Teaching, Poop, and Language Tests!

I have felt more relief today than I have ever felt in my entire life.  Okay, that’s probably a slight exaggeration, but today was pretty awesome. 

For the past two weeks I have been teaching an optional summer class at a local high school.  My co-teacher, Kat, and I were assigned to teach the 8^th grade.  English instruction begins in 7^th grade, so we were pretty nervous about teaching English to about 50 students who only have one year of English under their belts when we only have about 5 weeks of Khmer under ours. 

Nonetheless, we planned out a lesson and bravely went where no Peace Corps Trainee had gone before (just kidding, 5 groups have gone before us).  Our first class was…. interesting.  After realizing one of our activities was going right over our kids’ heads, we had to improv a new plan on the spot.  Thanks to Kat’s teaching experience and my “fake it ‘till you make it!” life motto, we managed to pull something together, but it was pretty shaky for a while there. 

When we walked into class on the second day, all of our students were covering their noses, with a general look of disgust on their faces.  My first thought was “Come on, I know I sweat a lot, but I do NOT smell that bad.”  I soon realized that the room really did smell like poop...and it probably wasn’t me.  After a few moments of conferring with Kat, we realized that it smelled like poop in our classroom because there was, in fact, poop in our classroom (the origin of this poop is sill a hot topic of debate).  Never fear, someone came in promptly to scoop the poop away with some paper and cover the rest with dirt.  All clean!

(Sorry I don’t have pictures of the poop)

Things went pretty swimmingly after that.  We soon realized that at least half of our students were not actually in the 8^th grade.  That became pretty obvious when a four year old joined our class.  But he was cute and paid attention, so we let him stay.  This definitely made the language gap a lot bigger, but we made a lot of gestures, used what little Khmer we knew, and somehow made it through the day. 

Later on we were able to teach with Cambodian co-teachers, which is what we’ll be doing for the next two years of our service.  We were very lucky to have extremely competent counterparts, but there is just a very different style of teaching here.  For example, if a student gets an answer wrong, they are simply told, “No” and told to sit down.  There’s no sort of attempt to lead them to the correct answer and certainly no encouragement.  It was pretty fun to watch Kat follow every “no” our counterpart said, with a very enthusiastic, “Good try!”.   

Today was the last day, so we did a short activity and then played some games.  I just have to say, Cambodian students freaking love Pictionary.  When we played that game, people could hear our kids yelling about four classrooms over.   Some of them weren’t even yelling out vocabulary words, they were just yelling.  But hey, they got pretty excited and showed us that they actually learned something in these last two weeks.  Coolio. 

Anyway, I could go on and on about our two weeks teaching in Cambodia, but they say a picture is worth a thousand words, so here you go!  

Oh!  And I passed my practice language exam today, so YAY! 

The best photo I have ever taken.  Peace Corps, I want this on a pamphlet.  

Just teaching some vocab...

My class minus about 5 students

Yay!  Everyone gets a certificate!

I made one for myself, too!  I made it!  

A Not So Lazy Sunday

This morning was supposed to be a quiet Sunday spent at home, watching my laundry dry.  However, when I went to the market for breakfast this morning, I was tricked into going for a bike ride.  Now, I say tricked because I was assured that I could be back by 2.  Just enough time to do my laundry. 

As many of you know, I’m not really into biking.  I mean, I suppose it’s a great mode of transportation, especially for Peace Corps volunteers who are not allowed to drive, but I would take a car over a bike any day. 

I, along with four other volunteers, left my house at about 9:15 to start on our adventure.  I had no idea where we were going, but I had water, donuts, and crackers in my bag.  I was ready for anything.   3 HOURS LATER, we had not turned around and I quickly realized we were not going to be home in time for laundry. 

However, we did go to an awesome, seemingly abandoned wat.  And guess what (or more like, "guess WAT?  teehee:-)??  I took some pictures to include in my blog! 

I'm hoping this is some sort of women's rights statue

Just a multi-headed snake railing

After that, I thought we might turn around.  We did not.  We continued on to enjoy some more scenery, eat some delicious watermelon, and watch Logan spit seeds onto his face.

