Catching UP

I finished up helping out at the JPA school which turned out pretty well. While I’m glad to be done, I will miss the little munchkins; regardless of their teachers ability to control how quiet they were during class time. They still were pretty darn cute. I took a week off (mostly to catch up on all the laundry I hadn’t had time to do) – and also just to transition into the long vacation mode of summer and figure out how I’m going to approach the upcoming months. I’m back in gear with the teachers as we’ve started our English for Teachers course again, this time meeting 5 days a week. Then I’ve also started taking sewing lessons (see entry: Word of the Day: s’mau). Then last week I sort of got into a landscaping mode. Besides learning that no one seems to sell flower seeds anywhere, I was able to drop more money into purchasing plants and potted flowers from the local plant nursery in town than I had intended to. Oops. Oh well our patio area does look really nice now all decorated w/ flowers). But I guess I will wait before I go on my next plant and flower spending spree.

As for Will, besides his tree-planting project, he has been spending a fair amount of time practicing the fundamentals of basketball with the high-school team. We’re in the midst of planning an itinerary for our upcoming vacation to Malaysia which we’re taking in September. It’s sort of a late anniversary vacation, right before school starts AND also during the Pchum Ben holiday in Cambodia (which usually consists of all of the Pagodas blasting really loud ceremonial music starting at 4am in the morning) – and I don’t know if I’ve mentioned that we live 50m away from a Pagoda. So we purposely planned on being out of the country at that time. Other than that not too much new to report. We’re definitely in the rainy season, and well I’ve already written about how much we like the rain here. Temperatures are so much more tolerable.

I guess that’s all for now until the next interesting thing comes our way to write about. We hope everyone’s well back home…..
over and out.

Toleration.

Nearly a year in, I’ve noticed that my tolerance for certain things, (I’m mostly referring to creatures and insects) has increased. For example, if there is bug in my drink, a few dead ants in my rice or even the mouse that I saw run under my bed last night prior to going to sleep doesn’t seem to bother me nearly as much as it would have a year ago, OR even six months ago. I seem to have no problem finishing my beverage after I fish out a little beetle or fly that has made its way in. The ants in the rice … well just put a little extra sauce over it…ya won’t taste it, I PROMISE!... And yes--- last night I was sitting in the living room reading… and I sawr out of the corner of my eye that little black shadow of a scurry run across the floor into the bedroom, right underneath the bed. I calmly told Will, who was already reading, tucked underneath the mosquito net that a mouse ran under the bed. He replied “Ok, thanks”. I said, don’t you want to set the trap?” He replied, “I’ll do it in the morning.” I sighed… got up, put on my headlamp and went outside into the light rain to get our large rat-sized trap which has been rusting outside since the start of the rainy season. I brought it into the kitchen. I looked at it. Set it (without thinking) and THEN carefully put a big glob of peanut butter on it. Cursing myself for not doing the PB thing before the setting it thing, I grabbed two sets of long kitchen tongs to carry the trap into the living room and set it in its place. I popped into the bedroom to tell my beloved husband that the trap was set. He said “You look great babe” – while looking at me in my headlamp, my nightgown and two kitchen tongs clenched in my hands. I sighed, put my tongs and headlamp away and crawled into bed. I did make sure that the net was tightly tucked in on all four sides of the bed, but other than that I managed to NOT lose any sleep over the ordeal. I woke up this morning to PB left untouched on my trap. Ah well. Maybe we’ll get em, maybe we won’t. Whether or not this extra tolerance is a good or bad thing…. I’m not sure…. but at least I’m not hopping on top of the furniture as often while asking Will to rescue me.

Volunteering at JPA school

To fill my time during the month of July, I signed up to be a volunteer teacher at the Jay Pritzker Academy here in Siem Reap Province. The school is about 4-5k away from Puok and I heard about the opportunity through a few K1 volunteers who’ve taken full time jobs there. It’s really quite the place, and I can confidently say it’s the nicest elementary and secondary school in Cambodia. It was funded by Jay Pritzker and basically it’s for bright students from poor families to attend. It has state of the art facilities, its own cafeteria, and no more than 30 kids in each classroom. The idea is that as long as the students do well and continue to progress…they will finish elementary, middle and high-school there and hopefully go on to university, possibly in the US and be able to get good jobs, and hopefully return to Cambodia and become new leaders, doctors, engineers etc. in their own country.

Today was my 4th day on the job, and I can assure you it’s quite a bit different from what I’ve been doing the past few months here. I have my own desk, with a computer that’s hooked up to a large-screen TV on the wall, where I can show videos that are related to the lessons in the textbooks. The students that are chosen to go there get full uniforms, back packs, shoes and three square meals a day. There are actual full color text-books for the students to read from … AND I have free access to a copy machine to give worksheets to the students. Not to mention, it has bathrooms with toilets that flush. (Did I mention Puok High School has 2 bathrooms (that don't flush) for 5000 students?????) Again…a complete world away from what we have access to in our government schools….just 4-5k nearby.

