This summer I went up to Cambodia with feelings of hesitation and anxiety as I had never visited this country before and had heard about the mass genocide that had occurred decades ago. Another classmate and I chose to visit this orphanage in part to gain a meaningful experience by doing community service. For my classmate who had barely been out of the United States, Cambodia was an enormous culture shock, and even for me, someone who had visited places all over Asia, some of them third world, Cambodia was surprisingly different than any other third world country I had visited.
In the first five minutes after getting of our flight, we witnessed corruption firsthand through bribes being handed from the window of a van to police officers. On the long journey to the Preynop orphanage, I was exposed to third world poverty like never before. Arriving at the orphanage, I did not know what to expect as it was a personal first. The children approached us tentatively since me and my classmate towered over all of the children, even the young adults.
After a few hours of meet and greet through simple English, the children began to reveal their playfulness by making us chase them around or playing a game of basketball with the older children. Our first night was when we really made a connection with the children. Since we stayed in the same dormitory as the children, we simply walked into the common area or into their rooms to interact with them. Because their only entertainment in the dormitory came from each other or the few picture books laying around, me and my classmate were a great source of entertainment for the children. Once we started picking the children up and lifting them up in the air, they wouldn’t let us rest. Everyday and night we would be picking children up or chasing them around the orphanage. Even though it was tiresome work, it was nothing compared to the manual labor we were assigned which was to dig ditches and shovel dirt in order to lay electric wires and construct a road all with basic tools.
With the exhausting Cambodian sun at our backs, the work was very tiresome but the children would help in every aspect making the experience very enjoyable and unforgettable. On our last night at the orphanage, the children sang songs to us and came up to us to thank us personally for helping them have a good time and refurbish the orphanage. Then it was our turn to say something to the children and after hearing many of the children say that they would see me again, I promised the children that I would return and that hopefully they would remember me. 
The next day leaving the Preynop orphanage was one of the hardest situations I have ever been in. Saying goodbyes while the children were hanging onto my leg or pulling my hands asking for another chance for me to pick them up was heartbreaking yet heartwarming at the same time seeing that I had made a deep connection with the children in the short period I was there.
Two of the older children, Samuel and Joshua, wrote me a simple thank you note that was very touching because they expressed their gratitude for my brief work done there. Before I got into the car, I couldn’t suppress the tears that began streaming down my face even though I’d like to think of myself as a “macho” guy. Making a connection with these children and seeing them smile even in their impoverished conditions inspired me to make a promise to return to these children to provide even greater aid so that they may have a better future. This was by far one of my most life changing experiences.
I’d like to personally thank the Pulmones for their generosity and hospitality and at the same time admire their philanthropy for devoting their lives to aid the underprivileged.
* Paul Ban is a student in a Prep School in Connecticut, USA, who volunteered with his classmate Nick to help in Goducate Children’s Home in Cambodia.
