After this life settled down to a normal pattern of days at ACODO. No more weddings and lunches.
Below shows many of the dances performed by the children. There are about 13 different dances and they are always learning new ones. ACODO employs a dance and music teacher. The daily show is a way of bringing donations to pay for day to day expenses. There are 70 children and they perform about 3 times a week only. More than this would be too tiring for the young ones.
Below is one of the small children. He makes the cutest monkey.
Here they are leaving in the tuk tuk on their last day as volunteers. Anne and Kym helped Patricia with sewing for a few days which made the job much more fun. We enjoyed their company and met up with them again in Sihanoukville at a waterfront restaurant. They were great fun.

At the end of the show all the children get on the stage and sing a song and thank everyone for coming. It's a wonderful finale to the show and then the guests can take photos and or have their photos taken with the children.
Some more random photos of the dances.
The monkey dance


Hard to capture but this was a peacock dance performed by the older children. It's one of our favourites.
This photo shows the stage and the audience. Taken from the classroom built up higher. These high spots are so important when the serious flooding happens.

All the children attend a government school for half a day. When they return from school they come up to all staff and volunteers and bow with their hands in the prayer position and say 'I am home from school'. And we in return say 'Welcome home' or 'thank you' or what ever you wish to say - to about 30 children one after the other. It's such a wonderful experience and it happened twice a day.
We will never forget these moments.
The Acodo Orphanage web site http://www.acodo.org/
Hard to capture but this was a peacock dance performed by the older children. It's one of our favourites.
All the children attend a government school for half a day. When they return from school they come up to all staff and volunteers and bow with their hands in the prayer position and say 'I am home from school'. And we in return say 'Welcome home' or 'thank you' or what ever you wish to say - to about 30 children one after the other. It's such a wonderful experience and it happened twice a day.
We will never forget these moments.
The Acodo Orphanage web site http://www.acodo.org/
Some general information about our stay.
We have been volunteers at ACODA Orphanage since Monday 30th May. Our last day as volunteers will be Sunday 12th June. We have been helping in many ways. Assisting the teacher with english and simple maths and numbers to start off with. Robert visited 'Pub Street' each day to give out fliers to the tourists for a cultural show ACODA has. Then we had an influx of volunteers so we started looking for some other ways to help. First we extended the vegetable garden with chillie bushes, ginger and several other local kmer herbs. Robert has been rerouting water run off from the showers onto the garden. Patricia volunteered to mend clothes with an old singer treddle machine (no power). The children brought their clothes along for mending.
On the weekend Robert has ordered 2 loads of dirt to be delivered to fill in a pit.
We are enjoying the experience thoroughly. The children are so lovely. We are trying not to get too attached but you just do. It's hard not to. They range in age from 3 to 18 years old, not that many of them know when their birthday is. They come from very poor families or one parent families where their parents cannot look after them, or are orphans. Some have mild disabilities.
Education has a high priority. All the children attend an international school for half a day and then they have classes at ACODA. They employ english, general studies, dance and music teachers. Many speak very fluent english so communication all round is very easy. They have a cultural show each night at 6.30pm and the kids perform 2 or 3 nights a week. The show is very good and popular with tourists (in the tourist bible - the lonely planet guide book) Tourists are invited to attend and the donations help to fund the orphanage. A bus load of secondary students from a Singapore school volunteered for 3 days and the children enjoyed the experience so much, especially the older children who had peers to relate to. When the bus left after 3 days there were many tears from both the singapore and ACODO children. It was all very emotional. We were there to try and console the children.
Education has a high priority. All the children attend an international school for half a day and then they have classes at ACODA. They employ english, general studies, dance and music teachers. Many speak very fluent english so communication all round is very easy. They have a cultural show each night at 6.30pm and the kids perform 2 or 3 nights a week. The show is very good and popular with tourists (in the tourist bible - the lonely planet guide book) Tourists are invited to attend and the donations help to fund the orphanage. A bus load of secondary students from a Singapore school volunteered for 3 days and the children enjoyed the experience so much, especially the older children who had peers to relate to. When the bus left after 3 days there were many tears from both the singapore and ACODO children. It was all very emotional. We were there to try and console the children.
Happy to see all this picture
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