Hey everyone~ I feel like it's been awhile since I last posted so this one is going to be a long one. Hope everyone is well!! :)
So I left you right before our day off last Thursday for the Queen's birthday. We figured having a day off was a good time to go to Choeng Ek, or the killing fields. It was probably the saddest thing I’ll do in Cambodia- it was overwhelming. I think the worst part was how the place felt. Just getting there and walking around, there was this automatic presence of loss and sadness, and you could tell that something bad had happened there. I don’t think they needed a memorial to mark it because just walking through there, I could feel that something very grave had happened.
The first thing that we saw was the worst part of the memorial- there was a building at the entrance that was filled with human skulls, and they had little sign markers that showed the different age groups of the people who had been killed. The slaughter in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge regime was worse than the Holocaust. And, not to stray away from the subject but I feel like it's worth mentioning, do we talk about the killing fields in schools in the U.S.? Of course not. Looking back I have to say my education was definitely biased toward American history- it would have been nice to learn more about the rest of the world.
The rest of Choeng Ek consisted of a pavilion that had pictures and a detailed history of what happened during the Khmer Rouge’s reign, and ditches overgrown with brambles, weeds, and struggling flowers. We quickly learned that these ditches were mass graves, each for hundreds of people. Just walking down some of the narrow paths between these ditches, we could see bones poking through the worn dust.
We spent maybe a half hour there.
I never want to go back.
On Friday, we taught again- but we “taught” because Mike and I had to go to the airport and pick up Danielle and Lydia. Danielle was the first volunteer from SAS here and she apparently comes back every year and takes the kids to the beach or to the waterpark each time. She came last summer with her mom and brought her friend Lydia with her this summer. So teaching became pretty much pointless because all of the kids fled their classes when we returned to greet her and didn’t come back- each new arrival constitutes a day off in their book.
We took it easy on Friday- Danielle and Lydia slept all day from jet lag. Alisa and Jessi both came down with a really strange rash. We took them to the clinic for meds since it kept getting worse. The doctors didn’t have much to say about it except that they thought it was food related, which we had already worked out for ourselves. They were the only ones to eat fried prawns at a restaurant we had gone to a few days earlier, so we figured it was probably from that even though neither of them have a seafood allergy.
Saturday during the day we went out and got ice cream and bought movies as a way for Jessi and Alisa to get out for a bit- we didn’t stay long though because their rash got a lot worse in the heat. We came back, watched a movie, and then Mike and I went with Danielle and Lydia and a bunch of other Palm Tree people to the night market.
The night market was sweet. Pretty much what you would expect in a tourist market, but still, I liked it. Especially since I really need clothes- I brought enough clothes to get by assuming that I would just buy more here, but in the past few weeks I've had to do laundry way too many times from running out of things to wear. We’re going to go back tonight after classes because I didn’t really get a chance to buy anything that first time. Instead of shopping, we ended up eating behind one of the stands on a mat that served as a table. I’m getting pretty adventurous with the food here. We had fried bread that was really good, I don’t know what they fry it in but I want a recipe of some kind. We also had this juice that they swore would make us sick, but Mike claims to have an iron stomach now that he's had typhoid and I’ve been doing pretty well myself.
Sunday we took the kids to the waterpark. It was awesome- they were so happy. It sucked that girls had to wear shorts and t shirts and guys could run around naked though. I mean seriously. I have a one piece bathing suit. A conservative one piece. But we abided by the strict rules. And the kids had so much fun that it made it all worth it. They had a pool, kiddie pool, slides, a wave pool, and a lazy river. The kids pretty much just dispersed everywhere and had a great time, and Mike and I became jungle gyms for those who couldn’t swim. We were in the main pool most of the time, and kids just kept jumping in and then clinging to us because they didn’t actually know how to swim-it was a bit crazy. And the lifeguards were sleeping, or at least two of them were. Not the same standards as the States, clearly. Yet no one gets hurt. It’s interesting .The wave pool was insane- everyone was in there with inner tubes and kids were jumping in off the sides on top of other kids. It was claustrophobia city with waves thrown in just to make things a little more terrifying. Plus they didn't have a lifeguard at the wave pool, which was, in my opinion, the most dangerous of the attractions at the waterpark.
The rest of the week has been fairly typical. Jessi and Alisa fully recovered from the rash they had. And I can officially say that everyone has been sick here except me- so clearly much has changed since Pittsburgh/York. Not really. Though it’s bound to happen-no one spends a significant amount of time in Cambodia without getting sick. Mike got typhoid, Jessi and Alisa got the rash, and Danielle had dengue fever two years ago when she volunteered at Palm Tree. So I'm kind of just biding my time.
Tuesday night we had a party for Danielle and Lydia before they left, since apparently its customary to have parties before people leave. They went out and got the kids soda floats, and we rented speakers and blasted music. It was an eclectic mix of tunes; they played a lot of Khmer songs but they also played a lot of American songs. And by American songs, I’m talking Akon and Jay Z. Five year olds were walking around singing, “I want to make love right now now now.” It’s really good that nobody but us actually understood most of the words to those songs. But the entire orphanage danced. It was awesome- the kids aren’t shy here, they have no problem dancing in front of each other for hours. And they watched us to see how we danced, and I do have to admit that it was pretty different. They have group dances for almost every type of song, like we have group dances for songs like The Electric Slide, except that it’s usually the same dance. It was pretty easy to pick up and we did that for awhile, but we broke out our own moves too, especially to the American music that we recognized, and then the kids copied us.
