Summer Fun Fund

Every Watopotian is blessed to have three meals a day, clothing, shelter, medication and healthcare, and education.  Their basic needs are always put first and always met.  Donations flow into Wat Opot enough for the essentials, but there isn't much room in the budget for anything else.  When I reflect on my own childhood, summers were the most fun time of the year.  My family went on trips to the beach, got lost in big cities together, my sister and I went to camps, and we did things together that I'll never forget.  I want to bring some of that to Wat Opot.  These kids are so amazing and deserve to have an incredible summer.  I have started the Wat Opot Summer Fun Fund to raise money to bring more fun into their lives and to give them a summer to remember forever.

I am asking my friends and family to make a $10 contribution, with a goal to spread the word to 100 people and raise $1000.  Anything left over once the kids go back to school will be put into the Wat Opot health clinic.

Some of the activities that I have in mind:

1.  A day trip to Phnom Penh for the high schoolers that pass their exams.  The teenagers want to see the Royal Palace, National Museum, parks, and riverfront.  They also want to do what teenagers all over the world want to do: go to the mall.  The girls have a burning desire to go to the mall in Phnom Penh, window shop, eat at the food court, talk about boys, etc. and the boys want nothing more than to go to the arcade and rollerskate.  This would be a great day exploring their capital city and learning about their own culture, but also a perfect incentive to study hard for finals and progress in school.

2.  What do you get when you mix spontaneous children, a large floor space, and a great donated sound system?   Impromptu dance parties.  We have had a few dance parties lately with everyone from 2 year old Ratana to 20 year old Saman showing off their moves.  The boys and even some of the girls have amazing talent for breakdancing and we usually end up in a circle cheering on dance-offs.  I always dance too, even though I have absolutely no rhythm and I get made fun of the whole time but it's so much fun that I don't even care.  One night after one of our dance parties, I went on idealist. org, an online network for NGO and NPO profiles, jobs, volunteer opportunities, etc. and searched "breakdancing" just to see what I would find.  Imagine my shock when the first search result was a breakdancing NGO in Phnom Penh that "uses breakdancing, Hip-Hop music, and the contemporary arts as creative tools to empower the youth of Cambodia to live healthier lives free of HIV and drugs, build a more promising future by furthering their educational opportunities, and become positive role models for their community."  I have been corresponding with them via email, and they have agreed to come out later in the summer for a performance and workshop with our kids for a reduced fee.  What an extraordinary experience, since all of the Watopotians LOVE to dance.  This is also another example of what happens when you keep faith and let things come to you, I still can't believe that I found them!

3.  In May, a German NGO that funds the art projects at Wat Opot sponsored an all day art festival.  The kids had easels and paint scattered throughout campus and with the help of the older art students, spent the morning painting.  The afternoon consisted of a special lunch, prizes, and of course- a dance party.  I was amazed at how well the paintings turned out.  The kids had so much fun reaching into their imagination and expressing their creativity.  As these paintings are being used for exhibition by the German NGO, they will not be available to display around campus though they would bring so much color and life to the Wat Opot dorms, kitchen, clinic, playroom, and schoolhouse.  I would love to bring another art day to Wat Opot, just the morning painting part, to give them another chance to discover their talents and make beautiful pieces that could be enjoyed around campus every day.

4.  Kids love water and splashing and our kids LOVE Tonle (lake) Bati.  Our first trip this year was a total success and another one before school starts would be a wonderful way to end the summer holiday.

5.  Yoga class is a weekly event that our kids look forward to teaching and participating in every Sunday.  A few of the older kids have been through a basic yoga teaching certification and lead small groups in stretching, posing, and meditation.  Long Dy, one of the oldest residents, has been presented with a unique opportunity to study yoga at a higher level in Phnom Penh.  This certification process consists of a series of intensive weekend workshops which address both theory and practice.  With this certification, Long Dy will be able to bring more yoga to the other instructors which will be shared with all of the children.  This will also allow Long Dy to find employment in Phnom Penh as a yoga teacher next year while he attends university which will help to offset some of his education and living costs.  There is a yoga NGO in Phnom Penh that is sponsoring Long Dy, but Wat Opot has been asked to help pay for the courses.  As they take place during the summer, this too will be included in our Summer Fun Fund.

As aforementioned, any funding remaining at the end of the summer will go to the Wat Opot health clinic which has been very busy treating both Wat Opot residents and members of the community.  My paypal has been cleared and is ready for donations, and is located on the right side of the page under the blog archives.

For those in America, you can also send a check or cash to my parents house at 16 Clearwater Ct. Damascus, MD 20872 made out to Kate Bernoske and my mother will deposit it together, or make a tax-deductible donation through the Wat Opot Children's Fund at www.wocf.org and indicate that you'd like your donation to go to the Summer Fun Fund.  As the summer holiday is quickly approaching, I'd like to set a deadline of July 15 but of course would accept any and all donations after then.

