Farewell to NFO ...

... and to Takeo town, where we've had yet another really busy, enjoyable and productive week since arriving back from our break in Sihanoukville.

Having finished the fence project, we've been working on two other projects over the past week or so. Andy has been making and varnishing new table-tops for 8 of the classroom/dining room tables, most of which were falling apart.

Guess Who's Gone Back to School?

He's been assisted by a number of volunteers, but particularly by Roy, a 24-year-old Yorkshire lad whose obsession with his mainly 60s classic rock music collection is on a par with Andy's music collection obsession - and whose fear of anything creepy crawlie, including geckos, has given us all many laughs at his expense, poor thing. But best of all was on Friday morning, when Andy was working with a long piece of hollow tubular steel, out of which, just at the point when Andy reached where Roy was working, jumped the largest gecko any of us has seen so far! Roy's shriek echoed all around the orphanage, and kept everyone - volunteers and kids - in absolute stitches for several minutes. Sorry, Roy!


Finished!!


I, meanwhile, have been working with some other volunteers on a project led by James and Anna - a mid-to-late 20s couple, he an Aussie carpenter and cabinet-maker, she a Londoner, now living together in Clapham - making and painting large metal-and-wooden gates for the playground adjacent to the orphanage. As with the earlier fence-building project, it's been all the more satisfying that Andy has been able to accompany Bun Seng by tuk-tuk to pay for all or most of the materials for both of these projects from the money donated by some of you, including the 6 Bells Folk 'n' Blues Club.

This past week, it's also been interesting to watch the children's response to Bun Seng's new-born daughter (only 9 days old by the time we left yesterday). Most of them were absolutely astonished at the sight of such a small baby, and all of them gathered round mother (Srei Pov) and daughter (the baby with no name*) every time they made an appearance, looking on in absolutely hushed reverence and awe. I did try to make use of this happy event as part of one of our English classes last week, attempting to elicit vocabulary related to 'baby equipment' and any rituals surrounding a birth and any celebrations or naming ceremonies. This drew almost a complete blank, however: not one of the teenage boys or girls could think of a single baby-specific item or term, even though many have younger siblings, and none knew anything about naming or Buddhist ceremonies.

Bun Seng and Baby With No Name

Baby With Three-Year Old Big Sister Srei Pov

(*I had learned from Bun Seng, however, that most babies only get given a name by their own family when it is a month old - though a 'temporary' name might be given either by hospital staff when, as in Srei Pov's case, a woman who's given birth in hospital is discharged, or, in a very religious family, by a Buddhist monk from the local pagoda. Bun Seng's English was not up to explaining the reasons for this one-month deferral - though he did say the naming ceremony is usually marked by the lighting of a small bonfire by the family, to smoke out evil spirits from the home, and that in some more traditional families, but not his, the paternal grandfather has the right to decide the baby's name. I can't help wondering if this one- month delay is related in any way to the infant mortality rates here, which I understand to be fairly high - not that I have the statistics to hand.

Despite my failed attempts in the English class, we have, however, made some real progress in our French class, with 2 of the girls, Pu-thy and Vishara, coming back from their school on Wednesday proudly announcing how amazed their teacher was that they could already count to 100 in French, respond correctly to "comment t'appele tu?", and name the months of the year and days of the week. Just hope this early success doesn't make the girls too unpopular with their classmates! The girls are both 13 years old, and Pu-thy in particular has really latched onto me as a kind of surrogate grandmother figure in these last 10 days, barely leaving my side for a moment, draping herself hotly all over my sweaty body and paint-covered clothes and hands at every opportunity, and welling up with tears every time somebody comments about our imminent departure.

Pu-thy is a sensible but sensitive girl, unusually tall and mature for her age (most of the other children here look a good 5 years younger and smaller than their actual years) and I imagine that, since she's thereby a lot less 'cute' than some of the others, she's perhaps not received as much attention from volunteers as some of the other children have. Thankfully, one or two of the volunteers who've recognised this possibility, particularly Sarah and Jo (thanks to you both), have agreed to pay her a bit more attention after our departure, to help cheer her up. That's certainly made me feel a lot better. It was hard enough, as it was, for us to say our goodbyes yesterday afternoon to all of the children - many of whom had once again made us each several 'friendship bracelets', and most of whom came running out of the gate and down the track shouting their goodbyes and "goo luck for you"s until we were well out of earshot (though we were distressed to see that, at this point, Pu-thy purloined a push-bike from one of the smaller girls, and started to pedal down the road towards us until we finally persuaded her to go back to the orphanage!).

On our last evening at the volunteer centre on Friday, James and Anna took the initiative once again - this time by organising a brilliant farewell barbecue party at the volunteer centre. Anna had gone out early in the morning to the local market, accompanied by two of the centre's Cambodian staff, who helped her to buy shed-loads of fresh prawns, several whole fish, heaps of pork, chicken, salads, etc. She then spent a good part of the day (apart from adding the finishing touches to the gates) assisted by some of the others, preparing marinades, dips, salad dressings, kebabs, etc. In the evening, James, as a good Aussie man obviously to the manor born, set about taking charge of the barbequing itself, 'christening' the centre's recently-made oil-drum barbecue in a truly spectacular fashion, whilst the rest of us moved tables and benches outdoors, drank beer and, later, danced to the music which Roy had provided - what a fabulous send-off!

(Oh, and James and Anna have manage to go one better than the strangely translsted menu we'd seen in Pursat. Whilst they were in Malaysia recently, they'd found a dish which was translated not as a Cordon Blue recipe, but as Blue Condom! - cue your attempts now to top Andy's comment about it at least being safe eating.....!)

For the icing on the cake of our departure, we were treated to a journey back to Phnom Penh on Saturday morning (10 December) in the chauffeur-driven, top-of-the-range, gold-painted Lexus 4x4, of our glamorous guest-house owner, Sotheavy.

Earlier in the week, she'd very kindly invited us up to her penthouse suite in Sotheavy 1 guest-house for a coffee at the end of a day's work at the orphanage. She's an amazingly sociable, intelligent, and generous woman, with a whole wealth of experiences from her many years in the diplomatic service (her Czech husband, now working in the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was First Secretary to the Czech Ambassador to Beijing, and then Vietnam, both for many years). We'd sat in the plush sitting area of Sotheavy's pent-house gym swapping anecdotes and drinking coffee for an hour or so, before being taken downstairs to her living room where we toasted each other with several large glasses of Cointreau from her drinks cabinet (but, sadly, no Ferrero-Rocher, despite the Ambassadorial connections!), and later that evening had dinner with her in Sotheavy 2 guest-house, accompanied by her equally glamorous sister, and an American business acquaintance. So, when she learned of our trip back to Phnom Penh (from where we catch a boat down-river into Vietnam on Monday), she made us this very generous offer of accompanying her to Phnom Penh in her car. Beats the public bus any day!!

So, the Cambodian leg of our travels is all but over, and our next blog will come from the Mekong Delta in Vietnam. Our plan is to spend a few days exploring the Delta before moving on to Phu Quoc island in time for Christmas, and then to fly to Kuala Lumpur for the New Year celebrations. Bye for now, from us and them........