Day 6
I feel like yesterday passed by way too quickly. We got to the orphanage and Lisa-Marie told us what we were doing that day, one group would start to build a pig pen, the other group would start de-lousing the kids. Once we gathered enough bricks, bought the rest, and made our own cement, my group headed over to the spot where a concrete pig pen would soon stand. It was a little hard for me at first to get the hang of adding enough wet cement and then putting the brick in place, but after some time, I still was terrible at it. So I went to the outside of the pen and began scraping up excess cement from the wall and putting it in a bucket. We let the cement dry while we played around with the kids and had some lunch, but then it was time to spread cement over the bricks. This job was, aswell, impossible for me to master, so I did my best until it was time for the next group to take their shift.
As we sat under the roof of the stage the now familiar pitter, patter began to sound on the metal. With in a minute it was pouring rain like it would never rain again. The wind nearly knocked me over, the lightning and thunder roared in the sky, and the rain completely flooded the ground under the stage. Everyone got out and played in the rain until finally we all heaved ourselves back onto the stage and played there until it was time to go.
Day 7
Today we moved on from the pig pen project, and onto the clothes lines. Never have I ever apreciated lawn mowers more than I do now. When I first learned we were cutting the grass I thought, "No problem." Then I learned it was without a mower, "It's all good." then I learned it was to the dirt and with a knife, "Oh."
Sweating like I've never sweat before we all got down on our hands and knees and began to cut the long grass right down to the root, clump by clump. With almost every other wad of grass I uprooted a new army of tiny fire ants would erupt from the ground, and they were ruthless. A few hours had gone by before we all finally stood up and looked at our work, and I could not be happier. What once was an overgrown, ant- infested field of grass was now just a square of dirt. We were allowed a break from the clothes lines, so we sat down and had lunch.
After eating we split up into two groups, one would work on the clothes lines more, the other would de-lice, then we would switch. I started off de-licing by finding out who hadn't gotten de-loused and who had. After asking around we found everyone who hadn't and set off to work. I de-loused a 15 year old boy named, Niron. Niron's quiet, but so sweet. When I went to go tell him that he was going to be de-loused I found him on the stage, reading the dictionary out-loud. I almost left so he could read but ended up calling him over anyway.
Ten minutes of shampooing lead us up to the well where Niron washed off his hair. Right as I was about to give him the conditioner, he took off at a sprint down the little hill. Thinking that he was trying to run away I chased after him all the way to his locker/cubby where he pulled out a long wire. I followed him back up to the well where he now started to mend the broken hinge attaching the rope to one of the buckets. Relieved that he hadn't tried to run away I poured him some conditioner, he rubbed it in and washed it out, then I picked out any lice or lice eggs with a comb.
Our groups switched and I started to plow the remaining dirt where the four new clothes lines stood. As I worked, Srey Tok ran over to me shouting, "Ava, Ava!" Except pronouncing the first "A" like an "e". She dug into her pocket and pulled out a green and pink braclet she made herself and tugged it onto my wrist. After plowing the dirt, picking out roots, and raking the ground, we finally finished our new clothes line.
I got back to the stage and it was almost time to go when 18 year old Rot ran over to me and handed me a shiny blue card that had something in Khmer written on the front, and, "I <3 U" written on the back, when he gave to me he said, "I love you my friend."
Drizzling rain and being squeezed by my new friend Niron, I was lucky enough to ride on the small triangular metal piece that connnects the tuk tuk to the bike because there was no room. As we ride away down the dirt street, I could still see the kids waving and chasing after us until we turned the corner and they disappeared. Riding down the bumby dirt road Lisa-Marie asked me how I was doing, I turned around to tell her I was fine when we were fortunate enough to hit a bump at that very moment. I first smacked the side of my head on the metal bar, and then we hit another bump a second later and I whacked the front of my head.
We usually get a lot of stares where ever we go in the tuk tuk, so you can imagine how many we got when people saw an American girl sitting in the wrong place on the tuk tuk.... We reached the Guest House, my head throbbing and my knuckles white from death-gripping the tuk tuk, Lisa-Marie told us that tonight we were getting an official, traditional Khmer massage, I thought I might pass-out with relief. Fully clothed and sore all over, Bret, Alex and I went into the massage room and were soon greated by our three massuesess. The massage was going great until Bret was told to go into the bathroom and change into some PJ shorts. He walked in and closed the door, but didn't switch the light switch that was on the outside, so one of the girls did it for him, he came out and I told him one of the girls had to turn on the lights for him. With his new shorts on Bret flung himself onto the bed, and landed his head right on the headboard. The smacking sound was louder and harder than you can ever imagine, I burst out laughing and nearly cried, the girls started giggling, I'm not sure if Alex knew what just happened, and Bret sat there groaning and laughing, it makes me cry I'm laughing so hard right now. The massage was great except for one part when my masseuse sat my up and cracked by whole back which hurt a whole lot but felt good at the same time.
I finally make my way to bed, where I fall asleep and dream about living at CPO with my family and all the kids...
"They always say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself." Andy Warhol
