Savong Orphanage Centre!

4 days have passed since my last entry-I have been been swept up in a mutlitude of experiences which I will treasure. I have taken some time out this morning to write as I want to savour everything I have seen and learnt.

So I will go back to the moment where I left you ( not even sure anyone is reading this!!)in my last blog…..

With Hong guiding me along the muddy track which cut through the rice paddy field we took a sharp right-hand turn and I looked up to see a little muddy coated, chocolate eyed smiling toddler playing in orange mud! She quickly abandoned her muddy construction and screamed aloud “madame” and children came running from everywhere. They screamed welcome
and danced in the dirt around me. I was quickly dragged past the high wall and into the orphanage grounds. The children were sent to the “library” while I was taken on a tour of the orphanage.

At home I teach Yr 10 about “Social Justice” issues’ sustainability and particularly issues related to impoverishment. My research, readings and prior learnings had not prepared me for what I saw….30 children sleep in 2 rooms with no windows and only bars for safety. In the corner of the first bedroom was a perky looking hen guarding her eggs while a baby about 22 months took his nap on the bamboo bed. Soa is the youngest child at the orphanage ( the eldest is 16) and his parents are too poor to look after him. When Soa sits at the bench for his meals older children sit either side of him and place their arms around his back to support him. He wonders around by himself and when he falls or cries either a child or one of the 2 resident mothers scoop him up and sooth him with cuddles. A magical sight!!!

After viewing the children’s 2 bedrooms I was taken to the “dining room” which consisted of 2 wooden tables and bench-style seating. In the corner was a cluster of pots and lids and a very rudimentary fire. There was little to no roof
and it is the wet season here!! In the dining room 4 children had cast a line out ( there are no windows)to the catfish farm ( literally next to the dining room). They told me they catch the fish every day and the “mothers” cook it with rice for their lunch. The children seemed so proud of their fishing talents and gave me a lesson on casting the fishing line but told me I had to be very quiet or the fish would swim away under the lilly pads and sleep!!!!(by the way the lilly pads are used for soup at breakfast-nothing is wasted here!)

On the lefthand side of the dining space was a timber slat window on one side and a small wooden door ( lower than my height!) I thought it was the pantry it was so small. Hong opened the door to show me his bedroom!!!!!! He is 6ft tall.It is the size of a tiny chicken coup with no ventilation. Hong has been my driver each day-it takes about 50 mins on his Tuk Tuk to travel to the orphanage after he picks me up in town and then another 10 mins to Savong school. Both are located about 25klms out of Siem Reap.

Hong is about 20 and 2 years ago he left his parents and brother (who live in another province) to find a better life in Siem Reap. He is desperate to learn English and is the Tuk Tuk driver for Savong school. When he is not transporting people in the tuk tuk he sits in the classroom at the orphanage reading the children’s books in an attempt to learn English. I spent quite a lot of time with him trying to help him pick up basic English words-he is sooooo inquisitive, softly spoken and gentle in spirit. He spends his mornings driving scholarship students from Savong school to the University in Siem Reap and also collects volunteers and visitors and drives them to the school. About 1.30pm each day he goes to Savong school and sits in English classes till 7pm. The English classes run every hr and Hong attends just about all of them. Each hr a lesson runs for a different age group starting fro children aged 6 years old to 16. He gets frustrated sometimes and walks out of the classroom, hops on his moto, goes for a spin and comes back to try again. He lives at the orphanage and does odd jobs for Savong as well. A wonderful young man who embodies “courage”.

It was time for me to see the “classroom”. All the children raced to their seats. There are 4 benches on the left and right hand side of the classroom and they have to seat 30 children. The littlies squash up in the front rows with their chins barely reaching above the wooden desks. Older children help them hop up on the benches.There is a whiteboard ( which apparently does not get used very often as they cannot afford to buy whiteboard markers!), bars on the window frames and nothing else. Each desk ( they have 8) has been donated by volunteers and costs $45US each. The volunteers names are etched on the desk.

A local young woman comes to the orphanage a few times a week to teach the children. Resources are basically non existent. Not all the children have a pencil or pen ( my overly stuffed pen holder at home came to mind!!!! ) or copy book. The children tend to sing a lot -they recited “the wheels on the bus go round and round” complete with actions for me with immense pride. My insides churned with emotion.

2 Australian volunteers had been at the orphanage the day before and written up the words to the song “Hokey Pokey” on the whiteboard but the class did not know the actions. So the teacher asked me for help!!!!! Next minute I had 30 children eagerly forming a circle around me and after a quick demonstration my troupe were ready to perform. I used the opportunity to extend the singing lesson to include some whiteboard work on nouns!!! We listed each part of the body mentioned in the song on the whiteboard (hand,arm,leg,toe,nose,head,eyes,ears,tongue etc. After much hilarity the children raced back to their seats, I distributed exercise bks I had brought with me from home and the children wrote sentences in their books using the words from their new song. Their desire to learn astounded me.

