Sponsors Matter

I think I've mentioned it before but it bears repeating.  These kids talk about their sponsors all the time.  I did an exercise today with older girls called, "Who's sitting at your table".  I explained that, just as a business has a board of directors who helps guide them, we  have people in our lives who help guide us.  I then had the girls draw their table and write down the people in their lives who impact them.  Every one of them had their sponsor at their table.  While some sponsors come here to visit their kids, obviously not all do.  One family emailed their CCF child a picture of their backyard.  The child responded that she thought their house was beautiful and she hoped to have a home that nice when she grew up.  What she thought was their house was actually a shed for their lawnmower.

Another sponsor sent their family Christmas photo, including the dog, in front of the tree, piled with gifts.  The sponsor said that this was their pet and asked if the CCF student had a pet dog.  He responded that his family did have a pet dog for awhile.  But his grandmother and grandfather ate him.  "They said he tasted very good."  Absolutely true story.  I'll bet that sponsor passed that email around.

And while I'm on the dog topic.  Some random observations I've made...

- Cambodian dogs aren't the usual 3rd world brand (brindle lanky things).  These dogs all look like they were crossed with a corgi.  All different looking but all cut off at the knees.  And I have only seen one cat.  Which will explain why I've decided to go vegetarian for the duration of my trip.

- While in the daily traffic I had an aha moment.  NONE of the drivers wear glasses.  NONE.  I then noticed that my tuk tuk driver needed to put my map right up to his nose to see it.  This explains why they drive like they do.  They can't see far enough ahead to be afraid.  Seriously dangerous.

- As the woman I work with put it, "Cambodians have a different relationship to garbage".  There are no public trash recepticles to be found.  Anywhere.  Trash is laying around EVERYWHERE.  And at dark people don headlamps and start digging though it.  Down darkened streets you see these people, like miners, looking for their own version of ore.  Some plastic bottles perhaps.  Or a shoe.  The kids in the street kick around old shoes in lieu of soccer balls.

- It is relatively odorless here.  With all the trash, and no plumbing in many of the places I work...no odor.  I can't figure it out.  New York City smells FAR worse than here.  Not sure what kind of septic systems they have, or outhouses, or alleyways but it appears to be pretty sanitary.  And all that garbage laying in the streets...almost odorless.  Odd, but happy odd.

I posted this news on Facebook already but will include it here.  I have a weird obsession...Monk Stalking.  I follow them everywhere trying to get their photos.  I am the Monk Paparazzi.  And, lest you think I jest...

I had to jog to catch up to this one then snuck around a car
to nab the shot of him going into a Vietnamese Restaurant.

Five at once - my personal best!

I stalked these two the longest.  Alas I was
blocked by traffic and this was the best I
could do.  The one that got away...well two...

Buddhist Monks may be serene but put them on a moto and they put
the pedal to the metal!  It's a Zen Thing.

Namaste