At some point early on in the week, one of us (really can’t remember which one) got the crazy idea that a good way to work out would be to borrow some of the kids’ bikes and go riding through the streets of Phnom Penh. And to be more specific about the streets, I mean our street, which you can’t even really call a street- it’s more a path of death with a little dirt road thrown in for kicks. Our street is about half the size of a street in a small neighborhood in the U.S., and there are constantly cars, vans, trucks, and motorcycles all vying for position in both directions. It’s a catastrophe waiting to happen but (knock on wood) we have yet to see any accidents.
We taught all day Thursday and it was ridiculously hot. It’s been hot all week but not like it was on Thursday. The kids all walked around in their pants and long sleeved shirts that they often wear in ninety degree plus weather and we taught while melting like the human popsicles that we are in this type of heat. We were looking forward to the bike ride. It's important to find things to look forward to here. Don’t get me wrong, I love volunteering, but it does get a bit monotonous after awhile. It’s a place that takes patience, to put it straight up, and I’m not used to being in the same place day after day. We were itching to get out and get around a little bit. Plus I desperately need the exercise- the only real exercise I've been getting is running around after/ away from kids.
So after dinner (a particularly good dinner of chicken and rice), we borrowed the bikes. Two of the guys rode ahead of us. They don’t like to let us go anywhere by ourselves, and I’m not sure if it’s because they think we won’t be safe or because they know we’ll buy them things if they come with us (probably a bit of both),but a few of the older kids always come with us wherever we’re going. It tends to help when we have to bargain in Khmer, although the kids don’t really bargain- they just translate for us and leave the rest up to us.
Starting out went fairly well. We had some near misses with motorcycles and a pretty determined truck, but we did well all in all. We were feeling pretty cocky. We got to the main road and decided we really weren’t up to riding down highways yet, so we turned around and found a little bar. It was about six, and it was almost the weekend, and we felt a little nostalgic for home anyway with the whole bike ride (also I haven’t ridden a bike since like 10th grade so I’m kind of proud that I didn’t end up in a ditch somewhere). We ordered beer and got food for the guys who came with us, and it was relaxing….
For about five minutes.
Then the skies decided to open up and flood the streets of Phnom Penh. We stayed in the little café/bar for as long as we could, but it was starting to get dark, and between floods and darkness we would take the floods. We had hoped the rain would stop- since we arrived, we’d only been getting little rainstorms that lasted ten or fifteen minutes tops. Of course the first time we decided to get daring and venture from home without a covered method of transportation, we hit a real storm. And it doesn’t rain anywhere else in the world like it rains in Cambodia. I’m not even sure if it’s because it rains harder here (though it does rain super hard) or if it’s because all of the roofs are tin. The sound of the rain is deafening; it’s as if the sky itself is plunging in to the streets and buildings of Phnom Penh. We cancel class when it rains because it’s too loud for us to teach. But in the café/ bar, we didn’t have much choice but to get home before dark. There are gangs in Cambodia that come out after dark (much like many American cities) and when we’re out late we usually take the tuk tuk- on bikes we wouldn’t be as much of a match for them. So we paid and eased our way in to the midst of a pretty furious storm. Not to mention the ever present Phnom Penh traffic.
Riding home was like trying to ride a bike straight through a lake during a rainstorm. Literally, that’s what it was. A lake of trash that smelled terrible. And it was nothing to all of the other people on the roads-it might as well have not been raining or lightening or thundering or flooding. They just carried on like it was no big deal. I think we might actually be getting into monsoon season now- I’m a little apprehensive to say the least. But we made it, feeling (at least I was) slightly euphoric at the sight of Palm Tree’s gates. There was definitely something thrilling about biking through the back streets of a foreign country through a pounding storm.
We’ve been getting more and more adventurous as we ease into living here- we’ve started going to the markets by ourselves and exploring the shops in our neighborhood more. We’ve also settled in to a routine, which helps with establishing a sense of familiarity and comfort. We get up at 5-6 a.m. every morning, teach 9-11, eat lunch at 11, teach 2-4, eat dinner at 5, and then while away the last few hours till we go to bed at 8. Even on the weekends the structure isn’t much different, though we tend to go in to the city center of Phnom Penh and explore in the hours we aren't teaching.
One of the things that helps is that we’re all readers. We’ve been exchanging books since we got here, which is great because in the past two weeks, I’ve gone through all three of the books I brought and half of one that a previous volunteer left here. Reading is probably the best pastime available to us- we don’t get out often enough to buy that many movies, and even when we want to watch one it’s hit or miss on whether the quality is decent and if the movie will even play at all. I’m just excited to read something that I want to read and actually be able to enjoy it for the first time since like high school.
One of the teachers here has also agreed to start teaching a Khmer class on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Saturdays so we can learn. I’m really excited- so far my Khmer abilities can barely take me past a simple greeting, and I’d really like to get better.
Anyway I have to teach soon and I'm not sure what I'm teaching yet (this is the norm because they change the system pretty much daily), but I'll try to post again shortly! Miss all of you!!
Love from Cambodia,
Monica
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Things that are both awesome and terrifying: 1. Teaching 2.Riding an elephant 3.Tuk tuks
I hope everyone back home is doing well! Thank you to the people who responded to my last post :)
So my life at Palm Tree is getting more normal now that I have a set teaching schedule. I teach 9-11 and 2-4 every day. The Grade 6 kids are interesting because they know some English so I can actually teach the whole lesson, but they don’t think they know as much as they do. My morning class is awesome- they try to trick me into thinking that it’s 11 when it’s not. Mike doesn’t have a watch and his class gets him to let them out a half hour early all the time, so my class will say, “Time to go!” And I say, “No, it’s only 10:25.”And they say, “Mike’s class.”And I say, “Mike doesn’t have a watch.” And they just laugh. And then they beg me to play games. They have so much personality, I love it.
