Our second night in Phnom Penh we ate dinner at Happy Herbs Pizza (which became one of our favorite restaurants thanks to the great food and cheap drinks). In the back of the menus we saw a write up on an orphanage located in the nearby village of Boeng Chhouk. It said visitors and volunteers welcome so we decided to check it out the next day.

We found a tuk-tuk driver that knew where the village was (or at least claimed to) and headed that way. First stop was the outdoor market to buy some fruit to take to the orphanage. That was an interesting bargaining experience. No one at any of the stalls spoke English and everyone was trying to charge us outrageous prices. Finally I showed a man & his son the amount of money we were willing to pay while Sherri acted out a large bag of fruit (Sherri is an expert at charades after all the games of Guesstures we’ve played at home). We ended up with a large beautiful basket of fruit that they even decorated with tinsel for us…it was really cute! After a couple wrong turns down some dirt roads and stopping to ask for directions a few times we found the SCAO orphanage. It is run by a nice Cambodian couple, Mr. & Mrs. Samith. They showed us around the home and we got to see photos of all the kids and some of the projects previous volunteers had worked on. Currently the orphanage is home to 17 children. Another great thing about SCAO is they also offer free English classes to the community. About 90-100 children and young adults from the village attend 4 English teaching groups per day (taught mostly by volunteers) Monday through Saturday. Class was in session when we arrived, so we sat in. Two Swedish girls were teaching…they had been volunteering & living at SCAO for about a week. This class had 16 students, ages 6-12, of which about 1/2 lived at the orphanage. The kids were really cute & very bright! After class we spent some time talking with Mr. & Mrs. Samith and the Swedish girls. As it turned out the Swedish girls were leaving that afternoon and they had no volunteers to teach the 5:30pm and 6:30pm classes. Sherri & I happily volunteered.

SCAO is well organized…they have a lesson planning book that each teacher/volunteer makes notes in on what was last studied (workbook pages, topics, etc.)  This makes it easy for volunteers to pick up where the last person left off. If there are no volunteers, one of the older children that live at the orphanage will teach class.

Our 5:30pm class had about 20 younger kids, ages 6-12…some of them had been in the daytime class as well. We started the class off by introducing ourselves and telling them where we were from and a little bit about us. They had all sorts of questions…how old are you? What is your favorite color? And so on…after a bit of conversation we went over past & present tense, which they had started to review in their last class. We led the kids through the lesson in the workbook. They were quick learners and most of them spoke and understood English pretty well. The hour flew by and soon it was time for our 6:30 class. The evening class was packed!!! There were about 50-60 students, from teenagers to young adults. Instead of following along in a workbook we used the whole hour to practice conversation where students would take turns standing up and having a conversation with Sherri or me. The young adults class didn’t quite pick things up as quickly as the younger kids did, but it was also more difficult because there were a lot more students.

It was such a great experience!!! I only wish we had more time in Phnom Penh, as we would have loved to stay and volunteer for a week or two teaching English classes and getting to know the kids. SCAO is always looking for volunteers, short term and long term, so if you are planning on being in the Phnom Penh area definitely check it out. Mr. & Mrs. Samith are very sweet and space permitting they will often put the volunteers up at the orphanage. Either check out the website www.savechildreninasia.org or email them directly at samith33@gmail.com