David
David is an orphan who Esther took under her wing. He works as a tuktuk driver and translator at the homestay. The oldest of 8, he ended up at the homestay after his father was murdered. The rest of his siblings are in an orphanage. David is a really key part of the operation, whatever is going on he helps out, makes things run nice and smooth. Being a bit of a class clown you can't help but feel cheerful in his company. We found him particularly helpful at the medical clinics as his frequent attendance of them have given him the skill to translate many specialist medical terms into Khmer.
Pholem (pronounced po-lerm) and Samuel
Pholem does a lot of maintenance work and cooking at the homestay. She is the assistant manager of the place. Pholem came to Esther during her prgnancy as her ex-husband was having an affair. He had decided to leave her with money to abort the yet unborn Samuel. Esther took them both in becoming a grandmother figure to Samuel, who is now a beautiful, spritely 5 year old boy. It was amazing watching him play, knowing how forces were acting to prevent his little life from coming into the world.
Uncle
Uncle is an elderly Chinese gentleman, we grew very fond of him during our stay. He once spontaneously cooked us up some delicious fish. When we sat down to eat he would serve everyone's rice and insisted that he serve himself last. Once finished he would be the first to stack all our plates and tidy up. While verbal communication was sparse between us, his fine character spoke volumes.
It was great to see Uncle's refusal to sit idle during his stay. With the manual labour tasks being inappropriate for him and teaching English out of the question, he came up with his own novel idea - to raise chicks to maturity and donate them to local villages. Really lovely man.
Ivan
Ivan is a young man who currently lives in Perth, but is ethnically Malay-Chinese. He came to the homestay to teach the local kids guitar, holding intensive daily courses from morning to evening. He has such a calm aura and gentle disposition, with an open mind and a refreshing willingness to explore new ideas. If it wasn't for his schedule being so packed at the homestay we could easily have spent a lot more time with Ivan. Just before we parted he shared his Christian faith with me and invited me to believe the same. I was really touched that he wanted to share what he loved the most. I really hope to meet him again one day.
Left to right: Fiz, Mandeep, Esther, pholem, Samuel, David
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