We could see the yard had filled with children from our room. We are staying in the orphanage on the bottom level in a wonderful and spacious apartment. Our door opens to the hallway and is right across from the kitchen, down the short hall from the great room. It's an excellent location because all the kids come by and stop at the door to ask for one of our kids or for us to come out or anything else including just watching to see what we are doing. It's interesting that they really watch when we are interacting as a family. Kit had said a while back that it's good for them to see how Christian families behave and treat each other and I can see it peaks their curiosity. And we can also see through the big kitchen window from several windows along the hallway in our place and look out to see the yard. In fact, tonight On (one of a large group including Grace) came running by and asked if I wanted to play. I had finally gotten cooled off from all the days work so I declined but it's fun to see them running by the windows and having fun! We can also hear the music they play down in the great room. Tonight one of the songs was "My God Reigns" with Khmer lyrics!
Even just our meal time around the counter. We gather and chat and joke and pray. Their meal time is very quiet and quick. They sing a Bible verse, pray and eat without much talking at all. Just different but it can be fun to watch when things are done differently.
Here is what we woke to! They did do a formation, prayer and get instructions in the yard before they were released to play games.
Some of the kids brought a sack lunch for eating mid-day. Just like in the states but theirs was rice and vegetables and/or meat.
Totally cute and all dressed for the party!
Alfven and the boys worked finishing the shooting range. Alfven is very into firearm safety and safety here is not really thought of. He's spray painting the Enter to the firing line and the safe zones.
Tug of war was played all day long. The kids loved this! And some of the adults too. Alfven helped out a team of girls that kept loosing and let them taste victory.
There was a ball game where you had to throw the ball through some metal croquet type hoops.
There were boards where three people raced by coordinating their steps.
This is just one of the random scenes of masses of happy children enjoying their end of school year :)
Alfven's shooting booth was very popular especially among the boys! There were some very good shots and everyone seemed to have a great time. Joseph helped out there all day too running the kids through their turns.
There was the good 'ole basketball throw game. At least until the wind blew the board down and completely smashed the plastic hoops on it. There were shards of plastic all over the ground and broken hoops. And amazingly so, I turned around about 10 minutes later and the hoops were fixed at least to the useable stage and nailed/taped back onto the board. They can fix anything around here!
There was the throw the ping pong ball into the fish bowl too. And each game had a way to win some candy. This was a fundraising event for the school this year as a new idea. Kit will see what it cost to put on and how much was made. The candy that was given out was about 1 cent a piece. Our dollar gets 4,000 riel to give you a gauge. The kids at the orphanage get an allowance each month too that is 1 dollar but here you can get something with it.
This was the pachinko game that Kit made out of plywood, nails and rubber bands. The one we carried down that crazy road after Women's meeting Sunday. to walk around and take pictures. Rachanna said she needed help at this booth so I helped out. It was intense! The kids were all yelling, just excited and yelling the prize that they hope they landed or that they won or wanted more balls. The problem was they were all yelling in Khmer! Thankfully I had learned my numbers up to 19 and on their riel is written one English number in the corner so I figured it out pretty well. The kids just kept coming and coming. We had a bucket of riel! The only problem was that it was hot and the sun came through so I wound up being the big sweaty white woman at the game! Ick! Again, everyone was so gracious and pretended like they didn't see the sweat beads dripping off my forehead. And if you notice, Rachanna and a decent amount of the kids were wearing long-sleeves and/or long pants. I would say they were a little sticky compared to sweaty. I gotta figure out how they do that!
At one point we had little peakers at the back of our booth :)
If you notice below there is the boy with the white smudge on his face. It is a fun tradition in Cambodia to run around and tag people with baby powder, seemed like on the cheek. I got tagged 3 times and you would see it on people all over. It was fun for the kids and funny because with their dark skin and hair it really showed up. I liked that it smelled good!
At lunch time a lot of the kids went home for lunch. Some stayed and had their box lunches. We were treated to box lunches too so we all ate outside under the tent. Some of the kids from the orphanage got a fish and cooked it up for a shared fish platter lunch. While we were eating everyone was toasting everyone! When some of the older male teachers came over to toast us we did and then Kit explained that toasting is very big in Cambodia! I love that the Cambodian people really know how to celebrate and don't need a whole lot to do it with.
After lunch I made the kids come do some laundry with me. I figured people would still be out at the front side at the carnival so it would be a good time to wash and not worry about running out of water which does happen. Needless to say my kids were not appreciative of my idea :) We washed until the dancing started!
So we had to go back! I left laundry to soak and we had a great time watching some more traditional types of dances. And then …. they played Gangnam Style! And Benjamin had to jump in! He's in the blue shirt here and the boys were impressed with all his moves! He was showing them his moves and everyone was having a great time! Apparently he also did Mr. Robot-O but I missed that one. Joseph said this week that he connects to the kids through work. I think Benjamin's connection is dancing! it was hilarious!
Benjamin and Grace took Anna around so she could play some games and win candy too while Alfven, Joseph and I worked at the booths. As you can see, she was quite happy with her day :)
In the afternoon we helped to make the goodie bags for the group birthday party tomorrow. We made 50 bags and as we started more and more hands arrived to help. These kids are very helpful! In fact, I had wedged Anna's balloons on a low rung of a ladder at the carnival because I was tired of holding them. Of course the wind picked up and blew them right over the 10 foot wall! Anna started yelling and Borin ran up the ladder, over the wall and brought back the balloons!
Below is a picture of how they get supplies to the third floor for Kit and Ream's apartment. They use a pulley and buckets to unload the groceries to their kitchen. It was pretty cool to see the system and again the teamwork of the kids. There are three floors and each have 12 foot ceilings due to lack of air conditioning. The tall ceilings help to keep the rooms cool and ours has ventilation holes in every wall on the top 3 feet. The second floor houses the boys room and the girls room as well as a boys bathroom and girls bathroom. Now, there were flats of drinks that several of us had to run up the three fights of stairs to a storage area. We probably made about 6-7 trips each and there were 4 of us running them.
I might need Advil again before bed tonight :) Alfven took Benadryl for all his itching bug bites. I told Alfven by the time we get on the plane next week, we will all sleep the entire trip home and look like we came out of the jungle with all our bug bites. Hopefully our clothes won't smell like they were hand washed :)
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