Honour Village, Cambodia

Nothing has the ability to change your life the way that a child can. While I do not have children of my own, I love children, with my entire heart, and I have a deep sense of obligation to be an aid to children, wherever possible. Children have the capacity to teach us more than we could understand on our own, and the ability to show us the deepest corners of our hearts, and the compassion within them; above anything else.

Today we visited an orphanage here in Siem Reap. This place was called Honour village. It was set up by a woman from the UK, who opened her heart, her wallet and her life to Cambodian children. Her story began as a donor of funds to orphanages who were exploiting children for personal gain, unbeknownst to her and other donors. They were taking her money, and she never heard another word about the children, or her donations. She appealed to the government of Cambodia, and to my surprise, they made reparations to her, in the form of a land donation, on the condition that she would use it to do something good. And she sure has made good on her end of the bargain! The orphanage has been open for just over 8 months. This particular orphanage houses 36 children currently, with the ability to house 40, but not more than that. This place is unique in a couple of ways. The children here at Honour Village, are not up for adoption. Instead, trust funds have been set up, by numerous donors, in order for the children to attend college later in life. Also, they do not need to leave here by a particular time in their life, really. They may stay until they need to. 

The ages of the children range from 4 months, to 15 years old. There backgrounds are varied, but the main thing they share in common is a need to be there. These are some of the luckiest children in Siem Reap. There is a lot of love here at the orphanage, you can just feel it. They have various volunteers from all over the world who come here and donate their time to educate not only the children living here, but the children who populate the surrounding village area and also the adults as well. They offer education of everyone on a daily basis. The people who come here to help donate their time and love to these children, and more help is always needed. The children here are so loving, affectionate, and genuinely happy. They all possess the incredible ability to overcome the various backgrounds which have led them here to their new, extended family. We decided to go and pay the orphans a visit, and bring them some toys; the smallest of gestures, but something to let them know that we love them, and that they were in our hearts.

 

When we got there all the kids were having nap time, except for a few who were up, and were waving when we arrived. After nap time, they all got a nice treat when one of the new teachers brought out some lollipops. After they were mostly through with their treat, the toys that we brought (including: a volleyball, soccer balls, skipping ropes, pens, paper, pencils, puzzles, legos, and hula hoops among other things) came out and were played with for hours and hours. I gave my camera away to a sweet girl who then went on to take over 350 photographs, some of which were pretty amazing. I hope she will become a photographer someday. Ryan had a great idea, that people should create some way to donate and send photography equipment, and equipment to print photos for the kids. It is an amazing self-expression tool, and actually many of the kids are quite good at it/very artistic. I enjoy handing my camera over to a child and seeing what happens. Here is some of what she got.

Here she is skipping rope

one of her artistic shots

There she is, the budding photographer. She was very sweet too.

 There were so many smiles, so much laughter, and so much curiosity within all of the kids, and all of the adults. There were two babies, both of whom I fell in love with instantly and tended to most of the time I was there.

This little sweetheart was one of a pair of siblings whos mother actually works at the orphanage. They are the two fortunate enough to have a mother, and one kind enough to share he love with others.

 The playing, laughing, sharing and fun went on for hours, and it was a blast to get to know these kids and to be able to let them know that adults out there who don't know them, love them, and want to see them be happy and successful.

One of the funniest stories was of two of the kids, pictured below... and how they had recently gotten in to the craft room, tore the place apart (I saw the aftermath) and got in to the paint, and followed by painting themselves blue. They were reportedly blue like smurfs. I wish I could have seen this in person. 

smurf rascal one

 

 After hours of playing with the kids, it was eventually time to leave. We said our thank yous and our goodbyes, and we were on our way. Visiting was a small thing to do, and I wish that I could be more helpful. 

A couple of days ago, Tuyet and I went to the Angkor Children's Hospital and donated blood. This hospital in particular was set up by a Japanese photographer who witnessed the death of a little girl, simply because she could not afford to get healthcare. The Hospital treats the children here in Siem Reap free of charge. The man who checked us in said that during the wet season especially (which is now) Dengue Fever is prevalent, and the blood is needed to treat children that have been affected by this disease. One of the babies at the orphanage recently contracted Dengue Fever and Tuberculosis, so it hit home a little more to hear that and hold the baby for a while. Donating blood was the least that we could do, and I hope it helps.. Please do this if you can, wherever you live..

Without becoming preachy, it is my hope that I may continue to help support various organizations similar to this one, and in doing so, I may help and inspire others to 1) do the same, and 2) realize how amazing they have it in life, and to decide not to take their lives for granted (and not sweat the small stuff or complain so much). Instead, perhaps they will feel inspired to give a piece of their heart/and/or some of their time to someone who needs it more. After all, at the base of everything, love is what everyone needs.

Until next time!

xoxo

Hello, it's me again! It has been some time since my last post. I suppose as I become more and more used to being here, and used to the experiences I have, I imagine you will all become bored of reading about them, or bored of looking at the photos. So, I am sitting down and forcing myself to blog today. Since the last blog, we eventually left Chiang Mai, and headed up to Chiang Khong, to the Thai / Laos border.

Looking over the Mekong at Laos, we boarded a boat from Chiang Khong

We made it over to Huay Xai, the border town of Laos, and settled in. It was in our plans to take the trip from this border town down the Mekong river, on a two day journey aboard the "slow boat". I had been advised to do this trip by another person who had, as well as by books, and fellow travelers. The other option was to take a bus, as the locals do. 

