Battambang - Peaceful Children's Home #2

It has been an amazing two weeks here in Battambang, Cambodia.  Rich and I are making ourselves a home at the Golden Palace hotel which is relatively cheap with a large room containing one queen and one twin bed, a good size window overlooking another low building and some palm trees, an excellent a/c, and fast, free wifi. While it is less than homey, and somewhat sterile, we are able to store all our clothing.  It includes a “dorm” fridge, and costs $12 a night. It’s a pretty good deal, and it allows us to skype regularly with those who are connected to the service.

But moving on beyond creature comforts, we are really here to work at the Peaceful Children’s Home II (PCH). The home is about a 10-minute bike ride from our hotel and the city center, but is really quite rural, though it is on a blacktop. There is no electricity in the area and all power is provided by solar cells and only switched on for evening activities from 7 until 10. Water is pumped from a well.

The “campus” contains several buildings all connected with cement sidewalks which I hear are overtopped during the rainy season. There is an open air dining hall and kitchen where all meals are prepared over wood fires and served three times a day. There is a repurposed brick kiln, which on the ground floor has a large inside multi-purpose space, a medical treatment room for visiting physicians to use, a storage room, along with a modest library and a playroom. On the upper floor of the kiln are some bedrooms for older boys and for visitors, and a meditation room where Buddhist nuns instruct the children in “moral education”. Other buildings include four- two story dorms, barns, and a visitors dorm with classrooms on the ground floor. 

The property also has chickens ducks, a pig, geese, and two fish ponds, and a vegetable garden. Throughout the campus are fruit trees; banana, jackfruit, mango, papaya and other fruits I do not recognize. With all these additional foods, the children are able to be fed on about twenty five cents a day per child.

It is amazing how well we are able to get along with the children without having a common language. At times it can be somewhat challenging, but the children are hungry for adult attention, and have become quite attached to my presence there. I feel as if I am a mother duck and the ducklings are following me wherever I go.

I have instituted an open drawing studio in the library for two hours everyday and this has provided me a wonderful opportunity to connect with the children, and to observe the themes in their artwork. My hope is to have some drawing prompts copied onto paper for the students to begin sharing their stories and experiences with me.

All in all both Rich and I are enjoying ourselves and love this assignment and the location in Battambang.  Here are my current pics.