Cambodia Orphan Fund has finally opened its bar, and very well it has been doing. Full to bursting on opening night, and again on two evenings this week when we have put on live music from the balcony. However the guy opposite is a friend of the ruling political party, and is complaining, so we will need to tone things down a bit.

The Italian community seems to have made it their local, (must be the coffee,) which is nice, if not a little confusing to find one of my friends wandering around at 08.30am coffee in one hand and guitar in the other when I am heading upstairs to work. In the evening they have a tendency to all arrive at once through the sunset all with the same swagger, big ones, small ones, a flashback to the Sopranos. Our next venture is land acquisition, and we have now purchased a hector of land 30 minutes from town, on which we plan to build a children’s centre in the long term. Currently there are no roads or electric, but they will come. This means or future is much more secure, as is that of the children.

We took the children to Kulem National Park over the weekend, 50 children on the back of two trucks made quite a site. One little girl aged five made a point of slipping her toy ring on my finger at the end of the day. How sweet. Expect a phone call in 13 years time ordering me back with suitable dowry in tow. She is such a lovely smiley child, like the 49 others I will miss them so much when I return home.

Following my last commentary about the cardboard kids, it appears that they are not collecting cardboard to sell, rather to actually build and repair their houses. I went to visit a project and the poverty up there, just 20 minutes from town, is disturbing. Children are ill here (Mortality rate here is 20 times that of the West in children aged 5 and under.) and most families can expect to lose at least one child, preventable by basic hygiene and medication.

We are in process of appointing welfare workers into these communities and offering training on these issues. We can then arrange family sponsorship in the most desperate of cases.