If you are unable to give, please try to spread the word to someone else who may.

If this doesn't work and none of the above get funded, it won't matter to the kids who know nothing of any of these plans.  The truth is, they are happy playing marbles, swimming in the pond, climbing trees, and playing homemade games, but let's see if we can't make their summer a little more exciting :)

Thank you in advance for any and all donations!

Wat Opot sky

I had published this post in May, but it was deleted the day after by blogspot for reasons unknown.  Let me try this again...

I absolutely love the Wat Opot campus.  There are banana, coconut, and mango trees, fish ponds filled with lotus flowers and lily pads, and bushes filled with purple and white flowers.  The landscape is made even more beautiful with the sky as a backdrop.  The sunsets are like no other.  The sky fills with brilliant colors that unfortunately no camera seems to adequately capture.  The following picture is the luckiest I've gotten with my camera.  It's a gorgeous shot but still does not do justice to the sunset in person.

The rainy season has begun, and with it comes changes to all scenery at Wat Opot.  Brown rice fields slowly turn green again, bushes and grass come alive, flowers bloom, and theres an abundance of semi-naked children running around enjoying the showers and the mud that comes along with them.  My favorite time of the rainy season (if Im not out playing in the rain with the kids) is just after the rains stop.  There might be a rainbow, especially clear stars at night, or a special glow of color.  After the last rain, the sky turned a radiant pink, unlike anything I have ever seen before.  It was truly amazing and I was in awe.  These two pictures are a comparison: the first is the average view from our front door, the second is the incredible pink.  Neither picture were altered or edited in any way, and were taken at the same time of day two days apart.

Like the sunset photograph, this shot is beautiful but doesn't do it justice.  The entire grounds were lit up in a glowing pink and it lasted about an hour.  I don't think anyone else was as excited about it as I was (like Caroline who I showed the picture to at least 10 times...) but it was captivating.  I can't wait to see what else the rains will bring and watch Cambodia transition from the brown dry season to a beautiful green.

A picture's worth 1000 words

The month of June has disappeared before my eyes so far between my dear friend Cora Marshall arriving in Cambodia on the 3rd and the typhoid fever outbreak that has hit 12 of our kids and counting in the past few weeks.  The unpredictability of Wat Opot is one of the things I love most about it.  Every morning that I wake up, I have absolutely no idea what will happen that day.  Every time I leave the volunteer house or turn a corner theres a new injury, a new game, a new animal, or a new discovery.  The other day on my way to making a house call to insert an IV, I saw a child chasing a turkey chasing a moto, followed by some little ones eating insects, settled an argument between two girls over which Korean music video was better, was offered a stuffed frog as a snack, was approached by Thy who had just lost a toe nail and needed help, and got a bear hug from little 2 year old Ratana.  All in about 4 minutes.  Not to sound cliche but there is literally never a dull moment.

Swimming in the pond is a daily event for the kids trying to stay cool in the heat, but even something as ordinary as floating in the pond can lead to something unexpected.  When Ty Meng was swimming in the pond doing flips and handstands, she, like all the others who swim, demanded attention.  "KAT ONE MORE, KAT ONE MORE" they yell constantly, especially when I have my camera out.  Ty Meng wanted a picture of her doing a front flip in the water so I was there to capture it.  Later when looking through my pictures I did a double take at one that at first glance looked like a miss that would be deleted.  What I found was Ty Meng declaring her love for Wat Opot.  Her butt makes a perfect heart and it's too funny not to share.  This is Wat Opot at it's finest: a simple event made extraordinary, an unexpected result, a surprise, and another reason to love these crazy kids and this crazy place.  Ty Meng loves Wat Opot, and so do I.

Like father, like daughter

Dan Bernoske is somewhat of a local hero.  Sometimes I think that my and Amy's friends only like us because of our father.  He has an amazing sense of humor and we call him our "one man circus" (in a good way, of course).  Recently, he has become an international celebrity of sorts as more and more of the Wat Opot kids have gotten to meet him and my mom via skype.  They love his laugh, his grey hair, and the funny faces he makes when they point and giggle.

Dan the Man with me and my best friends from high school before leaving for Cambodia last summer

My father has the absolute best sense of humor.  Hands down.  He can make anyone laugh in any circumstance.  This is great now, but growing up it wasn't always that awesome.  My dad volunteered a lot at Amy's and my school and spent a lot of time with us and our friends.  That sense of humor mixed in with a crowd of friends usually equaled a great deal of embarrassment for me.  I'm certain that his number one favorite hobby is embarrassing his kids.  Looking back, I am beyond blessed that my father spent so much time with us and at our schools but at the time it was pure torture.  I can still hear his famous words, "one day, dear Katherine, one day you'll get your chance."  Well father, that time has come.

