For more information on New Hope for Cambodian Children take a look at the website, and also my video channel for a taste of NHCC life.

Website: http://www.newhopeforcambodianchildren.com/index.html
Videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/fionabrown1234?feature=mhee

Going home or leaving home?

So my time here in Cambodia is at an end, and in just a few hours time I will step on the plane to go home once more: going to one home but leaving another. Over the 4 years I have been involved in NHCC this place has had such a huge impact on me. I have lived with 258 children for the last 4 months, and it hasn’t always been easy, but I have had the greatest time. From sunrise to sunset I am greeted by hugs, smiles, kisses and waves- everywhere I go there is someone who is happy to see me. There are a few children in particular who I am devastated to leave behind, especially when I see the look on their faces when I tell them I am going, but one day I will be back..... one day....

Sokchan: One of the first children I ever met back in 2007- it broke my heart to leave him after that year, and this time is no different. 

I love this photo with some of the boys, especially Utdom, who I have my left arm round. One of the nicest children I have ever met.

Nursery and Pre-School

One of my classes. There was a definite love/ hate relationship at times, but in the end we had a ball!

Boeun and Seiha.... another two great boys who I met for the first time this year, and have provided comedy solidly for the last 4 months.

NYE 2011

After Christmas it was time for a well earned break so we headed down to paradise aka the beach in Cambodia for New Year. It was a great few days soaking up the sun and sailing round the coast. On New Year’s Eve there was a huge Cambodian festival on the beach with about 80,000 people there, so the atmosphere was buzzing. There are bars and restaurants the whole way along the beach, so on NYE everyone was down there having a great time and letting off a LOT of fireworks. At midnight I was in a bar on one end of the beach, and looking down the beach and seeing all the fireworks flying out into the sea was a pretty special sight: for many reasons a new year that I will remember for a long long time......

The view at the door of our hotel room......

Megan and I reunited once more

Definitely doesn't do it justice, but just a taste of the beach at night .....

Christmas

It seems like such a long time ago now, but Christmas was great. Woke up at 5 in Phnom Penh with Megan, had a little dance to some Christmas songs as we dressed in our elf costumes, then it was off to meet Santa. We were quite a sight on the roads as we drove on the hour and a half journey out to the village: a bright red jeep being driven by Santa with his two elves in the back throwing out sweets! The children went crazy when we drove in, shouting and screaming and were so excited about the stockings. The giving out took about an hour, and much to my relief there was not a single child left out- job well done!! The rest of the day was taken up with playing with new toys, testing out new roller skates rounded off with a big Christmas disco in the evening. Here are a few of my favourite pics....

Starting my elfing duties

Boromey getting very excited about his new bike from Santa!

Dara getting her christmas present

Megan with the boys playing with their new action men

I decided that before I left, I wanted to get on one of these topiary birds, and what better day than Christmas day!!

Probably my favourite picture from the whole time I have been here. Sharing a joke with little Chris.

And you thought your Christmas shopping was taking a long time .......

I can’t believe how close it is to Christmas. It is a bit hard to get in the Christmas spirit when it is 30 degrees outside... doesn’t seem right not to be freezing cold. Christmas is very much celebrated in the village though, and the children have been getting excited for months about the big day. Generally, as a Buddhist country, Cambodia doesn’t celebrate Christmas, but John and Kathy’s American roots mean that our children all get a visit from Santa on Christmas day. This means that Santa’s elves have been busy for weeks preparing stockings for EVERY child. That means individually labelling and packing about 270 stockings and making sure and double sure that there are none missing. The children all got three wishes for their stockings, so they all have one main present (generous donations have meant that the older children are getting MP3 and DVD players!) and an array of smaller presents. It has been a military operation, working in a house with the curtains drawn and windows locked to avoid peeping eyes. The other day I saw one of the boys peering through a crack in the curtains, eyes wide as saucers, but I managed to whip the curtain shut before his friends got a look. Popular presents this year are remote control cars and teddy bears- I am sure some of the teddies are bigger than the children! Two of the boys asked for roller skates so I can’t wait to see them trying them out. On Christmas day I shall be dusting off my old elf suit from 4 years ago and helping Santa to hand out the presents. John said it took over 2 hours to give everything out last year because everyone had to have their picture taken with Santa. I shall upload some pictures after the big day as I am sure I will be taking loads, but until then here are a couple of pictures of elf HQ.

This is one side of the room- all the stockings are colour coded according to which colour house the children live in- so here we have blue, white, orange, green and boy's yellow.......

.... and this is the other side of the room, where we have purple, girl's yellow and red. You can just see some of the cars poking out.

Christmas Baby

A couple of days ago one of the staff in the village (who, four years ago, was one of the NHCC children who I knew really well) went into labour and after a quick dash to the hospital in Phnom Penh gave birth to a baby boy. I had been having discussions with her and her husband about names, and they wanted me to give him a foreign name, but I didn’t feel right naming their baby for them, so I said that I would write down every boys name I could think of and they could say yes or no. After much shortlisting, the four favourite names were David, Henry, Julian and Jerry (yes, I had been thinking of Tom and Jerry). I got a phone call from the hospital just after he was born and they had decided to call him Julian, so I can sort of say that I named a baby (though just for the record it is not a name that I would have picked, but I have grown to quite like it now!) I got to see him when he was two days old, making him both the youngest and the smallest baby I have ever seen and here he is.........

Football's Coming Home

Of an evening there will be many children running around playing on the village football or ‘soccer’ pitch (as I am instructed to call it). I did join in once but unfortunately took one kick of the ball and broke my toenail in half, which has been enough to put me off ever since. Anyway the other week we were challenged to take our football to the next level as we were invited to play in a tournament against a number of international schools in Phnom Penh.  We took four teams, and for a lot of them it was the first time they had ever worn trainers, let alone played any sort of competitive sport so they were all very excited. We entered teams in the under 13 and the under 16 categories, and while the younger children looked vaguely the same age as their international counterparts, the same could not be said for the older children. Cambodian children in general are pretty small, and our children, having had various health challenges are generally even smaller than that so they were dwarfed by some of the other players. While the other three teams put up a valiant fight, and had a great time, it was our team of young boys who were the stars of the day. I was amazed at how good they were, and it bodes well that our children aren’t scared of pain as they were well and truly throwing themselves in. After some great play, the boys made it to the final, and were hugely excited about the prospect of winning the huge trophy they had seen on the display table. The final was very tense, with so many close goals but in the end it ended 0-0, even after extra time leaving no option but penalties. After a quick explanation of what penalties were (!), our goalkeeper stepped up and the shootout began. It was tense... both teams missed..... then both teams scored, then our boys pulled it out of the bag scoring all of their next penalties, and saving all the other teams. CHAMPIONS, and in my soppy state I might have even shed a tear. The trophy was ours, and to celebrate we all went for pizza, coke and ice cream while the children planned where to display our first ever trophy. All in all great day and really nice to see the children getting involved in something where it is not about them being orphans, or having HIV, but just being a group of children playing against other groups of children and having a great time. 

The teams celebrating their win.

Utdom showing off his skills on the pitch... note the inappropriate advertising in the background!

Sokcheat and his opponent going for the ball.

Svat saving goals left right and centre in the penalty shootout in the final.

Celebrating in the Pizza Company afterwards- trying to master how to use a knife and fork!