I teach in a secondary school where the students also have a great love of learning. At home in Brisbane while I wait at the train station after school it is usual for me to see my students sitting on the railway station reading novels. The children at the orphanage also have a thirst for learning-they crave it!!! I had bought sheets of stickers from home with me and placed them on their pages as they finished a sentence. They were so proud and their faces lit up with what I have come to learn is the ‘signature Cambodian smile’. There was no fighting or pushing in the classroom only a buzz of little minds at work. Keep in mind these children had never met me and by now the teacher had left to go to Savong school for afternoon classes-so I was It!!!! I LOVED IT!!!Next we ventured next door to the “library” which has a collection of donated books and games on shelves.

The children all raced to the shelves and searched for their favourite book and thrust it in my hands. 30 sets of huge brown eyes beseeched me to read to them. So we all sprawled ourselves on the floor ( complete with 3 resident dogs and a couple of chickens ) and I read every story I was given. As I read the story the children repeated every line aloud-right from the 3 yr olds up to the 16 yr olds. Older children had littlies perched on their laps and the chucks squawked a bit when we laughed. On my right hand side I noticed the children had schuffled themselves into a line but were still repeating each line I read aloud-whilst one eye rested on the page I read from the other eye was cast over the head of the child in front… searching for headlice!!!!! No time is wasted here!!!!

Cultural barriers encountered by me here??? At this stage,
NONE!!!The children spoke rudimentary English and we could understand and communicate well enough. They wanted to learn and I wanted to teach them-it was pretty simple really!!Their beautiful smiles told me what I needed to know and that we were all doing OK. We took a short break for lunch-everyone raced to the benches with older children pausing to collect a little one on the way. All the children feed themselves. Rice, catfish and beans appear to be staple for lunch. Rice comes from local fields, they grow the beans and the catfish is from their farm and caught by the children. 30 silent children ate together. Large pots of rich were placed on the table by the 2 “mothers”. Manners were impeccable.

At the end of the meal the children all bowed in traditional style and gave their thanks for the meal. Each child carried their plate to the bucket where the utensils were washed. While some children swept the floor with a handmade straw broom, others helped the littlies down from the benches. Some toddlers took themselves off for a nap!!! After lunch the children aged between 6 and 15 wore white face masks and took turns to clean the toilet ( there is only one toilet for 30 children and the adults) which is simply a concrete
hole in the ground…with no toilet paper!!) Nearby the mothers washed the children’s clothes in a low bucket. Hong offered to walk me to the chicken coup ( which he had proudly constructed from tin offcuts found on the side of Road 6) but I was still reeling from the sight of the toilet and thought a tour of the chicken coup would just about finish me off!!!! All I could think of was Bird flu and all Hong could think of was proudly displaying his construction skills. Certainly was a little cultural disequilibrium there so I settled on taking the baby to his room for a nap and taking a photo of Hong with his nesting hen ( who lived in the bedroom!!!)

About 2pm that day Hong drove me to Savong school and I met the Director of the school. He graduates from University at the end of this year and teaches English. I was then shown the “library” and purchased some Tshirts ( the money goes towards running the generator for the school). Next door were the 4 classrooms. I was introduced to a class with students aged about 13-15 yrs. The children cycle or walk to Savong school 6 days a week in the afternoons for a one hour English lesson. The young teacher introduced me to her class and the children -though somewhat shy- they asked me lots of questions about myself and Australia. Next minute I had a whiteboard marker thrust into my hand, the teacher sat up the back of the classroom and asked me to keep teaching as the lesson did not finish for another 40 mins. She had a cassette tape recorder with the “makerina” on it and some questions written on scraps of paper. So as she turned the music on, the kids would pass the marker around and whoever was holding the marker when the music stopped had to stand up, select a question from the pile and answer it in a full sentence!!!Hong was in the class with me and really hammed it up for the kids. We had a ball judging by the happy faces and the queue of kids peering through the bars from outside the classroom!! They were lined up at least 4 deep trying to glimpse what we were up to. Did I mention the chickens in the classroom????3 dogs as well??

At about this point a young man wandered up to the classroom door and started to close it. I asked him to leave it open please ( I was already drowning in sweat, dried crusted dirt clung to my feet, no mascara, no lipstick!!!!-not the most professional look but no one seemed to mind!!) He said he had to close the door and wash it! Who was I to interrupt the cleaning program of the school so he jostled all the children waiting outside my classroom door and window into the room. Keep in mind I already had about 20 kids in the classroom, 3 dogs and a few chickens!!!!!! The temperature soared, I dripped in sweat, the children listened and laughed with me as we shared stories, played games and learnt together. Meanwhile the young man was outside the classroom door washing the door with the pools of rain water that lay on the ground. Such resourcefulness! Don’t think I will tell my Principal about this experience in case my class sizes skyrocket at home and I am asked to teach in the locker room!!!!

This blog entry has just hit 2000 words and I have only got to day 2 in my teaching -I have had such an amazingly rich , joy-filled and happy time!! I want to imprint every experience on my soul-along with the faces of the children in my Cambodian classes!!!!! Hopefully I will come back to blogging tonite.