Students

Last week was a time of trying to teach whatever students would show up before the 2 week holiday for Khmer New Year. My second year students had very spotty attendance, but the first year students were much more reliable. On Tuesday I gave a quiz to ensure that they would come and then just hoped for the best on Thursday. Surprisingly I had almost full classes in the morning and afternoon. I went over the quiz, made them play pictionary with vocab words and then I turned it over to them. I asked them what Khmer New Year games they wanted to play. The response was immediate and very rewarding. My afternoon class which never speaks led me out into the hallway where we played a game of dancing in a circle with one person in the middle giving commands that others must follow or else become the person in the middle. We then switched to a game with teams lined up opposite each other trying to carry a branch back to their respective side without being tagged. It was pretty fun for the students that decided to stick around to play.

The morning class was an entirely different story. After dragging them through the required work and trying to muffle the kid that asked about games every other second I finally let them loose. This class went wild and loved every minute of it. The rapport that this class has with each other and with me is something that I have rarely seen. First we played the dancing circle game with everyone getting into it and taking initiative. Then we switched to a team game where one person has their eyes covered while someone from the other team slaps their hand. Then they are supposed to guess who it was. The teams started as boys against girls, but since there obviously weren't enough girls a couple boys had to switch. There was the classic laughter at that point, as well as when one of the boys swung his hips whenever he walked anywhere. The students flirted, they laughed, they cheated, they made fun of others flirting. For a brief moment I forgot I was in a completely different culture and I watched them interact like any college students I have known. They loved that I played the games also (guessed wrong and got called out) but really somewhat ignored me and displayed full confidence in themselves and the people around them. I really loved seeing people who are normally very quiet in class, because of English ability or whatever, come to life chattering and laughing. They spoke a little bit in English but even when they didn't, I wasn't missing anything because I understand the joy that comes from these infrequent moments of impromptu fellowship.

Same Same but Different