The two month marker has come and passed, and a lot has happened in the last few weeks. The more that happens, the more I have to tell, and the less time I have to tell it. The big news, which a number of you already know, is that I have started to teach at the public high school in my village! Right when I arrived Kit and Ream told me that the school was interested in having some of us „furners“ helping to teach English at the school. I said sure, why not. A few weeks ago I went over to the school, talked to the principal (or better said attempted to communicate with bits of English, French and Khmer, mostly with Ream translating for me) and got two classes assigned to me, a 7
th and a 10
th grade. I had been initially thinking that I would just be giving additional English conversation classes, so the thought of being completely responsible for 90 students' (about 45 in each class) success or demise in the English language for the next year was rather daunting. However, I've been assured by Ream that the English teachers there are so bad that there's no way I can do any worse. The next week on Wednesday I had my first day. Here's a bit of an email I wrote to my family the day afterward.
Hey ho everybody,
so yesterday was my first day. Ream brought me to the school walked me into the directors office helped clear a few things up and then left me on my own. After painfully stumbling through French Kmai and English with the directors and teachers it was time for class to start.
The school is a big plot of land with long one story buildings all along the edges, making a rough square, with a big courtyard containing a pond, basketball court, some trees, benches and tables. A building that has the teacher's room and the offices is in the middle. My classroom was in the farthest end away from the teachers' room so I was walking across the courtyard, following the director, and basically the WHOLE school was lined in front of their classrooms. I'd say there was a couple hundred, it felt like a thousand, all watching me. It was an out of body experience, something I guess you can experience as a rock star or similar celebrity. They were ALL watching me, every eye trained on me. I felt like I was a gladiator entering an arena in ancient Rome, everybody is basically cheering the gladiator on, but they wouldn't mind seeing him torn to pieces either. ;) Everybody was really excited because they didn't know which class I was going to teach, so they were all whispering, and when I went into my classroom, the class that „got“ me cheered.
I'm teaching the 10th grade that two of our kids our in, so that's really cool. I was introduced, the English teacher happily took a seat in the back, and I started. I introduced my self again, and started to teach out of their book, it went basically very well. I was told that I spoke slowly enough. The biggest difficulty is teaching slow enough. They have two pages that are supposed to last 2 hours. Well I finished it in a bit over an hour, and then asked the teacher if I could continue to the next lesson, he said no. I then asked if he would like to continue because I was finished, he said no. Well that’s just great. So I continued with how to start a conversation with a foreigner, a lesson I've already taught our kids here, so it was easy. All the kids were supposed to stand up one after another, introduce themselves and ask me a question or two. I started out in the back this time, and the boy that I started out with refused to get up and talk to me, after a few „yes-no-yes-nos“ I gave up. He looked like he was 19 or 20, a big kid, and I couldn't intimidate him into it. His neighbor followed his lead, but otherwise they were all really good. I talked to S'dung (one of the staff) about my problem students, and she said that I should tell the director. She then really made me feel really good, by saying that most of the teachers don't though, because they're afraid that the student will go to their house and attack them, but oh don't worry they won't do it to you. Hmm I'll have to see what I'll do about that.
I went back in the afternoon to teach the 7th grade. I rode my bike there (I was wearing my long skirt, but still very difficult, you have to ride with one hand, and hold your skirt with the other), and the teachers were really shocked that I was riding a bike, because they all ride motos, I told them that I don't have a moto but they didn't seem to really get it. The 7th grade was more difficult than the 10th, they really don't understand English and the teachers, for some reason didn't see it necessary to have any teacher in the class with me, so I was on my own. The kids however, were really cool, and we were able to find some form of communication. But since I couldn't do a number of the exercises in the book, because I just couldn't bloody explain them, I finished one lesson in just like 50min. I'm gonna have to work on the whole time management thingy.
What was also quite difficult, is that one of my students is severely physically handicapped. One of his legs goes only to his knee and one of his arms does not have a hand. The other hand is also crippled but he somehow manages to write with it. To demonstrate his handicap to me, the director had him hobble up the aisle and back, it seemed to be very humiliating to me, besides thoroughly shocking me of course. At one point I was having the kids get up and write the numbers from 1-10 on the board, and I had forgotten that first of all he can't really get up the front of the classroom well, and there's no way he can reach up to the board. I remembered in time though, and had him just write the number in my notebook. He seems to be quite bright, and when he's sitting at his desk you don't even really see his handicap, which I must admit I'm happy about, since it really unsettles me. All in all the class was good too, I felt like I was able to make a connection to them, and that I was not just talking to the wall. There's a few really smart kids, who get things really quickly and are able to tell the others. (…)
Since then I've gotten a lot more comfortable teaching, and have really slowed down my teaching-tempo (I've even not been able to finish the two pages in the two hours a few times). One of the „big“ boys in the 10th grade who wouldn't behave, and who, to tell you the truth, kinda scared me, surprised me one day after class. While I was wiping off the board, he came up took one of the cloths and did it for me.
