A Day in the Life of a Cambodian Orphan Fund Volunteer. Part 1.

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Welcome to my daily routine...

I set my alarm for approximately 8:10am... unfortunately this is wishful thinking and my stinging eyes tend to slide open at around 5am. Occasionally Echo wakes us with a happy chirp...at other times I see through blurry vision the switched off air-con reading a temperature of 32 degrees. My mouth is as dry as a street dogs balls and I wildly sweep the tiled floor with my free hand for the water bottle. Still in dream world, I half wish that the water will be cool and refreshing... it is the temperature of a par-boiled potato and as refreshing as a pool-cue to the exposed jugular.

After some time of rolling around in my sheets (that have by this time been covered in sand by my hideous feet), I manage to find a position where resting is closer to reality than an absurd joke.


Sidetrack:

There's some girls that have just come into the internet cafe I'm in. They're all listening to music so loudly that I can barely think - they're completely oblivious to the seething people around them. An impressive skill really... but I'd still prefer their headphones to turn into boa constrictors. You get some strange people in here. The other night me and our Bermudan friend Johnny were listening to a upper middle-class sounding English girl talking incredibly loudly about poverty and how she can empathize with the situation here. Johnny works in a different orphanage to us (with many more kids) and sees the kids and parents throw litter into the river and on a huge pile next to the well. They also wash their clothes with damaging chemicals beside the well and then drink the heavily contaminated water. This is built in ignorance from generations of poverty stricken - devastated families. I'm sure the girl's been through comparable struggles, fair play to her.

I was also next to a guy earlier tonight...tall Russian guy with the look of a bond villain. He had a guitar next to him so I asked if there was anywhere in Cambodia he'd seen people selling guitars. He was happy to speak about it... I noticed he was playing chess on the internet. He told me he'd seen nothing in Cambodia but plenty in Bangkok. He then muttered something under his breath... I caught the words "...play now." I presumed he was talking more about his guitar. I started to speak again and he suddenly snapped and stamped his foot (whilst looking at the screen) and shouted "I said SORRY I HAVE TO PLAY NOW." Taken aback, I reacted with "Jeeeesus Christ." and left him to it. What he lacked in hair he clearly made up for in his charming and exuberant social interactions.

Bizarre stranger... if you're reading this - you should have moved the knight to E7. Your perfectly reasonable reactions to polite conversation clearly let you down on this occasion, I wish you the best of luck next time. Oh and you'll never make any friends if you keep dressing like a bad guy.

End of sidetrack.

So I manage to get some rest before waking up with the horrific sound of my alarm clock whining at me. Chris get up. Chris get up. I toy with the snooze button before realising it will cost me my cheese omelete sandwich breakfast if I press it more than once. Usually, I press it. Sometimes, I get up - these are the precious days that I get to eat before 12. Those are the moments you truly savor. Our guesthouse does a mean cheese omelete and is not to be missed if at all possible.

Me and Rich stare into space for awhile in the room until one of us lumbers into the toilet to get ready. We check the weather and see that it's at least 30 degrees and the sun is blazing, so we put sun cream on, get the bag ready (camera, first aid kit, ipod, any worksheets we're taking, bottles of water.) and head downstairs. We're then greeted by the very friendly & skilled staff at the Tanei guesthouse. We head outside and put our flip-flops on, as it is polite to leave footwear outside of the building. We pass the various statues of Buddha and arrive through the high metal gates onto the long road that leads to the orphanage.

The road is incredibly dusty and there are holes and rocks and litter everywhere. Just walking down the road in the intense heat drains your energy from you. There are moto's navigating their way through the pot-holes and endless Tuk-Tuk drivers trying to persuade you to take a lift with them. We see pushbikes carrying more than a car could and motorbikes carrying more than the contents of an Englishman's house. These are all pretty normal sites for us now, so we barely blink....I'm still yet to see the pigs though...

The dogs are the most fun part. Waking, hungry, dogs scour the streets during the morning. We see them eating out of trash-cans and licking at the endless variety of crushed rodents and lizards that scatter the roads. The best we've seen is a rat about the size of a football completely flattened in the middle of the road... it could have probably taken one of the vampire dogs for a fine seafood dinner, should it have wanted to.

End of part 1 (because it's 12:45 and I have to sleep)

I'll hopefully have time to write Part 2 tomorrow.

Take care,

Chris.

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