It’s a bit lonely at Wat Opot these days.  Usually the kids go to visit their families the first of April to celebrate the weeks long Khmer New Year Holiday, but with schools closed because of the Corona Virus outbreak, we started arranging for them to leave early.

After loading up and lots of good-bye hugs, we drove hundreds of kilometers over the course of 4 days to get everyone where they needed to be.

Wat Opot was left with only 5 resident kids but a full staff for a few days so everyone was put to work.  The first day was a big clean up of the property and inside all the buildings.  Wat Opot has never looked so clean!

The amazing thing about our staff is that no one has a ‘that’s not my job’ mentality.  Any given day you can find a cook helping with homework, our gardener helping someone ride a bike, a child care giver feeding the cows and our director watering the garden.  So, on day 2, our staff, kids and some of our young adult former residents who came to stay for a bit, pitched in hauling dirt to fill in some areas so we can grow more produce.

Breaks were needed regularly!

After all this hard work and before most of our staff will have off for 3 weeks, we had a small party to show them our appreciation for all they do for the kids.

And no celebration is complete without dessert which was dubbed the “Corona Cake”.

We value our staff and their dedication especially during these uncertain times.

The Watopotians