Khouy

Khouy is a tiny boy, with stick-thin, but not emaciated, arms and legs and a smooth, olive-brown face with the inscrutable expression of an old man.   He lives here in the New Futures Orphanage in the town of Takeo, 60k south of Phnom Penh, where we're currently doing some voluntary work.  He rarely makes eye-contact, or shows any emotion on his passive face, least of all a smile.   He rarely talks, and only occasionally plays with any of the other 51 children between the ages of 5 and 20 who live here.   If he does play with them, it's not long before he walks off, arms crossed across his chest, to continue a form of solo play of some kind - kicking a balloon, playing chess or dominoes against himself, or drawing pictures in the newly-tidied up art-room.   No-one knows his age, but they've guesstimated it as around 5-7 years old, even though physically he looks much smaller.   He was found, two years ago, wandering alone in the jungle nearby, with a huge distended belly, scavanging for food.   Somehow, the people who run the orphanage have learned that his mother had died, and that his father was 'crazy' - though we don't know in what way.   When found, the little boy had some kind of parasite in his stomach, and the Orphanage paid for him to go into hospital, where they managed to heal his physical illness at least.   Khouy (we've given him a false name, in line with the Orphanage's Child Protection Policy) does play occasionally though, albeit in a very serious way, with the many volunteers who come here to help out - certainly he beat me at chess and dominoes a couple of times, but showed no sense of joy or pleasure when winning, or disappontment on losing.   (Actually, most of the children are whizz-kids at chess - in fact, one 8-year-old girl whom Andy was playing, so took pity on his efforts that, towards the end of the game, she was giving him back pieces that she had taken earlier!!).   Today, however, Andy managed to make Khouy smile and even giggle when the two of them played a kind of hide-and-seek game whilst batting a balloon between the two of them.   Khouy hates it when other children try to muscle in on anything he's doing one-to-one with an adult volunteer, and Andy was at pains to play this game with Khouy away from where the majority of the children were playing hakky-sak or volley-ball in the sandy playground.

To watch Khouy for any length of time could easily break your heart - but I have to say that he is certainly not typical of the chldren here in New Futures.   And the Orphanage itself is as far as can be from the Romanian horrors most of us probably think about now when we hear about orphanages in the developing world.   Just about all of the children here are sociable, confident, happy, playful, intelligent, quick-witted, mischievous and - thanks to New Futures - well-fed and well-educated.   Not all of them are parent-less - some have families, particularly single-parent families, who can just no longer afford or are too sick to feed or educate them themselves, or who have abused, neglected or rejected the children, or where new step-fathers won't acccept them.   In appropriate cases, the children are encouraged/supported to maintain contact with their families - weekly, monthly or yearly, depending on distances and circumstances, whilst living here.   Materially, socially and culturally speaking at least, the children here have a much better deal than most of the village children in the area.   They all get free education, have access to books, toys and games, as well as to vocational skills training (they have a hairdressing and beauty, and bicycle repair workshop here, as well as a library and art-room, and a small 'farm' with pigs, chickens and a fish-pond).   The children are also involved almost continuously with lots of adult volunteers from just about every country in the world  (390 altogether in the last two years), though the majority from England, and many receive individual sponsorship to go on to University on leaving here.   New Futures is a fantastic, ethical, caring organisation - check out their website - which is now run by a really good man originally from Nottingham, Neville O'Grady.  Neville was working at the original orphanage here as a volunteer two years ago when it ran into serious problems after the Cambodian manager at that time embezzled huge amounts of money from the organisation, and they were forced to leave the premises they were in at the time.   Garnering support from local families, local charities, and several international NGOs, Neville has re-located and re-founded the orphanage under the New Futures Organisation banner, and has also been successful in gaining funds from all over the world to open up several free village schools in the neighbourhood as well.   Working here is a real inspiration!   As well as lots of interaction with these amazing kids - playing games with them, helping them with their English or Maths homework, or talking to them about theirs and our lives and families - we've spent much of the week painting some metal bunk-bed frames which New Futures has recently been able to buy, much to the joy of the children who've been sleeping on mattresses on the floor until now.