I'm really getting along well with my 7th graders, they're all really cool and some of they boys especially are really funny. However I've had to come to the sad realization that I can't be too buddy buddy with them. They've started to get rather disrespectful, talking in class, getting up from their seats, the kind of behavior, that is still not tolerated in Cambodia. I'd been wondering how I could get them under control, and realized that I've been too friendly. Thinking back to my school time, I never really respected the teachers who were too nice, the ones who we respected the most, we also feared a bit too. While me being a foreigner was frightening enough in the beginning, it's kinda worn off. So one day last week I marched into class with a stony face, and almost didn't smile the whole time. It was rather heartbreaking to see some of my favorite boys looking up at me smiling, and looking for a smile in return. While I know that it's perfectly allowable for a teacher to smile, I really had to be a bit drastic to get the message across, since I can really only communicate via body language. I also threatened to throw out one of the kids out who was talking to much, and who also is one of my favorites. My tactic worked very well, they were much quieter, and seemed a bit frightened. With time I'm sure I'll be able to find a middle path between the two extremes, but I'm happy that I've got my class back under control.
The week before last also brought two new arrivals: Neil and Rachel from Pennsylvania. They're a young couple, just freshly married, and will be staying here for 4 months. They're both really nice and a lot of fun, they also seem very interested in getting to know the kids and their culture. It's great to have another man here too. Up to now it's just been female volunteers, and all the staff are women too, so I think the boys really need the extra male influence. He's also a great help when it comes to play wrestling with the boys, the big ones are just too strong for me, besides the fact that physical contact really isn't allowed anyway, and I've been dying to get back at all of them for throwing spiders at me all the time.
Another big “event“ was two weekends ago. This weekend was Bon Om Tuk (Water Festival), which celebrates “The epic victory of Jayavarman VII over the Chmas who occupied Angkor in 11777, this festival also marks the natural phenomenon of the reversal of the currentt of the Tonle Sap River“ LonelyyPlanett Travel Guide). It's important for Kit and Ream that the kids visit what remains of their families once or twice a year, and this was one of the times. So all the kids (besides a few who had REALLY bad situations at home or nobody to go home to), where gone over the weekend. One of the staff, Bo, had asked me a few weeks back if I wanted to go visit her parents over the weekend. I've really been wanting to experience „real“ Cambodian life so I said yes.
So on Saturday morning I started my journey with Bo and her adopted brother Jake who stays at the orphanage. We caught a van-taxi in our village and I got a seat on the bench installed in the trunk, which was kept open and always threatened to slam in our faces every time we hit a pothole. This van was moderately full, but still doable. After about 30min (with stopping every few hundred meters to pick up more passengers) we reached a gas station, got out and got on the back of a kind of pick-up-thingy. This was almost completely empty, I guess it was a kind of calm before the storm of our next vehicle.
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| Bo |
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| Me with Jake (which is Khmer for banana by the way) |
After a short ride we reached a bigger village/small city and before I knew it two guys came running up and try to grab our bags. Having heard so many horror stories of robberies, I was not willing to let go of my backpack, however I was just behaving like a stupid tourist, because all the men wanted was to make sure that we took THEIR van-taxi and not another's. After being assured via sign language that it was ok to let go, I gave them my backpack and followed them to their still empty van.
Now after having been in Israel, I knew that they would wait until they had enough passengers to make it worth while for them to make the drive. The van we were in legally seats 11 passengers, I knew that they were going to stuff more in, but was not prepared for the extent: 30 people. Yep there were 30 people in there before they were willing to drive off. After about 20 min of extreme squishedness some of the first passengers got off and it started to get better, by the time we reached our final destination we actually all had our own seat and space to move. But altogether the car rides were really fun, it's much different than taking a bus, train or taxi in Germany. Everybody is really friendly, some of the passengers took the smaller kids on their laps so everybody had more room, and people would chat with each other. I of course was topic numero uno: who am I, which nationality, can I speak Kmai..... All these questions where directed to Bo, I, however, can understand the “Can she speak Kmai?“ question so I'd be able to answer it myself, which always got a positive reaction.
The next question would always be „ What happened to her knee?“ I had skinned me knee quite badly a week ago and still had a rather impressive scab. I found this really interesting, no matter where I've been, in a bus, at a gas station, getting my nails done, visiting families, everybody has asked about me knee. In Germany no stranger would ask, or quite frankly, probably even care, But here everybody seems quite interested in my welfare, so another sentence I learned in Kmai over the weekend was „ I was playing with the kids and fell down“.