I admit there are a few things that catch me throughout some of the lessons. We are teaching from American textbooks and well the other day one of the vocab words was “vacuum cleaner” and well….that was a bit hard to explain to some of these 2nd graders whom I’m sure have never seen carpet in their lives, or “drain” (from a tub) and well… these children don’t take baths in bathtubs, they dump buckets of water over their bodies from the well…and “quarter” for money; and there hasn’t been coin money in this country for years. BUT if you can get over that (which we do) they seem to be coming along quite well. I was impressed with these 2nd graders ability to read. The comprehension maybe isn’t all the way there BUT they have been learning phonics and can read and write and pronounce things correctly which has been a Nice breath of fresh air. I’m able to speak at a rather quick speed and they are able to understand me, which too is some fresh air.

Anyway, we’ll see what the next 2 weeks bring. But it’s nice to be doing something for a bit…and the 2nd graders are pretty adorable. They’ve got it pretty darn good at this school, but I also know they’ve got it pretty darn hard life at home. Let’s hope this school can make a positive difference in their lives. I’m pretty sure it already has.

The 4th

We spent the forth in Phnom Penh. A few other volunteers and I sang the Khmer National Anthem, and one of the volunteers Matt, sang the Star Spangled Banner at an event on the 3rd that the US Embassy was hosting. Everything went off without a hitch and we hope to be invited back next year! Then we also sang for their ‘fun 4th’ on Saturday which went well too. It was a nice little soirée with American food, and probable the most Americans in one place that we’ve all seen since we left the states. They had several different food stalls ranging from KFC, to places where you could get burgers and pulled pork, corn dogs, icecream and cake. They had a live band playing cover songs, circus performers and other random entertainment. They also had a raffle. I’d say there was nearly a thousand people there over the course of the afternoon… and out of the 15 Peace Corps volunteers that were there, we won our fair share of raffle prizes. The prizes ranged from web-cams, to a basket full of beer & nice pilsner glasses, to air-tickets, to gift certificates to blackberry phones. The PCVs scored on a basket of beer, web-cam, and Will and I won a gift certificate for a champagne breakfast at the famous Raffles hotel in Phnom Penh. (It’s the hotel Jacque O stayed at during her visit to Cambodia). Needless to say we were pretty excited about that…

Overall it was a nice weekend, and a nice way to spend the fourth. There weren’t any fireworks, but I guess the embassy was trying to save some money. (Who isn’t these days?)

Thought Of The Day

I look forward to the time when half of the dirt pile that I’ve just swept up from the living room floor isn’t moving……………………… (As in alive, moving insects.)

Garden Reported.

We’ve been eating green beans and peppers out of the garden. The tomatoes have small fruits on them and we’ve got one eggplant startin’ to show. That’s the report on that.

Small Things Continued...

So, there was an awards ceremony at the end of the school year for all of the students. The top 3 students of each class got an award, as well as the class monitors. Any teachers retiring got an award as well as outgoing volunteers.

We got to sit up front at the ceremony along with the rest of the teachers. We also got to hand out a few of the gifts (which I think was an honor, but not quite sure?) But it made us feel a little bit important nonetheless.

Anyhow, as we were patiently waiting for the ceremony to conclude, we noticed the gift that one of the retiring teachers received. She opened up her package, and I believe it was a few sarongs, two notebooks, a few pens and two bags of straight up MSG.

Never in my life would have I ever imagined receiving MSG as a parting gift. Ahh well.

. . .

It was a nice ceremony and didn’t last painfully long. We were also proud to see that two of the three kids that come to study at our house, and also spend time with us nearly each evening received the top student award in their class. Srey Nich (a 7th grade girl) and Sounapet, a 7th grade boy.

I’ve written about little Sounapet before. He’s a bit small for is age (he’s 11 or 12, but has the body of a full sized average 6 or 7 yr. old boy in the states. Not sure if it is malnutrition or what) –but he’s a bright kid, quite cute, can sing, dance, is pretty athletic and has a smile that could win over anyone.I’d take him home if I could. Anyway,… when they called his name, several students cheered and lots of hootin’ and hollerin’ took over the crowd. We didn’t realize how popular the little guy is; but apparently so. I guess I could’ve guessed it by his charm; but it was nice to see that he was so well loved by the rest of his class despite being the smallest (even out of the girls) in his class.

So that’s it. The school year is officially over. We now know what to expect in the coming year. We’ve learned many lessons and will have a better grasp as to where our services can be best put. I admit, it’s gone by fast…and it was not at all what we were expecting…but what is in life, right? Now….onto summer. (Or the ‘long vacation’ as they call it. It’s pretty much summer year round.)