Last Destination. Boo

We took the bus this morning from Battambang to come to PhnomPenh. It went pretty well. Well, except for the fact that our bus broke down half way so they had to send another one. Took only 1 hour though. Then, on the second one.. the air-conditioning didnt work so we fried to death.. (i mean to sweat) I guess u really have to expect it from a 5$ bus ride. but we got here , safe and sound. Didn't do much. Just rested for now.

We have 4 orphanages here so our schedule is all packed up for the next 4 days. Tomorrow we are going to the dump. Yes you heard right. That's where we feed our kids here. JUST KIDDING. I'm totally kidding. Please dont send a social worker.
Actually, we heard about this dump about 2 weeks ago where approx 2,000 family live. That's nice isn't it?

Well, that's not the worst part. These families, who are struggling for food, send off their kids EVERYDAY to the dump in order to gather supplies and metals for the parents to sell to people. So these kids are forced to go to the dump to help their parents get around 100r worth of stuff. (4000r = 1Usd)

They have no shoes and smelly old clothes and have to gather this or else the parents will have their "way" with them. And i'm not talking about teenagers here.. Im talking about 4 to 11 year olds digging through glass and medical waste all day long. There is this wonderful organization in place now that has a setup there which provides shoes and food for the kids so that they can at least have something to eat that day. Unfortunatly, here, there isn't a system in place to allow us or someone to take the children away from these horrible people (trust me , i asked) but they are trying to help as much as they can.

People have tried to make deals with the parents to exchange some rice everyday in exchange to send their kid to school. Some accepted (thank god) and some .. still won't. So tomorrow we are going to see and help out that organization.. also, we are going to see how WE can help with our organization. Let's hope it all goes well.

After, Wednesday we are going to the waterpark with the kids! Woo. Then we have another baptism and we are going to give all the suitcases that YOU provided us with and we brought to the kids. I'll take pictures!!

See ya soon

i just found this... this is the dump. http://www.pbase.com/maciekda/stungmeanchey2005