Take Care Kids

As they say, the song remains the same....whenever I approach the small school in Koh Chang and I hear all the kids yelling and playing....my heart expands.....it's always been this way, ever since I started volunteering at the orphanage in Pattaya. I know many people, mostly guys, have a hard time dealing with kids' yelling...but I actually enjoy it...it's almost relaxing to me....(I've always known I'm a little odd) so each time I reach the school all the kids gather around the bamboo fence to see who's coming.....

I walk into the one room school with banana leaves as a roof, and all the kids jump all over me and give me the warmest welcome....then they get back to their studies....children from 7 to 16 are on the left side and the ones from 3 to 7 on the right....you could hear a pin drop, they all listen quietly to the teachers and don't miss a word they are sayng...they know they are Cambodians living in a foreign country....they know they need to work twice as hard to succeed....and as I observe them carefully I sometimes meet one of their glances......girls generally stare at me and giggle....then during the break, while the teachers turn into cooks and make a chicken and rice lunch with some veggies, a little girl comes along, her name is Jin...she is 12 and she just bluntly asks: "do you think I'm beautiful?" and this shocks me but I reply that she is a very beautiful child...and she really is, big black eyes and a smile to melt for....as I talk to the sholl principal I start planning all the things that need to be done...we need to fix the roof....before the rainy season starts....we need to enlarge the kitchen area...so that when it rains, kids can eat indoors.....the children keep calling me  so I run out to play with them....and this is when I realize I'm not a kid anymore.....half an hour later, I'm getting heat exhaustion...so I sit down, and a little four year old girl gently passes me a glass of water......oh but it's time to go....I always have a hard time leaving the kids...but I'll be back in a few weeks to see how they're doing and to tell you more about them....I hop into my truck and start my way back to Pattaya, I promised the slum kids there I'd take them out for ice cream.....As I'm driving, I receive a phone call from the school principal, Khun Uan, and tells me 5 more children have asked to attend our school, this is really good news......I get to Pattaya during the night so the next day I go get Khun Nat and Danilo (an Italian man who works and lives in Pattaya and who now has joined our volunteer group) and we gather the kids from the slums....there are five of them, all hyped up and running...we wanted to go for ice cream, but then once we got to the mall they chose KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken)....so, chicken for everyone, and at the end of the meal...ice cream for all....they even took some home....and you should have seen them as they were eating their ice creams with their whole faces.....but as we go back to the slums I see little Uhn's mother is sick...so I step into the hut....she's all balled up and in great pain....she has a terrible sore on her lower back, another sign of her increasing illness, HIV...I put her in the car and took her to the hospital where they gave her a shot for the pain and send her back out....she needs to go back in a few days and they might admit her...so we go back to the slums and as we get there Khun Daeng runs up to me (she's the one who keeps an eye on all the families living there) and tells me some of the layers of metal in their huts are falling apart and need to be substituted....so I say yes and the following day we fixed the huts...as you can see, I'm always running....and they're calling me now as well...so...see you next time