I've had my first experience of getting sick

It was bound to happen, getting sick just comes with the territory here in Cambodia. Saturday afternoon we went to the modern market, called Psar Sovonar, it was more like a mall than a market. It was several stories (I would say 5 or 6). We weren't there but 45 minutes when I started to feel sick!! I almost fainted on the escalator, Lisa, one of the girls also in the program walked me to a corner and I sat down, then I started sweating profusely, my stomach was in sooo much pain; the worst pain ever!! I don't remember much, but I do remeber thinking that I wanted people to stop asking me questions because I couldn't answer them I also remembered this sweet Cambodian man bringing me a portable fan. My face was so pale, I was literally pouring out sweat. I finally was able to stand up and get to the bathroom, there was no toilet paper or soap, luckily I packed some toilet paper and had hand sanitizer in my bag! We left immediately after my episode and when we got home I got sick again, we realized that it was something I ate, but we do not know what yet. It came on so suddenly. I took some medicine and a long nap and I was better in 4 hours.

That night we went to a puppet show, it was a silk screen with leather puppets, so it was like a shadow puppet show. It was really neat. There were lots of little kids running around, and the theater was really cool! It was very small, when you walked through the gates there was a shop full of leather puppets in front of you, to left was the stage, which was risen, there was a place for the band and then a curtain with a silk screen in the middle. The best way I can describe the audience seating is as Khmer style stadium seating. There were about 6 rows of benches. The first row of benches had very small legs and were fairly close to the ground, the second row of benches' legs were taller than the first rows' legs but shorter than the third rows' legs etc, etc. There were quite a few westerners attending the puppet show, some of them had adopted Khmer children and others had a Cambodian mother and an American father. They were so cute, one of them was dancing to the music before the show started and I started talking to her and asked her where she learned to dance like that and she said, in a British accent, "I learned at my school, I know, don't I just have the most beautiful dancing?" haha it was so funny! The puppet show was really cool. It was all in Khmer so I didn't really follow it, but I could look at those puppets all day because they are so beautifully intricate! The picture above is from after the show, the puppeteers invited the audience back stage to play with the puppets behind the screen! The loved doing it!!

Sunday was a chill day, we didn't leave the villa at all. We had breakfast and then went straight to work on the lesson plans! We are teaching at 3 different schools, one is in the slums called Borey Keila School, the second one is outside the dump called Stung Mean Chey and the third one is about 45 minutes outside of the city and its called Borei Santhipheap. All of these schools are opperated by People Improvement Organization (PIO). Here is their Website if you are interested in taking a look. So the purpose of my time here in Cambodia is to teach art lessons and English to these children, we also train the teachers of the PIO schools to have better strategies with classroom management, and better understand child development. We also have workshops for teachers on issues such as childhood nutrition, health and hygiene and positive discipline strategies. In addition to teaching the children and training the teachers, we have been partnered up with local Univeristy students from Royal University, Phnom Penh (RUPP)! They are middle class Cambodians who will be in the classrooms with us and will carry on our volunteer work after we leave.

Much to my surprise, the upper and middle class Cambodians do not have much contact with or even knowledge about the poorest of the poor in this country; they have never been inside the slums or even to the dump to see what it is like. I think partnering with these RUPP students is going to be wonderful! We will learn so much from them as they will learn so much from us, we are also introducing social responsibility into these students way of life, which I could not be more happy about! I think everyone should give back in whatever little way they can, it does not have to be a huge gesture, just a small one done with great love. Anywhoo, those are the new developments for this trip! We are meeting the RUPP students in about an hour! I can't wait to see what they will be like, I hope I don't scare them off with my over enthusiasm...

Im off, lots of love and prayers,
Rosie