The Mosquitoes Love ME.

I get an average of 3 mosquito bites daily. Dale is worried that I might get dengue fever or some other mosquito-borne illness.

I went to the Stephen House (the name for Children's house #1) today.

Dale left me at the house (while she went ahead to the slums) to take pictures and videos of the children doing their lessons. The children learn their Khmer by repeating the words many, many times. We didn't understand each other and only communicated with gestures and facial expressions. I sat through their class and learnt a new Khmer word: bol-bol - which means 'rice soup'.



The children were distracted by my presence and my phone. I showed a fascinated girl her classmate's picture on my phone screen and she tried to point the phone's camera lens towards another person. Alas, we got the pay-attention-or-else stare from the Khmer tutor because it was in the middle of the class. It seems that teachers are the same all over the world. =)

But the kids soon settled down after I settled in at the back of the class. Some fidgeted and others fingered their new clothes (Dale gave out 2 sets of clothes to each child) but their chanting of the Khmer words could be clearly heard from a few houses away from Stephen House.

Here's a boy having a water break during class.


The people living in the slums have their pride. I see it in the way they try to dress their children the best they can, the way they are protective towards their children (Sophon spent 3 months - and counting - trying to gain their trust. There have been too many cases of children missing/sold in the slums where some births can go unrecorded) and the little things they do to make their homes more hospitable (I saw a little cactus plant - a little sprinkle of green in the grey jungle - hanging by the door of one of the houses in the slums).

Dale interviewed some girls for the new vocational training programme we have drawn up. They are all aged about 9-14, which is a good age to be sold into slavery or other undesirable activity. Some girls had absolutely no school, a few had education; the highest education level being Grade 6 in the nearby school. All are working as food scrap collectors - they collect food scraps from restaurants to sell to farmers as fertilizer. They can earn US$3 on a good day. One of the girls had her hair shaved short like a boy's to discourage unwanted attention from child traffickers.

They whisper to each other shyly, sip their soft drinks and point to my phone-camera.
(edit: here's one of Sophon talking to the girls)



We looked at new tiles for the bathroom and Dale's pretty excited about creating a rainbow-coloured bathroom. The bathroom is really in a bad state.



Thanks again for giving us money to renovate this place!

There's so much to do and I wonder if 4 days is enough to accomplish everything we need to do.