Travel del Sol: The Orphanage Visits

Ok. Finally some working internet connection. Our first post now, and maybe I can post a bit more tonight when we have a short sleepover in Thailand:)

Finally got some time to write. Sitting on the Mekong Express Limousine Bus service to Siem Reap. The Cambodian romantic music videos are playing on the tv screen, the air con is a bit too cold, and we have eaten our second breakfast , a deep fried sausage roll and a greasy muffin.

So far our stay in Cambodia has been a lot of travelling from place to place. Finally we are headed for the holiday part of our trip here, as the last few days have been work for me, with husband and boys tagging along.

Projects Abroad works with several orphanages, schools and organisations in Phnom Penh. I was taken on a round of three orphanages. On my first day I was picked up by the director in Cambodia, Pises, to go and see the apartments where the volunteers live. I was pleasantly surprised by the facilities. They have their own cook and security guys, and best of all a roof terrace to chill on those hot evenings. From there I was taken by a moto (small motorbike or moped) to go and see the first orphanage. I was told the volunteers had a choice of going by moto or tuk-tuk , and that it was mostly the middle aged volunteers that chose tuk-tuks. Still in my thirties, it had to be by moto for me!

The traffic!! Total chaos at first, but after a few minutes on the back of Sophans moto, it becomes clear that even if there are no rules to be followed, there are some unwritten traffic rules. Rule number one: Lexus SUV’s always have the right of way. There are quite a few of those big monsters in such a contrast to the tiny motos with complete families sitting tightly together. But the big cars are excellent for using as a shelter when crossing a junction in the same direction.

The first orphanage I visited was a huge state run orphanage with 118 mostly disabled children and children with hiv/aids. It was clean, tidy, the children had beds, looked clean themselves, and both children and staff looked happy. The director told us that the reason why they ended up with so many disabled children was that the privately owned orphanages and NGO’s did not have the resources or funding to take care of children with special needs. The day before they had just received two more children after the social services had called nine other homes to ask them to take in two small children who were found walking the streets on their own, but none of the other homes would take in more children at that time.

This home has a physiotherapy department where the disabled children receive regular treatment and training. A lot of the children have cp and need training every day. I met some excellent physio-volunteers doing a great job, and exchanging their skills with the only two physioteraphists employed by the home. Some long term volunteers have even set up a sensory room for the children to enjoy! Most of these children are not orphans, they are abandoned. Parents choose to give up their children out of lack of resources, whether their child is disabled or not.

At the next orphanage I went to I met a four month old baby who was abandoned by his mother only two hours after he was born. She left him at the maternity clinic. It is assumed that she could not pay her hospital bill, and walked out leaving her baby behind. This orphanage was much smaller. 44 children live there and in addition the NGO which has some funding from the Netherlands does social work among prostitutes and young people with hiv/aids.

At the last orphanage I visited, I took Rupert and the boys along. This looked like the poorest orphanage out of the three. They have no permanent funding, so there is a constant struggle to provide for the children. The home was run by one man and his wife, and a few staff with the help of a couple of volunteers. I asked the director, who owned the orphanage, and he told me it was his own NGO. He grew up in an orphanage himself, and he was allowed to go to school, he felt he had a good life, and when he met Jesus, he felt so lucky that he wanted to help children himself. Now he lives and works day and night at his own creation. He has no money, but there was a sparkle in his eyes when he was talking about how he managed to send all of his 77 children to school.

Two Dutch girls were volunteering at the orphanage. They had done some fundraising at home and collected money for a water filter system. Now it was hanging on the wall, bright and new, and the hope is that fewer of the children becomes ill, as the girls were saying that the children were sick regularly, and that there is no money to take them to a clinic. Often the volunteers will pay out of their own pockets to take children to see the doctor. The volunteers and the girls had gone to buy the filter system together, and with some negotiation they managed to get two for the price of one. There were lots of happy children drinking water from the new system on the day we visited!

The boys handed out some sweets for the children, they played with marbles with some of the boys , we had some photo sessions, looked at the bedrooms, and within an hour we were out of there. I think it is difficult for my boys to grasp the reality that these children live in. They were happy children when we were there, but there are not enough beds for all of them. I only noticed one bag of rice and the chickens rummaging around hardly had any meat on them. We spoke about the bathrooms, three bathrooms to share between 77 children. At our house we are four, and we fight over minutes in the bathroom in the mornings. The boys spending far too long in the shower, me wanting to put my make up on and the boys bickering over space in front of the mirror when putting their hair wax in. We agreed that there was no time or need for hair wax in these conditions.