After devouring some watermelon, I was telling my companions that we should bike to Takeo to get some ice cream, and that I rarely bike without ice cream at the end of my destination.   Suddenly, Sam shouts, “Hey guys!  I think I hear an ice cream truck!”  Being me, I thought this was a cruel trick and refused to believe her.  Also, almost every truck that sells food has music playing from it (I learned this the hard way.  Bread trucks should not be allowed to sound like ice cream trucks).  Little did I know, that in the middle of nowhere, we would be graced by the presence of a magical ice cream truck/cart/moto.  It was seriously the best thing ever. 

After a delicious vanilla cone, I was satisfied and ready to head back home.  We took a couple of more breaks, and rolled into town around 5:30pm.  It definitely wasn’t a lazy Sunday spent doing laundry, but it was pretty awesome…even with all the biking.   

Lessons Learned:-)

There are days in Cambodia when the lessons my mother tried to teach me my whole life finally sink in.  Today was one of those days. 

Lesson #74: Never leave all your laundry until the last minute.

            Well, today I left all my laundry until the last minute.   As in, if I did not do laundry today, I would have no clean underwear.  Putting off laundry in America is definitely different that putting off laundry in Cambodia.  In college, I would just stay up late and throw all my stuff in one load, most likely forget about it, and then pick it up in the morning/afternoon when I finally remembered that my clothes are in the dryer. 

            Today sung a very different tune.  I was advised that doing laundry in the morning is most effective since you have to hang out all of your clothes to dry in the sun.  I’ll have you all know that it WAS sunny this morning.  So I got up at about 5:45, took all my dirty clothes and washed them to the best of my abilities in a tub full of water and powder detergent.  I later realized that I actually suck at doing my laundry because I wasn’t even able to rub out the deodorant marks on my black shirt.  This presents a problem. 

            However, I was still optimistic that at least my clothes wouldn’t smell like sweat anymore.  So I skipped off to language class at 7:30, anxiously waiting for lunch break, when I would have fresh, clean clothes. 

And then it rained.  And rained again. 

Needless to say, my clothes were not dry at lunch.  So I left them on the line for lunch and my nap, hoping to pick them up before I headed off to technical training.  About an hour later, I woke up from my nap to this incredible wind outside my window.  In my groggy state (haha yes, I am always groggy) I thought, “wow, it’s usually only this windy when it rains.”  Sure enough, it was raining.  HARD. 

I went outside after the rain subsided to find all my underwear scattered about the yard, in various muddy puddles.  Awesome. 

So mother, I finally took your valuable lesson to heart.  I will no longer leave all my laundry until the last minute in Cambodia.  Here’s to hoping I have clean underwear tomorrow! 

  

Khynomn Joal Jet Jaaane

Today, I was able to tell my family, “I like bananas.”  While this is one of the more useless Khmer phrases, it is something I actually remembered how to say.  It was a big day for me. 

Phrases and words I should have remembered:

• ·      Where is the bathroom?
• ·      Help me
• ·      Where am I?
• ·      I am not sick.  I just have to go to the bathroom. 

Phrases and words I actually know how to say:

• ·      Water
• ·      Thank you
• ·      Delicious! 
• ·      Hello (I can’t remember how to say goodbye…so I usually just slink away).
• ·      My name is Kelly (commonly pronounced Chelly)
• ·      I am 21 years old
• ·      I like bananas

Annnnnnnd that’s all I got.  Needless to say, things are pretty awkward at times.  My host mom and dad still speak to me in Khmer and I have pretty much no idea what they’re saying.  Granted, I also speak to them in English (and sometimes Spanish...whoops) and they have no idea what I’m saying.  So we spend our days speaking to each other in languages we don’t understand, nodding, and smiling at each other.  It’s a good time. 

But as far as host families go, mine is pretty great.  My host mai (mom in Khmer.  Hey! I know another word!) has been very helpful.  Considering that I literally don’t know how to do ANYTHING here, she has been an extremely patient teacher, and an excellent charades partner.  

My host dad is also really nice.  He tries to teach me Khmer words at every meal, but I don’t really have the heart to tell him (not the language ability) that I don’t remember anything he teaches me. 

Currently, I’m living in a small village with about 30 other Peace Corps Trainees (We don’t officially become volunteers until we complete 8 weeks of training).  It’s nice because we all live with different host families but we can still get together and remember what it’s like to communicate effectively with another person. 

