When the temperature drops to 26 degrees celsius on days with an overcast sky, the Khmer only leave their homes wearing warm fake fur hooded jackets, the fans in the restaurants have come to a standstill and the supermarkets have hung up their Christmas decoration, then winter in Cambodia is setting in.

Even though we laugh about the big winter jackets the Khmer are wearing, I have to admit that we too have taken our long-sleeved clothes out of our backpacks (after the tropical rainy season, we are now cold in the evenings). But the real winter and Christmas spirit only just came up the other day, after we warmed our stomaches and hearts with a delicious cheese fondue.

With the beginning of winter respectively the dry season our daily drive to the orphanage has become much easier. Since Jessies car has been in the garage for the whole last month, we had to switch over to a motorbike. But the ride is really only possible when the long, bumpy, unpleasant dirt road isn‘t just one big mud pool, but can be passed as a dry and dusty road.

But not only the time of year has changed. In the last couple of weeks change has also happend at the Chres Village School and Orphanage. With all the donations they could, for example, run an electric cable to the orphanage, so that the children now too have light after sunset (more about what has been done with the donations in our „thank-you“-blog next week).

Furthermore we had an impressive encounter with Mister Sin Sokhor. He had a sad childhood during the Khmer Rouge regime and now, as a grownup, has dedicated his work to make children happy and give them a better childhood then the one he had. With this end in mind he contacted two secondary schools in Singapore, who then both came to Cambodia to our orphanage, each for one week. The first school built a playground, the second school built a new classroom for the smallest ones, so they don‘t have to sit under the trees anymore. Of course the playground as well as the new classroom were opened with a festive, colourful ceremony and lots of dancing. I have to mention that Khmer people love parties and use every opportunity to install huge loudspeakers, build a colourful tent, open coconuts and perform some group dances. Both ceremonies were great experiences for us to witness this kitsch.

With our act to rush to the Thailand border and reenter Cambodia with a new visa, we didn‘t have to leave the kids in the middle of November, but could stay a month longer. But now the time has come to say farewell - today was our last day at the orphanage. For the goodbye all students gathered around us and some of them came forward to express their gratitude to us for our dedication, but also their grief about our departure. When it was SreyJhane‘s turn, she started to cry which caused a chain reaction, that didn‘t spare us either. It was heartbreaking seeing all those sad faces and I‘m afraid it will take some time to get over the separation from the children.

More pix under ‚pictures/cambodia‘.