Having a little brother (not legally) adopted from Cambodia, I can only imagine the life he would be living right now. Being here at Liberty makes me want to adopt all of these kids!! Honestly, I can see myself as that crazy person after college that moves and opens an orphanage or pursues their profession in another country. Although I do miss some of the things in America, I would be fine living here forever. The biggest difficulty here is definitely sticking out like a sore thumb, since we are living in a small village and not in a touristy area. The locals always give us a lot of stares and a lot of men try to talk to us, so we have to ignore them a lot and just say "hello". However, by all means I would not say it is dangerous unless we are out at night after 7 o'clock, which we obviously don't do (except for aerobics but Wafi walks me there and back).
Today went pretty much the same as always except for a couple of things. We woke up, helped set up for breakfast, ate with the kids, walked the kids to the bus stop, and came back to paint. Today we painted the ground outside of the dining hall and in the middle of the bridge. As a volunteer, Ms. Agatha gives you the freedom to do whatever you want and with the paint we are allowed to do whatever we want. We repainted and painted just about everything outside to make everything look a lot brighter and prettier. I was very happy today when Ms. Agatha was taking pictures of it and said it looked amazing! After lunch we helped teach the kids in the preschool (Devyn and I each have a different class of about 14 we go to). Today I helped the kids color in squares with vowels on a worksheet that Mrs. Yolanda made. As always we divide up the class and I take half and she takes the other. I always have to teach the kids what they are doing because they have no idea what is going on. It is really sad that these 4 and 5 year olds don't know their letters, numbers, how to write their names, etc. I keep relating this back to Sheltering Arms and how the one and two year olds I was with there in Atlanta are pretty much at the same spot as these four and five year old kids. In addition to the pre schoolers being behind in school, the older kids are behind as well. After they arrive from school I always help them with their homework and it is sad that I have to teach them what they are doing. Today I helped Asher and Kyron with their homework (which I do everyday) and they had to study their spelling words. Unfortunately, the kids are not taught basic skills like what letters make what sounds and so it is hard for them to spell. Out of their 25 words they pretty much got all of them wrong except for "love," so I had to teach them tricks to spell some of the words.
Around 3:30 a couple arrived from Miami and helped the kids with their homework. Then, the husband, Devyn, and I all played basketball with the older boys. After we played two games of basketball, I brought out my speaker and we listened to music before dinner. When it came time for dinner, Devyn and I helped Ms. Mary with the food and set up everything. Even though I did not eat dinner because I was going to aerobics, I always enjoy sitting with them and talking. I am going to miss everyone so much, so I love to spend any moments I can with them. The funniest is around 2:30 when they are about to come home from school, I feel like I am a little puppy dog waiting for the kids to come home. I can't wait to enjoy my last days with these kids and I hope I get to see them again soon when I come back to visit!!
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