Home Today?... nope.

A few weeks ago, I was dreading this day. Today is September 12, my 22nd birthday, and the day I should be leaving to go back to the US. Since I'm young, without any commitments, and the happiest I've been in a long time, I am staying in Cambodia until at least mid-December. I don't want to leave this country, the children that I've come to love, or the opportunities here to do something good in a place with such a dark and tragic past. To finance this 3 month extension, I have taken a job as an English tutor for a private company. The job is part time in the afternoons and pays very well for Cambodian standards. My mornings will be spent working with Global Service Corps, but shifting from volunteer to assistant volunteer coordinator. With my experience with this organization in Tanzania, and now having been here for 2 months, I think that I will be able to establish a larger presence for GSC in Phnom Penh and find a variety of work placements for future volunteers. In exchange for my work with GSC, they will continue to provide me with a place to live in the city and a weekly food allowance. The BEST part about this whole set-up is that I now have 12 more weekends that can be spent at Wat Opot with the kids :) Some of what I will be doing involves working with Partners in Compassion, the Wat Opot foundation, to get public health volunteers into the villages looking for and providing a solution for malnutrition, setting up blood pressure clinics, teaching HIV/AIDS awareness classes, and providing home care for community members with HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, etc. This is a very exciting opportunity for me and I am beyond happy with the way things have worked out in Cambodia.

My leg is back to normal, no more crutches and very minimal pain. The recovery has been so much easier than anticipated and I'm very lucky for things to have turned out as they did.

Molly and I went out last night and she treated me to a lovely dinner for my birthday and has been spoiling me all day today. We also just got a new volunteer this morning, a professional HIV/AIDS counselor from Oregon who will be a great asset to the program. Tomorrow begins my official GSC duties and I couldn't be more excited. I really hope, however, that these next 3 months go by MUCH slower than the first 2 which seemed to have just melted away.

As I mentioned before, Wat Opot has been really struggling to finance the community. Wayne gets money every month from the US government in Social Security and from being wounded in Vietnam, and literally every cent goes right to the kids. He doesn't own anything for himself and is selflessness in its purest form. For my birthday, please (only if you can) make a small donation to Wat Opot. Their website is on my blog.

Thank you and I hope everyone has a great Sunday :)