From volunteer Olivia:

Wall painting of the Preschool!

In the past few days Luise, Kelly and Briar (two New Zealand volunteers) and I have been busy decorating the walls in the preschool with a wonderful result. We not only included the English alphabet but also a number of Khmer letters that (anyone who has been confronted with written Khmer will be able to relate to) are already a piece of art in themselves. We also drew on a scale beside the door for the children to measure themselves.

This wall we decided to dedicate to numbers and again included the Khmer translations.

As we were on a roll with painting and generally in a decorating mode, we continued on the outside of the building and mixed various colours for every Watopotian to leave a mark (their handprint) on the outside wall of the preschool. It was a lot of fun, with a few children not simply writing their names beside their own hand but attempting to transform their print into masterpieces dragging the paintbrush all around their names, of course wanting to be the most noticeable one! Trying to get the paint off all the children’s hands (using the magic of gasoline) was a different story …

Other artsy things going on at Wat Opot:

To expand on the kids’ artistic skills, they were introduced to Wiki Stix, reusable wax strips which create both 2 and 3 dimensional objects. Some kids preferred to make pictures using templates, while others used their imagination to construct objects. The kids loved having a myriad of color choices to make their pictures.

Some of the children followed the outline of already drawn animals to create their Wickey stick creation; others came up with their own original ideas.

Miss Srey Mahrk and Miss Pauliep astounded at the result of trying to get the figures to stand up.

The unmistakable smile of Mr Chay whilst twisting and turning the waxy Wickey sticks.

Mr Somnang in deep concentration while creating a wonderfully colourful spiderweb.

Mr Wey proud of his finished Wickey wax cat!

Mr Nak with his very stylish Wickey stick glasses. Loving the look!

The elephant house’s outside walls very close to completion. Artists Soman and Nith (plus a couple of helpers) are the painters of these fine pieces of art.

The African sunset has been intensely worked on in the past week and each time while we are standing in the kitchen we glance out of the window and catch a glimpse of this landscape, each time looking completely different, each time looking absolutely beautiful, each time getting a lovely warm feeling inside.

And just finished today is the new Art Room thanks to help from our volunteers:

And the volunteers that were with us today, who made it possible: