My Cambodian Travels: Day Four...

Day four… 7th October, 2011

So today was the first day that we were teaching in the Military Handicap Centre… needless to say, like normal, we had prepared a range of lessons to cater for the ages we would be teaching… after teaching English for 2 hours, we feel like we are in WAY over our head. My class consisted of a wide range of middle year ages and in total today I had 53 students in my class… Our aim is to make a difference and ensure that the students can begin to speak the English language for job prospects etc. basically, trying to ensure that they no longer live in extreme poverty.

In my class, we tried to have fun with the kids, introduce ourselves, and play some games. I felt really prepared, I knew it would be tough but I had NO idea that this is how hard it would really be. Imagine, being placed in a city where you are the only one who speaks English then going to a rural remote place and teaching students a language that they have never studied… needless to say HOLY SHIT! Everything I had planned either worked but we finished them so quickly, OR the students could not understand any of my instructions… Being flexible is a must for all teachers but for us, being EXTREMELY flexible is a necessity.

The kids are so beautiful though. From the first moment they saw us arrive, they were running over, saying hello and hugging us, holding our hands, they even went to the gardens and picked me bunches of flowers. I LOVE all of these students and am seriously considering never coming back :P hahaha…

Putting aside the English teaching, one of our other major projects while we are here is the school Library. The current school library consists of a small room filled with 4 bookshelves and 50 picture books in both Khmer and English, since seeing this we have made it our mission to ensure that this is the biggest thing we will be contributing to the students and this school. Since, we have moved the library to the main part of the school in a big classroom where we have organised to transform this into a major learning space for the students. Hoping to get donations to give to the school for more books, we will also be painting the room (starting Monday) and creating a mural done by the students on one of the walls. We are painting the tables and chairs bright colours and donating pencils, paper, books, paints, and a range of other stationary materials to help create an amazing space for the kids to enjoy. So far… so good. Making the move to the larger/closer space had the students inside the library every spare chance they had. It was great to see what a few tables and organisation did for these students.

One another note… we also went to visit some of the locals again and one family touched my heart in every way. A family of 3, mother, father and son. When we arrived the mother had just returned from the hospital where her son was being treated for a really bad Flu… when we were there is was passed out on the floor, trying to breath in the extreme heat and get better. The family is so poor that they cannot afford enough money to eat all the meals of the day and as a result the mother goes out every day to find as much work as she can to feed the family. 2000 Riel is what she comes home with after a full day’s work which equates to 25 cents Australian. Ridiculous…

This was not all that this family has to combat. Apart from their extreme famine and being extremely poor these people are also struggling as the father has Diabetes and is extremely sick. When we saw him, I felt sick, heart broken and helpless. He is basically a skeleton with a case of skin over it… No money, no food, shit health… what else is there? Dayvy left them with a big packet of biscuits and we gave them some of our money with Dayvy had. Something as small as $10 could feed them for more than a week…

Then tonight we went to a traditional dance show and dinner with Dayvy. Oh my god, what am amazing experience. The dinner was amazing, like always, and the show, well there was 6 different traditional dances and they were all so beautiful, elegant and fascinating. The pictures and videos don’t even give it justice but it was simply stunning to see. The culture here is so beautiful, something that you need to take in 100%, something the Cambodian people pride themselves on and are so proud of.

Tomorrow we will be heading to the Angkor Temples for a massive day of sight seeing and finishing the day off with an Elephant ride up the mountain to watch the sun set…Sounds amazing right?

Until then J

Kim xx