Ready to return

The last few days I decided to get motivated and organised for the trip back to Cambodia. I've ordered a few cerebral palsy therapy books on Amazon, contacted companies to get angled spoons, emailed a ball shop for donations and inquired into ways to get equipment back to Cambodia without ridiculous excess baggage fees. Today I stumbled across this site http://www.global-help.org/ which has a free downloadable PDF book on cerebral palsy for parents and care givers written in Khmer! I was very excited to find it. I've also looked at the Toys and Me website in Phnom Penh and realised much of what the children need in terms of fine motor and manipulation toys can be purchased there when I get back. I have also contacted Wheelchairs for Kids after a tip off from Michelle at work, which led me to come across the organisation Focus Cambodia which may have some answers on shipping over equipment. Ideally I'd love to find someone who is making therapy equipment locally in Cambodia. 

Check this out.

Please check out this blog of my friend Hayley who is volunteering in Phnom Penh with AFESIP Cambodia, an NGO that works with women and girls who have been trafficked for sexual exploitation. 


http://ellesenva.wordpress.com/

Be with life. Just the way it is and just the way it isn't.

Today  is my 30th birthday and I'm awake early while the house sleeps. I thought it may be a fitting time to reflect upon the musings I have had whilst being back in Adelaide the last week and a bit. It's strange how you can live in the same city all your life and not actually really see it. I have lived near Burnside Village for 9 years, yet never really was attuned to what people told me they saw...the gold shoes, the bouffant hair, the makeup cladding, the yummy mummies with catalogue kids in tow. They are currently doing a ONE HUNDRED MILLION redevelopment of Burnside village and it turns my stomach. 


All around me, I see image more clearly than ever before. I see human beings who project a certain visual or attitudinal persona, yet in doing so become so unapproachable. I see the way in which our highly affluent society uses wealth and influence to enshroud ourselves in cloaks for our insecurities. We hide and protect and become more isolated in our fear of what other people may dare think of us. It speaks to me so poignantly because I know I am a victim of our culture no less than anyone else and for the first time I feel convicted by my foolishness. 


I think of Cambodia. I think of the Khmer people. I think of how they wear cartoon character pyjamas as everyday wear. I think of their openness. I think of the kids on the side of the road when I ride my bike past to work, yelling out "hello, hello, hello" because they want to connect with an allusive westerner. I think of the people who walk their cows home up our road at 4pm, how connected they are with their animal and their surroundings. I think of the integration of life and death. One merely a continuation of the other. I recall the intermingling of cow poo, moto fumes, fish sauce, burning fires and frangipanis. I see dynamism, I see techniolour, I see the intensity of human existence. I see perseverance, I see strength, I see courage. 


Oh how comfortable are our lives here. How we complain. How we complain. How we self indulge in our boredom. I am ashamed. Ashamed of how I have neglected to listen to the heartbeat of humanity.  We think we are so needy. All we need is a reality check. 


Oh and remember about Burnside village refurb costing 100 mil? Australian development aid for Cambodia 2010/2011 is....................$64 million