"While we try to teach our children all about life, our children teach us what life is all about" - Angela Schwindt

This weekend was a holiday/long weekend.  October 31st is a National holiday celebrating the birthday of King Father Norodom Sihanouk. This is a two day holiday that fell on the Sunday and Monday of this week. Like in Canada, because the first day of the holiday fell on a weekend, I also got to take off Tuesday! Not sure why it's a two day holiday but hey, I'll take the extra few days off anytime :) 

I had already taken advantage of the Monday off for my elephant adventure, so on Tuesday I decided to help  my friend's Cathy and Jenny teach English in a village about half an hour out of Phnom Penh. I was skeptical at first not wanting to exploit the children in any way, but decided to go after Cathy expressed her ongoing frustrations with trying to teach a group of children ranging from 2 years old to 13 years old all at once. When I got there I very quickly realized I was pretty mentally unprepared for what I saw. 

The village was filled with run down shacks, garbage, livestock, and malnourished looking individuals roaming through the narrow pathways. It was an accurate illustration of extreme poverty. It was quite apparent that most adults were drunk or high, but alcohol abuse in particular is not uncommon in villages. One young man was stumbling around mumbling things and all the kids got a real kick out of it. He eventually passed out on the grass beside the teaching area. 

There is a local school where the children attend primary classes either in the morning or afternoon. To fill in the gaps during the day for primary school aged children and to occupy the little ones too young for school, the children attend English classes run by Cathy and Jenny. Most of the students are from a local "orphanage" who almost all have at least one parent in the village (a few of the student's were there because their mothers were in Malaysia as Nanny's). The children at this orphanage are housed there because they could not be supported in whichever environment they came from. Throughout the day, kids left to visit their parents, and a few parent's had come to see their children. 

Despite their surrounding, the children were absolutely fantastic. They were happy, playful, extremely funny and very smart. They were running around and playing like normal kids, and they LOVED to dance and sing for us!!! It was amazing to see the sense of community the children had. The older ones would watch over the younger ones, holding them if they were crying, helping them eat, washing them if they got too dirty, making sure they said please and thank you. They were all very polite and wanted to engage in funny and playful conversation. Cathy is an amazing teacher (she taught in Korea for 3 and a half years) and they absolutely adore her patience and kindness. 

While Cathy was teaching English to the older students, I sat with the little guys and we practiced writing out the English alphabet together. 

This guy kept writing his B's, R's, and Q's backwards, and his W's as M's. There was some talk of him maybe being dyslexic but I don't know much about that. He was also obsessed with yellow and wanted to colour all his pictures with the yellow crayons - he was just too cute! 

Currently, three separate charities are financially supporting the orphanage in the village but the children aren't seeing any of it. In addition to this, they are being trucked around Cambodia every weekend putting on a musical dance performance to different towns and cities. The children again are seeing none of the profits.

Practicing the drums while the older students danced*

Needless to say, the Board of Director's for the orphanage is in the process of finding a new Executive Director. Just another example of the corruption in Cambodia. It is important to protect children from harmful environments such as the village they live in, but orphanages aren't a solution to any problem. It is important to keep children at home with their families, and invest in NGOs that concentrate on improving the livelihoods of families as a whole so children can grow up in the most stable and secure environment as possible. There is currently no NGO's working with this village but there have been talks among us to try and get some programs running to create income generating opportunities and education for the adults.

Seeing the smiles on these children's faces is such an inspiration to stay positive, not sweat the small stuff, and be thankful for the things we have in life.