Our time in Ban HomeHug is approaching a close with a party tonight to send us off, a tour to the elephant camp tomorrow and us leaving early Sunday morning for a flight to Phuket. It is fair to say our time here has been incredible, challenging and rewarding.

We have witnessed incredible things happen here at HomeHug. The transformation of little Maleek, a girl given up on by her father, who was being slowly killed by malnutrition, neglect and disease, to the happy smiling little girl in the pink dress helping the smaller children, playing, giggling and laughing like every little girl should be. The incredible smiles on the kids faces! When I was here in 2010 before Hands had started the rebuilds, the kids faces carried the strain of a lack of hope, their smiles shallow and their eyes gazing down. Now we see kids brightly beaming their smiles each morning and afternoon. Food, water and medicine are no longer commodities that run out easily, hope now flows more vibrantly than ever! I am so proud to have had some small part to play in this transformation and am even more proud that my mate Pete, my Father and all my friends at Hands have had an even bigger role, absolutely incredible.

It has also been challenging, our beds are wafer thin and our constant battle with the flies, midges and mosquitoes has left us tired, covered in bites and constantly flapping our arms. The food has been delicious, but liver and solidified blood in congee for breakfast is a struggle to look at. The dogs and cats do a good job at keeping us awake at night and surrounded during the day. The kids also have their challenges. There is a large gap in ability for our English classes with some students struggling with basics and others wanting more advance work. Keeping everyone happy is impossible but they are still trying and so are we. The biggest challenge I fear is to come on our last few moments here when we have to say "good bye, see you again".

Lastly it has been absolutely rewarding! The kids beaming faces each morning is such a treat, they run to us in the afternoon grabbing our hands, wanting to play like all children should. In our classes, we have had such a rewarding time watching the clever but shy children walk in front of their classmates, taking a deep breath and speaking beautiful clear English where before there were mumbles or silence. Sadly a few days will not be enough, they need much more work on their English and many more opportunities to practice with volunteers, but if nothing else they will now have more confidence to try, more desire to learn and a greater ambition to be fluent in English, a skill that will serve them well for the future.