Steph's 18th

Today we were woken at 6:30am by two excited friends, Erika and Tenielle to celebrate Stephs 18th birthday milestone. By 7:30am we were loaded on the bus followed by presents from the leaders and began a believed to be 40 minute to 1 hour trek which turned out to be an hour and 40 minutes! When we arrived we were welcomed by the villagers and a representative from The Tabitha Foundation with waving hands and smiles. To start the day we separated into groups of 5-6 and began working on 10 houses for the villagers living in extreme poverty, this amounted in 2 houses per group in which we had to nail bamboo floors and nail the tin walls to the frame. We interacted with the builders of the community to enable us our most memorable experience. We used our very first squat toilet which was a a surprise, also a very disturbing experience. We handed the houses we constructed over to the 10 nominated families with a ceremony presenting the family with a blanket purchased from the local market to also help boost the economy in Pnom Penh. Today we felt great honour to be able to take time out of our lives to help the less fortunate to improve their lives and be given the opportunity to see first hand the smiles and greatfulness of the villagers when we handed over the house warming gifts and their new home, we also finished in a short period of time, finishing all houses in 4 hours! We returned home later in the day for a few hours of relaxation (sleep) and got ready for the night where teams alternated and some got cooking classes and some went out for tea by the river. We are well deserving of a sleep in tomorrow morning and an unexpected visit to the Tabitha Foundations women's hospital which is still under construction due to high numbers of interest after an inspirational speech at Tabitha yesterday, reinforcing the importance of health care and equality in this country. 

Steph B & Meg