My afternoon class is more hesitant. There are less of them so that might be why, but they’re so quiet. It’s like all of the quiet kids just ended up in the same class coincidentally together. They don’t like answering questions and they’re not quite at the same level as the other class for some reason. I don’t know if they’re just pretending that they don’t know as much English or what, but I think I need to come up with some more fun things to do to get them out of their shells more.
It probably says something about me that I like my rowdy class more than my quiet class.
Nita, the teacher who sits in with me and translates when I need it, also has to help out a lot more with the afternoon class. Nita is one of the greatest people here. She’s 21 and goes to the University of Phnom Penh now. Palm Tree pays for all of their teachers to go to the university-we aren’t sure if they also get a salary or not. But Nita’s hilarious. She’s in love with David Archuleta- she calls him her boyfriend. We’ve seen the music video of him singing Crush so many times I never want to see it again when I go back to the States. In reality she has two boyfriends. One of them calls her everyday and he’s in love with her, but she “doesn’t like him that much.” The other is this guy she met a few weeks ago at the library at her university who sounds really sweet but isn’t as cute as the first guy. This is why I love Nita.
I’m not sure how I feel about teaching yet. I like it a lot but I don’t like having to stick to the lesson plans and the class book. It’s all really boring- I feel bad for the kids. At one point, when it got too boring, Nita was like, “Do you have any games?” And I was like, “Uhhh.. sure.” And I just created a game on the spot. The kids also ask for songs all the time and it doesn't matter what we do so long as we fill the time, so I just start singing sometimes. I broke out in the Lion King the other day, it was pretty spectacular. The kids seemed to like it anyway haha. They also have this game that they love where I write a word on the board, and then one person writes a word starting with the same letter that I ended with and the next person writes a word starting with the letter that he ended with, and the two duke it out. They get really into it, screaming and cheering each other on, it’s fantastic. So I usually let them play that.
The problem is that there aren’t a whole lot of materials to work with. They have a whiteboard, markers, and some posters on the wall. That’s about it. They don’t even have student books- we have one student book and Nita copies pages from it to pass out to them for each lesson. I’ve been trying to find more fun things I can do with them that don’t involve any element of technology- I think I’m going to sing Grammar Rock to them next time they ask for a song because they’re learning verbs and adverbs haha. We’ll see.
Also Nita leaves class to go to meetings almost every day so I just teach by myself a lot. It’s kind of nice because the kids relax so much when she’s not there. Not that she’s scary at all (she's a sweetheart, I love her) but I guess they think they can get away with more with me- which is totally true and I’m not even going to try to deny it. As long as they try and we get through the lesson, I don’t care if they want to play a game afterwards. I was ten once- I know how much it sucks to be stuck in class when you want to go play with your friends. Especially when class is also taking place right in your home. But it gets dicey because they don’t understand a whole lot of English, so when I try to give instructions they’ll tell me they understand and then just continue to sit there because they really have no idea what I’m saying. I tried to play two truths and a lie with them today, and they did it but they didn’t get the game- they just kept saying one thing about themselves that was really obviously a lie. I’m definitely hitting all the challenges of teaching ESL head on right now.
The kids themselves are awesome though. They have so much spunk and personality, I love all of them. They also all just really like hugs a lot. They like attention but they share with each other and help each other, and I mean they’re kids so they also knock each other around a bit, but they’re so normal. It’s just amazing. And they’re so freaking smart. The high school kids are learning math that I still haven’t learned and I graduated college.
The schedule here is also really lax. Nothing happens on time and the lessons aren’t even that structured anyway. Class doesn’t start till like twenty minutes late sometimes and they just cancel classes sometimes for teacher meetings. They also cancel class when it rains a lot because the roofs around here are metal and tin, and rain is defeaning. I got to see a pretty legit rainstorm yesterday- it was wild. The streets flood to the point where it’s hard for people to even drive through them. We pretty much just hole up in Palm Tree when that happens because walking around knee-deep in water, mud, and garbage isn’t exactly appealing. But the rainstorms are extremely fierce and incredible to watch here.
I’m legit getting sick of the food. Palm Tree provides lunch and dinner for us every day. Which basically means rice plus vegetables plus either egg or chicken. Sometimes they just give us fried eggs or a piece of chicken with the rice. The meals are actually pretty tasty especially by Cambodian standards, and they do actually feed us well. It’s just that there are only so many times you can eat chicken and green beans before you want to just run away screaming.
We took our first trip out of the orphanage on Saturday (yay) and went to the main city section of Phnom Penh. Our initial plan was to find a bar that was showing the Stanley Cup because Jessi is from Pittsburgh too and we both desperately wanted to see it. Friday night at 8 EST was 7 a.m. on Saturday our time. No one was showing even highlights of the game- we seriously need to introduce hockey to these people- so we just started drinking at about 8:30 a.m. We figured it was Friday night back home so that justified our decision.
Also let's just take a moment to enjoy the fact that the Pens won the Stanley Cup. WOOOOOO!!
