It seemed the most commonly heard question I got around the orphanage was: “Hello. How are you?” What was all this sudden, strong concern for my welfare? Well, concern maybe, but mostly it was our 2nd and 3rd grade orphanage kids practicing their English skills, which they are picking up in their new English class. Sixteen of our lower grade school children have been taking English lessons for about a month, and there is nothing they love more than practicing on a native speaker. They are being taught by Chhin Saram, one of the teachers in our village English program at Roteang School. Saram is wonderful with children. Both Saram and Mam Sary, the head of our village English program, are amazed at how quickly these children are learning English – just one of the gifts of youth! It’s wonderful for us to be able to better communicate with the children, but, of course, the real motivation behind this experiment is the advantage that English skills give Cambodians in the workforce; and our kids will be way ahead when they segue into TSF’s village program in about 5th grade.

The other new excitement at the orphanage was (drum roll, please)... SOCCER. The kids are wild about it. They would probably play around the clock if Elephant didn’t restrict them to about four or five sessions a week. The courtyard between the orphanage buildings serves as the ball field, with all the younger kids and the nannies, like suburban soccer moms, as rapt observers on the orphanage front porches. Our groundskeeper and guard serve as coach and referee. When I watched, only boys were playing, although I was assured that the girls also play at times, sometimes the girls against the boys. While the soccer game was going on, the girls sometimes stood on the sidelines singing their favorite songs from preschool: The Hokey Pokey, Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes, and Ten in a Bed. Everybody has a terrific time! This is a great way for the kids to get some exercise, and I’m sure we’ll be seeing a lot more soccer as their ball skills improve.

This being the beginning of the academic year, Elephant and I enrolled 31 students at Norton University and paid their tuition for the year. Majors vary from Electrical Engineering to Economics to Hotel and Tourism. We also have 6 students attending the Institute for Foreign Language in Phnom Penh. Having graduated eight college students this past summer, we had room in our two dorms to add the nine new freshmen. Our Norton University students are also enrolled in English classes at the Australian Center for Education, so they are very busy; IFL is taught entirely in English, so we waive this requirement for them. The upper class students were excited to be back in Phnom Penh in their dorms, ready for the new school year. For the freshman, it was their first time living with an indoor kitchen (albeit, pretty simple) and indoor bathrooms. Seniors have taken over the teaching of our “City Living Skills” two-day orientation, vital information on scams, self-protection, relationship success in these groups of nonrelatives, and sex education.

The start of the school year is also the time we distribute school uniforms that our sewing girls have been busily producing all year. This is the simplest sewing we do, and a great way for new sewing school students to learn skills. The students are paid from the first day they start sewing school, as they are leaving the lower income available from field work. In addition to 600 uniforms (white shirt, and blue pants or skirt) that had already been distributed to the Street Children’s Assistance NGO, Elephant and I distributed over 500 uniforms to poor Roteang village school children and 250 to Beng Krom primary school, a poor, rural school located across the rain swollen Mekong River east of Roteang village. The need was great, as some children had no uniforms at all and some had uniforms that were quite stained and torn. Cambodian children, by law, cannot attend school unless they are dressed in uniforms. (A uniform costs $6 to buy, so it makes school impossible for many children; we obviously give our uniforms away.)

It was a very successful trip, I felt, and a really great pleasure to see the happy healthy Orphanage kids, feel the pride of the High School and College kids, all of whom I met in groups, and talk individually with most of our program managers, as I went over their accounts. I am so pleased we have assembled such a great group of Cambodians who make the day to day operations work. I could not have accomplished so much in such a short amount of time without Elephant, who never stopped running with me the whole time I was there. We did mark his tenth anniversary of working with the Foundation with a card from the Board, and an award he thinks he’ll use to take his wife and four kids on a short airplane trip, their first.