Weekend Beach Breather in Kep.

After a long week teaching myself and the bold Sophie left the village Friday evening and hitched a lift into Phnom Penh, ready to catch a bus the next morning to Kep for some beach action. Now, hitchhiking is something I wouldn't ever dare to do back in Europe but yeah, hitchhiking in Cambodia? Oh yeah, that's fine. We actually managed to hitch a ride with some American-Cambodians who told us about their dramatic escape from the country in 1975 away from the Khmer Rouge. The husband lost his entire family and the wife had lost brothers and sisters. The wife was particularly chatty, told us she'd met up with an old friend a few days before, she hadn't seen him since 1969. She whipped out a pack of photos to show us. Guess who her friend was? Only the King of Cambodia. Turned out they were playmates back in the day. Always an adventure travelling around Cambodia. 

After our royal hitchhike, Friday night in Phnom Penh can be summed up in the following way: it was 10PM, then it was 1AM and then it was suddenly 6AM. Queue our mad dash back to the guesthouse to grab a bag before getting the bus at 7AM.

So where were we dashing off to? We were off to Kep, the original seaside resort in Cambodia. Myself and Sophie thought it would be nice to take a few days in a quiet place in the sun. That's exactly what we got. Our first day, as you can imagine when losing a nights sleep, we napped up a storm on Kep beach with a few dips in the sea in between dreams. We had read that the beach was rocky but a French lady informed us that they've been bringing up sand from Sihanoukville for a while now. We actually saw them unload the trucks the next day. 

Sunday we ventured over to Rabbit Island, a 25 minute boat ride from the main land. There isn't much to say really, it's a gorgeous island with some lovely views but I wouldn't spend longer than a day there. We got back from the island at around 4.30 and met a Dutch friend of mine at the bus stop. Her bus had taken two hours longer than expected and she wasn't able to make it over to the island to meet us. Not to worry, we took the loop road by the sea all the way up to the crab market and had a few drinks, snacks and crab dinners to finish the day off. Since Kep pretty much closes down at 11 every night we decided to walk back to our guesthouse which was actually pretty stupid because the street was unlit and it was a 2KM walk. The girls were worried about dogs biting them which, in fairness, is a genuine worry. I was far more concerned about getting robbed. Which is why I picked up a sturdy looking stick, Rambo style, for the walk home. In the end we were fine. 

Next morning we were up bright and early and set off for a small trek in Kep National Park. It's an 8KM circle up some 'mountains'. I didn't make it explicit to the girls but some of the reviews said that snakes and tarantulas had been spotted there. I can't say if I was relieved or disappointed but we didn't see either. I even had my trusty stick with me. The walk was fantastic, some great views over Kep and even Kampot and the whole bay. We didn't make it the whole way round as we went off-road when we saw a sign pointing to 'Jasmine Valley'. About 190m along a dirt track we found the most amazing resort. It's really built into the landscape and if you didn't follow the sign we saw you'd have no idea it was there. We had a coconut drink and let their resident nibbly-fish give us a pedicure. Then, before we sat ourselves back on the bus to Phnom Penh we took a dip in the sea and had the most amazing tuna sandwich. So amazing I'm mentioning it here. 

And that's that. We got back to Phnom Penh at around 7 to our usual guesthouse with a sweet sounding 'oh, it's you' - which we feel we probably earned because of our mad dash from the night club to the bus the previous Saturday morning. Right now, we are back in the school already knee deep in teaching. I'm a bit sad to say that next week is already my last week here. I'm putting together a few thoughts on the direction my classes should take in the coming weeks. It all just went so fast...

P.S. Still no water in the village.  

Water problems.

I can tell you upfront that the theme of this post is going to be water. Or rather, lack of it. I mentioned before that our water was cut off in the school. One of the former volunteers said it happened once last year for two or three days. It's been a week since we were cut off, that's a whole different kettle of fish and brings about a range of problems that we are solving both creatively and strategically. 

Water Problem Number One: Drinking Water.

We have a filter up on the wall in the kitchen where we get our drinking water from. Only now there's no water going into the filter. Not such a big deal as there is bottled water available in the village, we can buy 20 liters for 75c and I'm pretty sure we are still being charged more than the normal villager. Such is the way here. 

Water Problem Number 2: Personal Hygiene.

Gone are the days we wastefully took a shower each and every morning. 7 volunteers, 5 of them girls, that's a lot of water. But we've been creative and managed to clean ourselves in a number of different ways. 

1 - baby wipes. OR as my mother likes to say, 'taking a whores bath'. I've no idea where she got that from.

2 - cleaning up at the neighbors with their stored rainwater, scooping water over ourselves from a bucket in an outhouse. One of the women was joking I owed her 25c for using the shower....we laughed. 

