Cambodia Diaries - 19 December 2008

The best £350 of your money I have ever spent!

When I was here in 2006, I met up with some girls working at a local orphanage called the Nutrition Centre.  I commented at the time that if I was a poor lad that had been orphaned and then these girls arrived, I would start thinking that things were on the up.  I have kept in touch with a few of them and soon after my return in May; Noora from Finland paid a flying visit to PP and with it, she took time to visit the newly built Nutrition Centre. 

The building is a vast improvement on the previous place and whilst I have not quite got my head round how it interacts with a number of other orphanages in PP, the fact remains that it is home to many kids, a high proportion of whom have disabilities of varying degrees of severity. 

I visited the place myself shortly after Noora and it struck me that maybe the place could do with not so much a lick of paint, but a little brightening up to make it more of a home for kids.  Understandably, the relevant Government Ministry was a little concerned about letting us loose on their nice new walls, which I must say remain in mint condition several months later despite over a hundred kids living there.  However, my new friend and now yours, Mr. Hun, runs an orphanage called the Rabbit Centre, that works with the Nutrition Centre and we came up with an idea.

Hun and the Rabbit Centre have decided to open the Rabbit Café as a place to offer training to older orphans in the food industry and to also raise money for their work.  So I suggested that maybe we could help setting it up and then one night over a few cold ones with my mate Craig from the PP office of KPMG, I enquired if his mob might like to donate half the costs to the project.  As both a Scotsman and an accountant, he twitched slightly at the thought of dolling out $500 over a few Tiger drafts and after a little thought he responded: “Ok, but we’d also liked to get involved as well”.   Thus we agreed upon a joint venture between our companies, to fund a day of painting pictures with the kids that will go on the walls of the café, which we will paint as well.  What could be simpler you wonder?

Well all I will say, pulling this lot together was an eye opener and should I ever bump into Michelangelo we can compare notes on his little splash of the old emulsion on the Sistine Chapel.  However, with perseverance and a lot of assistance from my colleagues Helen and Maylin, who it transpired are artists in their spare time, we rocked up to the orphanage a few Saturdays ago for a day of painting with 40 kids spread over two sessions.

The first sitting

Upon arriving at the centre, we were literally swamped.  By the time we had set everything up and the rest of our colleagues and the first posse from KPMG arrived, it looked more like a scene from the feeding of the 5,000.  And then the painting began and it seemed that the degree of fun generated per child was directly correlated to the degree of splash of acrylic paint.

The most wonderful thing however, was the fact that after I bumped into three Brits volunteering at the Nutrition Centre a few days earlier, they and a few other volunteers offered to pitch in and with it, they were able to get the kids with more severe disabilities brought down and included in the day’s events. 

One of the more humbling things that was said to me about the day came from Kieran, a young Londoner helping out there for a few months, about how obvious it was to him the difference it had made for the orphans with severe disabilities to merely have been brought into the room, let alone those that we managed to let loose on the canvass.  My respect for him, his cadre of volunteers, Noora, Lise and Donna from 2006 knows no bounds because it requires such incredible involvement, devotion and patience that without them, these little guys would undoubtedly live a far poorer life but for their involvement.

I am painting on the QPR fan or not at all!

The first troop of artisans concluded, a little party was arranged before they went off for lunch and the Cambodia Trust crew collapsed in a heap, as we gathered energy for the second sitting which would include Craig and a fresh KPMG posse.

The second group of budding artisans was clearly pumped up by the fun, mess, noise and mayhem that had been generated by the first group.  It was indeed a wonderful sight to see Craig, Bernie and another partner from KPMG liberally dosed with colour upon arrival and clearly the lack of reverence shown towards them by the kids went down well with the KPMG employees.

Is that red I see Chianti or acrylic based?

Before too long, the last masterpiece was presented for final touches, another bevy of fizzy drinks and cakes were consumed and off they sauntered.

To be fair, it would be difficult to decide who had the more fun.  I looked at Hun he looked at me and it was hard to know who should thank whom.  For us and KPMG, it was also important to get staff involved with such projects because giving in the traditional sense as many of you did in sponsoring the Team Runny Honney marathon run is alien to Asian culture and so seeing as there was an audience, I naturally spoke on how much of a difference a little time had made to those less fortunate then ourselves.

This painting malarkey is a right laugh!

Ahh!

On 28th September, I walked a good two miles from my hotel to the start of the Berlin marathon, ran it and made the same walk back.  An hour later, the Team met for sundowners at 6pm and as I recall, Pykey, Chris Fensom, Kev McSweeney and I left our hotel bar in the late hours and we still made breakfast the next day.  On 6th December, I grabbed a beer around 5pm, went home for a shower, ordered some dinner in and was fast asleep by 10pm!

The young artist of the day

Kids eh?

So on behalf of the mob of kids, who had at least one day of fun, many thanks.  Oh and the orphans said thanks as well!! I will keep you informed on the Rabbit Café as at the time of this edition, I have another day painting rabbits on walls ahead of me.

Marry Christmas and best wishes for 2009 from PP
Cheers JHx

Thanks from us kids!