The kids/Saying goodbye to the kids

The main reason I've been in Cambodia is to do some volunteer work at the orphanage. I had no idea how much these kids would really change my life. They are very loving, and non-judgmental. When given the opportunity, they will always take me up on an English lesson. I've been told that when asked why they want to learn English, they say that it is the only way to lift themselves out of poverty. We have a couple of villagers come to visit the orphanage and learn English with us some afternoons. Mary is the most common to see floating around the yard. She is a wonderful 17-year-old girl who says she wants to learn every word in the English language. A couple of days before I leave, Mary asks me to teach an impromptu lesson in one of the little classrooms at the orphanage. About ten other children gather while I go over past, present, and future tense, and then begin on items in a restaurant. I ask them to correctly structure various sentences, and help them with word pronunciation. They really seem to be catching on, some more than others of course. Mary (pictured below) asks the most questions and is the most enthusiastic about English. She has learned English over the past couple of years by hanging out at the orphanage and talking to the volunteers. I tell her one of the best ways to learn English is to listen to English music on tapes or CD's. She looks at me with her beautiful cheerful smile and says, "I don't have". "You mean you don't have anything to listen to music on?" I reply. "No, I don't have" she says again in the cheeriest tone. How could she not have something to listen to music on? I thought every teenage girl had something they could listen to their favorite songs on. This breaks my heart as I realize that she could improve her English by leaps and bounds if she could just have a stereo and some English CD's. Okay, new mission, get Mary a CD player before I leave. The next day I take the hike down to the market, and buy her a CD player and the required adapter for a mere fifteen dollars. That evening as I am walking back to my hotel, I see Mary sitting outside of her shop/home talking with her best friend. I'm listening to my iPod and she mentions our conversation the previous day about her not having music. Without a word I take her hand and lead her toward my guesthouse. She says, "Where are we going?" with a huge smile on her face. I say, "If I give you a gift, will you take it?" "You have a gift for me?!" She asks. When we reach my room and open the door the stereo is sitting on the vacant bed in my room. I tell her it is for her and that I will send her some English CD's when I get home since they are nearly impossible to find in Takeo Province. Her smile gets bigger than I've ever seen it and right then I know it was worth the money and the dehydrating walk to the market. She jumps up and down and gives me a hug. She's nearly in tears and so am I since I now realize how much it really means to her. She says "Oh, thank you Maddy! I love you!" We go back to her home/shop and she sets it up. One of the volunteers has arrived with a couple of story CD's he got in the newspaper for free before he came to Cambodia. He lets me give them to Mary. The two stories are Alice and Wonderland and The Wind in the Willows. I tell her these are two very famous stories in the English-speaking world.
On this same day it is Straymach's birthday. She is one of the orphans and will be turning fifteen on Sunday, the day after I leave Cambodia. She has taken a liking to me, and seems very lonely at the orphanage. I ask her what she would like for her birthday and she says all she wants are some shoes that don't rub blisters on her heels. So a couple of us take her to the market and buy her some shoes of her choice. She chooses a pair of flip flops for less than a dollar fifty. She's so happy to just have these foam sandals. Another couple sends money with us to the market to buy her a t-shirt of her choice also. She's loving the birthday thing!! The t-shirt costs three dollars.
A couple of days before leaving the orphanage Josh, Katie, and I decide to take the orphanage tuk-tuk to a school owned by the New Futures Organization, the same organization that owns New Futures Orphanage, where I have been volunteering. It's not the school of the children we are working with at the orphanage, but we've heard it's a classroom of 160 kids, and the teacher is amazing. When we arrive we are stunned. The teacher has them all learn by clapping in unison. Most times they respond to him it is in clapping patterns. He says "Say hello to Maddy!" They clap their laps while saying "1,2,3" clap their hands saying "1,2,3" clap their laps again saying, "1,2,3" and then all in unison, "HELLO MADDY!" He has them do this for each of us and then has them use this same format but say "Hello new teacher!" Katie and I are so overwhelmed that we later discuss how we were both misty-eyed because of the rush of emotion we both felt. It's absolutely amazing. He has them sing songs to us in English, and for us to help teach the lessons. When he calls on an individual student they have to stand up and answer, then he asks them to take their seat again. During their break they all run up to us to give us stacks of drawings they have done. They have questions on them that say things like: Why are you so beautiful? or How many brothers and sisters do you have? We play some hand-clapping games with the girls, and ask them basic questions in English. Many of them just sit and stare at us the entire fifteen minutes. After break the teacher asks us to teach the kids a song. They know most of the basic songs like Old MacDonald and Row Row Your Boat, so we settle on the Barney classic I Love You, You Love Me. At the end we get a huge goodbye and in unison they all say "We love you new teacher!" This day has been absolutely amazing, and I'm so glad I've finally mad the trip out there. As we exit the village, tons of children run out of their home and wave to us shouting "Bye-bye!" With huge smiles stretched across their faces.
I savor every last minute at the orphanage because I don't know if I'll ever be able to come back again. It's so hard to know that these kids will probably live in some kind of poverty the rest of their lives. They are fed small rice meals, and have a strange disease that crops up under their skin causing it to open up. The flies crawl in it and infect it, and often time these septic wounds go untreated if the volunteers don't impose our western standards of health. The kids love to make bracelets out of colorful cord, and put them on the volunteer's wrists. In the end I have about twenty of them smothering both wrists.
The last afternoon the kids treat me to the most dramatic goodbye I've ever witnessed. Mai, the twenty-year-old militant tuk-tuk driver is ready to take me to the bus station. About twenty people crowd around the tuk-tuk, including a few of the volunteers. I've been here the longest of all of them. I take a seat inside the tuk-tuk as people shout various things at me. I swap information with a couple of volunteers, and then Mai starts up the tuk-tuk. I can almost feel myself starting to cry. I'm used to goodbyes, but this will be different. We start to roll away, and the kids walk next to it grabbing at me dramatically, something that often happens when we pull away in the tuk-tuk at the end of the night headed to dinner. But this time I know it's for good. As we make our way out the gates and start the journey down the dirt road the kids run after me as I wave goodbye (pictured). They stop in their tracks shouting and waving. I'm so sad to be leaving. As the kids disappear out of sight, Mai yells over the engine, "Are you happy, Maddy!?" A question commonly asked by the Cambodian people. I say "Yes Mai! Of course I'm happy!" For a second I'm not sure if this is true, but then I think back on all these kids have taught me, all the fun we've had, and the connections I've made, and realize that yes, I'm extremely happy.