3 - being an arrogant westerner and using bottled water for a bath. Even more arrogant is boiling the water for a warm bath. Bath in this case meaning laundry bowl.

4 - getting water from one random pipe in the village that still has some. This morning I went and filled 8 empty water bottles. I had no idea how to remove the pipe but a few of the village women pulled it apart and filled my bottles for me. I didn't let them, they forced me out of the way. My dad would be ashamed of me, him being a plumber and all. I then took a tiny bath in my favourite laundry bowl again. 

4 - on my way back with my newly filled water bottles I met Cecile who was on her way out to take a shower in one of the Khmer teachers houses. She met his whole family pre-shower.

5 - we haven't yet, but I won't rule it out either, heading out to the small lake to wash up. The locals go out with some shampoo and a sarong and they just go for it. 

6 - going to the city to shower. I'm ashamed to say it but I jumped at the chance to go to Phnom Penh last Saturday just because I knew I could take a shower with an actual shower. I was dirty by the time I got back to the village but it was glorious while it lasted. 

7 - and then finally, embracing our natural odors and trying not to sweat too much which eventually brings us back to baby wipes at option number 1 above. Yum. 

Water Problem Number 3: Toilet Flushing. 

I won't go into too much details here. No water means no toilet flushing. And since we have to drag buckets of water from out in the village to the school we have made some strategic decisions regarding flushing. I'll leave it open to your imagination. 

Water Problem Number 4: Cooking and Cleaning.

Basically the school is getting its day-to-day supply for cooking and cleaning from the random pipe in the village which the school caretaker gets every morning by filling up loads of buckets. We help him out when we can. It's possible we will have to do a good intestinal, parasite clean out in a couple of weeks but since all the water is boiled we don't see a problem with it. There has been a couple of instances however when the day-to-day day was mixed up with the drinking water. Put this with our toilet flushing problem above and we could be in for a seriously rough ride. 

This is all well and good for us. This is a completely new experience and no matter how inconvenient it is we know it's temporary and we will all go home to our tiled bathrooms and over heated showers at some point in the future. For the villagers it's another story. The water has been cut because of construction out on the national road. No warning and no indication of when it comes back. Myself and Sophie were playing with some children the other evening when I spotted infected wounds on a little girls hands. Sophie being a nurse, she cleaned and dressed them. Turns out the little girl has scabies and an aggressive fungal infection. We spoke with her mother who said the whole family has the same problem. Sophie told them the best way to get rid of them is to get a lotion from the pharmacy, wash thoroughly every day and wash all bedding, towels, clothing, etc. Can you imagine what a task that is for a family of 9, never-mind not having a washing machine but not even having a reliable supply of water? It's ridiculous, they are almost doomed to suffer from treatable and unnecessary infections until the water comes back. 

Non Water Related Items for this week:

- Pretty sure one of our preschoolers has a serious learning difficulty. it's a daily struggle to get him to concentrate and he can become distressed very easily. 

- I've been showing our resident 2 year old Barney episodes on YouTube. Much to some resentment, he loves it. 

- We got a tour of the local Buddhist temple by our student monks. Some important Cambodian government minister was there too. He wished us a happy new year. 

- The schools wifi hates iPad minis. #westernproblems. 

And that's it for this week. Only another two teaching weeks and my volunteering stint will be over. Time is flying much too quickly. 

The itchy and scratchy show.

I am wrecked after another week as a teacher. It's a good feeling. After my crazy week of sightseeing up north, I got back into the swing of things easily and geared up for some intense lesson planning and execution. We actually had another day off on Tuesday, Victory Day here in Cambodia, which slowed the momentum up a bit. I think Cambodia must have the most public holiday days in the world. The other volunteers said that a few months back there was hardly a week where they didn't have a day off. They should give some free days to Holland...

 

Life in the village this week was interesting. I said in my last post that I caught bed bugs while in Siem Reap. I've never been so itchy. Ok, I have a feint recollection of wanting to scratch my skin off at 6 years old with chicken pocks but the bed bugs thing was this week. The worst thing was that I didn't even realize I had them till I got back to the school with a bag full of freshly washed clothes (freshly washed by a launderette) and infected both the bag and my bed with them. So, not only did I have to hand-wash copious amounts of clean clothes, I had to wash my sheets, leave my mattress in the sun for a day and spray the bed frame with some toxic chemical I found in the back of the medical cupboard down in the kitchen. I even cut off my hippie bracelets just in case. I think it did the trick but I've felt paranoid all week. I went for a walk with Cecile the other evening and I had an absolute panic attack when an ant bit my foot. I was also terrified that they had crawled into my hair and were having the time of their lives in there so I bought some head lice shampoo. I was all geared up to wash the (probably non existent) feckers away when we were told there was no water left in the storage tank. No water = no shower = bed bugs building small bed bug towns in my hair. After a couple of hours I couldn't take it anymore and like the arrogant westerner I am I went and bought 12 bottles of drinking water and took a bath in the biggest laundry bowl I could find. The other volunteers called me wasteful and it is but I HAD to do it. I HAD TO. But tomorrow I take a shower with old rain water at a neighbors house so it works out.

