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On my third day in the village, I got the chance to work with the volunteer coordinator, Marlyn, she wanted me to help with interviewing 7 newcomers at NHCC.
I got a note with the following questions on it:
Name
Age (Had to look it up in the records: 14, 18, 10, 9, 14, 15, 8)
Are you HIV positive? (Answered: YES)
Birthday
Mother
Father
Siblings
What's your favorite?
Subject in school (Answered: Khmer, English, Math)
Food (Answered: Chicken, Pizza or Hamburger)
What do you do in your spare time? (Answered: Play with my friends, read a book)
What do want to be when you grow up? (Answered: teacher, doctor so I can help others in the same situation)
What do you want to better at? (THEY ALL ANSWERED: be better at school!)
I never knew how emotional it would be to hear these kids' life stories, and how lucky I'm that I grew up in Denmark, non of the kids knew how old they were, the birth date or anything, regarding mother and father, in general most of them had the following story, both parents died of HIV, or if one was a live, the parent wasn't able to take good care of them, !remember that at HIV kid has to get medicine everyday at a certain hour, and eat prober food!, with both parents dead, they were placed with a grandmother or aunt to start with, but it didn't work out well, !since it's embarrassing in Cambodia to HIV, if an aunt takes in an HIV kid, it can effects her business badly!, last option for HIV infected kid in Cambodia is than to be located in the village of NHCC. It's the only organization in the country that gives shelter to HIV kids. The reason for this is that mainly people are afraid to pass or get the disease. BUT like I was told upon arrival, and I also have read on the internet, HIV can only be passed on by sexual intercourse, or by direct contact blood with blood that comes from an infected kid, so these kids could spite on you, you could drink of the same cup without worrying about getting HIV.
While the kids were getting interviewing, not a single cried or anything, I was more affected of what I heard, than the kids were while telling me, they smiled and played around, asked me silly questions about Denmark :) It's such an amazing spirit these kids have!!
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