In case I haven’t mentioned it enough, it’s hot. Just had to get that off my chest. By the way, happy International Women’s Rights day to all you women out there. I realize that it was Sunday, and it is now Monday, but here in Cambodia, you can’t let a good holiday go to waste. Since women’s day fell on a Sunday, and that’s already a holiday, everyone took today off. Yesterday, all the students in Grade 10A had a party. It had very little to do with women’s rights, but it was extremely fun nonetheless. I take that back, there wasn’t enough room at the table so the girls made the boys sit on the floor. Women’s rights in action. We ate yummy food and then played games. We played the Khmer version of “duck, duck, goose”. In this game, everyone sings a song. The “goose” has a knotted up towel and walks behind everyone, just like in the American version. To goose someone, you drop the towel behind them. Then, that person, and the person to their right get up and run. The goose takes the place of the person who they goosed. The “goosee”grabs the towel, and chases the person to their right around the circle. But they don’t just chase, no, that would be boring. As they chase, they repeatedly flog the person with the towel. The goosee generally looses because the person to their right has a head start, but at least they get to beat that person first. Then we went to the river and threw each other into the water. It was so much fun. They had sand fights, they would throw each other to the ground and sit on each other and put sand in each other’s shirts. It was a very good day. The students really had a lot of fun. It is so cool to watch them playing and fighting and laughing. There was this big tractor; it must have been 40 years old. It no longer worked, so we all climbed on to see how many people we could fit on it. About 20. Granted, being Khmer teenagers, they were all really tiny. It was one of those days that reminds me why I came here.

On a completely unrelated note, for those of you “old fogies” who think that hip hop music is corrupting the English language, you are absolutely right. The story begins innocently enough. As I have mentioned, we showed an HIV prevention movie to the students. Afterwards, we made them discuss. It was pretty simple; we divided them into groups and gave each group a discussion topic. They had 20 minutes to talk, and then one member from each group had to present. Well, things were going along swimmingly, until the representative from the “What spreads HIV?” group got up. These are his *almost* exact words “HIV spread by f***ing a lot of partner.” No kidding. At first I thought I misheard him. Then I looked at my co teacher and saw he could barely contain his laughter. And this was not an anomaly. In every single class, as I was walking through the aisles, I would see the f word on at least one student’s notebook. It got to where I would have to write it on the board, cross it out, and write “sexual intercourse” next to it. The students were incredibly surprised to find out that this word is impolite. Finally, I asked my co teacher, “How do they all know this word?” Apparently, because the word is so prevalent in a lot of western music, many students look it up. Thus, they learn that it means to have sex. But they don’t understand the context at all. So if you come to Cambodia, and meet a seemingly foul mouthed teenager, give him or her a break. It is highly possible they have no idea what they’re saying.

Thanks to Mom and Maw Maw for their valentine’s packages, as well as the Leonard Caring Clovers for the awesome candy and first aid supplies. Miss and love you all!