Friday, July 18, 2014

Cambodia - The Land of Happy Children

So it has been a few weeks since I came back from my amazing journey to Cambodia. To be honest, the motivation to go to Cambodia was definitely sparked by how much fun I had in my previous school trip to Nepal. And this trip DEFINITELY did not disappoint. Both were fulfilling in different ways, so no regrets! 

So instead of documenting day to day things, I'll just tell you the things I miss there.

And the first thing I miss is definitely definitely definitely] the children. No doubt in the world. There's nothing in the world like coming down the bus and have a kid run to you like they've been waiting for you. I swear, the feeling nearly reduced me to tears. There's something about all the kids there that definitely touched, they were so genuine and so determined to learn that you can't help but try your best to help them. Even though we helped minimally in this aspect, they showed so much gratitude. 

So here are some of the moments that touched me:

a) There is this boy named Arret. He is this good-looking 10 year old and I swear he is one of the sweetest kids you'd ever meet. So over the course of the first few days I got really close to him. This is because I engaged him in a game of catching while taking a break from house-building, and since then he always looked for me to play. There were a few moving moments with this boy, so let me try and recall as much as I can.



This is Arret by the way.

So the first thing I remember that moved me is on the day we went to his house for survey. By then I knew all his siblings. His younger sister, Tera and his super cute baby brother, Panet. When he saw us, he excitedly waved. He got off the chair he was sitting on and offered me his seat and sort of leaned on my shoulder. He then told his mom something. His mom smiled and translated, "He said you're his very good friend." And that was enough to make my day. Seriously. 

The next thing memorable thing that happened with Arret when I got off the bus and he was looking for me. He held my hand and we walked together to the destination (which was one of the villagers' homes). I really felt special then. 

And the last one would be how he gave me some drawings and a heart shape origami thing. Hahaha, this is quite funny cause he stole one of his sister's drawings and cancelled his sister's name. He then asked the translators how to spell my name and he wrote it on his sister's drawing. Damn cheeky, but really sweet in his own mischievous way. No doubt i miss him. He was just a sweet kid and a very responsible one. He would carry around his 1 year old brother all over the village and he dealt with him when he peed and poo-ed. I know guys my age who wouldn't deal with that shit hahaha. 

b) Next would definitely be Mokri. He is just this really determined kid who is always so enthusiastic in class. DEFINITELY a joy to teach and really just a sweetheart. I don't usually use that word cause i find it freaking weird to say, but in this case, there's really no other word to describe him. 



Mokri is the smiley boy in green.

So the first thing I noticed about him was his Angry Bird shirt. He had two shirts he repeatedly wore and both were angry bird shirts. CUTE OR WHAT?! So this boy really brought me a lot of joy. He sang with me, lepak-ed with me, held my hand but there were two instances that I think i would NEVER forget. 

The first incident occurred while we were lepak-ing together. It was a really hot day so I accidentally fell asleep while he was still resting on my lap. And I woke up about twenty minutes later and while the girl on my left was gone (I mean, I don't blame her) but Mokri was still there. And when I woke up he just gave me the cutest smile that genuinely melted my heart. Thank you friends who managed to document this sweet (and damn FREAKING unglam) picture of the moment.




The next sweet moment was when he SKIPPED SCHOOL (BAD THING TO DO, I DID NOT CONDONE IT) to follow me around during survey. LIKE AWWWW RIGHT? I strongly urged him to go back to school (with the help of our translator) but he insisted. Held my hand from door to door and sat next to me while we did the survey for the respective houses.

And of course there were many other kids and many other stories but there is no way this blog could contain how much every single child impacted me. But the stories I did pen down, are the ones that I find really entertaining/funny/sweet.

But trust me, there's more. And I could easily say, the kids were the main highlight of my trip hands down. 

SO here's some pictures of them - some of the most genuine kids you would ever meet. 


















And there's so much more, this doesn't even begin to capture everything that happened. Just a tiny fraction. A tiny important fraction :)

PS: On a side note, ALHAMDULILLAH I FINALLY PASSED MY DRIVING. (Thanks to everyone who helped me and prayed for me. Seriously, couldn't have done it without you)

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