So much to do, such little time...

It's Saturday so no classes today...just a bit of shopping, blogging, friendship-bracelet making, and a visit to the the Wat Damnat neighbourhood of Siem Reap. Tonight will be Cambodian barbecue (Blaise's choice) and the regular Saturday night live Beatocello Concert (a Swiss doctor plays the cello every Saturday night by donation for children's hospital, and seems to have been doing it forever...)

This voluntourism holiday is turning out to surpass my expectations (not that I knew what to expect). The little girls at the dance school who make up Emi and Blaise's classmates are adorable and for some their English is such that real relationships are being made. Same at Sangkheum orphanage... we are having a lot of fun but we have come prepared as well and we are all exhausted by the end of the day (Kids fall asleep at about 7:00 if we are not still at a restaurant).

Of course I want to adopt all these kids and can't... but I do have plans...

Human Rights Day in Cambodia

Today is a public holiday, so no dances lessons or English lessons (the students of Sala Bai Hospitality School have business as usual though).
The School of Arts invited us to their festival and Emi and Blaise had fun playing some games with the students before being asked to perform a tap and modern dance demonstration. They invited a volunteer from the crowd to try some tap dance steps, and then the danced: tap to some Christmas songs, and modern to Will I Am and Michael Jackson...

We have been asked to come back this evening for a dance show, in the presence of Ministry of Education inspectors...big day for the School of Arts...

photos to follow, as soon as Blaise gives me a moment to myself....

Traditional Khmer dance

My girls are awesome!



They are learning traditional Khmer dance at Siem Reap School of Arts.

cambodia

Three Possibilities of Visit...

There's something metaphorical in the above statement, which is on the first sign you see on entering Angkor Wat Temple.

And, today (a few days after this photo was taken) the girls and I went to climb a nearby temple hill and were given a similar multiple choice:

1. The safety way
2. The danger way
3. The elephant way

Despite the fact that some nameless minion at Vietnam Airlines canceled our ongoing flights from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap, we are having a great time. (And we didn't mind the inconvenience anyway... after refusing to let us board any of the three remaining flights that day (they were all full, of course) they fed us and got us a mini-van and away we went by road...for the next five hours.) We met up with Grandma and Grandpa by nightfall.

We have settled in at the Sala Bai Hospitality school hotel, and have sorted Apsara dance lessons at the School of Arts in the mornings. In the afternoons, we are going to play Engish games and do arts and crafts at an orphanage called Sangkheum School on the edge of town.

We are looking forward to all sorts of possibilities...