CCH donation and art!

On Thursday, after teaching at the International School I headed over to CCH to go with the staff to buy a electric bike for the children. Penny the woman who I met initally at the Lighthouse had left me with a large amount of money to donate in gifts and the bike was something the orphanage had chosen. This is because some of the children go to school in the centre of Phnom Penh and if you look at my map(!) you will see that CCH is quite a way out to the west of the city. Using an electric bike it only takes half an hour to get to the centre, otherwise it would be hours on foot and impossible! So, 4 of us went from CCH in the CCH car back in to town to a row of shops specialising in these bikes. One older orphan (what is the politically correct name - disadvantaged child(?)), one staff member and me and Brian (my ex-TEFL teacher/friend). The shop which CCH knows and gets a good price from is run by a chinese woman. Crazily Brian speaks chinese having lived there for a while and so was able to soften her up to get a good deal.

There was a good deal of standing around, looking like we were not interested.... for about an hour. We tried to get all sorts of freebies (a lock, a helmet etc) but she would not budge. She had apparently already discounted the bike from $480 to $390 so that was it. Eventually she melted and gave in - Her final price $385. A whole further £2.50 discount for an hour of "work". I think I would have prefered to have paid the $390 and saved an hour standing in baking heat on the side of a dusty road but where would be the fun in that?! The other vendors on the street were grossly over priced in comparison.

Here are some photos of the intense negotiations (!) and also the bike leaving the shop once purchased and the bike back at CCH after its first ride across town!

Tomorrow I am going to buy some normal bikes for the children at a mere $30 its not a lot of money so we may end up getting 5-10 bikes. That should be interesting.

This morning at the international school we did Kandinsky (well I like to be informative in my education). Based on Composition X (here is a picture of the original in case you are culturally uneducated) and here is the pictures done by the kids. We painted the card black (you cannot get black card in Cambo) and then cut out and stuck on shapes. It took from 8.30am til 11.15am - Easy!

The original ... and my lovely children's work on display.... well they kind of got the concept

These are last weeks Van Gogh copies and the original!!

This afternoon I continued the gift buying for CCH. I think the woman in the stationery shop almost died when I announced I wanted 200 books. They were also very amused by the amount of educational posters I got. But, nothing was as funny to them as me getting on a motorbike with the goods to go home balancing them with the help of my driver.

The kids at the orphange are very excited about the prospect of a photography course - The plan, if they are good, is to have an exhibition to raise funds. If anyone has any old digital cameras to donate please let me know so they can be included in the package being prepared to come from the UK- I think Alex and Lucy at OC are arranging the shipment soon!