Little did we know how into the country it was.
Our driver had no idea how to get to the orphanage which was pretty apparent when he pulled off the road twice in the first 5 minutes to call someone. We got lost multiple times and luckily found a couple from the Netherlands down here volunteering out in the country to direct us the right way.
It is amazing how much Cambodians depend on NGO's and volunteerism. We have met so many people here for months at a time volunteering and there are hundreds of wells in remote villages just because people have reached out with the clean water initiative. Sometimes I'm skeptical about where "18 cents to support a child" or "donate here for the poor people in...." all goes to but now I know. Cambodia is so much healthier and more educated because of volunteers and NGO's.
Anyways, we finally got to the orphanage and it wasn't half bad. The man that gave us the tour was the guy that started the orphanage/school three years ago, completely on his own. He was 21 when he started it and funded it by himself the first year before he started getting funding and volunteers from abroad, mostly from Australia and the Netherlands. Now he runs it with his family and has volunteers as the teachers.
There were kids in classrooms age 4-23 that were learning English, Japanese and Chinese. When we walked by the outdoor pavillion classrooms they would stand up and say, "Good afternoon, visitor." I met a little girl named Lisa (in the green shirt) who was tickled at the fact that I had a sister named Lisa too. We played frisbee with some of the kids but mostly just talked to them and let them practice their English with us. There are 665 kids that go to school there and Lord knows how many that are actually orphans.
At the end we each donated some money to the orphanage and I donated $10 so I got a t-shirt. I'm pretty stoked.
Here are some pictures of the day:
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