Catch Her Eye

I keep waking up later and later here. I wonder if that means I am getting used to the time change because back in the states I always seem to have a hard time getting up in the morning. It is kind of rough getting ready in the mornings with four girls and one bathroom. I don't know how the AFCO group shared one bathroom between all twenty of them at one of their stops. They are pretty hardcore. Breakfast was pancakes again! YAY! This time she set out peanut butter with the pancakes-my favorite. Terri and I were signed up for the village group again, so the morning routine was pretty similar to the day before except this time we drove out two hours and had about four extra people in our not-so-air-conditioned van. I will say that the ride definitely was interesting with the heat intensifying all of our smells. When we got there, our restructured group definitley missed John and Julie R.-the unofficial song and game coordinators of the group. I tried to start up a few silly church songs for our crowd of seven teenage girl participants, but they were less than impressed at us. I felt kind of like an idiot after the fourth song's response was only blatant stares and rolling eyes. We finally decided to try our hand at some games. We played this game-Catch Her Eye-for about ten rounds, but it was totally worth it because they loved it! After that, we played Dragonball and mastered the dodge, duck, dip, dive, and dodge. We played with a soccer ball though which was pretty scary because some of those kids have got quite an arm. We took a break for about an hour or so to have lunch. We had the same Cambodian food as the day before, which was pretty good. Except most of us ended up feeding half of our food to the dogs, ducks, and pigs. I did learn that those animals do not eat well together because a dog and duckling had a bit of a run-in, which did not end well for the duckling. It came out of the tustle with the dog looking a bit wobbly. After lunch we made a few more attempts at some games, but they had a poor reception. This village was a pretty tough crowd. Finally some of the adult Khmer bystanders offered us some help. We played a couple of games that the kids actually seemed to enjoy and participate in, which was kind of a relief. Just when we were getting into the swing of things though, we had to pack up and leave. It is always kind of hard to leave because the kids seem to get so bummed out to see us go. Even these kids seemed kind of sad, despite our poor attempts and games and songs. As we were leaving the villagers chased down two ducks and tied them up as gifts for us. So we started the trek back, however, we were all a little smellier and hotter and two ducks more crowded. When we got back to the house, I hung out downstairs for a while until dinner was ready and the boys arrived from the church. We had FAJITAS! ! ! They were so good! Mrs. Dolan knows just how to hit the spot. After dinner the Dolans' landlord who survived the Khmer Rouge Regime talked about his experience growing up during that time. It was pretty interesting, but his accent was pretty thick so he was kind of hard to understand. After he finished talking, I stayed downstairs to talk for a little while. then I went upstairs with Julie and hugn out with her, Roxanne, and Hilary. They are all so fun to be around, and I am so glad I was able to get to know them all!