Day 4 - Mon. June 12th

Just FYI, in case it wasn't obvious... we are having an AWESOME TIME!! The city and the people have been so great to us and we have already seen a lot.

Today was great fun -- although the worst scorcher yet. We did art day at the orphanage. We brought that whole suitcase I had with crepe paper, stickers, pens, colored pencils, chalk etc. and did art with the 80+ kids who were they. They went bezerk when we started handing it out. Michele and I got bombarded and realized that we needed to plan a bit better next time. Needless to say, they were so excited and stayed and drew for over 2 hours. I had such a great time sitting with them and watching them. The vast majority are incredibly talented. We kept their drawing, really beautiful.

Also, have forgotten to mention that we have a driver that we hooked up with on our first day. His name is Sopi and he drives a tuk tuk and we have his cell so we call him when we want to go somewhere. This is particularly important because the orphanage is incredibly hard to find, so it took us (with him) a very long time to find on our first day. Eventually, they got someone to speak Khmer to him and he found it. So, we call him to and from each day. He is very sweet and totally takes care of us. It's a crack up. We will be gone for hours and we call him and he's like one block away. He will just devote his whole day to us and stay around.

So after the art class, we went to the little school to observe and start to help the teacher, Sochia. School is from 2-4 each day for those kids who have been paid for. This is part of where Drew's money that he has raised goes (about $6 a month per kid). Pretty much anyone can go, but if they miss class, he says they can't go for a while -- to prove a point. They love it so much, so they continue to try to persuade Drew to be able to go again.

They are very respectful, bow to their teacher, raise their hands when he asks questions and stand up for answers. Just truly adorable. The teacher is really cute. He is very animated, slams on their desks when they are wrong (in a nice way) and they really love him.

In the afternoon we went to a place near our hotel called the Foreign Correspondents Club (FCC). It is a rooftop bar, restaurant -- totally old world colonial. We had a drink and then went to dinner at a place called Friends. It's a training ground for young people to get into businesses. Next stop, massage. We upgraded to a 2 hour massage last night. It's right by our hotel so we stagger home, exhausted. It turns out 2 hours is too long for a massage.

BTW: We were eating at a cafe on the riverfront today and a giant elephant walked by. It was like twice the height as me. Huge.

Tomorrow, we will begin teaching english during the morning and afternoon classes.

Until next time...