My hand washing skills displayed in below pic. 

The below pictures are of my 2-3 ABC class. We've been learning about the body this week, employing the services of Brother Monkey, best known for appearing in 'The Monkey Family'  back in December. My favorite class this week was our creative Friday task where the class could only draw what I told them....e.g. draw two heads, one tummy,  ten legs. We ended up creating a monster and it was the most fun all week getting them to present their creations to the class at the end. 

Between my classes on Thursday I went for a walk around the village. Within 10 seconds of leaving I had a hand in each of my own and was given a walking tour of the village by two of my 8 year old students. I was introduced to every aunt, uncle, cousin and grandparent they could think of and I was made to hold at least three babies. It was amazing and something I'll never forget. 

And an update on the protests I mentioned the last time; 6 people now dead and many more were seriously injured. Factory workers all returned to work with a $5 dollar increase on their existing $60 a month. However, they won't be paid for the next two weeks for the 'damage' they have caused to the garment industry here in Cambodia. The labour unions have been identified as inciting public disorder and will not be taken seriously in worker negotiations again. I also read an article online from a teacher with 21 years experience being paid a paltry $75 dollars a month. And six workers were grabbed off the street in Phnom Penh while trying to deliver a petition, they were detained for 18 hours without charge. My heart bleeds for these people. I can't imagine the hopelessness they feel for their children's future. 

Then, as foreigners, we also have to deal with a certain backlash. My roommate Sophie was in Phnom Penh for a couple days volunteering as a surgical nurse on pro bono operations. She bargained with a moto driver to drive her back to her hostel. For the whole ten minutes of the journey he aggressively told her how selfish she is for bargaining, she is white with a lot of money and Cambodian people have nothing, good Cambodian people are dying for a better life, doesn't she know? She didn't feel it was a dangerous situation but knew the driver had no intention of hearing her story or the fact she assisted in free reconstructive surgery for Cambodians that day, such was his grief. It will be interesting to see how the next couple of weeks and months will pan out. 

Holiday week in Northwest Cambodia

I've had a fantastic week since our Christmas shindig last week. I've been up to Battambang and Siem Reap but I'm not going to talk too much about it. I think it comes across as very shallow and disrespectful considering what's happening in Cambodia at the moment. It's true I had an amazing week but it hardly matters that much that I've had the time of my life while the Cambodian people are struggling for a little piece of fairness. On Friday I saw the headlines splashed across the news; five people were shot dead by heavily armed paratroopers outside a garment factory while protesting for a wage increase. The police opened fire on the crowd because 'they had no choice'. I knew there were protests planned by the opposing party for the week and we were told to take care as we headed off for the school holidays over New Years. You know how much money a garment factory worker gets a month? Between 60 to 80 USD A MONTH. Yes, it's cheap to live here but it's not that cheap. I got talking to one man who said he is afraid of what will happen next. He thinks the country will go back to its horrible ways and people will (are) be killed for stupid reasons. He said the people hold the pain in their hearts. They can't speak their pain freely and hold it all in their hearts. At this point he became too emotional and walked away. He was crying. It's a bit cliche but we don't know how lucky we are. We totally take for granted our human rights of fair pay and free speech each and every minute. In the last day alone I saw three girls I know in Ireland post pictures of their new Michael Kors watch or Victoria Secret swimsuit. It's not their fault they can have nice things but it's just heartbreaking to know good people are dying here for a little piece of the kind of life we have in Europe. I don't know what's next for Cambodia. I read that the governing party has banned the opposition from protesting until they can guarantee public safety. Hard to swallow when you see pictures of peaceful monks and ordinary people being beaten by police and army. I don't know how human beings can be so cruel to each other. It's heartbreaking. But let's see how things progress over the coming weeks. 

SIEM REAP HIGHLIGHTS

- a tourist resort town if nothing else, it even has a street called 'pub street' that wouldn't be amiss in Magaluf. 

- bought three day pass for Angkor, went every day. 

- Day two I cycled 30km round the Angkor sites. Was tough and I got saddle arse from it. 

- last day I visited the 'big three', Angkor Wat (the big one) the Bayon (the faces) and Ta Phrom (the trees). 

