Ma Doc Da

HOSPITAL
So the week 3rd-7th Feb, Gwen wasn't feeling so tip-top. Then eventually on Friday (7th) Romain, Denisa and the Doctors at Magna (amazing people) diagnosed her with dehydration and we were sent to hospital where after a quick belly poke they put her on a drip.
The hospital was lovely and clean and I had the most AMAZING cheese baguette. That night the Dr and Imma both came to visit and we were feeling very loved!  Imma took me to Lucky's where she bought us Crackers and Water (Gwens strict diet instructions from the Dr who gave the drip) then we settled down to sleep. (I had a campbed in the corner).
After this brief stint in hospital Gwen was thankfully feeling a lot lot better so she was discharged and we carried on our weekend. :D

Feeling Good

which consisted of...

HOTEL 9/ SATURDAY
We arrived at Hotel 9 mid afternoon and had a quick wifi session then went to the Boulevard to do some shopping. I forgot to bring a bikini and this hotel had a SWIMMING POOL- something we've been craving since we have got here. We also found a beautiful little clothes shop where Gwen purchased a few items to cheer herself up - and we will definately be going back here.
We ate tea at Top Banana then headed round to Score! Sports Bar and Grill to watch the Ireland v Wales match (Alison v Gwen). Ireland won!!! Although I can't rub it in too much since I don't have the first notion about rugby.

We got back to the Hotel about midnight and then went for a swim! (Which was amazing) Then slepppppt.

Midnight Swim at Hotel 9

On Sunday we met Imma for Lunch and she brought us to a fabulous cafe called Blue Pumpkin. Here you sit on a bigbig sofa and put a little table over your legs which you eat off. Amazing.

ACTIVITIES AT GH

We tried finger painting again as most of the older children were in a meeting and there was only a few of the well(ish) behaved little ones and Vannak to supervise. This time it worked a treat! (Until Danith started tipping the paint pots upside down.)

We organised a trip to a park in Phnom Penh, the two of us and 14 kids. What can go wrong? Turns out nothing did and we all had a fabulous time! We did run out of water though, but luckily Phearun dropped by on his way to the GH and saved the day. We then brought them across to Watt Phnom and we had a walk round there.
In the end there was 14 sleepy children and two very sleepy volunteers in the tuktuk home.

Thursday the 13th was spent doing valentines related activities. The children got a talk from Phearum about it while we were at the hospital in the morning then we did a craft with them in the afternoon.
We wanted there to be hearts so we came up with the idea of each child decorating a heart, putting it on string then hanging them all from a coat hanger so they'd all be together and be a decoration from the home. We sought out glue, stickers, feathers, pom-poms, pens, pencils - basically anything crafty and trouble free we could find. (e.g. no scissors). Had all the templates and string cut out before hand being ultra organised and heyheyhey another successful craft.

Today (friday the 14th) one of the girls brought us snake hunting. Gwen had her hiking boots and cap on in preparation for the trip, but lo and behold we went down the lane next to the house and peered in their garden to a shed where apparently there was a snake ( we never saw it.)

We also went down to the river this afternoon to witness a chinese celebration where men turned into monkeys and cut their toungues off. We missed it (by two hours) so we still don't quite grasp the concept. However we did have a lovely afternoon with the children and Phearum sitting by the river drinking cool icey drinks.

This week we found out that Doc Da means 'watch cartoons'. We have watched Despicable Me 3 times this week already.

Last Two Weeks

Wooooooahhhhhh, two weeks seems to FLY by here!!

Phnom Penh.

