so we are leaving today. the morning lesson felt sad, the kids were extra clingy and i was a bit teary (thankyou sunglassess...). I have really fallen for a particular little girl, she mirrors my face all the time, every exclamation or smile or frown she copies back at me. And she manages to wear a beautiful crisp white shirt with puffed sleeves every day to school, i have no idea how she manages this..most of the kids are pretty grotty and their clothes torn and raggedy. Im guessing she has a mum or dad or granny or grandpa that loves her to bits and sends her off each day looking so sweet...if i didnt know that i would probably bring her home in my backpack...ha ha of course not, but she has kinda got under my skin.....

rys face will probably come out in bruises i think..the rather large, chummy cook in our home insists on giving his cheeks a rather large pinch every day and planting red lips on his face....ry tolerates it with a grimace, says all the right things but runs upstairs and washes his face straight away.....he has been showered with affection here, the projects abroad team  have really really looked after him..

think this is my last blog...hanging out for a warm shower and clean water to drink......

wow, the land of the temples. We flew to siem riep, the little (by phnom peng standards) town up north, home to the temples, home to buddha (or one of many? but certainly a major hang out for buddhists) home of angelina jolie (tomb raiders ) and harrison ford!!!! These temples are absolutely amazing, they blew ry and i away. massive big pavers, wondering who has walked over them over the last few many many years.....

set amidst jungle,,now mostly manicured lawns and trees...but the temples create a kind of village, all connected through function or vistas or layout. So many, hundreds?.....so we saw just a few. Truly old old old, mysterious, grey and black, '"awesome"says ry...

flooding still up here but mostly drained away. flying over though I see the massive devastation of the floods, seemed to be covering most of the countryside. the kids love it though, swmimming in the rivers and jumping off bridges....i am worrying about all the flooding aftermath, the spread of disease through mozzies etc....

ry and i have discovered two things in cambodia that i think i will import

1) fisb feet pedicure

2) blue pumpkin

Fish feet pedicure - all the rage here - its easy..just put your feet in a big tank, close your eyes, think of the queen (or  tim tams or hommous or rainforests or something that is going to take your mind far far away)...and wait for thousands of little nibbles. Yep, its the fish eating off the dead skin on your feet....they are having a field day. After the first ten mins of a kind of new torture you start to relax..and ultimately it actually feels really nice! Im told its also in paris..so it must be sophisticated!!! It is a huge hit here..got me thinking about local business enterprises in adelaide....come to Port Noarlunga and experience fish feet feasting...its gonna be called FFF......

2) Blue pumpkin..its a local version of paradise amidst hot hot sticky days, frenetic crazy beeping tuktuks and noodles, noddles and more noodles....blue pumpkin is unashamaedly for western tourists and ITS FANTASTIC! it has huge billowing white pillowed couches along all the walls, you climb up into them, are given your lap  tray (for those that know me, lap trays are my favourite thing in the world)...and order french fries or iced  coffee or hummous or ice cream......air conditioned, white white white, just lovely......and it seems to be taking over, there is one in the airport even!!!

so here's a funny thing. i brought recycled A3 paper with me (thanks Jensens!!! grabbed a whole lot of old plans we were using for castle plaza and for noarlunga railway station precinct, and also green street). Paper is kind o scare in the school.

I ran a lesson with the older kids about family trees -it was easy to explain because ry was with me so i could show them connection between mother and son etc... and them got them to draw their family trees (which was a kinda challenging lesson in itself because I quickly learnt that some of them didnt have brothers or sisters or fathers or mothers....so I felt bad for introducing the concept, it highlighted the sadness some must face...although they did laugh their head off when i suggested that they might have dogs or birds in their family which most of them did,so their family tree pictures concentrated mostly on colourful drawings of their dogs.....)...anyway.......this story is about the A3 paper that I used, not the lesson itself which is another whole story!!!!

The paper caused much interest in the class.

Why? because although I really wanted them to use the blank side of the jensens recycled A3 paper to draw their family trees on, they were much much more interested in the "beautiful"images of street perspectives and concept plans of suburban streets on the other side of the paper..."'teeeeechr (read..teacher)....beeeeeewtiful.....teeeeechr....ooohhhh...beewtiful"' they continued to exclaim. Each time I tried to encourage them to use the blank side, they resisted big time..they were just so taken with our western street plans....

Now the classroom has castle plaza an green street brompton images taped on the walls (I keep turning the paper around to display the family trees but when i come in the morning im greeted with ''teeecher....see....beeewtiful!!!!)....