- got the chance to meet up with some long lost colleagues and friends and eat myself sick in a few amazing restaurants. So nice to see friendly faces from 'my other life'.

- caught bed bugs from the hostel, am currently boiling all my clothes. 

BATTAMBANG HIGHLIGHTS

In short: hipster cafés, temple spotting, acrobatics watching, Bamboo train riding and moped driving. This is also where we rang in the new year, already 6 days ago. I really felt at home there. We also met a man who was returning to Cambodia for the first time since he was 4. His parents fled in 1979 under the Khmer Rouge. He was with his mother and they both had such optimism for the country, it warmed us. But I would also like to be able to ask them now how they feel after the unrest on Friday. 

The below is of Wat Banan outside of Battambang. Old Angkor ruins. 

The pic below is of non other than Mr. Battambang. Legend has it he had a magic stick that controlled all his enemies. I believe it. 

Deep gorge down to Hindu statues outside Battambang. 

PHARE CIRCUS 

Born from a former physical education course for kids originally from the Khmer refugee camps in Thailand. We saw trained acrobats perform for an hour. The best 10$ I spent all week. Two former students have even been accepted into Cirque de Soleil. 

BAMBOO TRAIN

Controversial. Some love it, some hate it. We loved it. A bit scary at times travelling on a bamboo mat with wheels at speeds upwards of 35km per hour. Also the tracks were anything but parallel. Only one track? No problem! Just pick the train up and let the other pass. Simple. We gave 2$ to the best businessman in town. At seven years old we were bamboozled. He took us on a tour of his village, showed us the little factory, the fish farm, his aunts house, his uncles house, his school and his sisters shop (in case we needed a cold drink/t-shirt/bracelet.) Then we climbed back aboard and we zoomed down the tracks again. Oh, but not before we were told to tip the poor driver. No idea what the 5$ ticket fee was for. 

Right now I'm back at the school. I realize this post probably reads a bit all over the place but then I'm also all over the place, both elated after an amazing week and heartbroken for the people I'm getting to know. I'm really hoping for the best for the people of Cambodia, they deserve it. 

Christmas in Cambodia

There is only one day of the whole year where I can accurately say I've been in the same place, with the same people and eaten the same dinner for the last 26 years. That changed this year. Instead of sitting down to a massive turkey and ham dinner on the 25th December and having an argument about what to watch on TV, I had some Khmer food in a tiny Cambodian village and ended the evening drinking beer and rice wine on the roof of our school. I was a bit sad to be away from my family but it will be a Christmas week I'll remember forever even though we worked on Christmas Day. Actually at my most homesick this week, a little girl from my beginner class gave me a present of chocs. It made my heart melt because she said she was sad I wasn't getting any presents from my family this year. Children are so thoughtful sometimes. Below is a pic of her gift to me...after I ate the snacks....

As part of our school year here at SCAO we threw a Christmas Celebration for the students just to treat them and have a bit of fun. The party started at 11.30 on Friday morning and went on until 6.30 the same evening. I have to give ourselves a good pat on the back; it was epic. We had a good schedule of events starting off with the obligatory speeches, giving out some food and snacks, dancing, games, more dancing, a singing competition and then even more dancing. I have no idea where the kids got their energy from. They danced from almost noon to 6.30 and we had to shut the music off, they didn't want to go home. But the best part of the day for the whole school was the singing competition. You couldn't pay an Irish child to get up in front of their whole school to sing a song but these kids signed up with such enthusiasm it made me dizzy. We told them a week in advance about the competition and they had to sign up with their names and a particular song. We then divided them into four different categories, X-Factor style of course, 7-11, 11-14, 14+ and duets and they sang their hearts out. Us as volunteers were given different categories to judge. I had the 11-14 group, much to my relief because the 7-11 group had about 10 different versions of BINGO and Twinkle-Twinkle to go through. It was amazing and the whole contest lasted at least 2 1/2 hours. We also had a little Xmas present for them, we gave each student toothbrushes and toothpaste. And then apart from that we just went crazy dancing. At one point I saw two of our tiny pre school students doing all the actions to the 'head, shoulders, knees and toes' song. I couldn't believe it because they wouldn't do it for us in class. Little feckers. All in all an absolutely fantastic day for everyone. 

The pic below is of the preschoolers before we opened the gates for the Xmas party. Too cute. 

The day before the Christmas celebration we were scheduled to give our students an exam. I had two classes to make tests for and even though it cost me an extra two hours in prep work I made two versions of my exams. I'm such an asshole. I made them appear to look the same but slightly different. I did it to see the panic in their eyes when they couldn't copy from their neighbor. It was brilliant. Overall they went well but there were some surprising observations. There are two girls in my class, one extremely chatty and one quiet. The chatty one I expected to pass with flying colors but her grammar was awful. The quiet one I thought had a pretty low level of English but her grammar exam was graded at 100%. Just goes to show that there isn't one way to gauge intelligence of a language. I will be rethinking my approach for the next round of exams in January..