Every morning I get up at about 5am when the rooster starts crowing, and then about every 20 minutes after that when the rooster decides to crow again.  This goes on until about 6:30 when I finally decide to stop being so lazy.  I then get up, get ready (which takes forever since I have to apply sunscreen and bug spray everywhere) and eat a bit of breakfast.  I get some iced coffee across the street (for about 25 cents in American money.  Take that, Starbucks.) and then I go to language class for four hours.  I have honestly never sucked at anything so much. 

After any sense of intelligence I had has been degraded to an all-time low, I eat lunch with my host family, read and take a short nap before going back to school for technical training, where I learn how to teach English effectively in Cambodia.

It has been crazy, but I love it.  Don’t get me wrong, this is the most difficult thing I have ever done, and there are days when I have no idea how I’m going to make it through the next 2 years without being the most incompetent barong (Khmer word for foreigner) ever.  But then there are days when I can successfully tell my host family that I like bananas, and I know it’s all going to be okay.  

Donut Donut!

That's right.  Today I ate a donut that had "donut" written on it in frosting.  Today was the best day ever.
Well folks, I have been in Cambodia for about 2 days now, and let me tell you, it seems like an hour and a year at the same time.  Everything is so different and overwhelming that the days seem like they have to actually be weeks.  However, considering how little I know, I feel like I've been here for five minutes.  The past few days have been an absolute blast.  We have training during the day where we learn how to not die (A volunteer has never died in Cambodia, FYI) and how not to puke our guts out all the time.  At night we usually go out to eat, walk around or do some sort of group activity.  One of my favorite things so far has been the group jazzercise classes they hold outside for free.  Just imagine about 20-30 Cambodians all doing some aerobics on a public sidewalk with some awesome techno/elevator music playing in the background.  It's like a flash mob!
Tonight we actually went on a party BOAT. That's right, you heard me.  A party boat.  This was definitely not what I had in mind when I left for the Peace Corps.  But for the low, low price of $6 we got some delicious pizza and a 2 hour boat ride. Come visit (in six months)!
So far, life has been pretty plush.  But we head out to our training sites tomorrow, so we'll see what that has in store for us!
Sorry for the short post, but believe me, I'll get some embarrassing stories in here soon.  I'm going to be living with a family who does not speak the same language as me....it's gonna get interesting.

Let's GO!

      Anyone who knows me knows that this last week I have been kind of a wreck.  I've been a tad bit moody (sorry, mom) and I've had the tendency to cry when Lady Antebellum songs come on the radio (sorry, Jessi and Janielle).  Seriously though, those songs are sad.  I have also cried while watching What Not to Wear and Say Yes to the Dress (feel free to judge my taste in television, but I freaking love TLC).  But today, I would like the world to know that I am packed, I have finished my learning modules, I have barely learned any Khmer, AND I AM PUMPED.

Cambodia, let's do this.

The first post

Before we get this whole thing started, I just need to say something.  I have been eating like a middle school boy trying to go up a weight class before the next big wrestling meet.  I eat anything and everything, from giant turkey legs to dunkin' donuts.  That's right, I get the large fry at McDonalds and I'm not ashamed of it (seriously, the large is so much bigger and only like 20 cents more!).  You may be asking yourself, how can you eat with such abandon?  Well, I'll tell  you how.  I'm joining the Peace Corps.

On July 10th, 2012, I will be flying off to Cambodia where I, and approximately 60 other trainees, will live and work for the next 27 months.  More specifically, I'll be teaching English and doing a few other side projects (my fingers are crossed for something library related).  I can't even tell you how excited I am to begin this incredible journey.  That's right, journey.  And yes, this blog will be filled with a lot of cliches, parenthesis, puns, and oxford commas.  So get ready.

However, as with all things exciting, there is always an element of fear.  So I'll be pretty candid when I tell you that I. AM. TERRIFIED.  There are definitely those moments of panic when I think to myself, "There's no way I'm going to be able to speak an entirely different language (the language of Cambodia is Khmer, by the way), live in an entirely different place, meet entirely new people, AND not be eaten by a snake.  But I figure, hey, some other people have done it.  So I probably can, too.  That pretty much wraps up my philosophy on the whole thing.  Well, that, and I plan on keeping a turkey in my room to ward off snakes.  Turns out they're quite the snake hunters.

Just your average turkey.  Takin' names and savin' lives.