So back to Saturday. By about ten we dragged ourselves out of the bar and walked around for a bit, found some cute kids movies to show the kids since Saturday is movie night every week. Then we found this awesome English pub and got burgers. I know, I know, so disgustingly American. We drank beer in the morning and then ate burgers. We suck. But you have no idea how good that burger was. I don’t even care. I was full for the first time in a week, and it wasn’t from chicken and green beans.
But food issues aside, I’m really enjoying living in Cambodia. Like actually enjoying it- Cambodia is a sweet place. We took a tour on Sunday of a few major sites in Phnom Penh and I don’t know why people don’t come here more often- besides the slightly daunting regimen of shots you have to get before you come, it’s awesome.
We started at the National Museum, which had a lot of ancient Khmer inscribed on tablets. They kept giving us flowers to put in front of statues of gods as offerings- which we did about two times and then we figured we had enough good luck. There was also a gorgeous garden in the middle and we took loads of pictures- which I will post once I have enough spare time to load them since it takes forever here.
T came with us but he seemed really bored. And by “seemed really bored” I mean we asked him if he was bored and he said, “Yes. This is really boring.” So we didn’t hang out for too long. We wanted to go to the Silver Pavilion but it was closed, so he took us to a temple that is basically Phnom Penh’s version of Angkor Wat- but miniature. We parked the tuk tuk and he took us around a bit.
They also happened to have an elephant at the temple. We also happened to end up riding said elephant down the street. I wish I was kidding.
We decided we’d ride the elephant, figured it’d be like a five minute thing, and they took it out on to the actual street. Cars had to go around us. It was insane. It was also terrifying. We climbed up this tiny platform, crawled across the elephant’s neck, and sat on this little seat that was only made for two people at best. It kept sliding left and right and we had to keep adjusting our position so we didn’t fall off. Riding on an elephant is not my method of choice for getting around- take riding a horse and make it about ten times jerkier. Though it was cool to see people’s faces on the street.
We went in to the actual temple itself and there was a man leading what looked like a kind of church service, so we joined everyone sitting down for a little while. People came forward and gave money, and the man gave them what looked like a scroll, and then they proceeded to pray to the idols- of which there were quite a few. T came and prayed for his mom, which was sad but also an interesting process. He tried to explain it to us-he prays to his mom so that his mom will pray for him, since he’s Buddhist. It’s a strange cycle for an outsider to hear about, and kind of sad from our perspective about his mother, but he seemed comfortable explaining it to us.
I’ve only ever seen two kids at Palm Tree cry. One of them I can honestly say I’m not sure why he was crying, but it didn’t look provoked- he just sat in the corner and cried, it was heart-wrenching. Another girl who is probably about thirteen started crying one day because it was her mother’s birthday. The kids here almost never cry, but when they do it just breaks your heart. They can hit each other and chase each other around and tease each other, and they will never cry. So when they do, you wish it was something like a bruise or a scrape that you could just kiss away. The kids are super brave though and usually really happy, and can talk about tough issues. Which is why T could talk about his mother straight up to us.
Sunday was also Mike’s birthday so we took him out that night. We went to a random bar called Bogeys about fifteen minutes from Palm Tree, and stayed for a few hours just drinking beer and hanging out. The bar was basically us and three other creepy old guys who were probably only in Cambodia for one thing, which was disgusting, so we just kind of kept to ourselves the whole time. It was our first time experiencing Cambodian night life but it was Sunday so we really didn’t get to see a lot, unfortunately. But we bought Mike and T whiskey shots, and T, who is twenty (which is legal here), had never taken a shot before by the looks of it. First he asked for ice, and then he watched how Mike took his, and then he sort of took it after that. It was entertaining. We had to kind of cut him off after two because he was driving us home haha.
This week I’ve just been teaching each day. Monday night we went to a random market that was clearly for the upper class- it looked basically like an American grocery store and the prices were just as high, which we were totally not ok with. We’re planning to go to the night market tonight so we can bargain for things. T drove us in the tuk tuk and got us to buy him tons of stuff- he’s getting good at it, but it’s still really obvious. Pretty much the only reason he gets so much out of us is because Jessi and Alisa have a bit of a crush on him. Even though he’s twenty, I thought he was like sixteen the first time we met him because he looks so young- I still can’t get that idea out of my head.
I also got the best news in my class this morning. When the kids stood up at the end of class to say goodbye, they all said, “See you on Friday.” I was like, “Wait why don’t we have class tomorrow?” Apparently tomorrow is a holiday- something about it being the Queen’s birthday. I had no idea- it's like getting a snow day. So we’re still trying to figure out what we’re going to do with our day off, besides sleep. And get rid of our apples because I’m pretty sure there is a mouse living in the box of apples.
Cambodia definitely has its ups and downs. The language barrier can get really frustrating, it’s insanely hot to the point where we pretty much all melt like Popsicles, and we get lots of unwanted creatures as visitors. Also the power decides to go out pretty much every time I take a shower- I’m getting good at showering in pitch darkness. But the culture here is incredible. I love meeting people and just watching what everyone does- the games they play, the way they dress, the music they listen to. Everyone in Phnom Penh plays badminton on patches of grass in the middle of the street at night. How else would I have known that if I didn’t live here for awhile? Plus the kids make everything worth it- I’d walk barefoot across coals for those kids, they’re that awesome.
