You know you're in Cambodia when... part 2

- A student saying "Look at the snake" stops class for a good five minutes and provides sentence material for the rest of the day.

- You name the spiders that live in your bathroom. And cheer when they catch a mosquito.

- You instinctively put all your verbs in the present tense to be understood.

- You name all the geckos Sammy.

- You think that being sick for a week and a half is "not so bad." Since we're talking about dengue fever.

- You have learned that not all chili sauces are created equal. And cried because of it.

- You notice that the black and white puppy you saw earlier this week is now a black and gray puppy.

- You participate in the rain race, against your better judgment.
Rain Race - compound noun, defined as the futile effort to out-run the ominous black clouds. This involves driving faster and more recklessly than normal, constantly debating whether to stop to put your trash-bag raincoat on, being fully blinded by the dust and windstorm that precedes the rain, and finally giving in to the inevitable soaking. Just hope that you have an extra change of clothes wherever it is that you are going.

Long Overdue

Ok, ok. So it's been about five years since the last time I posted. But really now that it's less than two months until I leave, time has almost become irrelevant. But I do want to tell you about my recent vacation to the province of Mondolkiri. In May there is a week long holiday for the King's birthday, so quite a large group of us decided to risk the long van ride out to the middle of nowhere. Thankfully it hadn't been raining much so the road was only terrifying to us but not actually physically impossible, as proved by our driver. We stayed at a very "natural" guesthouse, meaning it wasn't in the town but out a little ways, with all the creatures. I had thought my bug tolerance was pretty high, but I discovered otherwise. I really think it's a size threshold. Anything over a certain size freaks me out. Got a lot of that in the evenings, especially while taking a shower in the bathroom that was really a garden. Then would have to quickly go and huddle under my bug net in a minor state of denial. But during the day it was wonderful to explore the area visiting numerous waterfalls and seeing beautiful rolling, green hills! The highlight was riding elephants. Despite being very uncomfortable it was an extremely unique experience to sit so high up and watch this massive animal slowly lumber through the woods. Occasionally when she wanted a snack for the road she would tear up a near-by sapling to munch along the way. During our lunch break we also got to see the handlers give the elephants "a bath" in the stream. The elephants apparently enjoyed it and were quite willing to lie on their sides to allow easier scrubbing. Upon questioning we learned that our elephant was 60 years old, which is quite a feat considering that the Khmer Rogue tried to kill them all off in the 70's. Glad these survived.

Classes

This week we returned to classes after the two-week break for Cambodian New Year. I was uncertain about attendance after the holiday, but most of my classes had good return. The problem class was, of course, my upper-level class. This was supposed to be the start of student teaching in groups. On Monday afternoon only a quarter of the students even showed up and none of them were the ones who were supposed to teach the lesson that day. On Wednesday there was greater attendance, but still none of the students who were teaching. Being very pressed for time with this chapter I began to teach the lesson. About 20 minutes in the group slowly began to trickle in. When I questioned them whether they were prepared to teach they looked at me with laughs that indicated they had totally forgotten. "But we can go next class, right?" When I informed them that they had to do it now or never they proceeded to stand up and teach a shambles of a class. The students listening had no idea what was going on and were utterly confused. I sat at a desk in the corner silently mourning the disaster that had been my great idea for second semester. Worse was the thought that there are still three more groups scheduled to teach lessons. I am still perversely clinging to the hope that it might be better, maybe the groups will prepare more...we'll see about that.

On the other side of the coin, however, is my Year 1 class. No matter what I make them do, they are always willing and cheerful. Sometimes more so than others but always willing to engage. They really are a saving grace for me and some weeks that's all I have to look forward to. Also a surprise last week: my silent Year 1 class gave me flowers. I don't know who picked them, but when I walked into class there was a bunch of my favorite flower on the desk, which was very pleasant. I think they might be starting to talk a little more too, but that could just be my wishful imagination.

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

Variations on a Theme

Everyday when I get a motodupe from my house to go to the office we drive past the Wat. This is a busy place and the road leading out from there onto the main road is also somewhat steep. So we have a steep road packed with motos, and even worse -cars, who can't go anywhere. So needless to say it is difficult to inch uphill on an unstable moto. I am always very impressed with my moto drivers. Nonetheless, I still have a running montage in my head everyday at this time: "I'm going to die. I'm going to die. I'm going to die. I'm going to die."

However, sometimes there are variations on this.

"I'm going to die. I'm going to die...Is my moto driver singing again?"

"I"m going to die. I'm going...That's just a little truck, it couldn't kill me if it tried."

"I'm going to die. I'm going to die...Wait, is that a cart with cows? Actually they could kill me, very long horns."

"I'm going to die. Oops, I just hit that woman with my laundry."

"I'm going to die. AAAAHHHHH!!!! My knees are showing! That's even worse!"

Hilarious

Text message from a student who missed class:
"Dear teacher, i'm visal.sorry for being absent today because at the moment there was something happen on my mouse while i was eating mango.thank u in advance."

Just one of many problems we have in getting the students to come to class...

Left standing in the dust

On Tuesday I rode moto-dupe out to RUA instead of driving with Christa. She doesn't teach till later so prefers to drive herself later and I don't mind to ride 'public transportation.' On this particular occasion I hailed a moto on the corner near the office, a guy we ride with not infrequently. He indicated that he knew where the university was and we set off after agreeing on a price. I am not quite sure why the moto-dupes don't like to take the way across the new bridge, but they don't. So we went the long way around, with no short-cuts. I was reminded how very grateful I am that I don't have to drive that way myself anymore, with the narrow road and the over-size trucks.

We made it safely along all the main roads however, and turned onto the smaller road leading straight to RUA. The only traffic on this road are the students and the cows. After a minute, my driver slowed and then stopped. He craned his neck around and examined something by my foot. Then we started slowly driving only to stop again. Once again he began looking at the bottom of his moto near my foot. I slid off so he could easier examine what the problem was. Suddenly, with no word of explanation to me, he took off. I watched him fly away, my mouth open with disbelief. The thoughts that started running through my head were something like these: "I haven't paid him yet, surely he'll come back." "It's a long walk to the gate and then that far again to the office." "The students will laugh at me walking." "I guess I'll start walking..." "Maybe I should take my helmet off now...NO, it's too hot." "I bet those guys sitting on the side of the road watching me with big smiles think this is really funny." "Ahh, here he comes back, what on earth is his problem?" I got back on the moto and we literally flew the rest of the distance to the office on campus. When I got off for real and paid him he tried to indicate to me that there was a problem with his kickstand dragging on the ground, which I could see. I still don't understand why that required driving away and leaving me somewhat stranded. Unsolved mysteries of life here.