Phnom Penh, Cambodia - end of first week
In the morning I lent my camera to one of the kids to take photos of "normal", everyday life at NFC. He did a great job! He took over 190 photos and many of they turned out very well. We transferred them over to one of NFC's PCs. The kids and I picked some out and inserted them into a Powerpoint presentation for NFC.
Today was one of the volunteers birthdays and he had kicked in some money for special food during lunch, so we had duck, fish and clams as well as rice, the stable food with every meal. Lunch was quite good!
I took a ride with the director out to the new area for NFC where 24 of the 80 children stay during the evening. It has become typical that nothing works out normally. The motorcycle we were riding quit three or four times during the ride and we were skirting thunderbolts near the end of the journey. We made it under cover just as the sky opened up and dumped a load of rain. The facility looked pretty nice. They're still finishing construction. It's supposed to be finished in July. I took photos as best I could in the pouring rain.
I stayed later in the evening both to finish up some work and because it was pouring rain. One of the kids takes it as his responsibility to make sure I eat with them. I really appreciate that! This evening dinner was interesting as the yard and area where we ate was covered with about 4" of water from the rain. The chairs are plastic, so I guess they've been through this a number of times before. The kids didn't seem to mind very much.
Later on I saw one of the kids with a flourescent light tube using it as a "light sabre". I guess I should have taken it as my responsibility to confiscate it from him, if for nothing else than my own safety. Sure enough, about 5-minutes later he hit something solid and it broke into a millions pieces. Some of the shards landed next to my feet. They quickly cleaned it up before anyone stepped on the pieces. Boys will be boys and I'll know better next time.
I'm still getting used to the fact that I can't just leave anything I working with around. There are kids at NFC from 2 and up and they just like to play with things, like CDs and memory sticks. I'm not worried about them taking anything other than to play with it.
The kids of all ages love the computers. It amazes me how much the younger ones know and how fast the older ones learn. I have one PC for me, the teacher, and I think kids 6-8 have watched my fingers and figured out the password.
At about 6:30 I sloshed out to the street through water as deep as 6" to take a motorcycle taxi back to where I'm staying. It costs a dollar for the 15-minute ride back there.
When I got back I went to a restaurant showing Spiderman III. I was lucky, the power only went out once while they were showing the DVD. Gee, it's amazing how fast things come out on DVD nowadays!
In the morning I lent my camera to one of the kids to take photos of "normal", everyday life at NFC. He did a great job! He took over 190 photos and many of they turned out very well. We transferred them over to one of NFC's PCs. The kids and I picked some out and inserted them into a Powerpoint presentation for NFC.
Today was one of the volunteers birthdays and he had kicked in some money for special food during lunch, so we had duck, fish and clams as well as rice, the stable food with every meal. Lunch was quite good!
I took a ride with the director out to the new area for NFC where 24 of the 80 children stay during the evening. It has become typical that nothing works out normally. The motorcycle we were riding quit three or four times during the ride and we were skirting thunderbolts near the end of the journey. We made it under cover just as the sky opened up and dumped a load of rain. The facility looked pretty nice. They're still finishing construction. It's supposed to be finished in July. I took photos as best I could in the pouring rain.
I stayed later in the evening both to finish up some work and because it was pouring rain. One of the kids takes it as his responsibility to make sure I eat with them. I really appreciate that! This evening dinner was interesting as the yard and area where we ate was covered with about 4" of water from the rain. The chairs are plastic, so I guess they've been through this a number of times before. The kids didn't seem to mind very much.
Later on I saw one of the kids with a flourescent light tube using it as a "light sabre". I guess I should have taken it as my responsibility to confiscate it from him, if for nothing else than my own safety. Sure enough, about 5-minutes later he hit something solid and it broke into a millions pieces. Some of the shards landed next to my feet. They quickly cleaned it up before anyone stepped on the pieces. Boys will be boys and I'll know better next time.
I'm still getting used to the fact that I can't just leave anything I working with around. There are kids at NFC from 2 and up and they just like to play with things, like CDs and memory sticks. I'm not worried about them taking anything other than to play with it.
The kids of all ages love the computers. It amazes me how much the younger ones know and how fast the older ones learn. I have one PC for me, the teacher, and I think kids 6-8 have watched my fingers and figured out the password.
At about 6:30 I sloshed out to the street through water as deep as 6" to take a motorcycle taxi back to where I'm staying. It costs a dollar for the 15-minute ride back there.
When I got back I went to a restaurant showing Spiderman III. I was lucky, the power only went out once while they were showing the DVD. Gee, it's amazing how fast things come out on DVD nowadays!
posted by Chris at 9:34 AM
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