Other notable items from this week:

- Myself and Sophie went to the next village over to see the Buddhist centre of Cambodia. We ate street food we should have died from. Was a good day. 

- We had an origami class from the monks. Took an hour and a half for me to learn to make a swan. 

- A preschooler peed on the Buddhist altar in the school. 

- Another preschooler peed on the floor. A volunteer walked in it. 

- Our resident 2 year old peed on the bathroom floor. His dad walked in it. 

- We ate another volunteers chocolate that was sent over from his grandad. In fairness, he left it in the fridge with no note on it. 

- I spent an hour hand washing clothes only for them to stink of the local water. Couldn't wear any of them. 

Right now I'm having a really nice coffee in Battambang in the north west of Cambodia. I've a week off due to New Years and myself and another volunteer headed out of the village for a couple days but this will have to written about in a couple of days. But safe to say I'm loving this city a whole lot more than Phnom Penh. 

By the way, rice wine is evil and pretty sure it would be more at home in the tank of motorbike than in a human body. Never again.

Hair-cuts and House Building

Friday evening. Such a nice part of the week. I love it here in the school but there is a certain feeling of achievement when it gets to Friday evening and the teaching is done till Monday. This week was a good one. We started it off by saying goodbye to two volunteers and then welcoming two new ones into the family. I have to admire the set-up of the school in this regard, the turnaround of teachers is so high it's an amazing thing to be able to foster learning and progress regardless. One consequence of the new volunteers was that I had to give away one class to the new volunteers. I gave up the preschool class even though I love their little souls and all the crazy noise they make. Without really thinking about it I found myself this morning in the middle of the class singing along to 'Bingo' and doing all the exaggerated gestures. Cecile, the head teacher of the pre-school class, was laughing and asked if I missed the little faces. I really miss them. 

I had a hair cut this week. I've went the last three months without so much as blow drying my hair so when a student of the upstairs hair and beauty class asked if I wanted my hair done I thought 'why not?' I had to laugh at myself. I've refused point blank in the past to get my hair cut at hairdressing academies back in Ireland and Holland but here I was in rural Cambodia, where I don't speak the local language, getting my gruaig cut by students. I needn't have worried though, the cut turned out fine and my hair is much happier and healthier. It was the crimping that didn't suit me. Actually, the cut turned out so good in fact that Cecile, who I mentioned above, had her hair cut today as well. I think I'll stop by more often.

Fridays at the school are not ordinary Fridays. Here they are Creative Fridays where we try to think outside the box for our lessons. This can either lift a volunteers heart or strike fear into the body of those who relaxed a little too much on a Thursday evening. This week I had it sorted. After a tough week of introducing the family members to ABC beginners by use of 'The Monkey Family' my creative Friday task was building a house for them. It's possible that I was a teeny bit more excited than the class was, having spent a good four hours preparing for a one hour class. I pre-prepared a lot of the materials, the vine floor, the banana wallpaper, the bamboo walls and the 'timber' roof. Let's be honest here, all the students had to do was color all the bits and pieces and glue a few things together. In the end I was happy and they were happy, so a big win-win all round.

So now it's Friday evening and I'm relaxing with two other volunteers watching a movie. I said in my last post that we were challenged with the all night blaring of music from a local funeral. Well, this week we had the 7 day memorial from last weeks funeral and also two more funerals starting today. Not to make fun of another cultures customs but it's quite interesting trying to steer classes with three different loudspeakers blaring music and speeches all day. Not to mention trying to sleep at night. Why all the funerals? The temperature dropped quite suddenly the last week. I know it's quite common at home in Europe for elderly and infirm people to pass away with extremes of weather but here the temperature 'dropped' to about 20 degrees. It's almost unthinkable for me to hear people died because of the 'cold' at 20 degrees. It's really strange. This means that music blares all night when the person dies for three days, then again after 7 days, 30 days, 100 days and 300 days and then every year after that. Basically music just blares all the time, day and night, in Cambodia. A nice idea. In theory. 

Life in Som Roung

Where to start on the last ten days, I just don't know. I've had great, satisfying classes where I felt the students gained a lot. Then I've had one or two tough classes. It's getting easier. I'm gaining a technique or probably just getting better at robbing the other volunteers techniques. One or the other. 

