threw the pin into the water while holding on to the live grenade. Six of Sinath's friends died and he was extremely lucky to have been walking away when the grenade exploded.

The museum was really worth the visit because of Sinath. Without the story behind it, it is nothing more than various tools of war which are (thankfully) rusting away in the humid Cambodian weather. The museum itself is located on a former mine field. Once Nicole and Stan heard this they were VERY careful to step only on the paths. Even though these mine fields have been cleaned, the rains will often move the mines in the mud underground. It wasn't too far from here that Sinath's wife and daughter had stepped on a mine.

Here are some of the things to see at the War Museum:

The T54 tank crew

"I told you to do the dishes Stan!"

Always stay on the path!

This is the most common mine. It is plastic and undetectable by metal detectors so they use German Shepherds to sniff them out.

Arrived in Cambodia

We left Melbourne on Saturday 11 June and spent 4 days in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia. We did very little in KL other than swimming, eating and walking around the central shopping district.

We got a massage in KL, but when Nicole asked for a "hard" back rub, they went a little too hard.

On Thursday June 17 at 4am we left KL and flew to Siem Reap, Cambodia. Coming back to Siem Reap has been wonderful. The Khmer people are among the most gentle we have ever met. We cannot walk down the street without saying "hello" every 20 meters. Though we get asked whether we want a tuk tuk ride or a massage every two minutes, they are never pushy about it and always end up by saying "have a nice day" once we decline what is offered.

So far we have done very little. We have been surprised at how tired and run down we have been. Given an opportunity to rest, we have slept in every day, done a lot of reading and indulged in the $5 per hour Khmer massages on offer in Siem Reap.

We walk into town twice a day for food and words simply cannot describe the delicious cuisine available here. For $5 we dine like kings with the choice of hundreds of unique dishes. Drinks are dirt cheap. The local beer "Angkor Beer" is $0.50 a large mug on tap, cheaper than water and tastes very good. Soft drinks are about $0.75. This photo should give you an idea about the restaurants in Siem Reap:

Speaking of drinks, Cambodia has the cheapest drinks we have seen anywhere. Today we went shopping for some beverages to sample on our balcony during the evenings and we got the following:

The Johnny Walker was the big item at  US$39, the Khalua was $3, the Jeager was $15 and the 1 litre 42 Below was $3.50.

Yesterday (Friday) we went on a very long walk through the "non-tourist" areas of Siem Reap and we got to meet a lot of locals who are always happy to chat. Stan got to try a little fishing along the way. The fish they catch are about the size of your thumb, so not the most exciting to catch. 

In the midst of fishing, we got caught in one of the downpours that happens here at about 2pm every day. So we chatted to some locals who were all huddling under a shelter made of plastic bags. They suggested that we contact the children's hospital in Siem Reap for volunteer work. We'll probably investigate that. We do have some work in Phnom Penh, but would like to stay in Siem Reap a little longer if possible.

While Siem Reap is one of the wealthiest areas in Cambodia, there are many poor people around. At night on the way home we find many children digging through rubbish bags. We are also approached by many land mine victims, many of them children. It is heartening to see that few of them are beggars, many trying to sell books, cards or crafts to the tourists. We always carry on us a lot of candy to hand out and we brought about 10 kilos of small toys which we hand out to the children we come across. It is rewarding, yet a little sad to see them clasping their hands together and bowing as they get these small presents.

Well, we had better end there. We'll try and keep this up to date with interesting information.