Back along the bumpy dirt track on a Moto Taxi to Otres beach to see the school. Lots of kids around -theyre havin a holiday for the Kings Birthday-it been going for a couple days and Today (Monday) as well. We got some great footage - just have to remember how to load it on to the computer for you all to see : / The Temple where the school has been built is a lot further into Otres than we thought. We went thru another village on the way. The children from this village as well as the children from the 'blue village'- the ones I wrote of earlier, will be attending the school.
The temple also houses the Khmer school which these children attend for 2 hours a day- one hour in the morn- one hour in the afternoon-Shauns school- Painted Smiles-is an English teaching school. The kids will attend there in between their Khmer classes. The kids still need to wrk tho-they collect cans for scrap- A kilo of cans earns the kids 4000 riel- $1 AUD. On a really good day they may achieve this.
Shauns plan is to be able to keep the children in school and away from work- he hopes to be able to provide the kids with a meal at school AND send them home with $1 each per day to give to their parents.
We had a look in one of the Khmer classrooms-just like kids all over the world-writing on the wooden desks- love hearts, names, drawings etc...kids are kids EVERYWHERE :)
The English classroom that Shaun has worked so hard to build is beautiful. All painted now-window in and the Door will go on in a cple days. There is no power to the class room-nor to the Khmer classrooms-Shaun is on a mission to take the power to BOTH schools- he is looking at a cost of arounf $600 AUD/USD All the wiring will be done by Shaun as he's a sparky by trade. But until this can be achieved he islooking at a Gen Set at least to be able to run a fan or 2 in the very hot classroom- I was quite surprised tho, the Khmer classrooms were not too hot inside at all. Even more in AWE of what Shaun has achieved. To see the pride on his face is so heart warming- this is a man with a passion-and he is only at the very beginning of doing great things for this Country.
We met Shaun for dinner last night @ a little bar called Brittania-Shaun has become great mates with the English owner. Kev wanted to go for the Liver - eeeeeeeewwww- that Shaun boasted so much about- the liver with bacon and onions scored a 9/10 !!!! And me ? Bloody hell im in an asian country and I had a chicken Kiev !!!!! Our lovely Moto Taxi man- Mr Red-waited for us for over 2 hours !!!
Shaun flys home to the UK for 6 months on the 14th July-he has a lovely young daughter Abigail who he will care for full time when hes' back home. He misses her so much. I asked him what he needed to be able to go home to his little girl with peace in his heart that he has completed what he had set out to do since arriving here in January. He said "just to see the kids in the classroom sitting at their desks learning" . Shaun did so much fund raising to achieve what has been achieved thus far and a lot has come from his own personal funds-theyre pretty dry now. He has been trying to organise a fund raising event here to obtain the funds to buy 10 desks and a teachers desk- the desks are wooden and seat 2 children with bench seats attached to the desks. The desks are $30 each and the teachers desk $50.
In January of this year 2011- some of you will remember we had a "do it for the kids" day @ the melon stall- we didnt ask for donations - all we asked of family-friends and customers was to buy buy buy - we would take half of the days takings to Cambodia and do what we could with the money to help Shaun out a little.
It was a very emotional moment after dinner last night when we told Shaun to go ahead and order the desks- Aussie in the Valley made enough $ that Sunday back in January to purchase the 10 school desks and the teachers desk !!! We will keep the image of the look on Shauns face in our minds and hearts forever.
We COULD NOT have given this gift to the kids of Otres without our family friends and customers who came to us that day and bought our produce-it was a great day- we even had our lovely mate Joe Stevenson helping us serve the customers- beer in hand-it was fantastic-Leanne, joes beautiful wife is the one responsible for sourcing the 15kilograms of books that will also be a fantastic help to the kids.
I hope all who were involved with and or bought from us AUSSIE IN THE VALLEY that day are as proud as we are at the moment !!! Thankyou all so much-you have all been a part of making one mans dreams a reality. Again- We could not have given this gift without you all. THANKYOU <3
Cheers from Sihanoukville Cambodia- Jo n Kev .