I miss all of you! People keep asking me for Palm Tree's address so I'll post it as soon as I can- I don't have it with me right now. I'll also post pictures asap :)
Love from Cambodia,
Monica
So my life at Palm Tree is getting more normal now that I have a set teaching schedule. I teach 9-11 and 2-4 every day. The Grade 6 kids are interesting because they know some English so I can actually teach the whole lesson, but they don’t think they know as much as they do. My morning class is awesome- they try to trick me into thinking that it’s 11 when it’s not. Mike doesn’t have a watch and his class gets him to let them out a half hour early all the time, so my class will say, “Time to go!” And I say, “No, it’s only 10:25.”And they say, “Mike’s class.”And I say, “Mike doesn’t have a watch.” And they just laugh. And then they beg me to play games. They have so much personality, I love it.
My afternoon class is more hesitant. There are less of them so that might be why, but they’re so quiet. It’s like all of the quiet kids just ended up in the same class coincidentally together. They don’t like answering questions and they’re not quite at the same level as the other class for some reason. I don’t know if they’re just pretending that they don’t know as much English or what, but I think I need to come up with some more fun things to do to get them out of their shells more.
It probably says something about me that I like my rowdy class more than my quiet class.
Nita, the teacher who sits in with me and translates when I need it, also has to help out a lot more with the afternoon class. Nita is one of the greatest people here. She’s 21 and goes to the University of Phnom Penh now. Palm Tree pays for all of their teachers to go to the university-we aren’t sure if they also get a salary or not. But Nita’s hilarious. She’s in love with David Archuleta- she calls him her boyfriend. We’ve seen the music video of him singing Crush so many times I never want to see it again when I go back to the States. In reality she has two boyfriends. One of them calls her everyday and he’s in love with her, but she “doesn’t like him that much.” The other is this guy she met a few weeks ago at the library at her university who sounds really sweet but isn’t as cute as the first guy. This is why I love Nita.
I’m not sure how I feel about teaching yet. I like it a lot but I don’t like having to stick to the lesson plans and the class book. It’s all really boring- I feel bad for the kids. At one point, when it got too boring, Nita was like, “Do you have any games?” And I was like, “Uhhh.. sure.” And I just created a game on the spot. The kids also ask for songs all the time and it doesn't matter what we do so long as we fill the time, so I just start singing sometimes. I broke out in the Lion King the other day, it was pretty spectacular. The kids seemed to like it anyway haha. They also have this game that they love where I write a word on the board, and then one person writes a word starting with the same letter that I ended with and the next person writes a word starting with the letter that he ended with, and the two duke it out. They get really into it, screaming and cheering each other on, it’s fantastic. So I usually let them play that.
The problem is that there aren’t a whole lot of materials to work with. They have a whiteboard, markers, and some posters on the wall. That’s about it. They don’t even have student books- we have one student book and Nita copies pages from it to pass out to them for each lesson. I’ve been trying to find more fun things I can do with them that don’t involve any element of technology- I think I’m going to sing Grammar Rock to them next time they ask for a song because they’re learning verbs and adverbs haha. We’ll see.
Also Nita leaves class to go to meetings almost every day so I just teach by myself a lot. It’s kind of nice because the kids relax so much when she’s not there. Not that she’s scary at all (she's a sweetheart, I love her) but I guess they think they can get away with more with me- which is totally true and I’m not even going to try to deny it. As long as they try and we get through the lesson, I don’t care if they want to play a game afterwards. I was ten once- I know how much it sucks to be stuck in class when you want to go play with your friends. Especially when class is also taking place right in your home. But it gets dicey because they don’t understand a whole lot of English, so when I try to give instructions they’ll tell me they understand and then just continue to sit there because they really have no idea what I’m saying. I tried to play two truths and a lie with them today, and they did it but they didn’t get the game- they just kept saying one thing about themselves that was really obviously a lie. I’m definitely hitting all the challenges of teaching ESL head on right now.
The kids themselves are awesome though. They have so much spunk and personality, I love all of them. They also all just really like hugs a lot. They like attention but they share with each other and help each other, and I mean they’re kids so they also knock each other around a bit, but they’re so normal. It’s just amazing. And they’re so freaking smart. The high school kids are learning math that I still haven’t learned and I graduated college.
The schedule here is also really lax. Nothing happens on time and the lessons aren’t even that structured anyway. Class doesn’t start till like twenty minutes late sometimes and they just cancel classes sometimes for teacher meetings. They also cancel class when it rains a lot because the roofs around here are metal and tin, and rain is defeaning. I got to see a pretty legit rainstorm yesterday- it was wild. The streets flood to the point where it’s hard for people to even drive through them. We pretty much just hole up in Palm Tree when that happens because walking around knee-deep in water, mud, and garbage isn’t exactly appealing. But the rainstorms are extremely fierce and incredible to watch here.
I’m legit getting sick of the food. Palm Tree provides lunch and dinner for us every day. Which basically means rice plus vegetables plus either egg or chicken. Sometimes they just give us fried eggs or a piece of chicken with the rice. The meals are actually pretty tasty especially by Cambodian standards, and they do actually feed us well. It’s just that there are only so many times you can eat chicken and green beans before you want to just run away screaming.
We took our first trip out of the orphanage on Saturday (yay) and went to the main city section of Phnom Penh. Our initial plan was to find a bar that was showing the Stanley Cup because Jessi is from Pittsburgh too and we both desperately wanted to see it. Friday night at 8 EST was 7 a.m. on Saturday our time. No one was showing even highlights of the game- we seriously need to introduce hockey to these people- so we just started drinking at about 8:30 a.m. We figured it was Friday night back home so that justified our decision.
Also let's just take a moment to enjoy the fact that the Pens won the Stanley Cup. WOOOOOO!!
