Cambodian Children's Orphanage for Living and Training

The children today were very special. All were residents of different orphanages. Our makeshift clinic was located at COLT, the orphanage for living and training. There are 30 residents, pretty evenly split between boys and girls. The orphanage was started 8 years ago by Tina, a Dutch woman. The kids range in age from 4 to 21. They are housed, educated and more importantly loved. These kids would be street kids were it not for these agencies. We also met Rick, from Arizona, who brought kids from his orphanage. In all, we treated over 250 kids today. Some of the kids required extra special care such as the three girls who whose father beat them. The girls were understandably very distrustful. Another was a young girl who nearly perished refusing to leave her mothers side for days after the mother had died. Each child had a very tough past and we therefore worked extra hard to be sure that their treatment was comfortable and not traumatic. I was able to do a little orthodontics today by extracting an extra tooth which caused considerable crowding. I look forward to returning next year to see the result of this treatment. Tomorrow we visit the children of the dump.