First week at New Hope for Cambodia Children (NHCC)

corner of our building with grazing cow

I think we had mentally prepared for the worst. We were informed before our volunteering that the living quarters were basic with no running water, flushing loos or shower. All clothes washing was to be done by hand. So when we arrived we were all presently surprised and relieved! The village is clean and spacious with brightly coloured buildings, plenty of green open space, a playground, basketball court, football pitch and cows, dogs, chickens and pigs!

The village houses 250 orphans and around 50 staff and their children. The children are aged from 2 – 18 years old and either have HIV themselves or are here with a sibling who has HIV (though there are not many of them). Every child receives medication, food, access to full time education and most importantly a home provided by the charity. The kids have to take their medicine twice daily 12 hrs apart so a bell rings at 6am and 6pm and they all run to their house mothers for their dose!

red cluster where we eat with the children

The village is separated into clusters: blue, green, yellow, red, lavender, white, orange and purple. Here they live together about 30 children with a house mother and father, cook and support staff. They sleep, eat and live life based from their cluster just as a family would.

We are staying in the volunteer’s centre which comprises of 3 buildings with bedrooms or dorms and a covered area. Our dorm sleeps 30 people and so we have set up camp in the corner nearest the solar powered ceiling fan. We have two ‘bathrooms’ which contain a large tank of well water, a toilet base, a sink and the all important bucket/plastic ladle type thing. The ladle is used for flushing the loo and body washing, which basically means dip it in the tank of water and throw it over you, soap up and then repeat to rinse. It is fairly cool water but seems freezing as you are generally very hot.

The people here are so friendly and welcoming both staff and kids alike. We immediately felt at home and relaxed in this unfamiliar place. We have often discussed this quote from one travel writer…"When you travel, remember that a foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable. It is designed to make its own people comfortable." - Clifton Fadiman

So the uncomfortable moments have been 1) the HOT and humid weather - almost all day and night. The coolest times are early morning and after the rain during the day which so far comes every other day. 2) The many interesting creatures and insects, these are mostly just irritating rather than dangerous. Though the rains will bring scorpions and snakes but apparently these are fairly low risk so I am trying not to worry! 3) Being hungry, we have fruit and boiled egg for breakfast and then two meals of rice, vegetables and fried chicken every day. There are no snacks or treats available so we are eating a very healthy diet though we have sourced a local village shop that sells cold cans of Coke and Fanta for those days when we really want some sugar!

The village has a fantastic clinic with full time nursing staff and a doctor 2 days a week. They told us when we arrived that they can treat almost anything in their clinic and all medical care and medicines are free to volunteers. The staff in the clinic also speak English. I did breathe a sigh of relief when shown the clinic – not that I was too worried but of course always in the back of my mind are questions of what if!

A routine

The children’s day (are now ours) is fairly routine around the heat, sun rise, sun set, when there is electricity, meals, medication times and of course school. A typical week days runs a little like this:

5am                 get up (electricity comes on for 1 hr) Hayley gets a cup of tea!

5.45am            breakfast (eggs & fruit)

6am                 medicine for children

6.30am            children leave for school (under 6’s stay on site and go to nursery and pre-school)

7 – 10.30am    school

11am               lunch (rice, vegetables and fried meat followed by fruit)

11.30 – 1pm    rest (most people seem to nap or read in the shade)

1 – 4.30pm      afternoon classes on site for all (rotate around English, dance, music, computers, library, and sport classes)

5pm                 dinner (rice, vegetables and fried meat followed by fruit)

6pm                 medicine & electricity comes on, play time

7 – 8pm           sun goes down - bed (EVERYBODY!!)

8.30pm            electricity goes off

So we are slowly getting used to an early start in the cool of the day and being trashed by 8pm. We have established an early morning routine of getting up at 5am, quick cup of tea (black tea as there is no milk) enjoying the cool of the morning and the gorgeous setting. Then one of the girls will help me with the clothes washing. This is done by hand in two large metal bowls on the ground. The water is pumped from a well (phew!) so it is cold and we have powder that we put into the water. After some scrubbing and swirling around in the soapy water we wring and transfer the item to the fresh water bowl for rinsing. We then rinse and wring out as hard as possible and finally hang out on the line to dry. I wish I was as good at this as my 93 year old nanny she manages to wring clothes out soooooooo dry…. I shall keep practising! The washing here only takes an hour or so to dry though so no problems with the inefficient wringing out! After the washing is done we have breakfast followed by washing up in a plastic bowl outside and leave dishes to dry in the sun. So far I have not seen one cloth. All washing and cleaning is done with hands and hosed water. 

From 7am to11am, KJ and Yas study with me in our lovely outdoor classroom. We are reading out loud Wuthering heights by Emily Bronte and discussing as we go. Both girls are working hard on their maths too. Asia, Mark and Jamie (when she was here) go and help out in the nursery or pre school classes in the morning. Mark also tried his hand at hedge trimming but after an hour with the team of farmers her managed to slice his finger on the cutting tool and has ended up with a bandaged up finger and on antibiotics. Our first use of the clinic facilities! (Mark says it was touch an go whether he would loose his finger completely!)

                                                          

The market

One morning Asia, Jamie and I went to the market with the cooks on the back of a truck. We left at 6am and arrived back to the village at 8am. The experience was fantastic and Asia was a bit of a celebrity there, but I think that our cook is really. She walked around bartering and buying food and we three white girls walked around after her carrying all the stuff she bought. People stopped her to ask about Asia, many stroked Asia’s hair, squeezed her or brought out their children to say hello to her. Our cook was so proud. She bought Asia a fresh flower hair garland which she and the stall seller placed around her hair very ceremoniously. Asia loved it, smiling at people as we worked hard to keep up with our cook!

Asia helping the barrow man at market

I am not sure how much money our cook spent but we bought a lot of fruit, veg and meat. As we walked around she kept picking stuff up from stalls and insisting we try. My favourite was a kind of pancake type thing that was flavoured with herbs, it was yum. I was so full by the time we had finished. The truck met us at an apparently agreed spot where all 8 cooks and the three of us loaded back on the truck – this time with produce galore and large canisters of drinking water. This trip occurs daily for each cluster cook to provide meals for around 50 people. On the way back to the village we knocked into some bushes alongside the road and as the truck is open sided, Jamie and Asia discovered a visitor on their backs…. A lizard had been knocked onto the truck. He was about 50cm long and moved VERY quickly…he was far more terrified than Asia and Jamie. The cooks in the truck with us thought it most hilarious!

Once back to the village the food is unloaded and stuff that needed to be kept cool is stored in large ice boxes. The ice man comes every day at 10am, saws off a chunk of ice from his cart and pops it into your orange box. Very simple but very efficient was of keeping things cool. We have one of these in our visitor’s centre where we store water, cans of drink and spare fruit.

More to follow….

Hayley XX