Sambo

I visited the Aloha Learning Center (ALC) with my then 15-year-old son, Elias, in June 2023. It was part of an 8-day trip to visit Cambodia from our home in Hawaii. We spent the first three days of our trip at ALC and were lucky to stay at the home of a friend that is walking distance from the center.

Every morning, Elias and I would walk over to the center where we would have breakfast followed by a wonderful time spent with the children. The first day we were there was a Sunday. It was their day off, so we were able get to know them outside their routine of school and classes. My son played ping pong and soccer with the boys while I got to know the older girls who were contemplating college, and what they would do career-wise after graduating from school. I also read books to the younger kids.

After lunch, the kids were excited to show us around the center and took us on a tour of their fish pond and vegetable gardens. Sunday afternoons are spent working on their gardens and they took a lot of pride in showing us all the hard work they put into keeping their gardens healthy.

That evening after dinner, a young lady stopped by to visit with the kids at the center. They were so excited to see her and introduced me to her. She turned out to be a graduate of ALC and the e-foster child of one of the members of my Rotary club. This young lady was now in college and excited about her future career in accounting. She spoke so fondly to me of her e-foster mom and how they are still in close contact and that they were planning a trip together after she graduated from college. I had been thinking for months about being an e-foster parent, and meeting this young lady convinced me that it was something I wanted to do.

The next two days at the center were school days for the kids. On school days, half of the kids ride their bikes to the nearby school while the other half stay in the center and take English and computer lessons. At noon, the school kids come back to the center and meet up for lunch. In the afternoon, the kids who spent their morning in the center ride bikes to school while the kids who were in school remain at the center for their computer and English lessons.

Elias and I found ourselves gravitating towards the English lessons and we spent most of our mornings and afternoons there. The kids were grouped by ability and there were English lessons throughout the day that were taught at different levels of difficulty. Elias and I introduced the kids to games such as Pictionary and word scrabble and held read-aloud workshops for the kids to work on their pronunciation. It was wonderful to see how engaged the kids were and how hard they worked on getting their English pronunciation just right. Their dedication to learning and bettering themselves was heart-warming.

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During our short stay, I requested from the school director, Porleang Srun, a list of the kids who need e-foster families. One little boy, Sambo, caught my eye. I remembered him sitting in the front row of English class, always trying so hard.

Sambo and I exchange monthly emails. He shares with me what is happening at the center and how school is going. He is always so excited when there is a special visitor at ALC or when they make special deserts for holidays, and I love to hear all about it. In turn, I share with him how things are going with my work and family and how Elias and his younger sister, Camille, are doing at school.

After our time at ALC, Elias and I visited Phenom Penh and then headed to Siam Reap to explore the temples at Angkor. Our trip was wonderful, but our time at ALC with the kids stood out as the most memorable. I feel so blessed to have Sambo be a part of my family and I can’t wait to see the amazing things he does when he graduates from school.