Day 7: Hammers, fish and loving hearts

February 20th, 2014

By AJ

It was a Ford model type of day; appropriately used unlike how it’s used in the American educational system. We must have hammered 1,000 nails to join 100’s of stakes to 10 foot boards. I’ve had multiple experiences hammering nails beforehand, including sideways and upside-down hammering, but it still took me a few minutes to get back in the groove of things. I started off with a small hammer, but then relieved a fellow YAM of the big sledge hammer which made me super happy. It was hard to use at first because of its weight, but then I got used to it and developed a technique. 

Nails and nails later we stopped and took a break for lunch. The superintendent’s wife cooked perfectly fried white fish and to top it off there was this really good sauce. It was like a mixture between duck sauce and hot sauce: sweet and spicy. Reverend Joseph must have seen me wolf down my food; he kept offering me more and more fish. I didn’t reject. 

Siobhan, Kimi, and I helped finish up the last bits of nailing after lunch and then I wandered over to where the rest of the group was hanging out with the kids. I stood to the side, sorting school supplies, and smiling at the joyful faces shared by everyone in the crowd. And then suddenly a couple of the girls came over and grabbed me by the arms, gesturing that they wanted to take a picture with me. I walked into the crowd with them and they ran to find Hailey, the camera woman, and then ran back to me and embraced me with their arms. Once I was engulfed by the crowd, more and more girls ran over to me to grab tightly with warms hugs and big smiles, ecstatically waiting for the flash of a camera. 

I’ll have to admit, I hadn’t hung out with them as much as the other youth previously. My main focus was to work until I was really sore. But our newfound Cambodian friends still embraced me with the same excitement and giddy laughter as the other youth. I always say that I’m not good with kids and that I prefer not to hang out with them. Hanging out with kids is like pretzels for me. I try to convince myself that I’m not very fond of them, but once I start I fall in love. And I really felt this today when we played a game where you make a circle and hit this feather toy back and forth, trying to keep it off the ground.