Due to technical difficulties, the photos are out of order, but we think you are used to this by now.
This is Kutila (on the left) with her mum and sister. She kindly invited us to have dinner with them on her day off at a local Khymer restaurant. She works at one of our locals and we see her on Thursdays for the weekly pub quiz.
This is a Khymer bbq. It is hot coals in a pot with a metal frame that you balance meat and vegetables on. There is a ring round the edge where if you are a good cook, you can make your own soup at the same time.
This is the back page of the Phnom Penh Post. As you can see, the whole back page was dedicated to Hull City. The get loads of column inches and air time over here. Not sure how much longer this will last!
This is the Women's Vocational Training Centre that MaD is refurbishing. To give ourselves a break from desk work, we would come here in the mornings and rip up a few floor boards. In the interests of saving the environment, the floor boards are now being used as shuttering on the orphange project.
The WVTC before we pulled up the floor.
The floor needs a little TLC! Do any of you woodworkers fancy coming out and helping us?
Banana delivery at the local market. We think he could have taken at least another 10 bunches. It is a lot of weight to be towed behind a 125 moped!
This is the site that the orphange is being built on. We are filling in the ground right into the paddy field. We have a couple of technical problems at the moment, but we will keep you updated. When finished, the orphange will be 18m wide, 40 m long and 9 metres high, with a thatched roof. It will look gorgeous and will house 34 orphans. We have met most of the kids and despite our lack of enthuisiasm for children, they are absolutely lovely. We normally arrive on site around 8 am as it's one hour from Siem Reap. We work until 11.30 when we take the kids for lunch. They are really well fed and eat huge quantities - 3 plates of rice for some little ones. This may be the only meal they get each day.
Classy red wine, our latest find at only $5 per bottle. Need to take it up with the local supermarket and organise a bulk discount.
Garry digging a trench at the orphange site. We do have a health and safety policy in place. Spot Garry's safety sandals and safety baseball cap. In the background, you can just make out the wheelbarrow - a pile of mud on a cement sack with two sticks in the sack. It does need two people but works well and the wheels never fall off. We are thinking of investing in a proper wheelbarrow as it will be 8 times more efficient and a good capital payback at $10!
We have mentioned before that we have tried to get a picture of 5 on a bike. Count the legs here and you will see that there are 6 on this one. Maybe we shouldn't have encouraged them to wave at us!
This is the back garden of the MaD guesthouse. We are not sure if we will move in there - yes, they are live crocodiles, about 100 of them!! Anyone fancy some new shoes?
The 10 km dirt track from the main road to the orphange site is a little tricky to drive down, especially when it has been raining. This lorry was delivering to another site, not to us and didn't quite make the corner, but slipped into the ditch. No-one was hurt, but we all stopped to have a look.
Here are some of the team. from the left Mark, from Leeds, then Simon, Rachel, Toni and yours truly.
Starbucks - this is a roadside cafe, that we have started frequenting on the way to work each morning. Fantastic coffee! Look carefully and you will see the ducklings under the table, the dog on the left and there are a couple of chickens knocking around.
Simon and Mark are building a house for the guy on the left. First job was to install some decent drainage so the house wouldn't flood. The guys spent the day chest deep in mud, water, scorpions, spiders, snakes and other stuff!! At this point, they had just finished and the water had started to flow freely past the site.
We have bought a motorbike and this is it being washed and valeted! Some of the rules of the road that we have learnt are:- a. drive on the right, but not too far on the right , as this is for people driving on the left
b. a red traffic light doesn't mean stop. It means proceed with caution
c. a gree traffic light doesn't mean go. It means proceed with caution
d. when asked to stop by a policeman, either drive round him or turn round and go the other way.
However, you have no need to worry about us, as the average speed is 4 miles per hour. Just a bit quicker than walking. Everyone slows down for ducks, chickens, cows, children and dogs etc to cross the road
This is Toni building a restaurant and dining area for the MaD volunteers.TTFN
Garry and Alison
1 comment:
We see you're getting stuck in. Perhaps you're getting stuck in the mud too. Great to see Hull City are getting a bit of a splash as well. They are getting more coverage in Cambodia than over here.
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