Full House and Dengue

We had our first performance. People were nervous but prepared. Before the performance there was a reception where our guests mill about in the courtyard an hear from the students about the different organizations taking part in the performance. The students were also responsible for selling t-shirts, collecting donations, and ushering people to their seats. Luckily that was all these eager students needed to feel a part of the performance but it is a serious concern of Arthur and myself that despite the excellent lessons they learned on leadership from the core tem, this is the extent of the leadership experience we can provide them. Now that doesn’t mean that they didn’t grow from the experience, even the shyest and most nervous students ended up being surprisingly confident when speaking in front of groups of strangers.

I think everyone was pleasantly surprised with how well it all went. We heard the same thing from just about everyone we had talked to that they never saw anything like it. Tickets to the performance were given out free and donations were accepted. We had filled all 400 seats and had many standing in the back. We didn’t expect to collect much money since there isn’t a strong culture of donation but we actually managed to collect about $800.

I was glad to see Trent show up tonight. He is a long time SEALNet-er with a long involvement in Cambodia. He had first come to the region right after high school to study music with his jazz group. He ended up staying for a full year as a Buddhist monk. Kind of a surprising life choice for a white kid from California of atheist parents. He and his mom came to dinner with us that night. They both just arrived from Bangkok where Trent spent the last two weeks in hospital with Dengue fever caught near Angkor Wat. The symptoms of Dengue are high fever, extreme dysentery, a rash all over your body, bone break pain and when you start bleeding from all your orifices they airlift you to Thailand. Considering the ordeal he looked very healthy an in good spirit.