Orphanage of Phnom Pen

As a juxtapox to all the misery of previous day it was decided that we should do something useful.
We decided that we should go and check out one of the local orphanages and see what if there was anything we could do to help. We already knew that the foreigners that visit usually bring sweets for the kids so we decided to go for some rice instead. I must say that it looked pretty funny to see Andrew and Sarah on a motorbike together with the driver and a 25 kilo bag of rice, some might say it even was quite dangerous but hey, it's all for a good cause right!
Got to the orphanage and the kids started running towards us asking for candy before the bikes had even stopped. I was quite taken away by it all, went and sat down and immediately had four or five kids around me trying to talk to me in the few English words they knew. One guy explained that he trained hard to be a boxer and danced around trying to show me moves while another proclaimed his love for Manchester United. The whole thing got really funny when one of them saw my tattoos. I was suddenly surrounded by loads of kids who were pulling at the sleeves of my shirt trying to see what they looked like. I pulled out my camera asking if it was alright for me to take some pictures and I have never seen so many kids pose and acting up for the camera before.
Afterwards they showed me around their sleeping dorms and it was a pretty grim sight. The rooms were tiny, made of plywood and there were up to five kids in each room. The similarity to the prison cells in S21 wasn't too far away.
One of the kids said that they were playing football the following day and had asked if we wanted to join. We replied that we would consider it and sitting in the hotel later that evening we decided that it would be a great experience.
Woke up and got myself ready, met Andrew downstairs and headed of to the Olympic stadium in a tuck tuck. It took us a while to find the kids since the whole place was full of people playing sports but we eventually sorted it out. Everyone was really happy to see us and the game got on its way. Now this also the moment I realized that I'm not twelve or fifteen but soon thirty five and the temperature is already close to 35 degrees in the shade. I was sweating like a pig and considering that I probably haven’t kicked a football for 15 years I didn't have any hopes of any talent scouts approaching me any time soon. Don't get me wrong, the football game itself was awesome. The kids were running around barefoot since they couldn't afford any kind of shoes but were as fast as weasels on speed. It almost got too intense at times because the kids put so much effort into winning. For them it seemed that this was more than just a game a football, it was a way of showing us that they were better than the situation they were currently stuck in.
We eventually parted ways after taking some photos and then went back to the hotel. I tried to stretch a little knew I would be feeling the aftermath for quite a few days coming.
Chilled out pretty much the rest of the day since I still was tired after the football and then booked myself a ticket to head south.