So back to Saturday. By about ten we dragged ourselves out of the bar and walked around for a bit, found some cute kids movies to show the kids since Saturday is movie night every week. Then we found this awesome English pub and got burgers. I know, I know, so disgustingly American. We drank beer in the morning and then ate burgers. We suck. But you have no idea how good that burger was. I don’t even care. I was full for the first time in a week, and it wasn’t from chicken and green beans.
But food issues aside, I’m really enjoying living in Cambodia. Like actually enjoying it- Cambodia is a sweet place. We took a tour on Sunday of a few major sites in Phnom Penh and I don’t know why people don’t come here more often- besides the slightly daunting regimen of shots you have to get before you come, it’s awesome.
We started at the National Museum, which had a lot of ancient Khmer inscribed on tablets. They kept giving us flowers to put in front of statues of gods as offerings- which we did about two times and then we figured we had enough good luck. There was also a gorgeous garden in the middle and we took loads of pictures- which I will post once I have enough spare time to load them since it takes forever here.
T came with us but he seemed really bored. And by “seemed really bored” I mean we asked him if he was bored and he said, “Yes. This is really boring.” So we didn’t hang out for too long. We wanted to go to the Silver Pavilion but it was closed, so he took us to a temple that is basically Phnom Penh’s version of Angkor Wat- but miniature. We parked the tuk tuk and he took us around a bit.
They also happened to have an elephant at the temple. We also happened to end up riding said elephant down the street. I wish I was kidding.
We decided we’d ride the elephant, figured it’d be like a five minute thing, and they took it out on to the actual street. Cars had to go around us. It was insane. It was also terrifying. We climbed up this tiny platform, crawled across the elephant’s neck, and sat on this little seat that was only made for two people at best. It kept sliding left and right and we had to keep adjusting our position so we didn’t fall off. Riding on an elephant is not my method of choice for getting around- take riding a horse and make it about ten times jerkier. Though it was cool to see people’s faces on the street.
We went in to the actual temple itself and there was a man leading what looked like a kind of church service, so we joined everyone sitting down for a little while. People came forward and gave money, and the man gave them what looked like a scroll, and then they proceeded to pray to the idols- of which there were quite a few. T came and prayed for his mom, which was sad but also an interesting process. He tried to explain it to us-he prays to his mom so that his mom will pray for him, since he’s Buddhist. It’s a strange cycle for an outsider to hear about, and kind of sad from our perspective about his mother, but he seemed comfortable explaining it to us.
I’ve only ever seen two kids at Palm Tree cry. One of them I can honestly say I’m not sure why he was crying, but it didn’t look provoked- he just sat in the corner and cried, it was heart-wrenching. Another girl who is probably about thirteen started crying one day because it was her mother’s birthday. The kids here almost never cry, but when they do it just breaks your heart. They can hit each other and chase each other around and tease each other, and they will never cry. So when they do, you wish it was something like a bruise or a scrape that you could just kiss away. The kids are super brave though and usually really happy, and can talk about tough issues. Which is why T could talk about his mother straight up to us.
Sunday was also Mike’s birthday so we took him out that night. We went to a random bar called Bogeys about fifteen minutes from Palm Tree, and stayed for a few hours just drinking beer and hanging out. The bar was basically us and three other creepy old guys who were probably only in Cambodia for one thing, which was disgusting, so we just kind of kept to ourselves the whole time. It was our first time experiencing Cambodian night life but it was Sunday so we really didn’t get to see a lot, unfortunately. But we bought Mike and T whiskey shots, and T, who is twenty (which is legal here), had never taken a shot before by the looks of it. First he asked for ice, and then he watched how Mike took his, and then he sort of took it after that. It was entertaining. We had to kind of cut him off after two because he was driving us home haha.
This week I’ve just been teaching each day. Monday night we went to a random market that was clearly for the upper class- it looked basically like an American grocery store and the prices were just as high, which we were totally not ok with. We’re planning to go to the night market tonight so we can bargain for things. T drove us in the tuk tuk and got us to buy him tons of stuff- he’s getting good at it, but it’s still really obvious. Pretty much the only reason he gets so much out of us is because Jessi and Alisa have a bit of a crush on him. Even though he’s twenty, I thought he was like sixteen the first time we met him because he looks so young- I still can’t get that idea out of my head.
I also got the best news in my class this morning. When the kids stood up at the end of class to say goodbye, they all said, “See you on Friday.” I was like, “Wait why don’t we have class tomorrow?” Apparently tomorrow is a holiday- something about it being the Queen’s birthday. I had no idea- it's like getting a snow day. So we’re still trying to figure out what we’re going to do with our day off, besides sleep. And get rid of our apples because I’m pretty sure there is a mouse living in the box of apples.
Cambodia definitely has its ups and downs. The language barrier can get really frustrating, it’s insanely hot to the point where we pretty much all melt like Popsicles, and we get lots of unwanted creatures as visitors. Also the power decides to go out pretty much every time I take a shower- I’m getting good at showering in pitch darkness. But the culture here is incredible. I love meeting people and just watching what everyone does- the games they play, the way they dress, the music they listen to. Everyone in Phnom Penh plays badminton on patches of grass in the middle of the street at night. How else would I have known that if I didn’t live here for awhile? Plus the kids make everything worth it- I’d walk barefoot across coals for those kids, they’re that awesome.