Generally life in the village is good. It's so much more preferable than being in Phnom Penh. We had a day off there last Tuesday and myself and my new roommate, Sophie, stayed in the village. We took the schools bikes and cycled round the village and out into the rice fields. We did freak ourselves out thinking about snakes emerging from the flooded fields, a totally valid fear since a cobra was found outside the school during the week. When we got back to the village we were met by a few children playing outside. One enterprising boy made a drum out of scrap and was belting out the beats. A few of the others had old Buddha masks and we all had a little dance. One of the best days I've had in Asia so far I think. 

And then I was introduced to Cambodian culture last Friday night with a rude awakening. Literally. I stayed behind in the village Friday night to catch up on some sleep but at about one in the morning the whole house was shaken awake with a loudspeaker blaring out local music and such. So strange. I didn't know what was happening. After a while it faded out but not for long til it started up again at around 4. I went down for breakfast at 8 and was laughing about the music. Well, I was laughing until I was told it was a funeral and playing music all night is a way to honour the dead. Awkward. 

Last week we also had our first tablet lesson! So the school has wifi (I've been online more than off the whole time I've been in Asia) but a couple weeks back 14 tablets were donated to the school. The intention is that we lead the students in self learning. We hand picked 14 students across all age groups to attend the first few weeks of classes to see how we structure this. The first classes were great but unfortunately we had to cancel towards the end of the week because we couldn't get all tablets to connect successfully to the wifi. It's a pity but we should sort it out this week and then on we go again. 

And then the last word on the last couple of days is this, the inevitable has happened. I had to visit the doctor. Before I came to Asia I never ever felt the need to talk about any toilet habits. However, here in Cambodia, it's the main topic of the day. All day. Everyday. The doctor told me plainly I'd eaten something dirty and have a lovely intestinal bacterial infection. And that's not all folks, I've probably got a nice little tropical parasite to boot! Not to worry, it happens to everyone and easily fixed. I just hope I never have another day in my life where I have 26 'successful' visits to the bathroom. One for every year I've been on this earth. Below is a pic of all the medicine myself and another volunteer were given to fix ourselves. It was either that or go on a drip for 3 hours. 

That's about it for the moment, just a short and sweet round up. This weekend I'm planning on staying in the village, avoiding Phnom Penh and getting ready for Christmas here in Cambodia. 

Week No. 2

My second week at the school has flown by. The days are action packed with something happening all the time but being a teacher is not easy. I only have a few classes a day and between planning ahead, preparing myself, doing the class, evaluating, evening activities, meetings, etc, l am exhausted. 

I'm starting to settle into a routine now. My teaching day begins at 11am when we take in about 25 local children for preschool hour. This is a new thing in the school but I can already see how successful it is. For example, one little boy called Visa, aged three, was afraid to come into the school on his first day and didn't want to talk to the other children. Now he struts around the school yard like he owns the place, has a best friend he can't live without and has acquired a few necessary English words. Young children are amazing. They just soak up information without realizing it. I don't think they understand just yet that the words we teach them aren't what their parents use and yet they repeat everything you throw at them. The best part of my week was making hats with them. We got some scraps of paper, got the kids to color them, folded the papers into little sailor hats and popped them on their heads. I didn't think the hats would last long but they loved them! It would melt any cold heart to see the smiles on their faces. Well, maybe until it's playtime and you see they've all built guns from the Lego blocks and are taking immense pleasure at the thought of killing 'teeeecha'. We also showed them the intro to the Lion King to have a look at all the animals. They went bananas.

From 12-1 I assist a beginners class with another volunteer. This is the toughest class of the day. It's tough mostly because the children are loud, a bit unruly and there's a bit of an age gap between younger and older. And then of course there's the customary group of pre-teen 'lads' down the back that are just too cool. It's funny, you can go all around the world and no matter what, teenagers will always be teenagers. Anyway, this class is hard to manage but they are impressive in their learning capacity. Despite the howling laughter, students trying to crawl on the floor, minor arguments and constant chatter they all seem to know the answer to the question even before you've asked it yourself. I admire every single student in this class but combined they are a nightmare. 

I hate to say it but the class at 2-3 is the stuff of a teachers dream. They are quiet(ish), fun, eager, full of personality and not afraid of doing new things. Last week I got to see them read their first English book. It's a huge deal for a 7 year old to learn a whole new alphabet and remember a complex system of new sounds, not only to memorize but to be able to take meaning from the words too. I wasn't able to do it when I was 7 with Irish so I have huge admiration for them. I'm looking forward to seeing their progress over the next two months.