It's hard to explain the difference I feel between the way strangers interact in the „West“ and over here. One thing that makes a difference, I believe is that you always address a stranger with family terms: Someone your age or a bit older you address as bong which means older brother of sister, someone a bit older but younger than your father/mother you call pboo/ming – uncle/aunt, and someone older than your father/mother ohm broh/ohm s'ray. So it's my theory that just addressing people like that changes the way you perceive them, it all does seem like everybody is a big big extended family.
Again sorry for my philosophizing, but you might as well get used to it, because I've got a lot more theories of human behavior just waiting to be told. We finally reached the town close to her house changed to a moto-taxi and zoomed off over very adventurous paths and through rice fields to her parents' house.
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| the house with the "living room" underneath |
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| the banana grove in their yard |
Her parents were very welcoming and seemed very happy to see me. After a couple minutes Bo asked me if I wanted to take a shower. Hoping that this would also lead me to were perhaps a toilet might be I said yes, and asked her where it was. She led to a bunch of big concrete containers filled with water, at the side of the house right in front of the path leading to the house and said. „here“.
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| The washing up area, this water is also used for cooking |
Now I knew that when girls shower here in Cambodia they always wrap themselves in a cloth, and that that's why you don't necessarily need a shower stall, however I had kind of thought that the „shower“ would be somewhat more private. I didn't feel ready to go for it all by myself, so I said I'd shower when she would (which I did later in the evening when it was dark). The toilet turned out to be a sectioned off are in the yard, which consisted of a kind of canal with boards built over it and a very small hole in the middle, requiring rather good hand-eye coordination.
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| the toilet |
Later that day Bo asked me if I wanted to help bring 6 live ducks they had just captured and tied together to her brother. Shortly thereafter I found my self sitting on the back of a moto driving down a path between the rice fields that was just as wide as the moto's wheel holding two baskets each with three live ducks tied together with strands of bark from a banana palm, trying there very best to escape. I was thinking:“If you're looking for something different, you don't need to look farther than this“
The whole family (besides Jake, who had his own room upstairs...) sleeps on the wooden platforms under the house that also serve as chairs and tables. It looks pretty cool but is also extremely uncomfy, however if your tired enough I guess you can sleep on everything.
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| The bed-couch-dinner table |
On Sunday I visited a Pagoda (Buddhist temple) with some of her relatives.
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| On our way to the temple |
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| With a hat her family gave me to keep my face from getting too brown |
There was some kind of celebration going on. During celebrations the temples resemble big fairs more than anything else, with all different kinds of food being sold, and lots of people dressed up in their "Sunday best", the temple itself was the ugliest I've seen up to now.
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| I front of what I believe is some kind of holy fruit tree |
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| The temple fair grounds |
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| Buddhist monks, who didn't seem too thrilled about getting their pictures taken by an annoying tourist |
One of her uncle's lives nearby so we stopped their for lunch.
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| Her uncles place, one of the nicer homes I've seen out in the country |
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| Me with a huge fruit |
On Monday we had planned a trip to the beach, and left the house at 8 o'clock, with the original plan to take two motos, Bo driving one with me and Jake on another with his friend. Well an hour later after having visited half of her family, and having changed our plans to taking a taxi with about half of the youth in the village, and then back again about 4 times, Jake, Bo and I left on
one moto. The trip started up really fun going down the highway, which was actually in a surprising good level of repair, weaving in and out of traffic, looking at the beautiful landscape, but then the pain set in. I'm really not used to riding a motorcycle, and neither is my rear and, it got steadily more and more painful, until I started to wish that I had never asked to see the ocean, heck never had even come to Cambodia. When I had reached the point where I was seriously considering if I would be ready to cut off my little finger to make the pain stop (so delirious with pain that I quite managed to forget that the resulting pain would probably be worse), we saw the ocean!!! We were at Kep Beach, a nice but rather touristy town on the coast. Cambodia does have beaches that look like the postcards from the Caribbean, but they are farther away. However this beach was beautiful, fairly clean, the water was warm, and I was completely content. It was interesting to see all the tourists. Here in the village and of course at Bo's village as well, I never see any white people, so it was almost as shocking for me as it was for the Cambodians to see white skin. It was kind of embarrassing too, all the women were wearing sleeveless or strapless shirts, showing a lot of red sunburned skin, you do NOT bare your shoulders in Cambodia, and I wonder how they seem not to notice that they are the only ones doing it. I was sitting in a wall by the side of the rode with Bo and Jake eating some yummy Cambodian take-away food, and watching all the tourists go by in taxis or big tourist buses, and I must say I felt extremely superior.