I miss all of you! People keep asking me for Palm Tree's address so I'll post it as soon as I can- I don't have it with me right now. I'll also post pictures asap :)
Love from Cambodia,
Monica
Friday, June 12, 2009
First day a.k.a. really cute kids a.k.a. extremely hot a.k.a. holy spiders
So I arrived in Cambodia safely (obviously) and I miss all of you!!!! I hope everyone's doing well :)
I have to say it's a miracle I made it to Cambodia. Not because I have any weird phobias of flying or anything, but because the places I stopped along the way are so beautiful I didn't want to leave. We stopped in Anchorage at 4:15 am local time, which is 7:15 am EST. I was half asleep and exhausted from the first leg of the flight (6 hours) and it took me a minute to even register what I saw. I always heard Alaska was beautiful, but the glaciers are amazing. I can't even describe it. The moon was setting and the sun was rising, and the glaciers reflected everything. Anchorage was buried in the middle of them, so tiny I couldn't see it till we were about to land.
We spent an hour in Anchorage and then we took off for Taipei. At this point, the sun had almost risen and we basically followed the sunrise across the Pacific to Taipei. Honestly I didn't know much about Taipei before this trip and I still don't. But they have the coolest mountains I have ever seen. We crested in just above the clouds, basically level with the side of the mountains. I would seriously give anything to go back and be able to hike there. We landed at 6:30 local time, which I think is 3:30 EST. I was in Taipei for a half hour- long enough to meet two Southern gentlemen named Chris and Matt who decided to quit life in the States for awhile and travel Southeast Asia. They said they would come visit Palm Tree if they make it to Phnom Penh- God help us if they actually do.
Then we took off for Phnom Penh and landed at about 9:50 local time. I gave myself the whole silent lecture about not making a spectacle of myself and trying to blend in as I went through customs. A few minutes later, I chased my suitcase the entire way around the baggage belt and almost knocked a few people over in the process. So much for blending in.
I met Mike and Alisa and Phearin and T, and we all went back to Palm Tree. Mike and Alisa are two of the other volunteers, Phearin is our volunteer supervisor, and T is the best driver ever- and I mean ever. The streets here are insane, there are no lines or stop signs- I don't know how he does it.
When we arrived, I got to meet the kids- both my arrival and my meeting the kids happened in one motion. I don't think there's anything I can say about the kids that won't sound cliche. That being said, prepare yourself because Í'm about to be cliche.
The kids at Palm Tree are so sweet it almost breaks my heart. They hugged me and asked me what my name was, and none of them can say it- it's adorable. In the past few days, Í've heard every variation on my name from Mona to Banana (the boy who calls me Banana is also the one who keeps running off with my iPod- he's going to be a rockstar, I'm calling it now).
I started teaching on the third day- so yesterday. The kids all stand up when a teacher comes in and say “Good morning teacher” and they won’t sit down till you tell them to. Instead of raising their hands, they stand to answer questions. It’s really cute and would totally never fly in the States. In the States, kids don’t seem to appreciate school nearly as much as the rest of the world. Although these kids appreciate everything. Pon (one of my favorites but shhh because I'm not supposed to have favorites) walked around today with a cardboard box.
The kids here also don’t have the same discretion that we have about what not to touch. They’ll go around dragging dead spiders everywhere and they killed a rat the other day, and it’s sometimes a little disturbing for us. I’m sure they’re much more hygienic than other children in Cambodia who do not have the same opportunities, but still, we were brought up totally different. One kid was literally sitting on a table playing with matches today. No joke.
Also the issue at Palm Tree is not water but electric. Apparently if you have the AC on and the shower on at the same time, it blows a fuse. Who knew? So now we can shower without getting halfway through and having it turn off, which believe me is a major plus. But Palm Tree turns off the power for half the day, and it’s never the same half, so the trick is figuring out when the power is going to go off so that you don’t end up in the shower in the dark. Unfortunately, the four days that I’ve been here, it seems like the best time to turn off the power is in the middle of the day when it’s hottest, and then we have no A/C. The kids here don’t notice how hot it is because they grew up with it and are used to it, but the rest of us pretty much melt. I went through at least four bottles of water a day just for sweat purposes. I know, I’m so classy and attractive here :P
Anyway I'm typing in an Internet cafe so I need to cut this short. I hope you're all doing well and I'll write more later!!
Love from Cambodia,
Monica
I have to say it's a miracle I made it to Cambodia. Not because I have any weird phobias of flying or anything, but because the places I stopped along the way are so beautiful I didn't want to leave. We stopped in Anchorage at 4:15 am local time, which is 7:15 am EST. I was half asleep and exhausted from the first leg of the flight (6 hours) and it took me a minute to even register what I saw. I always heard Alaska was beautiful, but the glaciers are amazing. I can't even describe it. The moon was setting and the sun was rising, and the glaciers reflected everything. Anchorage was buried in the middle of them, so tiny I couldn't see it till we were about to land.
We spent an hour in Anchorage and then we took off for Taipei. At this point, the sun had almost risen and we basically followed the sunrise across the Pacific to Taipei. Honestly I didn't know much about Taipei before this trip and I still don't. But they have the coolest mountains I have ever seen. We crested in just above the clouds, basically level with the side of the mountains. I would seriously give anything to go back and be able to hike there. We landed at 6:30 local time, which I think is 3:30 EST. I was in Taipei for a half hour- long enough to meet two Southern gentlemen named Chris and Matt who decided to quit life in the States for awhile and travel Southeast Asia. They said they would come visit Palm Tree if they make it to Phnom Penh- God help us if they actually do.
