Apologies for yesterday's somewhat dismal blog, however, I feel it is important to share the reality of this land rather than just report on our work and achievements here.

As an NGO, Drama Outreach Project has morphed into a mini-force. We've been around for just over a year but already we've made a difference in the lives of quite a few children thanks to the generosity of our benefactors and sponsors.

[attach id=358326 size="medium" align="left"][/attach]

For those of you who are still toying with the idea of sponsoring a child, please do so. It will set you back approximately €270 annually. A princely sum when seen as a grand total, but broken down into daily drips it works out at a mere 74c each day. The price of a single stick of chewing gum. Not so princely any more, is it? Yet it will pay for a child's education, give food to the family and could provide a light at the end of a very long and dark tunnel. Please do contact us for more information. Our email address is at the end of this piece.

Being here gives us the opportunity to react to the needs and wants of the communities we work with so we set aside a specific budget from the money raised during our fundraiser last April. One such project was the setting up of a small computer lab at the SFODA orphanage. I use the word "lab" loosely because, so far, it's just two computers which were donated, a multifunctional printer, two computer desks and other equipment, but we are looking at increasing this by another two to three computers in the near future. We are also looking at providing a tutor to teach the children computer skills that will almost certainly serve them well in the future. In Matthew's words, which I believe he paraphrased from Confucius, “we're providing fishing rods rather than fish.” Plus there is the added benefit that sponsors will be able to Skype with their godchildren.

LRDE was a buzz as usual and we started distributing gifts given to the children by their sponsors and their gratitude was unbelievable. I hope I don't offend anyone when I say this, but I can't help wishing that our own children back home would be as grateful.

We had to work a little harder to lift the children's spirit at the SFODA orphanage because today they had a visit from a medical team who gave them a few jabs in their collective arms and patatas and also checked their teeth for any cavities. However, I think it took us about four minutes to engage with our students and get them up and active.

It’s remarkable how something as dramatic as a tetanus jab dissolves into nothing once the children get involved and a Helen O'Grady mime-to-music seemed to provide the tonic for the day.

 The DOP team has also been working on some serious arts and crafts for the children and they've been making drum sets out of tin cans, rain sticks out of loo paper rolls and today's project was sock puppets. I was quite flattered that one of the puppets was named after me, until I was told that the reason was because the hair kept falling off.

The anecdote of the day involves me making a total fool of myself in front of 70-odd children of various ages. I knew there would be some appreciation coming my way if I bothered to learn a little bit of Khmer, so I asked one of my posse, a boy named Seyha, to translate "sit down" for me, and to write it down phonetically.  "On coy choy" has been my buzzword for the last three days and I repeated it with gusto and as frequently as possible. The amount of hysterical laughter did strike me as slightly odd, but laughter comes easy in Cambodia so it wasn't until Sophorn, tears, streaming down her face, explained that "choy" means "willy". So effectively, I've been asking the children to sit on their willy. I'll be having words with Seyha tomorrow.

Tomorrow afternoon we are being taken to another community project by LRDE involving street children on the outskirts of Phnom Penh. I have no idea whether we'll be taken to another kitchen or whether we're going to see where they live. Either way, I promise as usual to relate what we have seen, because I do want to involve our readers as much as possible in the hope that we will be able to offer education packages to many more children.

Don't forget to email us on dramaoutreachproject@gmail.com

Alan Montanaro

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.