Fire Inside

Day 6

Our day today was all about the pig pen. We washed the bricks (don't ask me why), then we stacked the bricks, then we unstacked the bricks, then we concreted the bricks into a super nice wall, then we covered the wall inside and out with more concrete, and made a special food pen out of bricks, and covered that with the concrete too. This pig better be happy, 'cause we gave it a 5-star pig pen.
Oh, and then it rained. It rained so much that the path near the orphanage flooded, and the street on the way home was a full-on river, and our tuk-tuk wheels covered in water. It was good for the plants though.
My little friend Soh-Keng got more sick today, but he is slowly getting better. Lisa-Marie's friend Johnny is here, and he's a doctor, and basically Soh-Keng just has a big fever for a little boy.
We were all craving doughnuts for the past two days, and as a reward for doing some hard work today, Lisa-Marie surprised us with a big box of doughnuts and 3 cartons of chocolate milk. So basically, I feel as if I'm about to implode. Too much in my tiny little stomach.
Today was very productive, and I felt the best I have in the entire trip, because now the orphanage can make good money when they get a female pig and the neighbors' male pig comes to "visit" and the piglets will get good money, because pig/pork is expensive here. I'm very tired as of now, and I will now go to sleep.

Day 5

Today was hot. We were picking up trash for at least 2 hours, back and forth between the dump and the orphanage. We were very sweaty, more so than the other days, and it felt good when it rained for, as Nikko said behind me, half a minute. No, it was more like 10 minutes, but it felt good anyway. It did make the red ants sleepy, though.

We began de-licing kids today, and it takes lots of patience and good eyes to see the eggs. You have to take at least 45 minutes per kid, and that's if their hair is short. It was good bonding time, though, to talk with the kids as you do their hair.

I realized today that I haven't talked about Sopia yet. Sopia is one of two blind boys at the orphanage, and the only one of them to speak English. Although he says he cannot speak English, that's not true, and he can speak very well, and it is very, very amazing to have a conversation with him.

His main interest is music, and has a beautiful singing voice, and can play instruments, even though he can't see them. He was taught by people holding his hands to different notes, and listening and repeating music.

He was blinded at 4 years old, in a landmine explosion that killed his friend that was with him. He can see nothing but blue, but as he says, his favorite color is blue, and he doesn't mind only seeing it.

With help from friends and memorization of the orphanage, he is able to move around interact with the others. He's so inspiring, because no matter what he does, he does it with fire inside him that makes him constantly happy and excited to be living his life as best as he can.