Volunteering in Cambodia in 2010

Most of the kids come from homes like this one

For some reason I have a really hard time writing about Cambodia 2010.  I did this last year too- I put it off and put it off and never got the motivation to write about my experiences, which were some of the best of the entire Asia 2010 trip.  Why does this keep happening to me?  Maybe it's because I don't think that my writing will do justice to the experience.  Or because it will box it up into just what I share with you, and not include as much depth as it actually had.  Nevertheless, I must try to give you at least a snippet of what I saw and learned during that short time.   For much greater detail and more insight into the volunteering experience and life in Siem Reap in general, see Dorothy's blog.  I especially like her recent post on the commute to HVC, and some posts from last year about daily life at the children's village, and the silliness that is Cambodian fashion.

So... In November 2010 I went back to Cambodia to volunteer for the fledgling "children's village" started by Sue Wiggans.  I spent four weeks in Siem Reap, just as Honour Village was opening its gates and taking in the first kids.  It was not expected to be in operation yet but the development and construction had gone way ahead of schedule.  My first week there was one without any children.  I met the Khmer staff, who were already doing basic English lessons with a teacher every morning.  It was a small group of about nine-- cooks, gardeners and soon-to-be 'house mothers', the only people (besides the Khmer manager) on payroll.  Everyone else-- Sue, the volunteers, the trustees doing fundraising and operations in the UK-- were working solely on a voluntary basis and getting no compensation.  Sue even put her house in England on the market to contribute to funding the project before there was any formal sponsorship.  There are no overhead costs, so money donated by sponsors goes directly to the operational cost: food, clothes, toys, supplies, construction, utilities, and the Khmer staff and caretakers who work for local wages.  

Lunch time with the first four- still early days!

Sue explained the reasons why Honour Village was called a "children's village" and not an "orphanage".  She noted the Dickensian connotations in the word "orphanage", and insisted that the children of HVC wouldn't be begging for a bowl of soup like Oliver.  Also, most of the kids aren't orphans, and have at least one living parent who can't care for them for a variety of reasons (I'll talk about some of the different circumstances later).  The kids are not up for adoption.  They had to be legally adopted by Honour Village and will live there until age 18, or later if they are not yet ready to live independently or go to university by that time.  Most of them, upon arrival, are older than age 5, so how could you expect someone that age to be adopted by a Westerner and sent to live in a foreign country?  Unlike places such as China, it is very difficult for Westerners to adopt Cambodian children and it is not common.   For the children to come under the care of Honour Village, Sue and Chhunly the manager would have to meet the families or guardians of the children and evaluate each particular situation.  Poverty is rife in Cambodia, but there are varying degrees of it, and Sue and Chhunly have the most difficult task of deciding who has the most need.  They go to the villages (usually not far from the actual site of HVC) where the children live and must get the signatures from the parents or guardians to take custody.  They  also must pay for the signatures of the village chief and the headmaster of the children's school (if any), as well as to collect paperwork such as birth certificates (if any).  Parents or family members can visit the children onsite whenever they please, and they often do.  And for Khmer New Year, which occurs at some point in April according to the lunar calendar, most of the children go home to celebrate with their families (if circumstances allow).  So for these reasons and more, it is not an "orphanage".  I liken it to a permanent boarding school that is close to home and completely free.  

Kuni and his dad at home

Many of the situations that Sue and Chhunly investigated were dire, but if there was even one parent that was able to care for and feed the children with relative competency, they were not eligible to join Honour Village.  Many children came to HVC with at least one sibling, but many (even those arriving in pairs or groups of siblings) left brothers and sisters at home as well.  It all depended on the circumstances and the decision made by the parents.  One brother-sister duo had a mother who traveled far and spent long periods away to find work, and a father who had been a victim of a land-mine accident (very common in Cambodia) and had only one leg.  He stayed at home to look after the children with increasing difficulty.  Two sisters had been rescued from an abusive step mother and had been living at a women's shelter for two months, not going to school, before HVC took custody of them.

