...and the Cambodians did it again!

Today happens to be Katherine's birthday. At breakfast, we all sang happy birthday a capella (badly), wished her the best at breakfast, gave her a thoughtful gift and got ready to face the day at large.  First stop, LRDE. 

I opened the first part of the lesson with a rendition of our ‘Hello’ song followed by a couple of high-energy, boob sweat-inducing warm up exercises. Katherine was up next with Speech but while she was taking the children through their breathing routines, Happy Birthday started playing on the speakers, the kids magically made a birthday cake appear from nowhere and the moment a beaming Katherine Brown blew out the candles (a 3 and 4, but not in that order), they proceeded to cover her in silly string.

Fun for some, and for a moment I looked like I had a full head of hair again, except this time round it's orange.

I took Sokham, the boy with the big eyes, back to SFODA this morning and although he still doesn't let me out of his sight he is beginning be more trusting. Today Mrs Moninarom, the director of the orphanage, offered him lunch without making a big deal of it, and he wolfed it down together with two huge bananas.

Unfortunately his story is still evolving, and the latest version is that his father put him in an orphanage where he would be regularly beaten up so, together with a friend, he ran away and ended up on the streets. I suspect one of the half a dozen versions of his story is the true one, or maybe it's bits and pieces of all of them. At this point, nobody knows.

I am not suggesting that Sokham is lying. But he is confused in a way that is self-protective and there is no doubt in my mind at all that he's been through something that has traumatised him. I really am doing all I can to help this boy, but unfortunately, there is only do much I can do for him until we know more about his background.

It's extremely frustrating but our Cambodian partners are taking the case of the boy with the big eyes very seriously and are looking for the facts through their own channels including school databases and, if necessary, will even go through the police.

August is the tail end of the monsoon season, but the storms at the beginning and end are usually the fiercest. The heavens literally opened the moment we arrived at SFODA, and the rain was coming down in buckets. Whatever is dry gets soaked through in moments, so if you happen to get caught half way between your tuk-tuk and the roofed area of the orphanage, you've had it. Also, because I never quite get it right, today of all days, I wore a white linen shirt.

Drying off is not really an option because the humidity reaches new heights during a downpour, so I squelched through the ‘Hello’ song and compensated for my discomfort by giving it all I had. The sight of me soaked through was a great source of entertainment for the children; surprisingly the older students knew the word "nipple". But not in the plural. So it was one nipple that got all the attention. Then another. Twice the awkwardness for the price of one.

Today's speech segment at SFODA gave the children a chance to show off the progress they made in the two weeks with DO Cambodia. Matthew and Paula revised much of the vocabulary they'd covered and most importantly they showed us how they've made tangible progress in correctly pronouncing words: ‘rice’ has developed from their open-mouthed "rie" while "fiss" has finally graduated to ‘fish’.

To wrap up their progress the children also prepared short dialogues and performed them to the class showing that they've not only absorbed much of what we've been feeding them, but that the programme has truly helped them unleash their imagination. And that’s what we're all about.

While Chiara took over for dance, Matthew retreated to the office to discuss the progress of the children we've been working with. How the orphanage as well as LRDE survive, with no support at all from the government, is beyond me. I can stretch a dollar as much as the next guy, but the directors of both SFODA and LRDE really do perform miracles.

DO Cambodia has already coordinated the sponsorship of a good number of children. This provides for schooling, books and educational equipment (and food for their families). It also means that we get to monitor the progress of the children in our sponsorship programmes. So far we have managed to get more than 40 children sponsored.

I can now confirm however that we are still looking for sponsors, or ‘godparents’, for another 30 children. A few readers of this blog have already contacted us to confirm their intention to support a child, but we have a long way to go so I am making an appeal right here, right now for people to come forward and help.

Although a one-off cheque will be appreciated and put to good use, we would love to find people who will build a relationship with their godchild, including keeping in touch, sending a couple of emails and, now that we've set up a computer lab and when the internet connection is up and running, even the occasional Skype call.

We need people who want to make a difference. Really.

Thank you in advance.

Alan Montanaro