Wednesday started out slow, due largely to the (undisclosed) amount of sleep we Y.A.M.s had the night before. But we knew it was going to be an important day, so we hauled our tired bodies out of bed and left for breakfast at 6:15 (ish). Much to everyone’s surprise, we went to a new restaurant for breakfast, the Stung Sen Restaurant, which served essentially the same food as the last restaurant, minus wifi and plus the company of a gaggle of hungry military personnel…
Though we were going to hand out school supplies in the morning and the afternoon, we still had a duty to help the people of Okroch with their fence, so we went there first. Not only did we help dig holes, today we learned how to fill in the holes after the cement had been poured in. This is where the majority of the group ended up (though some of us were still breaking rocks or digging holes). Thankfully, the morning weather was wonderfully cool and breezy, due largely in part to the light rain we experienced (which was, according to Esther, a miracle), and the continuing cloud coverage. As we were preparing to leave for the school, we realized that some of the children who were supposed to be in school had come to the site to be with us (“hee hee” was Joseph’s response). Later, we were able to give them the same supplies that their schoolmates received, but it was truly touching to see that they missed school to be with us and help us (or watch us and laugh at us) at the work site.
The school itself was fairly typical of those we had seen already in Cambodia; three long buildings forming the sides of a square, with an open clearing in the middle. We had prepared boxes with an assortment of school supplies for each grade (the same school supplies that our fellow church members had so graciously donated back in the states) and came prepared for grades one through six. Unfortunately, we found out later that there was also a kindergarten class, however as we were unprepared for them, we had little choice. The other classes were very polite and orderly as we handed out the supplies (though some looked like they were bursting at the seams to see what they had received), and we had special packages for the teachers as well. It was so wonderful to see all of those young children in school, even when the classes were so full (one grade topped off at 77 kids) and they were sitting 6 to a bench. Despite this they all still came to learn (and not just because we were there; they had not even been told, it was all a surprise). After another lunch of peanut butter and (strawberry) jelly on the bus, we headed out with crafts in hand. Whole we brought back the sticky foam shapes, we also brought with us embroidery thread and colorful glass beads. The whole group seemed to enjoy stringing the shiny beads onto the thread, and we even got some of the older kids and the adults to join in. After the beads had been exhausted and the girls had practiced their dances one more time, the kids started up another round of the famed circle game, which by then had become a group favorite. After that we played an interesting version of duck duck goose, only without any head tapping and with a small measure of violence. Much like duck duck goose, the kids crouched in a circle while a scarf was twisted into a spiral resembling a dog toy. Then one kid (the scarf tucked clandestinely behind his back) proceeded to walk carefully around the circle as the group chanted. As he passed by his mark, he discreetly dropped the scarf so that the next kid over did not realize it had been dropped, and as the first kid picked it up he started hitting the kid to his right with it, not stopping until the other had run around the circle and gotten back to his spot.
Clearly there were no losers in this version, only moderately sore backs. Alarming as it sounds, the game was a lot of fun, more so for those watching each kid run to escape the whip of the scarf. One of the children’s favorite things to do was to drop the scarf to the left of a Y.A.M. and laugh while some kid chased around another twice his size. Many laughs were had (and a couple ‘hee hee’s), but soon we had to go back to the school to visit the three remaining afternoon classes. Finally, we were ready to go back to the hotel, tired after a busy day of work and fun.
Back at the hotel, things still needed to get done. Despite several headaches and interrupted naps (leaving no rest for the weary), we still had to sort out the T-shirts for Thursday, put them in the bags with the silly bands, put candy in the bags, and then label them by size. Though we had everyone working in Gillian’s room, the entire operation still took a good hour and a half, if not more. By the time we went to dinner at the Stung Sen (with food eerily similar to that at the other restaurants) the mood had become more subdued compared to the energy of the morning, not aided by Nicole’s minor allergic reaction to a potential peanut contamination. With full bellies and tired eyes we made it back to the hotel, and shortly after to our beds, exhausted from what had been yet another busy, exciting, and most of all fun day.
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