And here's me thinking it was going to be a highly educational lesson around use of english and family connections...turned into a art lesson with a bunch of kids copying western concept plans......

ah yes, i went to the footy! Ry really keen to go, the finals between thailand and burma at the olympic stadium. Plenty of people, i think not only were we the only westerners but myself and two other women the only females! So an interesting experience many respects. An amazing skyline at night, silhouetted by hundreds of people walking along the top of the stadium fence ( I think they climbed in to the stadium over the fence for free).... Burma very excited fans, Thailand less so. final score I think 3 - 1, burma victorious...

The kids are so so poor, and hugenie is minimal, well actually, non existant. Ive noticed the kids have holes in their teeth..or no teeth..or rotten teeth. Not good. So I decided even more important than learning English is to have teeth, and went into the market to try to buy toothbrushes and toothpaste and cups.

Needed about 80...not such a simple task when Khmer is the only language of communication, but anyway we went off to school yesterday with a bag full of toothbrushes and posters we had made with some of the other volunteers describing the steps to brush your teeth.

Sounded like a really simple and straightforward idea...ha...we were kidding ourselves! the logistics of teaching 70 little kids who just want to play and have fun..and who have no concept of teeth cleaning...was challenging! How do you get them to line up and give them a toothbrush with their name on it? How do you even put a name on a toothbrush when you have no permanent markers? Kids..ever heard of order and line up and listen to the teacher?????? It was so so funny, and a fantastic thing for all the kids - in fact for the whole schoo..we seemed to attract all the other kids and the principal who were all watching our spectacle.

Anway, Ry, I and two other volunteer ran our own little "How to brush your teeth" show, and Im confident the kids understood it - they seem to be lapping it up. They followed the whole process again today successfully, so I am really hoping we have introduced a little system for them all to follow. Just have to somehow encourage the school to faciltiate it every day now, and the kids will hopefully start to look after their teeth a bit better.

Its these kind of things you know really do make some kind of difference....and the kids just love it! (How come it was never like this trying to get ry to clean his teeth each day?????) 

ah yes, i went to the footy! Ry really keen to go, the finals between thailand and burma at the olympic stadium. Plenty of people, i think not only were we the only westerners but myself and two other women the only females! So an interesting experience many respects. An amazing skyline at night, silhouetted by hundreds of people walking along the top of the stadium fence ( I think they climbed in to the stadium over the fence for free).... Burma very excited fans, Thailand less so. final score I think 3 - 1, burma victorious...

Today i had my feet eaten by fish(the dead dry skin off of my feet) .I went with robin mum and myself (riley).after that i had a took took driver for the whole day and i bacame a good friend with him (sam)so then after that i went to wat phonm and i was going to go onto a ride with the elephant but he had a sore foot so i was a bit upset about that. I prayed with the gods (god, buddah).i hoped and prayed that the gods would bring me ether a pair of shoes,a bowl of bananas or a bowl or vase of flowers but i couldnt find any of them anyway i am very happy where i am at the moment and hi  everyone byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

our day starts with the kids at 8.00am..we know we are getting close to the school because a) it really really stinks (the school is next to the rubbish dump) and b) we hear the kids running out to greet us. Ry is a big hit...he gets climbed on, held, touched, adored..he spends half the day playing soccer and volleyball with the kids in the "school grounds" (the dirt in front of the building).

The school consists of a about 4 rooms, divided into a kind of kindergarten in one room, the 5 - 8 year olds in another, the 8 - 10 year olds in another and older kids (maybe about 12 - 16? ) in the fourth room. Its hard to tell ages, the kids are mostly pretty small.

Mostly we have been teaching the smaller kids - its the largest class - about 70 or so kids in a small room, no tables or chairs, no fan, but we do have a whiteboard. Its challenging to keep them all interested and listening (challenging is probably not the right word,, more like impossible)..but Ive learnt pretty quickly that they love "hands on head, hands on nose, hands on tummy"activities - it words to do that every ten minutes to get their attention..and other variations of simon says..

Ry and I have been trying to keep it really simple - getting them to write letters (a lot of them cant really hold a pencil let alone have the capacity to learn english)....and they love copying the pictures we draw of the letter and the associated object ..like e for elephant. I tried a for alligator but should have stuck with a for apple cause I couldnt seem to explain alligator, my charades of "snapping jaws"had them rolling around in laughter...

Ry has been a huge help - he is really needed with such a big class..he walks around and sits with kids and helps them hold their pencil - or even just tries to get them to get their book out of their bag... (They come with really really grotty cases or plastic bags with a dog eared exercise book in it, and pencil if lucky...; no shoes, filthy, sometimes in torn pajamas..they really have basically nothing at all).

But they are so much fun, they just are so so happy and friendly, they soak up everything you say. Lots and lots of laughing.

Kind of working up a bit of a routine now and figuring out what works and what doesnt...next week will be a bit easier i think..

i hope you enjoy this pic and its riley in singapore