Capture the moment

The lady on the back of this motor bike is carrying her IV ttreatment as she is carried either to or from the hospital.

 Hayley eating a tarantula. I am not sure the spiritual symbol for eating tarantulas?









We visited a quilt business in Phonm Penh, we thought of Nanny Mags and Grandma X

Red sky at night...

I have heard it said that boredom leads to creativity (Yasmin feet art)






 

Asia caught napping on her DS, the only other person I know naps like this is her eldest grandparent (no names for privacy reasons!)

Asia singing in the rain

KJ had her hair plaited many times at NHCC

Mark holding international talks with the prime ministers son

SCORPIONS…

The other day I was getting ready to do the washing. I got the two big washing bowls out one for washing and one for rinsing. I tipped the washing powder into one bowl and while I was filling up both bowls with water something crawled out from underneath my foot. I had no shoes on just my bare feet and I said to one of the volunteers who was doing her washing next to me “look what just crawled out from underneath my foot do you now what it is?” She didn’t now what it was and I didn’t ether. 

So I went to get mum and when she saw it she was so surprised I didn’t get stung because it was a SCORPION!!! Then dad tried to move it and its tail curled up to protect it’s self.

Later on that day mum showed the picture to a friend who works in NHCC and she said “how on earth did she not get stung? They are biggest scorpions we get in Cambodia!” 

Mum also found out that if you get stung you can go into shock or scream the place down. This happened the day after I had been worrying about the devil getting inside me and never making my worries go away. Mum said we should look scorpions up in the bible because she had heard something about them being a spiritual symbol… this is what we found:

I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all power of the enemy; nothing will harm you. (Luke, chapter 10, verse 19)

So I don’t need to be afraid!

Love Yaz XX

My 15^th Birthday in Cambodia!

I woke up on my birthday at 5:15am. This may sound early for a teenager on her birthday but this is what my body clock has been trained to do for the last 3 weeks. By 6am I had; opened my presents from the Baileys, Grandma & Grandpa, Asia and Yas (Thank You!!); had a cup of tea and was outside with lots of ‘Happy Birthday’s from the 6 other volunteers in our cluster at N.H.C.C. For breakfast I had the first bit of bread I had eaten in 3 weeks and some fruit! Because it was my birthday my parents let me have the day off studying so I went to play with the pre-school and nursery kids for an hour. I wasn’t feeling too good so I came back to the house and read my book till lunch! 

My mum had ordered a cake from the bakery 3 miles away so after my birthday lunch of chicken, rice and veg a few my friends came over and sang Happy Birthday! Then out of nowhere one of the boys decided to throw cake icing at my face… most of us then spent the next 20 minutes wiping icing on each others faces and flicking it in various directions… it was so much fun!! Once all the cake was gone everyone went back to their clusters (clusters are the houses we sleep in) for rest time. I had a bucket wash because I was covered head to toe in icing that was a bit like whipped cream! When I was all clean and dry mum and I went to the English class that we go to everyday and spent the rest of the afternoon there. 5pm I had my birthday dinner of chicken, rice and veg and went to play with the kids before coming back and watching a movie. A better birthday then I expected put it that way!

Thanks everyone for your emails they were much appreciated!

And sorry everyone for not being on Facebook, they decided to temporally kick me out because they think someone was hacking me??!! Which is extremely annoying but what can you do??!!

See you very soon ;)

Kaela-J xxx

So we are half way through our time at NHCC it's going ok, i've met lots of  nice people and played 'Risk' for the first time, i've also done a lot of reading.

What I do in the week days: I get up slowly at 5:00am have a bucket wash and eat breakfust (fruit, breakfust bars) then i take on the job of cloths washing by hand, lets just say it's very diffrent to a washing machine! Then me and dad head over to nursery at around 7:00am, nusery goes on for three hours but we only stay for an hour and a half and we come back dripping with sweat. After a small break I do some math's and spelling with mum while she's teaching K-J. By the time i've finished studying the boring stuff its lunch time... we have lunch at 11:00am. It get's very hot about 12noon so I read, colour and rest by that time all the kids have come back from morning school had lunch and a nap.


 When it's cooled down a bit mum and K-J go off to teach English, Asia goes to pre-school and me and dad do either egg collecting or we go for a walk and I do some stretching so when I go back to gym I won't be extremly behind  (if im not in the mood for either I just hangout!). When mum and K-J and Asia come back we head over to dinner... mmmmm rice! As soon as we have finished are dinner we go and play with the kids out in the play ground. Finally, we bucket wash and play a round of uno before the electrisity goes off at 8:30pm, we are usually in bed by 8 so its alright.

Its been an amazing experiance but i can definatly feel i'm ready to come home soon. hope you like my blog . YAZ XX

These children aren’t empty

The children I have met are HIV positive

Parents who are dead that’s double negative

Picked up because if left they would die

The loss they have suffered is set deep in their eye

You see the children have been rescued from drowning

Sinking in a sea of disease that was swallowing

But a hand grabbed their hand and lifted them out

Of the depths of this pain now their beginning to shout

These children aren’t empty

They run in bare foot where I tiptoe in flip flops, and plenty

Of welcome as I embrace their cuddles and smiles

Back home my culture would scream “paedophile”

To reject this affection would be to deny them their giving

I am here to receive not just giving, that’s living

Pouring out from our insides a torrent of talents and gifts

To each other and that’s why my hand lifts

In applause or in praise

In wonder I gaze

The children play for hours without technology

This may seem obvious but what’s the psychology?

They grabbed the skipping rope from me and organised games with it

I turned up late for the football they said “NO”, that’s not in my script

That’s not helpless or powerless that’s not lacking

In self-esteem or in confidence, this white man needs sacking!

Instead I am backing these children to turn loss into laughter

A medicine that can’t be brought off the shelf, a corporate disaster!

These children have an identity and been given a name

Struggle and suffering comes to all in life’s game

They are not higher or lower in these things than me

We are the same but in a different paradigm you see

They don’t need my pity

So I try and show them some dignity

And then I may learn the beauty of their humanity

THESE CHILDREN AREN’T EMPTY

Written by Mark 

May 2012