First things first: Geaux Saints!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Shout out to all of Louisiana, this is the most exciting that has pretty much ever happened. And if you’re a Colts fan you shouldn’t be.
Second: Exams are not fun. Period. Thankfully I was a bit under the weather so I didn’t have to proctor the semester exams this time. Yay! The students were quite glad, as I’m the only teacher that doesn’t let them cheat. And by that I mean I don’t let them get up from their desks to go look at their friends’ papers. It is ridiculous the cheating here. I know I’ve talked about it before, but I’ll talk about it again. No one cares. Students yell answers to each other from across the room. They have conversations. They make paper airplanes with their exam papers and fly them over to classmates. I wish I were joking. They have all sorts of cheat sheets, many of them ripped pages out of their textbooks. And NO ONE CARES. I take away their cheat sheets and make them sit still. But it is impossible to stop them from talking. I can’t fail them, I really have no power over them. But they don’t like to make me angry, so that helps. But cracking down on cheating seems like a straightforward solution, so why isn’t there more of an effort to do this? It’s complicated. Number one, that would require more work of the already grossly underpaid teachers (if they’re paid at all). It’s much easier just to ignore the cheating. Another issue is that cracking down on cheating would need to be implemented nationwide. It would be unfair to judge the exam scores of students who freely cheated against those who weren’t allowed to. Well, they should just study harder. True, like many American students, some Cambodian students are lazy or unmotivated. But there is another side to the coin, and that goes back to the problem of teacher salaries. Often teachers’ already low salaries ($40-$80 a month) are a month or two late. And the teachers get paid this ridiculously low amount whether they actually show up or not. So often teachers choose the latter option. The problem is that they make tests based on the material they should have covered if we had school everyday and they showed up to class everyday. So sometimes students will have only had a couple of class sessions in a particular subject the entire semester, and are then tested over the entire book. So it’s kind of hard to tell them they can’t cheat, when the whole system is screwing them over. At my school, there is only one math teacher for grade 12, and the grade 12 national exam (basically their ACT/SAT) is on March 23rd. This math teacher is quitting teaching and going to work as a surveyor for the forestry service because it pays more. So with a little over a month left til the exam, the grade 12 students have no math teacher. And math is the most important subject on the exam. And then there are the questions themselves. I wrote a lot of the test, so it was a lot better than last year’s, but some sections were not run by me first. For example:
Have you seen a cup anywhere? We seem to be ___________ a) see b) missed c) lose d) found
What’s the correct answer? If you said e) none of the above – you are right! Unfortunately the students were not given option E. Having said all this, there are often comical aspects to an exam. This is what my students have to say about life:
When we fart in a crowded room, we feel excited. (It should be When we fart in a crowded room, we feel embarrassed)
The usually students play football on weekends
If she had become a politician that is why the police fined him
The boy was broken by the window (It should be The window was broken by the boy)
My daughter was cooked (It should be The food was cooked by my daughter)
I bought a bike. It was intelligent.
On Cambodian history:
Angkor Wat was attacked and decorated by Thailand.
Angkor Wat is one of the largest religious collapse in the world.
The king decorated the region
On the things money can buy:
Big clothes
A husband
A young womn
Honor
A good score on the exam
Modern (Modern what? Dunno)
Family happiness
A trip to the moon
And some of the questions on the exam weren’t exactly wrong, but certainly unusual. If the students filled in the blanks correctly, they would make these sentences:
If people did not die and leave the earth, the earth would be too crowded.
If the animals came when they were called, the people would have caught them easily without running.
So yeah. That’s examination Khmer style.
On a victorious note, I cleaned my room today. For those of you who are unaware of my tidiness-related habits, suffice to say they are non-existent. My dear mother spent 18 years of her life trying to get me to keep my room clean, alas with little success. That is not to say I am complete slob, I hate having food or anything that harbors mold and nasty bugs. But the simple act of folding my clothes and putting them away eludes me sometimes. This is not helped by the fact that I moved recently, and while I have a 5’x5’bed, I only have an 8’x8’ room. Meaning if I have a 1 foot wide walkway that leaves about 4 square feet of storage space. So today I went to the market and spent over $15 on storage items. That is almost a week’s salary.
