Theatre outing.

It was nice to walk out of the office yesterday evening and drive north to the Lakeside Orphanage - NACA. I had arranged to take the kids (32 in total) to Sovanna Phum theatre. This is a theatre that concentrates on Cambodian traditional dance and puppetry. It is well established and has good support and funding, it also runs a number of courses for national students to become professional performers in these arts. Most of the performers have been working at the theatre for over 5 years and it's become really popular with regular performances on Friday and Saturday nights. http://www.sovannaphum.org/english/index.html

I hired a small van, and arranged to take two of the work four wheel drives and Phalla (one of the ladies from work) also came with her car. We drove up in convoy, picked up my friend Johanna who had offered to help me out, we then headed to the orphanage.

I think the best sight of the night for me was getting there and seeing all the kids dressed up in their best clothes, they had all just taken showers and their hair had been neatly arranged, i'm sure by the "big" mama. They were so excited and proud to be going on an trip, it was really nice to be part of it all. I'd printed out number stickers and got everyone's names on paper, the last thing i wanted to do was lose one of them! They are all so well behaved that i didn't really think this was likely but i wanted to be sure.

We walked around the corner to the vehicles and then was amazed (in my naive western head) to find that the kids didn't want to get into the air conditioned trucks - they were too cold! This is so hard to imagine for us foreigners that are always trying to escape the heat, but for them never being in air conditioning you can appreciate that it wouldn't feel very nice. We got past this - it wasn't really a big deal. We headed off with lots of excited children and adults.

We found the theatre, the kids lined up and we filed in! Thursday nights are rehearsal nights, which is why it was ok for us to take 30 odd children, the theatre had saved a whole lot of seating for us and the kids sat in eager anticipation. Initially i was a bit worried that with it just being rehearsal there wouldn't be enough going on to keep the kids engaged. But actually i think it might have been the opposite. There was a lot going on and the theatre Director was continually guiding the performers and correcting what they were doing and how they were doing it. The kids get daily traditional dance lessons so i think they were fascinated to see the professionals but also to hear what the theatre teachers were telling them to do. I'd look around and the kids would be watching and practising the moves as they were watching.

The shadow puppetry was a definite hit, its something they might not have seen on that scale before, it's all very simple with a white light shining onto a big piece of white cloth but the affects are great.

After about an hour and a half we decided it was time to go. I think they had a good time but my big regret is not being able to speak Khmer, it's not an easy language to learn but i haven't made any progress, or effort if i'm honest! I will have to try and put some time into it as it's so hard to interact with the kids and really understand what they are thinking without speaking their language. If i can save some money i would love take them to see a full show at the theatre, maybe in a month or so. It'd be nice for them to see the final result of the effort that the performers were putting into their rehearsals. We shall see...

More photos http://picasaweb.google.com/JStancombe/SovannaPhumVisit