Wat Opot Orphanage - Part II

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Well I'm back home now. I arrived last Sunday 04 April. Sorry guys, I've been pretty slack with my blog. Since my return everyone has been asking about my trip and i tell them to refer to my blog but i havent even updated it...so from now i will try my best to update it daily..and give more details about my experiences.

So picking up from my last entry...

Day 2 at Wat Opot and i've learned so much and have fallen deeply in love with the children. There are around 70+ children here, the youngest at 7mths old and the oldest at 19. There are not only children that are here but families too. Wayne has set up little huts for the families to reside in. They cook their own meals and they also work around the orphanage to earn some income to still be able to provide for their family. It is impossible to know which child is HIV positive. They are all just normal kids. Around 24 or so children are HIV positive. The other kids are not HIV+ but have lost their parents to the disease and have no primary caregiver or they have been abandoned by existing family members because they do not want to have to deal with a sick child. Sad but its reality!!!

The kids that are HIV+ are taking the Antiretroviral (ARV) drug which suppresses the HIV virus and stop the progression of the disease allowing these children a chance to live a normal longer life. For more information on the ARV drug please visit this website:- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiretroviral_drug
There are different types or ARV dosages.. some kids take their medicines every morning at 7am and every evening at 7pm and they would need to do this for the rest of their lives. There are also some kids that only take the medication in the mornings.

On my first morning at Wat Opot I woke up to the Monks chanting their morning ritual. Wat Opot is located on Buddhist land which was donated to Wat Opot so the temple is right next door. And I also woke up to the sounds of the children awake and making their way to take their medicine, breakfast then off to school. A joyful sound indeed.

In regards to the Monks, they are in the process of fixing their home and temple so they are working constantly around the clock so they ask the community to give them food as they have no time to cook or go to the market. The food giving is rotated so each family is to give their share. This chant is repeated in the mornings, afternoons and evenings. It gets annoying but you get use to it.

So back to my first morning - I made my way to the hospice/medicine room to observe their morning routine. The english teacher Srey Aun distributes the medicine every morning at 7am Mon-Fri and Wayne does it on the weekends as Srey Aun goes to Uni. The little kids line up / sit down waiting for their turn. When their name is called they walk up with a cup of water and take their medicine with no complaints no hesitation. Some of the pills are huge and need to be crushed and some kids take 3 to 4 pills. Its amazing to see little 5 year olds scuff down these pills with no problem. Whereas here in Australia, I've seen some kids kicking and screaming when its medicine time and its becomes a wrestling match. The bigger kids just come in and take their medicine with no cue. After consuming their medicine they all get 2 mini snacks (chips and chocolate wafer biscuit) then they make their way to the kitchen / dining room for breakfast which is rice porridge with soy sauce.

Then the kids make their way to school. The primary school is just a short walk down the road. And the little ones have pre-school/kindergarten at Wat Opot. There normally is no pre-school or kindergarten in Cambodia. The first school years are in primary school which is about grade 1 or 2. However Wat Opot has opened up their own classroom to cater for the little ones. So the Wat Opot kids enter into primary school with an advanced knowledge compared to their fellow classmates. The Wat Opot school is not only for the Wat Opot children but also available for the whole community.

The Cambodian school system is very bad.. there is a huge shortage of teachers. The salary is extremely low..it equates to about USD$30.00 a month. And when a teacher becomes ill or pregnant there is no substitute so the children is out of school for the period that the teacher is away. So if the teacher is pregnant then class is out for 6months BUT the kids still graduate. Then majority of the time the child looses motivation and no longer returns at all.
So you can just imagine the level of education the kids get by the end of their schooling years ---- not much... Which means they are unable to meet the University entry requirements. BUT... if you have the money then you can.. Money talks over in Cambodia. Eg. Exam answers can be bought. You can be the smartest kid in class but if you got no money to pay the teacher for a pass mark then you get a big fat FAIL.
Again... Sad but its reality!!!

Srey Aun is the English Teacher at Wat Opot. She has 3 classes Mon-Fri... 0720am for the adults (about 10students) / 1700hrs for the little ones (20-25students) / 1830hrs the bigger kids (teenagers) (25-30students). There is no age range as the classes depends on your education level. So you could be 13years old and have a low education level and will be put into the little ones class. Or you could be 30years old, have a low education level and be put into the teenagers classes. But there is no age discrimation, HIV+ or not and no shame in which class you are put in as long as you are getting some form of education, thats the important key.

I visited the classes on a regular basis. For the little ones, I would help Srey Aun check their homework and sit with them in class and listen to their vocab. For the bigger kids, I also check their homework/assignments and listen into their vocab. I also did a voice recorder for verbs, irregular verbs etc.. to help them. So they can listen to a foreign voice and pick up the pronunciations. This has helped them incredibly. Outside the classroom I assisted Srey Aun with checking all the students work, doing voice recordings for her, doing homework sheets for the kids and helping her do up exam papers. I also sat with some of the kids and had conversations with them. I would teach/help them with their English whilst they would teach me Khmer.

Us volunteers also had Khmer lessons with Srey Aun. Its such an easy language to learn. I'm gonna continue with it. Problem is finding Cambodian's in Sydney that still speak the language. Oh and I love their writing.. it's like art. Imma get a tattoo with Cambodian writing !!!

I'll be back with Part III shortly !!!

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Photos

Inside the medicine room
Kids are lining up waiting to take their medicine.

Comments

[Linda]

Wanting to volunteer at Wat Opot orphanage
Hey there, My name is Linda, and I came across your blog on the internet. I am seeking to help out at an orphanage in Cambodia as I'll be there for all of June, as Wat Opot seems really good from what I've read from your posts. I was wondering do you have any contacts for me, for this orphanage as to how I go about volunteering there? I tried looking on their website, but I couldn't quite work out how do go about the volunteering. Thanks heaps! Linda

[mark]

Wat Opot auto repair school
hello how are doing? It's been awhile. alot of thing have been happening around here the biggest is we got funding to start a Auto repair and welding school i will be teaching it. A lady from Swiserland is giving 11,000.00 to fund it for 1 year this will by all the equipment, broken, metal and supplys and give 250.00 a month salery. any way now we could use a building to work in. if we have to we will use the craft room but that is very in enadequate not much room at all and no room for cars but we will make do. so what i am doing is writting all the vollenteers i can find emails for and asking there help to build a biulding. it will cost 7000.00 to build a building 10x 25 meters and 3 meters tall. i have never asked any one for any thing before and would not if it were for me. but for these kids i will do almost any thing like staying for the next 2 years to see that this porgram really off on the right footing. as you no a 3 of the kids are going to the university but alot will not go so they need to lrean a skill so when they leave here they can make aliving any thing you can do will be used in the best way. and make a real differance in the lives of the kids. thank you mark