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| beautiful beach |
After a few hours we headed back, and this time I got my wish concerning the pain in my rear end. I had managed to burn my leg on the exhaust pipe when we got off for a short break, and that pain combined with the stinging in my other leg caused by the salt water on my skinned knee, and the chill resulting from the Monsoon downpour we drove through, managed to make me forget my bruised bottom for most of the drive back. However it was an awesome day, and the pain was worth it. ;).
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| One of the nicest stretch of road I've yet seen here |
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| shortly before it started to rain |
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| Jake's hair after riding the moto with a lot of wind, hihihihi ;) |
I also did pretty fine with the food, it all tastes very good,you just can't think too much about what it's made of (I had one dish with lots of rubbery meaty thingies, the only parts that I could identify were the chicken feet, which I left alone), or with which water it's washed.
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| the kitchen |
I got sick the first night, but already felt better in the morning, and was fine for the rest of my stay, though I was a teeny bit more careful after that.
Another interesting thing I learned there is how you get changed as a women: you start by taking a piece of material fold and tuck it around your body, kind of making a strapless dress out of it and the proceed to take all of your clothes out from under it and then put your new clothes on over it and then pull the cloth out from under you new clothes. I needed a bit of help in the beginning but could do it by myself in the end. Since there are no rooms you could do it, you just get changed in the living area underneath the house. I had to get changed once with her father and two brothers sitting right next to me, rather awkward.
Tuesday morning, the day I was leaving, somebody called the family at 5 in the morning and told them to turn on the TV. The turned it on and all they could tell me was that 300 hundred people had died in Phnom Penh during the Water Festival. They couldn't tell me more, and I was quite worried, because I know some people in the city, and wasn't sure if any from the orphanage might have gone well. I also didn't know how the people had died, visions of the Khmer Rouge returning and me being shipped out flashed through my mind. However no body in the family seemed to be too worried so I calmed down.[When I got home I found out that they had died in a stampede on a overfilled bridge, which had been apparently caused by the bridge starting to sway. This event has really shocked Cambodia and holiday which is supposed to be a fun and joyful time became a tragedy for many families]
The trip home was pretty uneventful, I went home just with Jake, because Bo stayed behind to take care of her mother who had started to feel pretty sick. Part of the caring involves a process in which some sharp hard object (a coin, car keys, or in this case some part of a tin can) is rubbed on the back, until the skin gets really red (no blood), this is done again and again, creating a kind of pattern of red lines in the skin. I've read and heard about it, but was still really surprised when I saw it. There is no medical proof of it helping, it's almost more of a kind of superstition, and is extremely painful. It was a very strange situation for me, sitting there watching an older woman go through quite a bit of pain, hoping it would heal her. I knew it wasn’t going to help her, but was not able to do anything, I offered to pray for her, but Bo told me that she (her mother) doesn't like it (her parents are not Christian) and didn't translate my request.
All in all I had a wonderful weekend, one of the highlights was definitaley just traveling around with Bo on the moto, going to the market,
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| the market closest to her house |
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| looking for a bargain |
doing little errands, because any time we went anywhere we'd always have to stop at at least 1 or two of her relatives on the way. She has a really big extended family, I got the feeling that every house in the area either belonged to an sister, aunt or cousin (lots of cousins). We'd drive up to the house, get off, greet the family, be invited to sit on the wooden platform under the house (almost all the houses are built on stilts), and then the usual questions would start: Is she a foreigner? Who is she? Where is she from? How do you know here? Can she speak Khmer? What happened to her knee? Is she happy here?. After a short chat, we'd say goodbye, and off to the next house.
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| At her sister's house |
The landscape is also just breathtaking there, florescent green rice fields, bright blue skies with darker blue mountains in the background.
Following are some pictures I took, trying to capture the beauty of the area.
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| 5:30 in the morning, the view of the rice field right across from their house |
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| Going to get some veggies from her family's field |
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| the clouds here are absolutely amazing |
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| lovely little eggplants, freshly picked, which were used to make a yummy dish with mushrooms ans some kind of meat the next day |
Her parents were also very very nice, and considering we could exchange only a handful of sentences I really felt that we conected and felt quite at home. It's really amazing how generous they were, they have so little but they tried to give me so much, and thanked me for every little tiny thing I gave them. They asked me to come again, and I hope I can.
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| Bo and Jake with their parents chilling infront of the TV run by a car battery |
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| Me eating a yummy sweet potato-noodle dish |
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| Tuesday morning, right before we left |
Well that’s about it, an exhaustive account of my trip and initial teaching experience. To everybody who has actually read it all, my respect, to every one who just looked at the pictures and is just reading the end, I can understand.
Peace and Love
Sarah