But the problem is solved and now my room is clean, if not spacious. Walking back from the market, arms loaded with plastic storage apparati, every marveled at the sheer amount of things I bought. So now everyone knows that I have lived at the new house for four months and am just now getting around to cleaning my room. I know that I have integrated into my community because people now gossip about me in the same manner as they do each other. Sometimes people come through who don’t know me, and the only way I can think to describe is like the scene in Toy Story when Buzz and Woody land in the alien toy grabber machine and all the little alien toys are like “Strangers! From the outside! OOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” It’s kinda like that. And that can get annoying. But thankfully people are pretty used to seeing me. I can’t tell you how long it’s been since I’ve been asked how much bread I eat (I’m white, which clearly means I’m French, and clearly the French eat bread all the time, so it’s a logical question). The locals even correct out-of-towners when they ask “Who’s the French chick?” and the locals are like “She’s not French, she’s American, they’re different.” The revelation that French/English/American are all completely different astounds many people here. All white people are called French and it is assumed that they speak English.
Getting back to gossip, the market is like high school for old ladies. Every goes around telling everyone each others business. One day two market ladies will be best friends, the next not speaking to each other. It’s like a soap opera, but better. I get to just sit there and sip coffee while it all happens around me. The other day, my former host mom, to whom ascribing the term vain would be a gross understatement asked a police officer who was prettier, she, or her friend the rice seller. The police officer, who was obviously not born yesterday, says they’re equally pretty. This enrages my former host mom. She goes on about how she buys expensive (and slightly slutty, though she didn’t say that) clothes, wears make-up, gets her hair done, gets manicures, pedicures, the works (side note, she always talks about how she has no money, but every day she wears a new shirt to the market). Given all this, she should be significantly prettier than the rice seller. The rice seller just looks at her own chest, pulls her shirt down a bit, and simply says “mine are bigger.” That made my morning.
I have to laugh when people talk about how rich Americans are. Yesterday the market ladies were all comparing their $3 shirts. I, on the other hand, was wearing clothes I’d found in the give-away bin at the Peace Corps office. The majority of my wardrobe consists of things found in the give-away bin or purchased for fifty cents from a thrift store. I wouldn’t be caught dead paying $3 for an item of clothing. It’s an upside down world over here. But I have learned to read, at least a little! The language has 33 consonants and 27 vowels. Most of those vowels have two different sounds depending on what consonant they’re with. And the vowels are written above, below, to the left, and to the right of the consonant. And each consonant has another form (like how we have capital letters and small letters) that can be written underneath another consonant to shorten the sound. So there are 122 possible phonemes. Which is why after living here a year and a half I have attained an approximately 2nd grade reading level. But I can read most signs, and I can write small words (an excellent party trick) so I consider myself successful. One last comment, the warning label on my eyedrops has informed me that possible side effects include bone marrow depression and/or newborn infants. What will happen? Will my bone marrow fall into a state of depression? Will newborn infants randomly appear? Stay tuned for more details. Love and miss you all!
11 February, 2010
My students make better paper airplanes that yours
First things first: Geaux Saints!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Shout out to all of Louisiana, this is the most exciting that has pretty much ever happened. And if you’re a Colts fan you shouldn’t be.
