Sometimes we feel guilty

Every night we eat out and a meal costs us just a few dollars. We get treated to delicious Thai, Cambodian, Vietnamese and western food. As well as here to help out at CDO, we are also here on holiday and we want to do all we can to relax and wind down so we can be ready for another year of work. But sometimes one still feels a little guilty when you compare our meal to those the children at CDO receive. We do try to buy them meat and fruit when we can. We'd love to take them out for dinner with us, but we couldn't afford to take 34 of them plus their minders out. (Would need to pay 7 tuk tuks as well.) We'll try and organize a nice meal at CDO before we leave.

Our meals:

Their meals:

Your money at work

Apologies for the very slow update. We have been quite busy and it is often hard to get a good Internet connection which will allow us to upload images.

We arrived at CDO to find two thirds of the children absent as they were visiting the village they come from to catch up with their extended families for a few days. The children left behind were very happy to see us.

We noticed a few changes immediately. They are in the process of moving to the block next door and have made a start on their building plan. Their old place is really starting to fall apart and the one room could no longer accommodate everyone now they have five more children.

They have started on the first dorm and while it is mostly finished it has some large gaps in the building. This means that when it rains, if there is any wind, they get completely wet. Not a comfortable way to spend a night.

We have decided that the best use of the AU$750 that many of you gave us in cash is to add it to the money St. John of God Pathology has raised for the CDO building fund. We look forward to sharing some photos of what is being accomplished with this pool of money before we leave. They have promised to continue sending us updates after we leave as well.

We had been thinking about using the AU$750 for medicine or an optometrist visit, but the children are very healthy and they have free access to the children's hospital in Siem Reap where they are well looked after by Western doctors. (It would be great to see some of our Deakin medical students do a regular placement here.)

We'll try update this again soon with some more information for you all!

Phnom Penh

We arrived in Phnom Penh and spent a couple nights here. We are in a hotel along the Mekong river which is nice in the evenings as we get a cool breeze which makes eating outside and going for walks quite pleasant. As we have more teddy bears than there are children at the orphanage, we have been giving them out to some of the poorer children we meet. There are many destitute people here and it is a little sad to see children sleeping on the sidewalks or in the gutters right next to the hotels us tourists are using. Nicole has been putting a teddy bear next to some of these children and hopefully they get some pleasure from the gift when they wake up. One of the ones we gave was to a little girl, about two, who had lost her left arm.

Stan also got to sample a local delicacy, a nice lightly fried bug with spices. The locals eat them like pop corn.

Yummy!

As always when we eat out here, our table became an instant hit with the kids as they all wanted to play cut the rope or fruit ninja.

As we walked around the market today, we got to watch them unloading the ice they use to keep the foods fresh (no freezers here).

Packing

We are taking one and a half suitcases to Cambodia full of things we're hoping will be useful at the orphanage.

In the suitcases we have toys, clothes, medicine, books, dolls and 76 handmade teddy bears.

While many people gave us things to bring along, we'd especially like to thank Karen Hoskin who, every couple of weeks, brought something new in to work for Nicole to bring with us. We'd also like to mention Geraldine and her mother who have spent many months knitting teddy bears for us to bring along.

Nicole trying to fit everything in a suitcase

76 hand made teddy bears were somehow made to fit in our suitcases.

Getting ready to go

I am attempting to do this by phone. Excuse the auto correct and any other errors.

So many of you have been exceedingly generous and asked us to bring some money with us for the children in Cambodia. We had people from our workplaces in Geelong and Melbourne give generously as well as our church and families. All your gifts were put into a tin and we asked Bill and Ben to open it and count what was there. They counted $497.50. A tremendous response. Before we left we had a few more cards and bank deposits bringing this to a total of $750. We will convert this to US$ in Cambodia and cannot wait to share with you in this blog all the benefits your gifts will bring these children.

Bill and Ben counting the money.

Ben makes sure the $100 note is real!

Returning to CDO July 2012

Hi everyone,

Stan and Nic will be returning to CDO in July 2012. We just want to say a big thank you to people at St John of God who are doing some tremendous fund raising to help the children at CDO. It's amazing and overwhelming how many people are willing to give of their time and money to help people half a world away in Cambodia.

