Dec 14th

Two new girls and a haircut

We just got two new girls come out to the village yesterday. It's really crazy how it never seems to end...on an average we get about one new child a week. These two little sisters just lost their mother and are having a really hard time settling in. We had them in town for a week but had to move them out here as they were crying all the time missing their grandmother. It feels horrible that we're taking them away from their grandmother, but the mother is gone and she is no longer able to care for these two little girls no matter how much she would like to. We had to bring the youngest one in to the hospital today as she probably suffers from tb and is thin as stick. Her immune system is extremely low and she's gonna have to fight really hard to survive this. No matter how great I find my everyday here to be, these reminders are always so hard to handle...we can only hope that this little girl keeps her hope up, or we will lose her for sure.

From the sad stories life sometimes brings us, to a day in town. After the hospital and bringing two girls to the dentist, we spoiled ourselves with a visit to the hairdresser. It was time to chop it off. 13 dollars later I've had my hair washed, my head massaged, a haircut, a manicure and a pedicure...gotta love Cambodia. The guy didn't do a to bad of a job cutting it either. After a pizza lunch and an ice-cream 5 happy ladies returned to the village...although my thoughts are still with the little girl now staying in the hospital.

Before

Getting pampered

After

Pizza Party

Dec 12th

^{Went in with John and Kathy to Phnom Penh this morning to go to church a last time. On the drive in we see the police on the side of the road and we realize there’s been a bad accident. Next thing I see is a big bulldozer on the wrong side of the road and a lifeless body trapped under it. No one seemed to care that there was this dead body laying there for everyone to see. There was no attempt to cover it up at all, instead their main concern seemed to be how to be able to move the vehicle. In Cambodia most of the time the driver will take off as they commonly do not have a license or insurance, and therefore the driver was nowhere to be seen. It was a sight that I’m having a hard time getting out of my head, and I can’t stop thinking about who this lady was, where she was going, if she had a family and so on. It’s scary to think about how life can turn on you so quickly…}

On a happier note, here are some pictures from the church.

Dec 10th

Games competition day

Today we celebrated human rights day, which meant another holiday here in Cambodia. I decided it would be fun to have a games day with the children. So, we came up with 10 activities and I put the volunteers in charge of one station each. I split the children into ten teams mixing all different ages and having the older children as team leaders. They all had to come up with a team name and a cheer, which they did so well. Then every time I blew the whistle they had to go from one station to the next and try to get as many points as possible. It was a big success! In the end we had a winning team who were very happy over their price consisting of a coke. We had also gotten all the children lollipops and surprised them with it in the end…another lovely but tiring day.

Shooting hoops

Transferring water from one bucket to another

Wheel barrow race

changing stations

limbo

The whole gang

saragardqvist@gmail.com

Internet here is still not working so well. For some reason I can get on to a few pages, like blogspot and google, but any newspaper site or hotmail or facebook haven't worked for a long time...so I feel a bit out of the loop. If you wanna reach me by email I started a gmail account since it's the only email that works here right now, the address is saragardqvist@gmail.com

Dec 7th

Another Goodbye

Tonight we had a dance again, which was so nice. I feel I've been missing out on time with the children lately and it was fun to just go crazy and dance around like a maniac with them. We set up the dance cause tomorrow the two australian girls who have been here for 3 weeks now are leaving. The boys were all showing off and pulled out some of their hidden talents doing all kinds of flips and break dancing. We do have some amazing children here. I'll miss the Aussi girls, but luckily I'll still have the kids.

Dec 5th

^{Goodbye dinner}

A few volunteers have come and gone while I’ve been here, but two of them (Jacqui and Kelsey) have been here with me almost the whole time and have become my close friends and constant support here. Tomorrow they are both leaving…it’s so sad to see them go and it will be a strange feeling to be in the village without them. They have been my right and left hand here and helped me out with anything I needed…and have done so with a smile on their face every day. I made dinner for everyone at John and Kathy’s house to say goodbye and see you soon, which was very much appreciated, it's nice to every now and then have a meal without rice :) I will see Jacqui soon again as we are spending the last weekend in Phnom Penh together before she goes back to Australia and I travel on to Thailand.

With so much to do and so many volunteers to take care of, the past few weeks have just flown by, and today I was reminded of the fact that I have less than two weeks left here. I'm feeling so lucky to meet all these people and get to share this experience with them. To exchange life stories, to learn about the opportunities life has to offer and constantly get to see the world and life from a different perspective.

Kathy, Kelsey and Nadja

In the kitchen preparing a typical Sara dinner...meaning you never really know what it's gonna taste like. Luckily this time it was a success with homemade pie and homemade brownies for desert.

Jacqui and Kelsey

Dec 4th

As life in the village has gone on for about a week with almost no internet connection, we have started to feel a little secluded from the world, haven't seen any news in quite some time now…but it's also nice to just be here and now and not worry about the rest of the world for a while. But I'm trying to catch up with the blog now as internet has decided to cooperate a little bit better the past two days.

Life in the village goes on and it keeps developing...we have a new music building and our first LIBRARY going up. We are really excited about having a library for the children, the first one in the whole village and probably the first one most these children have ever seen. They don’t have any books in school so this will really be a new and great experience for them. Many of the kids love to read and look in the books we have during class and now they will be able to do this in their own time as well. This will be a great addition to our educational program.

Library

Music building

The volunteers working with the children

Learning to write the letters

Dec 2nd

Talent

Just need to show off what some of our kids can create. Chivorn is one of our amazing drawers and spends time on Sundays (his day off) to create these beautiful pictures. This one has taken him almost 4 months to do...that's what I call patients.

Dec 1st

World AIDS Day

Today was our children’s day, and that was gonna be a day of fun. The whole day was dedicated to different games and activities that were put on by the older children and and the volunteers, and had the whole village involved. We were so lucky to get to take part in this great event. An event that reminded me of the fact that the children here are actually sick. An event that reminded me of how strong the thirst for life can be. An event that reminded me of the admiration I feel for these children. An event that reminded me of the inspiration that these small little hearts can bring you. Smiles and laughter is really the best cure for everything.

Nov 30th

Christmas Spirits

It is time to start getting into the Christmas spirit and for a couple of days I’ve had the volunteers working on Christmas decorations and crafts with the kids. So, today I cancelled all classes in the afternoon, brought out the big speakers and put on christmas music for the whole village. We went to all the clusters and decorated all the christmas trees with the children. They are so excited for Christmas and loved making all the decorations.

Nov 28th

The weekend

There were days when my weekend fun would usually include a nice dinner with friends, partying, a movie, shopping or just sleeping in and relaxing by the pool...Now my weekend fun are these beautiful children.

Rachel hanging out with the boys

Chamrouen and the boxing bag

Jacqui and the kids

Nimol and Khim...two trouble makers

The kids working in their gardens

Our Piggies

Biking around the village with Rith and Samut