End of English Camp Tomorrow

Kim gets chased by one of the orphans

I can't believe the end of English camp is tomorrow. The week has flown by! Yesterday we went to an orphanage where the short-termers and Khmer students played with the orphans.  We taught them the song "At a Time Like This" - a song that we have sung every time Daybreak has been to Cambodia.  The last time we sang the song in 2007 was at the top of Ankor Wat.

The orphans were so cute.  Orphans in Cambodia may not actually be orphans.  Sometimes the families cannot feed their own children so they take them to an orphanage to be taken care of. The teachers and students from English camp played Duck, Duck, Goose (which in Cambodia is Duck, Duck, Chicken), Hokey Pokey, Simon Says, Head and Shoulders Knees and Toes, and others.  The children had so much fun.  Apparently English camp visited them last year and they enjoyed the teachers and students then as well.

Mel REALLY enjoyed the bumper cars!

Last night we had the treat of riding bumper cars - yes, bumper cars in Cambodia. Some of us got out our aggressions, but all of us had a lot of fun!

Today's field trip was to the zoo which was a little over an hour outside of town.  The zoo property was quite large and took us a couple hours just to walk through it.  It did not feel like a zoo we would find in North America since the animals were simply held in pens made of chain-link fence.  At the beginning of the zoo were a bunch of monkeys that bugged us as we ate lunch.  In fact, a monkey tore the bottom of a bag I was carrying with my lunch and took off with some chicken.  I chased the monkey up a tree.  Luckily the chicken, being held in a smaller bag, fell out of the bag the monkey had stolen because he was holding it by the bottom.  So my lunch continued without another hitch.

John is behind the tiger

The best part of the zoo was simply hanging out with the students!  Many of the students have never been to the zoo, some only once.  They really enjoyed walking around talking with each other and seeing the animals which included many types of deer, wild pigs, monkeys, snakes, elephants, tigers, and others.

English camp has been going very well.  The short-termers are really loving the Cambodian students and enjoy spending time with them.  My daughters spend so much time with them that I hardly get to see them during the day.  I am so proud of them.  They have also been eating at every meal - luckily there is rice which both girls like.