Today, we've also helped out with Christmas preparations!   Apparently, they intend to celebrate Christmas Day here (which this predominantly Buddhist country is happy to enjoy anyway), by hosting a party for over 100 volunteers from a number of different countries, as well as some of the children's families and local people.   Shepherded by a volunteer from Norfolk, who is herself a cub-scout 'Akela', we've been making Santa Claus serviette holders with some of the children, after they'd they finished school and homework.   Before then, six of us volunteers (four from UK, 1 from Singapore, 1 from Holland) were taken by Tuk-tuk to one of the New Futures village primary schools about an hour away.   There, we were treated to beautiful renditions of 'London Bridge is Falling Down', 'Incey-Wincey Spider' and 'Row Row Row the Boat' by the 80+ children (there are usually double this number here, but today is a festival of some kind - all taught by ONE highly energised, amazingly motivated young male teacher who lives in their village - yet another inspiration in a truly inspiring week!),.  We were also invited to help out with pronunciation lessons on some English words which had been written on the once-black-now-grey-board at the front of the class.   Quite an amazing experience hearing 80+ 5-8 year-old children reciting our words in unison, each word preceded by a kind of clapping-game designed to keep both the rhythm and the children's attention to the task.   Utterly spell-binding and truly humbling!

Tomorrow (Thursday 18th) Andy and I will go with the Tuk-Tuk driver to the market, to buy some 50 kilo sacks of rice to leave behind.   One sack, which costs around $20, lasts for two or three days, and is an absolutely essential part of their 'food-security' here at the orphanage.   Neville has explained that, not surprisingly, many donors prefer to have their money spent on something more tangible and enduring (like the library, or the bunk-beds, or some toys), and yet the cost of providing food for the children is a constant necessity, getting the money for which is a full-time effort of his.   He tends to deal with the fund-raising and project-work nowadays, as he has a local Cambodian family (Bunsang, his wife and 2-year-old daughter)  living on-site and managing the orphanage day-to-day, with the help of two mature women kitchen workers/cooks, and one odd-job-man/farmer.

One thing we have noticed, though, is an almost complete lack of dolls of any kind, and we were wondeing about how the children will develop their nurturing skills.   This, we've learned, is a culutrally-bound issue:  it was explained that the village children locally would be expected, from the age of 3 upwards, to stay at home and be responsible for looking after the younger toddlers/babies whilst the parent are out in the fields all day.   As they have their own 'live' dolls to play with, there's just no culture of playing with toy dolls at all, and even when dolls have been brought into the orphanage previously, there has apparently been no interest whatever from any of the girls or boys in here.   Nevertheless, given the circumstances of the orphanage children, they have no problem with us trying again - so, if you, Cameron, Dylan, Lucca or Rui, know of any dolls you or your friends no longer want (particularly, but not only, if they have dark hair or olive skin), start collecting them up now!!   With your help, when we get back home, we can get them sent here for the children in the orphanage to play with......

Right, off to bed now.   Night, night all.

PS: Not having posted this yesterday after all, it's now the end of our final day here at New Futures Orphanage - and what a send-off we've had!   After collecting some bags of rice in the tuk-tuk this morning, we managed finally to finish and assemble 6 of the bunk-beds in the girls' dorm- to great celebrations by the lucky 6 and their friends.   Then, we were treated to a wonderful dance show by several of the children, who were practising one traditional 'Apsara' folk-dance, and one Michael-Jackson/pop-video-influenced routine put together by a young 12-year-old boy who desperately wants to be a professional dancer - and he's brilliant!   At dusk, just as we were leaving and the children were about to have dinner, Bunsang called all the children together for a 'photo-call', after which every single one of the children clamoured around us, hugging us, shaking our hands, wishing as "goo luck for you", and begging us to return some time soon.   Several of them gave us friendship bracelets which they had made, and then they all ran along the lane beside the tuk-tuk which was taking us back to our accommodation, shouting their goodbyes and good lucks until they could no longer keep up.   What a wonderful display of affection and love.   For any one of you looking for a really heart-warming volunteering opportunity, we can certainly recommend New Futures!




Village Primary School

 

'Miss'

Part of Welcoming Routine

Our Accommodation - Annex to Orphanage

Welcome to the Orhanage (by children and volunteers)

'Khouy'

Orphanage Football Team



'Pheewww!'



Us Two with the Children







Happy Faces at School - and Everywhere Else!





Farewell Photo-Call