Now that I'm living with and helping to care for 56 kids, it's my turn to do the embarrassing and I take full advantage.  In the fall when Chihomi from Japan was at Wat Opot, we would walk the kids to school every morning.  They loved it and the attention, but as soon as we got to the gate, that was it.  They shooed us away.  It was their turf and we weren't allowed in to cause trouble.  One day though their teacher invited us in to see the classrooms.  Walking in the gate, Chihomi and I watched as horror spread across the Watopotians faces, waiting for us to run up and hug them or gasp!- talk to them!   Going into the rooms was even worse.  When we walked into Thear's classroom and announced that we were his friends from the US and Japan he turned bright red while everyone giggled.  Poor guy.  At Wat Opot I have 14 kids hanging on me at any given moment, then I go to their school and I'm an untouchable.  Thinking more about it.. maybe I should start hanging out at the school just to get some quiet time!

On Wat Opot grounds there are still an unfair amount of opportunities for embarrassment.  Just today Ya had two friends over that thought I was hilarious but Ya was mortified.  I had a flashback to all those times before when I was in Ya's shoes.  At the time  I was miserable but had no idea how lucky I was.  Ya would probably love to be embarrassed by his father, because that would mean his father was here.


COUNTDOWN: Cora arrives tomorrow!!!  I'm camped out in Phnom Penh awaiting her Asian invasion.  I can't wait to finally share Wat Opot and Cambodia with someone I love!

Little boy in the big city

To his Wat Opot family, little Virak is perfect.  He is sweet, well-mannered, and just so damn cute.  Virak is definitely one of the kids that touches every single person who passes through.  Volunteers and visitors learn his name early and remember him long after they leave.  In my first visit to Wat Opot last summer, 2 weeks that changed the entire course of my life, I myself wrote about the first child I met: Virak.  In that first post of many many on Wat Opot, I tell Virak's story, about how his grandmother carried him around so long when he was small that he never learned to walk until he was 3.  He's come such a long way since then, running and playing like everyone else, but his feet are very turned out and flat.  On a mission to do something for him, I first took him to a physical therapy center near where Virak goes for his HIV medication in Takeo.  They explained to me that because of the way his joints and muscles formed, he would have a lifetime of pain in his ankles and knees.  There was nothing, however, that they were able to offer in terms of treatment or therapy.  No exercises to improve his gait, no supportive shoes or braces, nothing at all that would help him.

I shared my frustrations with Caroline, who referred us to an NGO in Phnom Penh that does orthopedic work free for Khmer children.  Eager to find more answers, I took Virak into the big city this week for a consultation.  We set off in a tuktuk with Lindsay, an American visiting Wat Opot for a month on her trip around the world, and what an epic journey for Virak it was.

Virak gets to ride in tuktuks every month when he goes to the HIV clinic in Takeo for a group checkup and medication refill, but never does he get to sprawl out and have all of the attention to himself.  He was so excited, watching every car and motorbike, and inspecting all of the people we passed.  Once we got into Phnom Penh he was in awe.  So many people with so much going on.  As a special treat he got to bring 4 matchbox cars and he clutched them tightly as we drove through the busy city.

When we arrived at the clinic in Phnom Penh, Virak had an exam and we met the head surgeon.  Just like when I took Kunthea to the hospital, everyone thought Virak was my son.  According to everyone in the waiting room we look "same same" and I am a good mother.  Also just like with Kunthea, I gave up early, just smiled and thanked them.  As much fun as we had on the way there and waiting, the consultation was anti-climatic.  The doctor had no more to offer than the clinic in Takeo.  They said there was nothing they could do for him.   So back to square one.  I'm not sure exactly what I was hoping for, but any advice or help would be better than to be turned away twice.  I guess for now we'll try to find him some supportive shoes or trainers.  If anyone reading this has any physical therapy expertise with any advice, I'll take anything!  It's just so frustrating to hear he'll just have to deal with it... doesn't he already have enough to deal with?!

Not letting the disappointment ruin our big trip, we still managed to have a few more adventures that afternoon.  Virak, Lindsay, and I went to lunch at a restaurant in the expat area of Phnom Penh and he had a great time.

Between coloring and playing with his cars, he was loving life.  I wasn't sure about what he would eat as it was a western restaurant with no Khmer food, so we ordered him what all kids love- chicken nuggets and french fries.  He wasn't sure at first, and was slow to bite the chicken, but once he realized he loved it Virak  just shoveled it in!  Of course no Khmer meal is complete without rice, and the server brought him a big plate of it to go with his nuggets and fries.  Virak also got fresh coconut juice, so fresh he was served the whole coconut.  It was bigger than him and he loved it.