Second: Exams are not fun. Period. Thankfully I was a bit under the weather so I didn’t have to proctor the semester exams this time. Yay! The students were quite glad, as I’m the only teacher that doesn’t let them cheat. And by that I mean I don’t let them get up from their desks to go look at their friends’ papers. It is ridiculous the cheating here. I know I’ve talked about it before, but I’ll talk about it again. No one cares. Students yell answers to each other from across the room. They have conversations. They make paper airplanes with their exam papers and fly them over to classmates. I wish I were joking. They have all sorts of cheat sheets, many of them ripped pages out of their textbooks. And NO ONE CARES. I take away their cheat sheets and make them sit still. But it is impossible to stop them from talking. I can’t fail them, I really have no power over them. But they don’t like to make me angry, so that helps. But cracking down on cheating seems like a straightforward solution, so why isn’t there more of an effort to do this? It’s complicated. Number one, that would require more work of the already grossly underpaid teachers (if they’re paid at all). It’s much easier just to ignore the cheating. Another issue is that cracking down on cheating would need to be implemented nationwide. It would be unfair to judge the exam scores of students who freely cheated against those who weren’t allowed to. Well, they should just study harder. True, like many American students, some Cambodian students are lazy or unmotivated. But there is another side to the coin, and that goes back to the problem of teacher salaries. Often teachers’ already low salaries ($40-$80 a month) are a month or two late. And the teachers get paid this ridiculously low amount whether they actually show up or not. So often teachers choose the latter option. The problem is that they make tests based on the material they should have covered if we had school everyday and they showed up to class everyday. So sometimes students will have only had a couple of class sessions in a particular subject the entire semester, and are then tested over the entire book. So it’s kind of hard to tell them they can’t cheat, when the whole system is screwing them over. At my school, there is only one math teacher for grade 12, and the grade 12 national exam (basically their ACT/SAT) is on March 23rd. This math teacher is quitting teaching and going to work as a surveyor for the forestry service because it pays more. So with a little over a month left til the exam, the grade 12 students have no math teacher. And math is the most important subject on the exam. And then there are the questions themselves. I wrote a lot of the test, so it was a lot better than last year’s, but some sections were not run by me first. For example:
Have you seen a cup anywhere? We seem to be ___________ a) see b) missed c) lose d) found
What’s the correct answer? If you said e) none of the above – you are right! Unfortunately the students were not given option E. Having said all this, there are often comical aspects to an exam. This is what my students have to say about life:
When we fart in a crowded room, we feel excited. (It should be When we fart in a crowded room, we feel embarrassed)
The usually students play football on weekends
If she had become a politician that is why the police fined him
The boy was broken by the window (It should be The window was broken by the boy)
My daughter was cooked (It should be The food was cooked by my daughter)
I bought a bike. It was intelligent.
On Cambodian history:
Angkor Wat was attacked and decorated by Thailand.
Angkor Wat is one of the largest religious collapse in the world.
The king decorated the region
On the things money can buy:
Big clothes
A husband
A young womn
Honor
A good score on the exam
Modern (Modern what? Dunno)
Family happiness
A trip to the moon
And some of the questions on the exam weren’t exactly wrong, but certainly unusual. If the students filled in the blanks correctly, they would make these sentences:
If people did not die and leave the earth, the earth would be too crowded.
If the animals came when they were called, the people would have caught them easily without running.
So yeah. That’s examination Khmer style.
On a victorious note, I cleaned my room today. For those of you who are unaware of my tidiness-related habits, suffice to say they are non-existent. My dear mother spent 18 years of her life trying to get me to keep my room clean, alas with little success. That is not to say I am complete slob, I hate having food or anything that harbors mold and nasty bugs. But the simple act of folding my clothes and putting them away eludes me sometimes. This is not helped by the fact that I moved recently, and while I have a 5’x5’bed, I only have an 8’x8’ room. Meaning if I have a 1 foot wide walkway that leaves about 4 square feet of storage space. So today I went to the market and spent over $15 on storage items. That is almost a week’s salary.
But the problem is solved and now my room is clean, if not spacious. Walking back from the market, arms loaded with plastic storage apparati, every marveled at the sheer amount of things I bought. So now everyone knows that I have lived at the new house for four months and am just now getting around to cleaning my room. I know that I have integrated into my community because people now gossip about me in the same manner as they do each other. Sometimes people come through who don’t know me, and the only way I can think to describe is like the scene in Toy Story when Buzz and Woody land in the alien toy grabber machine and all the little alien toys are like “Strangers! From the outside! OOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” It’s kinda like that. And that can get annoying. But thankfully people are pretty used to seeing me. I can’t tell you how long it’s been since I’ve been asked how much bread I eat (I’m white, which clearly means I’m French, and clearly the French eat bread all the time, so it’s a logical question). The locals even correct out-of-towners when they ask “Who’s the French chick?” and the locals are like “She’s not French, she’s American, they’re different.” The revelation that French/English/American are all completely different astounds many people here. All white people are called French and it is assumed that they speak English.