Big group of kids arrive to move in - many are siblings or cousins

Most of the children were eager to join.  I remember Sue telling me the story of the first two brothers who came to live at HVC.  It is a sad tradition in Cambodia (well, sad in a Westerner's mind) that if a man is widowed and remarries, the children from his first marriage aren't incorporated into the new family and are sent to live with an aunt or grandma.  I'm not sure why that is.  The first boy who came to live at HVC had packed his bag and was ready to leave upon Sue and Chunnly's first visit, and was dearly disappointed to find out he would have to wait longer for all of the paperwork to be processed.  Although most of the kids arrived with trepidation and nervousness, it was beautiful to see how quickly their moods changed after only a few days of getting used to life with clean clothes, good meals, toys, and a large group of loving caretakers.  That's not to say that they never felt homesick; it was hard for me to tell because they couldn't express themselves in English.  But after the grand opening party which most of the children's parents attended, some of them cried when they left.  And I'm sure they do miss their parents, especially the ones whose parents live further away and can't visit as much.  Still, they seem happy for the most part-- playing, loving, learning, and eating to their hearts' content three times a day.  They are an incredibly adaptable bunch.

The fence didn't stay so red after the 2011 floods!

People always asked me, "what are you doing as a volunteer?"  That question was always hard to answer because I was really just helping Sue as we went along.  My first week, before any children arrived, I was doing things like painting gates, applying varnish to bed frames, and assembling plastic crates to hold the kitchenware - things that I wouldn't do for money.  That's the irony of volunteering!!  Then the children started to arrive - first two, then four, then ten, and by the end there were about 23 and more to follow.  Sue bought them bicycles to get to and from school, and at that time there were not yet formal English lessons being conducted onsite.  I continued doing odd-jobs in the morning for Sue and when the kids came home from school (they only do half days in Cambodia and most of Asia), I was there to administer games and activities, if they felt so inclined to give me the time of day!  Cambodian children are very adept at entertaining themselves, making toys and games out of anything really, and even before I brought out the building blocks and art supplies, they were finding ingenious ways to play amongst themselves during their free time.  They were never bored, even without the paper and colored pencils I brought.  But, man, did I love drawing time.  The kids didn't speak any English at first, but we managed.  I learned a few key terms ("Chai k'meer" = share!, "Kom s'op k'neer" = no hitting, etc.)  

Yay for drawing time!

At times I had moments of great realizations- namely, all that I had taken for granted in my life.  When I first brought in paper and colored pencils for drawing, the kids, who were not used to having things as basic as art supplies, would hoard them.  I would drop 36 pencils on the table and after a few moments of grabbing and running around, 20 of the pencils would disappear.  They were each taking a few up to the bedrooms to hide them for later use.  They didn't understand sharing, nor the concept of communal property.  They didn't realize that every day, or whenever they felt like it and asked me, I would bring out pencils and paper for them to draw with.  They were still thinking in survival mode and thought that if they didn't take the opportunity to hide away a pencil for themselves, they might not get a chance to use one again.  It made me think of all the time I spent in art class at school, using materials paid for by other people.  I went to a private elementary school, but I thought, even at public schools, where does all that stuff come from?  Who buys the supplies?  It can be traced back to the tax-payers.  That's developed society for you.  I used to be annoyed by the assignments in art class.  For these kids, it's a luxury.  They always just wanted one more paper!!

By the end of my time there I was known as "La Wee".  Cambodians generally have a hard time pronouncing names that end with a closed "S" sound.  I loved it from the moment I heard it.  I would arrive in my tuk-tuk as the kids were peddling home from school and they would shout, "Hello La Wee!!"  Then, upon arrival home, greet me with the more formal "Ree-up su, La Wee", hands together with a bow and sometimes a hug for good measure.  I never wanted to leave.