Looking over his whole spread

The servers LOVED him, and ours got down on the ground to play cars

After we ate, we ran a few other errands.  Virak was so well-behaved and everyone loved him wherever we went.  With no time to nap and so many things going on, he was wiped out on the tuktuk ride home in the late afternoon.

Sleeeeeepy

BIG yawn

Lindsay with a passed out Virak

Even though we didn't get answers we were looking for, I was glad to give Virak a special day alone.  With 54 brothers and sisters it's important to give kids time alone to be center of attention.  As far as his feet go, we'll just have to see what happens as time develops and hope for the best!


All of us are having trouble getting on blogspot, both logging in and viewing other peoples blogs.   My posts may  become farther between but I hope to keep updating regularly.

COUNTDOWN: 3 days until my very dear friend Cora arrives in Cambodia for 2 months!!  I am so excited :)  Have a safe trip Cora, can't wait to have you here with us!  XOXO

Mr Chai and his Butterfly

A little butterfly landed on Chai's hand, and I took some pictures that I thought were just too cute not to share.  Chai is one of the few true orphans at Wat Opot, as in he has absolutely no family- no mother that can't care for him, no grandmother or aunt that visits, no brother or sister off living somewhere else.  He's a pretty quiet kid, but he has a smile that says it all.

The butterfly stayed for awhile, maybe 10 minutes.  Chai just examined it and protected it until it finally flew away.  It was such a sweet moment and I'm glad to have captured it :)

Sutures

The new Wat Opot community medical clinic is officially up and running!  On Friday, I went into Phnom Penh with Caroline to gather the last of the critical supplies.  With the funding provided from the McConville family, we purchased IV and suture supplies, dressings, basins and sterile systems, some medications and other miscellaneous items.  We also bought a lamp... luckily!

The first few days in the clinic were uneventful.  Among other things, our patients had rashes and fungal infections, headaches and fevers, nothing big.  We had a few members of the village come in and monks from the Buddhist monestary next door, with some of the Wat Opot kids mixed in as well.  All was slow and easy until Monday, when the kids were all home from school for a holiday.

Vandy came up to us with a gash in his head after he had hit it on concrete taking a bath.  After cleaning and looking closer, it was decided that he needed a few stitches.  Peter, an ICU nurse visiting from Switzerland, and I jumped at the chance for a learning experience.  Neither of us had ever done sutures before and Caroline, having learned suturing herself at Wat Opot before, practices them frequently in her nursing job in northern Cambodia.  Caroline did 2 perfect stitches, and Vandy was unfazed by it all.

Caroline suturing Vandy and teaching Peter

When I was little, I wanted to be just like my grandmother- a nurse.  She made sure that no future nurse granddaughter of hers would be unprepared.  Some of my favorite memories are practicing injections at her house; first on fruit, then on our horses, then on her.  Not many 8 year olds shoot their grandmothers up with vitamins just for the hell of it (I hope) but I got plenty of practice first.  Just like learning to do IM injections on oranges, we brought mangos into the clinic to learn and practice sutures.  I learned the technique and got to close my severely injured mango.  Caroline warned me that real stitching would be much more difficult.  Mango skin isn't that tough so when the real time came I might struggle at first, especially when stitching on the head, but with practice I'd be fine.  

Had I known how soon I'd get to practice the real thing, I may have operated on a few more mangos.  About an hour after our lesson, I was informed that we had another patient.  14 year old Wat Opotian Ya had fallen out of a high tree he was climbing.  He was holding his bloody shirt over his head when he walked into the clinic.  Ya, like Vandy, had cut his head open and had big scratches down his back. When Peter looked at me and said, "Okay Kate you're up!" I thought and hoped he was joking, but no.  I cleaned poor Ya's wound out and gloved up for stitching.  I was so hot and nervous.  Maybe if it was someone from the village I didn't know, I would have been more confident but it was Ya!  My sweet and lovable Ya!  He was so shaken up from the fall that he didn't move or react much.  Caroline was absolutely right- the real thing was much more difficult and I had NO idea how strong the skin is on the scalp!!  Peter assisted, and Wayne oversaw my technique and helped me find my own method.  Once the initial shock wore off, I was able to relax and the 3 stitches were over before I knew it.  Having Wayne there definitely made me feel much better and calm my nerves! 

Wayne snapped a picture of me stitching Ya's head with Peter assisting

A concerned Ty Meng and Touris check in on their buddy while he rests

We made it through today (Tuesday) without any more injuries, and it's back to school for everyone tomorrow.  Ya and Vandy are doing great and my next lesson, taking sutures OUT, will take place next Monday.  

Today is my beautiful little sister and best friend in the whole world's 21st birthday!!!!  Happy Birthday Amy, I love you so so so much and miss you like crazy today <3 <3 <3 <3  Have an amazing time celebrating in Tuscaloosa!!

Me and Amy during one of my many visits to Tuscaloosa.. wish I was that close to you today <3