Back in Cambodia

Hi Everyone,

We have been back in Cambodia for a few days and it hs been great to see old friends and the kids at CDO again. We caught up with Stan's sister and brother (and respective partners) in Thailand. Over the next few posts we will post what we are up to now as well as some of the things we did in Thailand.

The day we got back to Cambodia we visited CDO Orphanage. We got there during their afternoon class time and when they saw us, all the kids left their classes and ran to us yelling "'Tan, Tan" and "Neecole Neecole". We got hugs from everyone before we managed to send them back to finish their class.

One of Stan's good friends from Deakin University, Bosco Fernandes (and his family), donated a heap of Lego to CDO. This awesome gift was carried for two weeks in Matt Berends' luggage as he travelled through Singapore and Thailand.

We waited until Saturday to bring the Lego in to the orphanage so as not to interfere with any classes. We got the kids to sit in a circle and Stan went in the middle to show them how to use the Lego.

Within minutes we'd spread little mounds of Lego in front of all the kids and away they went building things.

It was quite interesting to watch them interact with the Lego. Mom (below) found it easier (or neater) building with the Lego bumps being underneath.

After the kids got used to the normal blocks, Nicole opened up some of the more specialised Lego parts such as flowers and wheels.

About an hour later the kids started coming up with some creative Lego constructions. Here is a copy of the CDO house:

Kama just loved the wheeled flowers and man that Nicole helped her make and played with this non-stop for thee hours. It got wheeled all over the CDO house, all over Stan, all over Nicole and all over Kama.

A walkie talkie got turned into a gun and this contraption was wheeled all over the place shooting everything in the area.

Here we have another house:

Sombo built "Hotel Happy" and offered it to Stan and Nicole at a rate of "one hundred dollars for one night". We negotiated it down to 100 riels (about one cent). "Hotel Happy" is wheeled and apparently we could use it to drive back to Australia when we go home.

Some got tired of the Lego after a couple hours when the other kids wouldn't share a particular piece with them. They really enjoyed the lovely illustrated Children's Bible that Ana and Simon had donated. This is ideal for helping learn English as well as there is very few lines of text on the page and great illustrations accompanying the text.

After a few hours we had to pack up for another activity. All the Lego was packed into a special bag Stan and Nicole had bought which hopefully will keep it all together. We got everyone to break up what they had made and put it away. Sombo was extremely sad to have to break up "Hotel Happy" and asked if he could borrow our camera to take a few more photos of it before it disappeared. It ended up getting broken to pieces meaning Nicole and Stan have lost their comfortable ride back to Australia.

Thank you so much Bosco and family for the Lego! It will bring hours and hours of fun to the kids here.