On the weekend 24th to 26th January we stayed in Phnom Penh. The Friday night was spent in the 'Blue Dog Guesthouse', the mattresses here were so thin that every spring could be felt through it however I strangely liked it as it felt like the mattress I had in summer up at the cottage. The second night was spent in the "Little Banana"in a cute little dorm room. It had 7 mattresses on the floor a bathroom and not much else, but for $4 a night what else would you expect? We really liked this place so will definitely be going back in the future. On the Friday night we had our usual pizza treat, eating at the Top Banana and here we met Tyler from Canada. The next morning we ate breakfast with Alice from England then all spent the day at the market and in a cafe together. Then at Little Banana we met Tim from Germany and Dennis from Russia, and it was these two we went to a rooftop party with in celebration of the Chinese new year. The party was good, the music a bit odd. It was a mix between cambodian remixes then suddenly changed to meditation music... but the view from the rooftop was pretty good. After we hung out with some Khmer people who Tim and Dennis knew, and very nearly got brought to a karaoke place (luckily it was full).

Playing Pool at the Little Banana

Gwen the Professional Pool Player

I also won quite a few cans of orange soda, here we are celebrating.

We also went to The National Museum with Antoine, who is interning with Magna. It was quite interesting, if you like statues of Buddas. Because there were a lot of statues of Buddas! Or Budda-like objects. The gardens were nice and there was a monk casually sitting beside the pond.  This is becoming normal for us now (gradually). Here we got our palms read for one dollar each. I was a bit apprehensive because i'm not sure about anything like that but after watching Gwen and Antoine (and seeing what a load of rubbish it is perhaps due to difficulties in communication) gave it a go. Basically, I might travel somewhere foreign (who knew!), I need not worry about money and in order for happiness I need to get married soon.

Front of the National Museum

Gwen, Antoine, Me

Big Budda. (Notice monk left hand side)

Going into Phnom Penh is definitely a good way to meet people and it's exciting to hear about other people's travels and where is good for us to go.




Swimming.

For the last few years, the Magna volunteers have been bringing Sothy, who is deaf-blind to a place called Hotel 252 to swim. This gives him the rare opportunity of getting out of the Group Home. We rang up the manager to try and get this started up again, however she informed us that two summer volunteers (not from Project Trust) had brought children but not Sothy, they had made quite a bit of noise, left balls lying around and generally made a racket - resulting in complaints from the residents of the hotel. They wrote to Magna but got no reply, we asked about but no-one seems to know of anything. We are currently looking for somewhere else to take us and have sent e-mails out, but so far no replies.

Debbie
We finally got to meet up with Debbie this past thursday, who works with Sothy on using sign language so he is able to communicate with his peers. We arrived just as breakfast was finishing and I got to eat TOAST with JAM and drink APPLE JUICE. Toast has never tasted so good.!
The first session was just mainly playing, next lesson more work to be done. I enjoyed going to Debbie's as it's a relaxing chance to get away, but also nice seeing Sothy being able to play without his toys being scrambled for by the other children.

English Classes
We are making slow but steady progress with English Classes. The first week went well, then the school timetable changed and its hard to know who's coming and who's going. The kids here only go to school for half the day and each month that swaps. So if you went in the morning you not go in the afternoon etc. But some of them changed and some of them didn't, slightly disrupting our carefully made timetable of who should be in class when....
Also, sometimes a few of the kids seem to nap when they should be in classes, so we may have to make it a later class.  We'll see how things turn out...

Teacher Gwen

Blue Lemons

Chinese New Year Party
On Thursday the 26th February we celebrated the Chinese New Year (Year of the Horse) at the Group Home with a partyyyyyy! First we watched cartoons for a while, then played games - blind mans bluff etc, then was a traditional dance show from the older Magna Kids and they were really good! We had a BBQ for tea then spicy curry and baguettes. Then was the time to give everyone a present.
Since we wern't here for Christmas they kids didn't have it but Magna had bought each child a teddy bear, our job was to create a big heap of them on the floor then each clid came up and picked one. And it went rather well :)  The children were so excited and it was so warming to watch the gratitude spread right across their faces! Then A LOT of dancing. There kids love to dance.  And Khmer dancing at that.  Which involves a lot of animal like movements and twirling of the hands...

Teddies for Everyone

Chinese New Year Celebrations in Takhmao

After seeing the dragon. We were all so excited there was no time for shoes!