What a difference a good night sleep makes! We sat down for our usual breakfast of eggs on toast and coffee and took the opportunity to tighten any potential loose ends in our teaching plans because today we embark on our reason for being here: teaching developmental drama and English through drama.

Our first stop is LRDE - the soup kitchen that feeds between 250 and 300 children EVERY SINGLE DAY. We thought we may have arrived a little early because there were just a handful of children waiting for us outside, but as usual the Cambodians had something up their sleeve and it wasn't long before hoards of other children appeared out of nowhere with balloons and garlands to welcome us back. We recognized many faces but, as expected there are many new ones too.

We spent the first 20 minutes bonding with the children (and being jumped upon!), but then we got to teaching and our structured preparation really paid off: we started off with a ‘freeze’ game using my trusted tambourine, then we taught them the "Hello” Song (prosit Chiara!) which they picked up surprisingly quickly. As teachers of developmental drama, we know we have to be as animated as possible as it shifts the level of understanding upwards - it also means that, in the incredibly high humidity of Cambodia, we were smelling of cabbage by the end of the morning.

Worth mentioning is that last year we started off at LRDE with 15 students and ended up with 70 as word went round that there was a group of "mgienen" from Malta giving fun lessons. This year we've started with 70. Alla maghna!

While we taught the older children, Gaby was invited across the road to the LRDE Baby House - a small warehouse where young mothers in poverty come for hand-outs of formula milk and clothing, but it is also a safe zone where their babies can be weighed and monitored and, if necessary, treated. Gaby gets very maternal around babies and I couldn't help worrying that she may be breastfeeding a couple...

LRDE is an amazing place on so many levels. It feeds the most vulnerable, it offers hygiene, haircuts, medical care and education. Most of all it achieves so much with so little. It helps of course to have an incredibly dedicated and motivated staff who love what they do and do it all on a tight budget. Plainly speaking, LRDE is a haven for so many people in need.

After lunch we headed off to SFODA. We knew that they'd be doing some serious cleaning of the new premises today, but they weren't going to get far with a hose pipe and a few twigs for a broom, so Matt and I, accompanied by two of the SFODA orphans, went to a market to buy some cleaning supplies.

The ladies of our group in the meantime, got the library up and running: old books, new books, Khmer books, English books and much more.

The general mood at the orphanage today was lighter and following a meeting with Mrs Moninarom who runs place, we have a much better understanding of SFODA’s needs and we will certainly be looking for sustainable ways of helping them to achieve their many goals for the benefit of the children in their care.

This was the first proper work day of our trip and it's been a satisfying one, Tomorrow we are being taken to a place called Proek Kdam to meet a new community of children who will have their own stories to tell. I'm guessing that this will be a heart-breaking and educational visit for us to add to the already unbelievably rich experience Drama Outreach Project continues to be for us all.

Needless to say, I will, of course, share this as honestly and accurately as possible in my next post.

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