The Simple Things

I could make a ton of excuses for my very apparent blogging hiatus - workplace stress, cultural frustrations, social apathy, other preoccupations - but I won't. Let's just put it in simple terms and move on: I haven't been a happy camper.

Thank goodness there are things in life that make the sludge of life worth stomping through. Last night, it was a group of kids.

As I've already written, I'm volunteering as a computer teacher at A New Day Cambodia, a center that takes in kids whose families work at the city garbage dump. In all realness, I haphazardly show up once a week and try to teach the kids something new about computers. They are more doing me a service than I them. Last night was no exception.

I can't say that it's anything in particular that they did that brightened my rather dark week. Our activity of the night was to write a story together, which we posted on their blog. The story, as you will read, is silly and the kids giggled and joked as they built it line by line. They also got distracted by a balloon a girl brought in, doodled pictures, sang funny songs and teased each other. Like I said, it was not a special night, but the energy of the kids was something worth taking hold of.

Perhaps my blogging hiatus should have lasted one more day, as I'm still struggling to string thoughts together coherently, but I hope you get my gist. These kids are great. (More to come...)