Cambodia: Day 3 & Day 4

Day 3

Today was very successful! Our new project is to build a house for the girls to sleep in and basically for them to have their own room. Right now, the boys and girls both sleep together on the main area in the orphanage on the stage. Our Cambodia team split up into 2 groups today; the team that worked with the children in the slums and helped teach them English, and the other team who started on building the house for the girls. I was on the team that started on the house and we cleaned up the trash, deweeded the area, and started mowing the lawn by hand. Normally it would have been extremely difficult, but knowing that this would help the children and that they were so excited about their new houses made it fun and well worth it. After we finished clearing the area to build tomorrow, we got to play with the kids. I sat down with Nirot and Srey Noun and tried to teach them how to say "AMURICA" and in a few hours everyone in the orphanage was screaming "Amerrrrica!". I am so so excited to see the look on their face when we bring them to their new house. 

Day 4

I've known these children only a few days and I'm in complete love with every one of them. Today Keelin and I started to help the children learn colors, sentences, body parts and clothing items. We would point to one of my socks and the children in our group (Sachia, Yoma, Heang, Srey Na, Chy Nai) and all the kids would say "Pink sock!", and we would point to Keelins shirt and they would say, "Blue shirt!" and so on. Throughout the day Keelin and I would take children with the translator, Sok Ti, and we would talk to kids one-on-one and find out their stories. We talked to a bunch of different children but one of the most interesting stories was Lavin's story. He's a really quite shy boy that doesn't socialize quite as much as some of the other children but his story is inspiring. His mom died from an illness when he was young, and his dad lives with his little sister. During the mornings he teaches English at the school in the slums, and in the afternoon sometimes helps his dad clean shirts and spoons. He speaks English so well, which makes sense since he's been studying English for the last 3 years. 

I am so excited to be part of this journey and I am so thankful.