The Ponheary Ly Foundation

One morning Zachary and I visited a primary school in Cambodia. This primary school was in Siem Reap and is apparently one of the best schools in the country. They have a rural integration program sponsored by the Ponheary Ly Foundation which brings very poor children, often orphans or kids with AIDS, to the school and provides them with uniforms. The kids receive uniforms twice a year, which means that on the day we visited the school, which was they day the kids received their second uniforms, most of the uniforms were a grayish-green color. Zachary and I both sat at the front of the assembly with three American volunteers. It was remarkably strange to be in an assembly again – as a high-school dropout it has been almost 10 years since I went to any sort of school assembly. I think they are as boring in Khmer as they were in English.

270 children received new uniforms that day. There was also a sort of school band that had about 150 kids playing various instruments I had never seen before. My favorite were the piano type things that were operated by blowing through a tube, though I also appreciate any primary school band that includes accordion and bongos. My former favorite performance for this trip was an acoustic rendition of Rihanna’s Umbrella, but that has been blown out of the water by the following rendition of Jingle Bells performed by Cambodian school children. If this type of music program is not worth a $10 donation* , I don’t know what is!

Here are a few pictures from the assembly:

Receiving the new uniforms:

Displaying the new uniforms

What is this instrument?

*sorry, apparently soliciting is in my blood