Friday, January 23, 2009

"New Day" Loves Emily

"When is Emily coming back?" "How old are you?" "Where are you from?" The delivery of books to "A New Day Cambodia" about doubled the schools library. When the children understood that I was Emily's friend they really got excited. Davin, her dad who drove us, and I had a delightful time visiting the orphanage, a misnomer because it is more a boarding school. The children were charming and very interested in hearing about Emily. From the top floor of the school you can see the huge garbage dump where the children would be working as scavengers if it were not for New Day. The dump is scheduled to be closed sometime in the future which will make it difficult for the students to walk home for the weekend. New Day pays the parents the equivalent of what the students would earn it they were scavenging. They study English at New Day and also attend the local elementary school. The experience makes me hope that my teaching experience in Thailand will have such wonderful children.
After our visit to New Day we had lunch at the Friends International Restaurant which is combination training experience for orphans from Friends and also a money maker for the orphanage. I forgot the combination that Emily gave me, for whom to ask, etc., so we had to be satisfied from looking from the outside.
Tonight Davin is taking me out for the latest Cambodian experience.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh - what a wonderful journey you are having! Enjoying your updates. Looking forward to your teaching reports.
FYI - it is one degree above zero in Des Moines this morning. Are you happy to be warmer?

Anonymous said...

Charis and I ate at the PP "Friends" in May. Tasty! I bought the cookbook, but haven't made anything out of it yet. The Gullickson house isn't that amenable to Asian cuisine, unless it's American-Chinese...
Aren't kids the best?