Getting back to gossip, the market is like high school for old ladies. Every goes around telling everyone each others business. One day two market ladies will be best friends, the next not speaking to each other. It’s like a soap opera, but better. I get to just sit there and sip coffee while it all happens around me. The other day, my former host mom, to whom ascribing the term vain would be a gross understatement asked a police officer who was prettier, she, or her friend the rice seller. The police officer, who was obviously not born yesterday, says they’re equally pretty. This enrages my former host mom. She goes on about how she buys expensive (and slightly slutty, though she didn’t say that) clothes, wears make-up, gets her hair done, gets manicures, pedicures, the works (side note, she always talks about how she has no money, but every day she wears a new shirt to the market). Given all this, she should be significantly prettier than the rice seller. The rice seller just looks at her own chest, pulls her shirt down a bit, and simply says “mine are bigger.” That made my morning.
I have to laugh when people talk about how rich Americans are. Yesterday the market ladies were all comparing their $3 shirts. I, on the other hand, was wearing clothes I’d found in the give-away bin at the Peace Corps office. The majority of my wardrobe consists of things found in the give-away bin or purchased for fifty cents from a thrift store. I wouldn’t be caught dead paying $3 for an item of clothing. It’s an upside down world over here. But I have learned to read, at least a little! The language has 33 consonants and 27 vowels. Most of those vowels have two different sounds depending on what consonant they’re with. And the vowels are written above, below, to the left, and to the right of the consonant. And each consonant has another form (like how we have capital letters and small letters) that can be written underneath another consonant to shorten the sound. So there are 122 possible phonemes. Which is why after living here a year and a half I have attained an approximately 2nd grade reading level. But I can read most signs, and I can write small words (an excellent party trick) so I consider myself successful. One last comment, the warning label on my eyedrops has informed me that possible side effects include bone marrow depression and/or newborn infants. What will happen? Will my bone marrow fall into a state of depression? Will newborn infants randomly appear? Stay tuned for more details. Love and miss you all!
Shout out to all of Louisiana, this is the most exciting that has pretty much ever happened. And if you’re a Colts fan you shouldn’t be.
Second: Exams are not fun. Period. Thankfully I was a bit under the weather so I didn’t have to proctor the semester exams this time. Yay! The students were quite glad, as I’m the only teacher that doesn’t let them cheat. And by that I mean I don’t let them get up from their desks to go look at their friends’ papers. It is ridiculous the cheating here. I know I’ve talked about it before, but I’ll talk about it again. No one cares. Students yell answers to each other from across the room. They have conversations. They make paper airplanes with their exam papers and fly them over to classmates. I wish I were joking. They have all sorts of cheat sheets, many of them ripped pages out of their textbooks. And NO ONE CARES. I take away their cheat sheets and make them sit still. But it is impossible to stop them from talking. I can’t fail them, I really have no power over them. But they don’t like to make me angry, so that helps. But cracking down on cheating seems like a straightforward solution, so why isn’t there more of an effort to do this? It’s complicated. Number one, that would require more work of the already grossly underpaid teachers (if they’re paid at all). It’s much easier just to ignore the cheating. Another issue is that cracking down on cheating would need to be implemented nationwide. It would be unfair to judge the exam scores of students who freely cheated against those who weren’t allowed to. Well, they should just study harder. True, like many American students, some Cambodian students are lazy or unmotivated. But there is another side to the coin, and that goes back to the problem of teacher salaries. Often teachers’ already low salaries ($40-$80 a month) are a month or two late. And the teachers get paid this ridiculously low amount whether they actually show up or not. So often teachers choose the latter option. The problem is that they make tests based on the material they should have covered if we had school everyday and they showed up to class everyday. So sometimes students will have only had a couple of class sessions in a particular subject the entire semester, and are then tested over the entire book. So it’s kind of hard to tell them they can’t cheat, when the whole system is screwing them over. At my school, there is only one math teacher for grade 12, and the grade 12 national exam (basically their ACT/SAT) is on March 23rd. This math teacher is quitting teaching and going to work as a surveyor for the forestry service because it pays more. So with a little over a month left til the exam, the grade 12 students have no math teacher. And math is the most important subject on the exam. And then there are the questions themselves. I wrote a lot of the test, so it was a lot better than last year’s, but some sections were not run by me first. For example:
Have you seen a cup anywhere? We seem to be ___________ a) see b) missed c) lose d) found
What’s the correct answer? If you said e) none of the above – you are right! Unfortunately the students were not given option E. Having said all this, there are often comical aspects to an exam. This is what my students have to say about life:
When we fart in a crowded room, we feel excited. (It should be When we fart in a crowded room, we feel embarrassed)
The usually students play football on weekends
If she had become a politician that is why the police fined him
The boy was broken by the window (It should be The window was broken by the boy)
My daughter was cooked (It should be The food was cooked by my daughter)
I bought a bike. It was intelligent.
