Battambang

So, another bumpy 5 hour bus journey and we arrive at Battambang. Slightly worried as we couldn't get hold of Tara (Founder of CCT orphanage) who was still in Australia doing some voluntary work. 'Not to worry' we thought, the Lonely Planet refers to Battambang as 'Cambodian's second largest city' and 'an elegant riverside town'. Hmmm, maybe we visited a different Battambang?! Sal went off to see a temple, some caves (another site used by the Khmer Rouge) and bamboo train one day while we waited to hear back from the orphanage. This was quite an eventful little trip including a Police fine, wading through muddy puddles too deep for the bike and two passengers, followed by skidding in the mud and falling off! Noone hurt and all good fun.

Thankfully, after wasting away 4 days doing nothing but eating and sleeping we finally heard from Tara. She put us in touch with Jedtha, who promptly came out to meet us. It was unfortunate but because we'd not heard from them sooner we were now more restricted with time and had arranged to leave for Siem Reap a few days later. For this reason it was agreed that it would be best to help out with the community project they had planned (giving out clothes and materials to homeless orphans, kids with HIV, etc) rather than getting involved with the kids at the orphanage. The next day Jedtha got in touch saying the kids hadn't gone to school and would we be free to 'help out' for the afternoon. We jumped at the chance and were soon BOTH on the back of Jedtha's bike being driven to the orphanage. Oh by the way, the Cambodians seem to have competitions with each other, who can fit the most people on 1 bike! No sooner had we dismounted the bike Jedtha turned to us and said, 'You OK, I be back at 5pm'...After giving each other an "oh my god, is he serious" look, we confidently replied 'yeah, we'll be fine'...being left alone with 10 kids that we don't speak the same language as! And, we were fine! In fact, we were better than fine. We had one of the best afternoons we've had. The kids were absolutely amazing. It didn't matter that we couldn't speak Cambodian and they spoke very little English, they still managed to show us round their home, where they slept, walk us round their garden and very proudly showed off the size of their gigantic frogs/toads that were breeding in the pond, soon to be eaten by them for dinner! After playing with the face paints and skipping ropes and generally having a great time with the kids it was time for us to leave...exhausted!
That night we went to see a performance where local street kids did different acrobatic moves, jumped through fire, etc. They absolutely loved doing it, you could see how passionate they were. The money they raised went straight back into the organisation that was supporting them to get an education and providing shelter. All in all a very good day.
Before we left Battambang we asked to see the children once more. They were so excited to see us again, and that was before they saw the footballs, hoola hoops, colouring books, pens, sweets, etc we took with us! They were so appreciative. The children go to school 7:30am til 11:30am (before it gets too hot) and then if they are lucky enough to learn English they also study in the afternoon. We went early evening so we could see all the children this time. One of the older children was able to speak English which meant it was easier to communicate with them all. She was so great with all the kids, you can tell they look up to her. She started telling us about their backgrounds and how they had come to live at CCT. Even given the work we've done back home, this was still very difficult to hear. She assured us though that every single child was now very happy and loved being part of a big family.
We were right about one thing, it was very difficult not to get attached to these adorable kids...