Then we took off for Phnom Penh and landed at about 9:50 local time. I gave myself the whole silent lecture about not making a spectacle of myself and trying to blend in as I went through customs. A few minutes later, I chased my suitcase the entire way around the baggage belt and almost knocked a few people over in the process. So much for blending in.
I met Mike and Alisa and Phearin and T, and we all went back to Palm Tree. Mike and Alisa are two of the other volunteers, Phearin is our volunteer supervisor, and T is the best driver ever- and I mean ever. The streets here are insane, there are no lines or stop signs- I don't know how he does it.
When we arrived, I got to meet the kids- both my arrival and my meeting the kids happened in one motion. I don't think there's anything I can say about the kids that won't sound cliche. That being said, prepare yourself because Í'm about to be cliche.
The kids at Palm Tree are so sweet it almost breaks my heart. They hugged me and asked me what my name was, and none of them can say it- it's adorable. In the past few days, Í've heard every variation on my name from Mona to Banana (the boy who calls me Banana is also the one who keeps running off with my iPod- he's going to be a rockstar, I'm calling it now).
I started teaching on the third day- so yesterday. The kids all stand up when a teacher comes in and say “Good morning teacher” and they won’t sit down till you tell them to. Instead of raising their hands, they stand to answer questions. It’s really cute and would totally never fly in the States. In the States, kids don’t seem to appreciate school nearly as much as the rest of the world. Although these kids appreciate everything. Pon (one of my favorites but shhh because I'm not supposed to have favorites) walked around today with a cardboard box.
The kids here also don’t have the same discretion that we have about what not to touch. They’ll go around dragging dead spiders everywhere and they killed a rat the other day, and it’s sometimes a little disturbing for us. I’m sure they’re much more hygienic than other children in Cambodia who do not have the same opportunities, but still, we were brought up totally different. One kid was literally sitting on a table playing with matches today. No joke.
Also the issue at Palm Tree is not water but electric. Apparently if you have the AC on and the shower on at the same time, it blows a fuse. Who knew? So now we can shower without getting halfway through and having it turn off, which believe me is a major plus. But Palm Tree turns off the power for half the day, and it’s never the same half, so the trick is figuring out when the power is going to go off so that you don’t end up in the shower in the dark. Unfortunately, the four days that I’ve been here, it seems like the best time to turn off the power is in the middle of the day when it’s hottest, and then we have no A/C. The kids here don’t notice how hot it is because they grew up with it and are used to it, but the rest of us pretty much melt. I went through at least four bottles of water a day just for sweat purposes. I know, I’m so classy and attractive here :P
Anyway I'm typing in an Internet cafe so I need to cut this short. I hope you're all doing well and I'll write more later!!
Love from Cambodia,
Monica
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Cambodia Bound
Hey everyone! Welcome to my blog- it isn't much yet because I created it in about two minutes, but I'll work on that as I go ;)
I know I wrote travelogues throughout Semester at Sea, and thank you to everyone who read them! I decided to do a blog for Cambodia since I think it will be a bit easier for me to keep up with.
I leave for Cambodia in a few hours with a couple outfits, stuff for the kids that everyone donated (thanks guys!!), and a quart of bug spray (literally). Right now I'm feeling fairly optimistic about the trip- that tends to change every hour when I realize something is missing, remember that I don't speak a word of Khmer, or think about the fact that I don't know what address I'll be living at. But the best trips are the ones that are relatively spontaneous, and I'm trying not to develop too many expectations before I arrive. I am definitely looking forward to exploring Palm Tree!
To give you a little background, Palm Tree Orphanage is located in the heart of Phnom Penh (I'll give you a physical address when I have one haha). There are 93 kids at their site in Phnom Penh and 33 full time staff members (according to their website, but this may have changed). There are also going to be other volunteers this summer- two of them have already arrived and one gets in the same day as I do. If you want to learn more about Palm Tree, visit their website at http://www.cambodiashope.org/projects/orphanage_overview.php
My flight gets in at 9:20 a.m. Tuesday June 9th Phnom Penh time. With these few paragraphs, I'm going to get back to getting ready. I'll update this blog throughout my trip, and I hope you all enjoy it :)
Love,
Monica
I know I wrote travelogues throughout Semester at Sea, and thank you to everyone who read them! I decided to do a blog for Cambodia since I think it will be a bit easier for me to keep up with.
I leave for Cambodia in a few hours with a couple outfits, stuff for the kids that everyone donated (thanks guys!!), and a quart of bug spray (literally). Right now I'm feeling fairly optimistic about the trip- that tends to change every hour when I realize something is missing, remember that I don't speak a word of Khmer, or think about the fact that I don't know what address I'll be living at. But the best trips are the ones that are relatively spontaneous, and I'm trying not to develop too many expectations before I arrive. I am definitely looking forward to exploring Palm Tree!
To give you a little background, Palm Tree Orphanage is located in the heart of Phnom Penh (I'll give you a physical address when I have one haha). There are 93 kids at their site in Phnom Penh and 33 full time staff members (according to their website, but this may have changed). There are also going to be other volunteers this summer- two of them have already arrived and one gets in the same day as I do. If you want to learn more about Palm Tree, visit their website at http://www.cambodiashope.org/projects/orphanage_overview.php
My flight gets in at 9:20 a.m. Tuesday June 9th Phnom Penh time. With these few paragraphs, I'm going to get back to getting ready. I'll update this blog throughout my trip, and I hope you all enjoy it :)
Love,
Monica
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
