We heard about a volunteer opportunity in Phnom Penh, Cambodia from our friend Trevor.  There are approximately 1,400 children who live at the dump and on each trip to the dump, volunteers feed about 450 children. 

We invited our new friend Julianna, who we had met on the night train from Hanoi to Da Nang, to join us.  She brought another girl from Vancouver, Leslie, who she had met while traveling.  We all met up in the morning and were briefed on what to expect and what the rules were….such as we had to make sure everyone waited in line to get food and we had to watch out to make sure that the older kids didn’t push the younger ones out of the way.  Then we all loaded up on the back of a big truck.  There was even a young baby girl on board who’s parents are missionaries from Lake Tahoe, California (which is near where I grew up in Grass Valley).  One of their friends who was with them that day was also from the Grass Valley area.  We got to talking and found out that we had a mutual friend who I’ve known since junior high.  It’s amazing what a small world it is!  Even while traveling we have met people and then bumped into them randomly weeks later in a different city or country.  In Phuket we met some girls from England who we ran into again on Kho Phangan Island.  In Nha Trang, Vietnam, we met a girl from Poland and bumped into her again at the killing fields in Cambodia.  In Phnom Penh at the orphanage where we taught English classes we met 2 girls from Sweden and then saw them again at the border crossing on our way from Siem Reap, Cambodia to Bangkok.  Traveling is so much fun!  It’s also an eye opening experience, especially when doing volunteer work. 

The experience at the dump was shocking!  When we drove into the dump hundreds of people came running from all directions, some little kids were running right behind the truck and were trying to jump in the back while it was still moving.  As we drove up the hill of waste the smell was so horrible that I had to cover my nose and mouth with my t-shirt and I soon gave up on swatting the flies away as they were all over my body.  When we stopped the truck at the top of the hill the people that had been running after us formed two huge lines.  Two of the volunteers were first aid trained and set up an area to the side to help anyone with injuries, since a lot of the children had cuts on their feet since they didn’t have any shoes.  We made the mistake of wearing flip flops and had to be very careful where we stepped.   One of the volunteers fell into waste deep dark dirty trash water up to her waste and lost her flip flops and cut the bottom of her foot in the process…scary!  We were amazed that all of these people actually lived in these horrible conditions, but a lot of them have never known anything else.  Several of the women in line were holding little babies in their arms, but the majority of people were young children, who surprisingly had big beautiful smiles on their dirty faces.  Some of them even gave me hugs and high fives…it was so heart warming!

After half of the line had been given food, rain started pouring down.  Rana and I had both brought our umbrella’s but it really only kept our heads dry and our legs were completely drenched since the rain was blowing sideways.  Several little ones squeezed in underneath our umbrellas with us.  Once all of the food was given away we handed out a few bags of clothes and shoes to some of the children who didn’t have any.  It was definitely a very rewarding experience and made us realize how fortunate we really are and how people who have hardly anything can still be happy and have big smiles on their faces…it will surely make us think twice before complaining about anything in the future.