Stan and Nic

Good bye to CDO kids

Several new posts in one day- keep reading after this one!

We made one last trip to CDO to say goodbye to everyone and do one last medical check before we left. When we got in we got a nice surprise. They had all put on some new clothes and had lined up to take a picture just for us.

We arrived at 2pm and first off Nicole did some nursing while Stan played some games with the other kids. Nicole showed Tiina, a young lady who comes in every day to help at CDO, how to properly tend their sores (clean hands, don't use same cotton wool on different kids, etc). We gave her some money to by more medicine when needed.

Poor Moum's wound has been weeping and pussy for weeks.

Nurse Nicole

At 2:30, an older Italian couple were walking past and we (us and the children) called them in to join us. The Italian man immediately organised a game of football (soccer) and we all had a lot of fun.

At 3pm we had arranged for a little surprise for the kids. We got one of the pancake stands from the tourist area to stop past and make everyone a banana/chocolate/condensed milk pancake. These pancake stands are attached to a motor bike and easily pulled from one place to another. The kids had never seen a pancake stand up close before, let alone a pancake, so the stand was immediately swamped with curious faces pushed up against the glass. Those who could read English would point at the words and sound them out. "Paaan-caaake" they could work out, but "chocolate" was a bit too hard.

We got all the kids to wash their hands (we always tried to reinforce the hygiene lessons that some other volunteers had given previously) and line up from youngest to oldest to get their pancakes. It was funny watching them as they very obediently lined up with those in front watching the pancake cooking with absolute fascination. Many of those in front would shut their eyes and open their mouths. Tiina came up to Stan and said "they are trying to taste the pancake while it is cooking".

Kids all lining up.

Happy cooks.

All the kids bow and say thank you before getting their pancake.

As the line got slowly got shorter as people were given pancakes, the older kids at the back started getting bored and started picking the lice out of one another's hair. When Nicole caught them at it they were sent to go wash their hands AGAIN. There was much grumbling at this as no one wanted to lose their place in line. About 7 of them rushed off to wash their hands. When they came back, Stan got them all to hold out their hands for him to smell and any hands that didn't smell of soap had to be rewashed. This was viewed with much chagrin by those who had done a poor job wash their hands and to much laughter by those who had washed their hands properly. Two minutes later we caught them picking nits again and sent them all off to rewash their hands. This time they snuck back behind us and without us being aware of what they were up to, they grabbed our hands and put them on top of their heads. Then all the kids were laughing at us and yelling " go wash your hands, wash your hands". What could we do? We had to set an example so we washed our hands.

The kids loved the taste of the pancakes. Everyone got one, including the staff, a volunteer teacher who was there at the time and Stan and Nicole. The guys cooking pancakes, in a moment of generosity inspired by a weeks worth of orders all in one afternoon, cooked an extra four pancakes. Nicole cut these up into small pieces and the kids who were all still hanging around with us all got a little bit more much to their delight.

The little kids were first to get pancakes. Behind us you can see another treat; coca cola.

After pancakes, Stan showed the kids how he could walk on his hands. Before you knew it, there were at least 15 pairs of legs trying unsuccessfully to reach the sky.

They very quickly found some other ways to copy Stan.

Nicole showed them how to do wheelbarrow races. Often the person pushing the "wheelbarrow" would go a lot faster than the wheelbarrow could manage and some poor child would get face planted.

While they were all doing wheelbarrow races and eating a lot of dirt, some of the kids decided Stan needed a makeover and made him look very pretty with flowers and playdough earrings.

All too soon it was time to go. We took one last group photo.

The kids wanted to cover Nicole with flowers, but it was too early for flowers, so instead they covered her with flower buds.

Stan and Nicole were inundated with hugs left, right and centre.

Last minute photos were taken.

Then we had to go. The kids all came to the road side and yelled "byeeee Stan, byeee Anicole" (Anicole is the final name they gave Nicole). We walked down the road backwards waving at them and calling back "byeeee". Eventually the curve of the road blocked sight to them and it was a very sad moment for us both. We'd love to have taken them all back to Australia with us and given them the opportunities that children there do not even know how lucky they are to have.