May 19th is a very special day for me because it is a day of celebration for both of my boys. Jonathan was born May 19th 2006 and 13 years ago, at 1 pm, I "got" Brian forever. That was when we pulled up to the orphanage in Sihanoukville and he was placed in my arms. (That lasted about 1 minute until he was crying for his nanny). We celebrated this year with soccer cake for Jonathan that we shared with the students here and by attending Brian's 7th grade "handchimes" concert at his school. Some of the kids in his class had told Brian they would bring him some black pants to wear, but they forgot. So 45 minutes before he was to be at the school, we were in a tuktuk racing to the closest mall to buy some pants. I never would have imaged 13 years ago, that I would be back in Cambodia with 2 sons and we would be trying to find a pair of black pants for Brian. We found the pants, got them measured and hemmed in 15 minutes and were only about 5 minutes late (and not the only late ones as I saw the student council president hurrying in right in front of us.).
Thirteen years ago, during that same time period, Carol, Brian, and I were being towed toward Phnom Penh behind a truck carrying wood. Our driver's car had broken down on the way back from Sihanoukville and the cell phone signal wouldn't carry over the small mountain so he couldn't call for help. We had sat on the side of the road in a small village until he found someone going towards Phnom Penh that could pull us. We were connected to the truck with a wooden pole and occasionally would drift into the oncoming traffic. Never Carol nor I will ever forget that ride - or the utter exhaustion we felt when we arrived at the hotel. By the time we got there, Brian had barfed and pooped on me. I must have passed some kind of test because he quit crying after that (maybe I smelled like him) and he gave us his first small smile as we sat in the lobby waiting for our room.
May has been another busy month at the Leadership Academy. Maureen Decoursey, the Director of Operatons for SSI, arrived May 1st and we launched into three weeks of nonstop work. Well, I take that back - she worked nonstop for 3 weeks - I unfortunately made it one week and then became very ill due to something I ate. Luckily we had already interviewed 7 candidates for the Leadership Academy Manager position and had completed some other work before I became bed ridden for 5 days. She and the Country Director went on and completed meetings with a bank, the Minister of Education, a NGO involved in agriculture - among other things. Fortunately, once I went to a doctor and got the right medicine it only took a day until I was able to be upright and another day to feel close to normal. She left today and my last week will be completing a few things we didn't get done and continuing training Sonhei, our new LA Manager. I'm glad someone will be here in the building with the students once I leave - I was a bit concerned with leaving 34 high school/college students without any adult around. not that I've had to really supervise them, but I was always here in case they needed something.
Thursday I was expecting to go to Jonathan's school and watch the 3rd grade "recycle" fashion show. They had made costumes out of clean recyclable trash. But around 8:30, I received a tearful call from him saying he had hurt his finger. I couldn't really tell if it was serious or not until he said it was "black". Then I started thinking he had broke it and it was really bruised. The school staff come on and said he had gotten a piece of wood deep under his fingernail and that I should come as the school nurse wasn't there that day. One of my students took me to the school on his moto and we picked him up. He had jammed a sliver of wood under his nail that morning when he was putting his helmet on a wooden table. It was the entire length of his nail, but hadn't gone into the nail bed thankfully. Maureen had just that week talked with an expat in the area and he had given her a name of a doctor he took his children too - so we called him up and took the motorcycle to his office - only 5 minutes away. He spoke pretty good English - they had to give Jon a numbing shot in his finger so they could cut away the nail some and get to the splinter. At first, it kept breaking and I was afraid they would have to cut the nail the entire length. But after about 15 minutes of this and that, the nurse was able to get enough of the splinter on the tweezer and the rest of it come out in one piece. I didn't have the heart or the energy to send him back to school after that. He was pretty tired from crying and I was from the adrenaline rush. The finger hurt a little yesterday, but today he hasn't complained at all. I'm quite sure that the memory of the motorcycle ride to the doctor and the doctor visit will not be forgotten.
The boys and I have really mixed feeling about leaving a week from Monday - I think we are ready to be back in OK, but also will miss the friends we have made here. Today, we went out to visit Brian's birthfamily for the last time and as we were leaving he said he wished that we could come back every summer so he could see them. Who knows - probably not every summer, but hopefully some summer we will.
I really haven't taken many pictures during this last month, but here are a few.
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B_LWGul2UlSaUDZhaWlqcGUtN1U&usp=sharing