Here I go down the river on the slow boat

The journey on the boat was well, slow. The boat was PACKED, so full they had to turn some of the locals away, including one man who boarded with some chickens in a box. Sorry man! The boat takes a leisurely pace down the Mekong, and stops at villages here and there to either let locals on, or off the boat. Some of the villages are only accessible by the river, and it is obvious that the Mekong plays a large part in their lives. They rely on it for food. The first day's journey took about 6 hours, before stopping in Pak Beng for the night. When we got in to Pak Beng, it didn't take long before it started to pour rain. It rained all through the night, and most of the following day, which made the second day boat journey a little rougher than the first, considering it would be 9 hours this time.

This little lady liked to play hide and seek with us, especially Ryan. He ended up giving her a fan that he had, which made her smile so big!

After our second day on the Mekong, we arrived in Luang Prabang, Laos. This was such a quaint and cute town in northern Laos. Known for French architecture, including cobblestone streets and French influenced cuisine, it is a really fun and romantic old city. 

We got a really nice guesthouse on our second day here and did things like ride bicycles through the town, visit the Pak Ou caves, and enjoy the night market which was there each night. It also rained harder than I remember ever seeing for at least 2 or 3 days solid. We spend a lot of time experiencing blackouts, which were caused by landslides, and in our case a fallen tree.

We spent a total of 5 days here in Luang Prabang. We frequented a few places, actually beginning to make some friends, which made it a little harder to leave there. We had a couple of weeks to play with, allowing only a specific amount of time to spend in each place, until we were to leave for Cambodia to meet up with Ken and Tuyet. So, we reluctantly had to leave Luang Prabang, and we headed for Vangvieng, where we were looking forward to tubing down the river, weather permitting.

On the journey from Luang Prabang, to Vangvieng, we took a bus on Highway 13, which took us through lush green mountains, with views of valleys full of mist and rain that went on for days. Scattered throughout the mountains were modest villages full of happy half naked children, who wore no shoes, and many young children who were put to work doing chores such as carrying water from the provided watering center to their houses. The reality that these kids face daily is nothing that most children in my home country have to face. You don't see most children here in Laos or Cambodia living carefree lives, with nothing to worry about. Instead, you see them working, and working hard, all day, or pitching in to gather, collect, or transfer goods to and from villages. Most of them are dirty, have no clothes, no shoes, and sometimes, don't even have any parents. It is something that can make you really sad, or something you have to come to terms with in order to deal with it.
The kids here are adorable. 

We made it to Vangvieng, but the rain just would not let up. Instead it started to rain harder, and continued on through the night. We had hoped that we would arrive, stay the night, and then go tubing in the morning. This was not in the cards. Tubing consists of renting a large inner tube and setting off down the river upstream so you drift for a long time. The main attraction here is the bars, and the free booze. This wasn't what I was looking forward to, since I'm not really a drinker. I was looking more forward to having a fun time on the river. In the rainy season, however, this is a bit tricky. Because of the rain, the river was more swollen than ever, and thus, quicker, and not really safe at all.
We decided that our safety was much more important than going down a river, and the multiple people I saw with various injuries like; sprained ankles, taped up feet, people with crutches and mysterious tape on their legs and feet, indicated that this was the right decision to make. 
Vangvieng was not without incident for us, however. Vangvieng is known as somewhat of a party town, and here, you can find many items on the menu, guaranteed to make you "happy". As you can imagine, this indicates something other than just a natural state of mind. What "happy" menu items entail is, well, drugs. Well, we ordered a "happy" shake, thinking it would just contain weed (we actually asked ahead of time)... but, I think it had more to it than met the eye. I noticed that I felt high right away. My friend on the other hand, didn't notice it for a while, but when it hit, it hit like a bitch. My friend kept telling me he was dying. Now, I have been high before, and I know what to expect, only, we weren't one hundred percent sure just what it was that was in this shake, so, we were experiencing multiple symptoms. I had no hallucinations, I just felt like I was on weed, however, I couldn't really sleep, and I felt like a bus ran me over the following day.. That's not weed. It actually took us about 3 days to get over this whole thing and feel back to normal again.
We stayed in Vangvieng for 2 days and left the 3rd day in the morning, heading for Vientiane, the Capital city of Laos.

We arrived in Vientiane, and we stayed here for 3 nights. I thought that Vientiane was alright, but the most notable thing about this city was the orphans. It was really hard to see them, dirty, shoeless, and begging, day in and day out. There was a small pack of them who stuck together in the main part of the city, and there were about 5 of them. They all looked younger than 8. I figured that they must be taken care of by some adults here and there, but I am not really sure. One encounter that we had which stayed with me, that made me almost lose it, was when we were inside an eating establishment, similar to KFC. A few of the kids came inside the place. They are obviously not really welcome here, as someone was instantly up near them shooing them away. The kids walked up to the counter, and actually pulled out a wad of cash, which I assume they worked all the tourists and locals for to get. They pointed at something on the menu on the counter, and instead of serving the kids, they got kicked out. While they were getting kicked out, the main kid started to scream angrily at them as they were nearing the door, and once outside, they threw things at the door that they had near or on them, to show their anger. This enraged me and I actually asked the people working there, just why they couldn't buy food, when they had the money. I never got an answer. They didn't even understand what I was asking them, really. This is the main difference between countries outside of what I am used to, the U.S. At home, money talks; if you have money, you can buy something, no matter how dirty, smelly or gross you are. Here, little homeless kids, with money, cannot even eat, because they are looked at as a nuisance. Seeing this was really hard for me. It is through no fault of these kids own that they have to beg and follow people around daily for something to eat. All I wanted to do was help them. With a heavy heart, I called it a night.


We left Laos the following morning, and boarded a plane, headed for Seim Reap, Cambodia. 

If you haven't already seen my Wat-Fest 2011 album on Facebook, go check it out. I will be posting again sometime soon!


Until next time!
xoxo