My typical day here then ends with a grammar class with high school students. On my first day one of these students asked me how old I was. I said I was 26 of course. He asked why I wasn't married yet and what was wrong with me? He actually sounded a bit like my gran here. Anyway, I think I have to work to win these students over, I don't think they trust me. One student, a monk actually, asked me after class why we didn't do number 1, number 2 and number 3 on a particular page, in that particular order. I don't think they trust me going 'off the beaten track' so to speak. In that case I'm going to work extra hard to get them out of their comfort zone. I set some listening exercises for them at the end of the week, you know listen to this and answer specific questions afterwards, blah blah blah. I thought it was too easy for their level of conversational English but none of them got even one answer right. So Mr. Know It All Monk, we aren't going to do question 1,2,3 in that order, you are going to have to think I'm afraid.

That rounds off week number 2 as a teacher in Cambodia. I am in love with the village. It feels homely somehow and familiar. Right now I'm back in Phnom Penh but I'm not sure why. I really don't like the city. I think it's filthy and seedy. You can't turn your head but there's some creepy white guy with a Cambodian girl much too young for him hanging off his arm. Or for example, last night I was in a bar that would have been too posh for Amsterdam and yet across the road I saw a mother trying to get her infant children to sleep under nothing more than two plastic bags tied together for a roof. Also, I'm sitting in a restaurant here as I type and I can see from my chair a poster warning against the consequences of getting caught sexually abusing a child here. I knew it was going to be like this but the reality of it is something else. I think I'm going to spend a lot of my weekends at the village from now on. 

Teacher training

My first week of teaching in Cambodia is complete! I won't lie, it was a long week. I was nervous to begin with but really started gaining confidence after 2/3 days. I'm not a natural teacher, it's challenging working with children. It's not easy and it's definitely not any easier when the children are from a different cultural background. However, it's so amazingly satisfying to hear a preschool child frantically call me 'teacher' if they see me in the village or hear a student use a new word you know they just learned that week. To be completely selfish, it feels great and it's more than enough to see me through this challenge. 

The school is located in Samrong, 18km outside of Phnom Penh. I've no idea how many people live here, I thought I heard someone say 500 families but I could also be making it up. There are 5 other volunteers along with myself and a few local Cambodian (Khmer) teachers. The Khmer teachers are there to explain in the local language. The students attend English lessons for all levels, computer classes, PE class, football coaching once a week and there's also a hair and beauty course which is quite unique. The aim is to teach local children skills to keep them away from hard labour. Like I mentioned in my last post, a locals wages in a clothing factory here amounts to little more than 75 US dollars a month. Every skill they can acquire in their youth, particularly English, will stand to them getting a better job in the future and keep them out of the sweat shops or worse again, the rampant sex industry here. 

I won't go into too much detail on the classes themselves but below is a quick round-up of my highlights and struggles in my few days so far. 

Highlights:

- preschoolers recognizing me and calling me 'teeeecha' in the village,

- 6 year old girl helping me teach her classmates the 'teddy bear' song (I didn't know the words OR the obligatory dance moves) I thought it was so sweet and brave of her. 

- evening conversation class with some teenage Buddhist monks who are obsessed with the champions league,

- helping 8 year olds read their first English book,

- giving a PowerPoint class to teenagers. PowerPoint has never been so exciting. 

Struggles:

- I've actually no idea of grammar. You may have noticed from my writing. Present perfect, past continuous, conditional 1 and 2..... These sound like names of 80s girl bands to me. Nevermind making lesson plans, I need to study.

- Being tough. Contrary to what my brothers might say, I'm finding it hard to dish out the discipline. 

I'm living in the school itself on the top floor. I've a comfy bed, mosquito net and my own toilet. There's only cold water in the shower but believe it or not, it isn't a big deal. More importantly, you cannot understand the joy I feel at having a room in one place for the first time in over two months. I've basically sprinkled my stuff in all 4 corners of the room which I realize now was a mistake since I'll be sharing with a new volunteer Monday onwards. Ah well. Although, I did get a bit of a rude awakening about my new home. One of the German volunteers across the hall from me said he had an infestation of cockroaches from leaving his window open. Sure enough, that night I woke up to a baby cockroach crawling on the top of my mosquito net. I now feel I have the potential to be a sadistic serial killer. I sprayed that baby cockroach with my most pungent insect repellent and I swear I could hear him choke. I watched him struggle for a long time with a pang of guilt in my chest, his legs stuck to the mosquito net with the repellent. Half of me wanted to free his sticky little legs from the net but the other half won and I beat his lights out with the end of the repellent can. I don't like elephants being ill treated but I swear I will beat that baby cockroaches brothers and sisters should they ever dare into my room. 

And that rounds off my first week in the school. I was wrecked come Friday evening but somehow found the energy this weekend to visit numerous markets, cycle around the city (scary), visit the Olympic park, try find a non-existent silk factory and assist a German colleague in purchasing copious amounts of Xmas gifts. I'm also eating lots of tasty, tasty food, albeit western. The food in the school is great but let's face it, there's only so much rice and fish sauce a solid Irish girl like myself can consume in a week. 

