Old Saying Appears Once More

Lately I have been spending a lot of time with Roat. Roat is a 19-year-old male at the orphanage.  For a long time I have been saying how these kids at the orphanage and the students at Escuela Especial in Nicaragua have as much potential as you or me. However they do not have the opportunity that we do in America. And Roat is the perfect example. Roat is incredibly smart, athletic, has so much integrity, and is such a hard worker. I can only imagine how much Roat could accomplish if he lived in America where he had an equal amount of opportunity as he did potential.

On July 7^th we went to the market in the morning. I had no idea a market could be so scary. I always thought the customer was always right.  And boy was I wrong. That saying does not apply here in Cambodia. Here in Cambodia it’s whoever can yell the loudest ends up getting what they want. The market smelled, was unbearably hot, and was covered with bugs. Karen and I were in charge of getting 5 kilos of beef. At first, I felt a little weird bargaining for my food. I am not going to lie, I was a little hesitant telling the lady that was screaming and waving a rather large knife that what she was making me pay for meat was way too much and that she needed to lower her price. But after a while, I got used to telling these vendors how much I wanted to pay for our food.