Most of the time my involvement with Newhope children's home is quite a tentative one, I write up Titus's news, needs and prayer requests, and add his photos on this blog to keep the project's friends and supporters updated. But this last week has been a little different, this week we have been seeing first-hand what it is like to live in rural Cambodian conditions (albeit before scuttling back to the Le heng chhay hotel for a bath and airconditioning!)
Travelling 30km each way and each day by tuktuk on the murderous main road has given us a taste of what it must be like to live here permanently (it tastes like sweat and dust), but we treasure the opportunity to step outside of the 'safe' westerners lives we lead in England and share this with our Cambodian brothers and sisters their life for a while. You have to admire the people who live here, (this is not even the hottest part of the year!) yet they seem to manage with such grace and good-humour.
It may be stating the obvious to say that their life is hard. I helped to transplant some little bananas yesterday (they sucker well and each one can become a new banana stand in its own right) and the work half killed me in the heat. The soil at this point of the year is baked concrete-hard and takes alot of breaking into, and I think its fair to say I impressed if not with my work then certainly with my ability to sweat! But the bananas they will produce are small but beautifully sweet, so I hope there will be many.