P.S. A baby snake was caught outside the school in the dark this week. No one would/could confirm for me if it was poisonous. 

Introducing Cambodia

It's going to be hard selling you Cambodia after this post, I think. I'm feeling good about the country, I really am. But I'm overwhelmed. About everything. 

It was probably a mistake but the first thing I did was to take a Tuk Tuk out to the Killing Fields, 13 or so kilometers outside of Phnom Penh. I was emotionally exhausted after it. For anyone that doesn't know, the Killing Fields were the places (about 300 in total throughout Cambodia) where during the 70's the Khmer Rouge government tortured and executed more than 2 million of its own citizens including, students, religious persons, opposing parties and then all their families too in case they might want revenge in the future. That would have been one person in four slaughtered in the space of three years. Why? Oh you know, just a small sacrifice to create the perfect peasant society. I usually detest audio tours but in the case of the killing fields it couldn't have been done better. For two reasons; 1. To paint a clear picture of the situation. 2. To keep the grounds quiet and respectful and 3. (I just thought of this reason) to let everyone take in the horrible details and process them in their own time. I know for me it was incredibly difficult to listen to how children were killed by having their heads smashed on a tree, swung around by their ankles because bullets were too expensive. And then just to bring it all home, when we visited the S-21 museum in the city, there were pictures of each and every single person tortured and sent to die in the killing fields. It seems the Khmer Rouge were as meticulous at keeping records of their crimes as the nazis were. I had zero energy after that and just spent the rest of the day reading. The picture just below is of the memorial stupa at the fields. It's filled with the skulls of those who were murdered here. 

Then there's the blatant sex tourism. Maybe I've been going around with blinkers on for the last two months but I am genuinly shocked here. I went out with the other volunteers from the school on Friday night and we ended up at a night club. Before we could even see the doors of the club the pavement was packed full of horrible, wrinkly, old men salivating over gorgeous, young Cambodian girls dressed up to the nines. I spotted one fella on the street, I'd say he was in his sixties at least. He was giving a hard time to a young girl who couldn't have been more twenty. She was doing her best to get away, him holding her wrist. Once she was free she dashed passed us with him close behind. Me being me, I stuck my foot out and tripped him up which was risky because the potential was there for him to break a hip or two. Himself told me to be careful and watch my temper and I know he's right. I'll have to get over it a bit here but it made me sick to my stomach. Actually, I don't know who I feel more sorry for; the auld lads who come half way across the world to feel wanted by a woman or the girls who are looking for a few extra dollars. I think the girls are doing the most logical thing. The auld fellas are just pathetic. You know, the average factory worker here gets 75 US dollars a month for 12 hours a day, 6 days a week. It's the bulk of their family income and they are 'lucky' to have it. If you were struggling to feed, shelter and educate your family, you can't say you wouldn't do the same. 

I went out to visit the school and apart from everything else I wrote above, it's the reason I'm here and I already love it. The village is beautiful. It has a massive Buddhist temple where I think the most senior monk in Cambodia lives. It's incredible. And then on one side of the village there is a lake and on the other side are flooded rice fields, so actually, I can't tell the difference between the two. The children all run out of their houses to shout 'hello, hello!' along with any other random English words they can muster up. The women in the village all give you massive smiles and seem genuinely delighted to see you. The school building itself is quite nice. It has a few classrooms, a back kitchen and bedrooms for us volunteers. The best bit is the roof with its incredible view of the village. Apparently there's no water though and I'll have to wash my clothes by hand. More about that in the next few days. 

The group of volunteers seem like a great bunch. There's just one thing though...when I was working in Amsterdam I was the youngest in the company, apart from the interns but they don't count, ha. Well, here I'm the oldest and I don't like it. I'm with a few other Irish who are in their early twenties and then a million German students who are no more than 19, on a gap year between school and college. Anyway, one of the German girls asked me what age I was and when I told her I was 26 she said 'Aw great! You can be the mommy of the group!' Eh yeah...no thanks. 

Other items of interest would be the following list. But for the love of god, don't mention any of it to my mother. 

- two girls from my hostel had their bags snatched in broad day light,

- two of the volunteers have small but painful injuries from mopeds,

- another of the volunteers had his laptop robbed, 

- a poster in my hostel advertising a shooting range that says 'decide what you want to shoot'. 

And then that's me for the last couple days. I don't want you to come away with a bad image of Cambodia. If anything, this country is amazing. It's been to hell and back and while it has a long, long way to go the people have proved they won't be dragged down by the past. They are extremely loving. If you smile at anyone on the street you will get the most heart warming smile back in return, whether it's a child, a woman or an old man. I can't wait to start work there.