Sandbox-stage is Complete

we have been working hard the past week to build the sandbox dramatic stage with a deadline of Feb 26, may community volunteers are helping us, the work is hot heavy but we have many laughts

Here are the pictures so far.more to come

http://picasaweb.google.com/corrimonygrant/CambodiaFeb_2008?authkey=ITGGTkxGweo

From Cambodia

The volunteers arrived in PP a little exhausted from the long flight, but we drove to Boddhi Tree and picked up Ann, then went shopping for fabric and sandbox toys. The second day was spent planning the sandbox site and the third day supplies arrived for a true Khmer post and beam thatched shelter. the ensuing days have been spent digging foundation trenches in the hard soil, fillling them with hand-hauled stones, mixing cement to bind the stones together, digging out the sandbox and levelng the site. We have been mortoring bricks onto the stones while the community members cut and shaped the posts and beams. Adrian arrived Sunday afternoon, exhaused but recovered today for some site-clearing work. As of this monday, the building is nearing completion, in preparation for the celebration on Tuesday. Lots to do before then. All are well here.

Our Itinerary is becoming culturally diverse

We board a mini-van back up to Phnom Penh on the 27th where we connect with the projects the BAB has arranged for us. Antonia says her projects will keep us busy riding Tuk Tuks and hiking for the weekdays we are in Phnom Penh.

• We spend a day at the Rudi Boa centre up at Beoung Kak lake, located on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, where we can give a toothbrush training session with the kids there and donate some toothbrushes. http://www.babsea.org/publications/newsarchives/flood.html See if you can convince any dentist friends to contribute brushes/toothpaste/floss to a worthy cause and promise the dentists you will give them pictures of the children's amazing experience!
  
• We will attend the Korsang Project, where we accompany Holly, a street nurse, to some of the safe injection sites in the city. http://www.korsangkhmer.org/links.html

Antonia and Sineng will fill in the details once we arrive, and there may be visits to other Projects as well.

There will be some free time in the evening to visit restaurants in Phnom Penh. The following two are a treat:

• The Mith Samlanh Friends Project manages "Friends", a thriving Tapas-style restaurant that trains former street kids to be entrepreneurs in the service industry. Their awards are many, and philosophy is a model for the western world: http://www.streetfriends.org/CONTENT/BUSINESS/restaurant_final.swf and http://www.streetfriends.org/CONTENT/ABOUT_US/our_mission.html

• We will also have dinner at Romdeng restaurant http://www.streetfriends.org/CONTENT/BUSINESS/romdeng.swf , also managed by Mith Samlanh Friends. Two shining examples of what can be done with some empathy and values-based training.
  

• Coincidentally we also have an opportunity to visit some Arts Festival venues in the city during our free time. Many offerings are in the evening, which gives us more flexibility, and some workshops are free. http://spotlight-inclusiveartsasia.org/

• We will try and visit the Sovanna Phum shadow puppet theatre to see Apsara Dancing and huge shadows cast on a large backlit canvas, complete with traditional music. It is very Khmer style traditional dance. ( i am not sure at this point if one of the city arts festivals may be renting the stage, so we shall see)
  
• For free time there is the Toul Sleng genocide museum, the beautiful archealogical museum and Royal Palace, as well as the "Bombay-Era" Foreign Correspondents Club for lunch. Phnom Penh is busy, noisy, and thriving with commerce and hustle-bustle. Like Khmer food, little gets wasted, recycling is a many-layered art form conducted by people collecting paper, cardboard, plastic, metal, all with their specific niche.

Volunteers making final preparations

Its a very exciting trip this time. Volunteers with drama and acting skills, addictions training, Journalism, humanitarian work organization. We will be building a dramatic stage that incorporates a sandbox for a youth dramatic troupe, and a covered sandbox for school children, all constructed within a traditional Khmer family home structure. We attend a new internet cafe-youth training project to donate used laptops, accompany needle exchange street nurses, help with brushing teeth, with new toothbrushes, and attend an Arts Festival in Phnom Penh that celebrates people of all abilities.

One Vision

Welcome Volunteers. A Buddhist monk said to me: "No matter what I do, all beings on this planet, and I change together; separation by time and distance is an illusion."