On Cambodian history:
Angkor Wat was attacked and decorated by Thailand.
Angkor Wat is one of the largest religious collapse in the world.
The king decorated the region
On the things money can buy:
Big clothes
A husband
A young womn
Honor
A good score on the exam
Modern (Modern what? Dunno)
Family happiness
A trip to the moon
And some of the questions on the exam weren’t exactly wrong, but certainly unusual. If the students filled in the blanks correctly, they would make these sentences:
If people did not die and leave the earth, the earth would be too crowded.
If the animals came when they were called, the people would have caught them easily without running.
So yeah. That’s examination Khmer style.
On a victorious note, I cleaned my room today. For those of you who are unaware of my tidiness-related habits, suffice to say they are non-existent. My dear mother spent 18 years of her life trying to get me to keep my room clean, alas with little success. That is not to say I am complete slob, I hate having food or anything that harbors mold and nasty bugs. But the simple act of folding my clothes and putting them away eludes me sometimes. This is not helped by the fact that I moved recently, and while I have a 5’x5’bed, I only have an 8’x8’ room. Meaning if I have a 1 foot wide walkway that leaves about 4 square feet of storage space. So today I went to the market and spent over $15 on storage items. That is almost a week’s salary.
But the problem is solved and now my room is clean, if not spacious. Walking back from the market, arms loaded with plastic storage apparati, every marveled at the sheer amount of things I bought. So now everyone knows that I have lived at the new house for four months and am just now getting around to cleaning my room. I know that I have integrated into my community because people now gossip about me in the same manner as they do each other. Sometimes people come through who don’t know me, and the only way I can think to describe is like the scene in Toy Story when Buzz and Woody land in the alien toy grabber machine and all the little alien toys are like “Strangers! From the outside! OOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” It’s kinda like that. And that can get annoying. But thankfully people are pretty used to seeing me. I can’t tell you how long it’s been since I’ve been asked how much bread I eat (I’m white, which clearly means I’m French, and clearly the French eat bread all the time, so it’s a logical question). The locals even correct out-of-towners when they ask “Who’s the French chick?” and the locals are like “She’s not French, she’s American, they’re different.” The revelation that French/English/American are all completely different astounds many people here. All white people are called French and it is assumed that they speak English.
Getting back to gossip, the market is like high school for old ladies. Every goes around telling everyone each others business. One day two market ladies will be best friends, the next not speaking to each other. It’s like a soap opera, but better. I get to just sit there and sip coffee while it all happens around me. The other day, my former host mom, to whom ascribing the term vain would be a gross understatement asked a police officer who was prettier, she, or her friend the rice seller. The police officer, who was obviously not born yesterday, says they’re equally pretty. This enrages my former host mom. She goes on about how she buys expensive (and slightly slutty, though she didn’t say that) clothes, wears make-up, gets her hair done, gets manicures, pedicures, the works (side note, she always talks about how she has no money, but every day she wears a new shirt to the market). Given all this, she should be significantly prettier than the rice seller. The rice seller just looks at her own chest, pulls her shirt down a bit, and simply says “mine are bigger.” That made my morning.
I have to laugh when people talk about how rich Americans are. Yesterday the market ladies were all comparing their $3 shirts. I, on the other hand, was wearing clothes I’d found in the give-away bin at the Peace Corps office. The majority of my wardrobe consists of things found in the give-away bin or purchased for fifty cents from a thrift store. I wouldn’t be caught dead paying $3 for an item of clothing. It’s an upside down world over here. But I have learned to read, at least a little! The language has 33 consonants and 27 vowels. Most of those vowels have two different sounds depending on what consonant they’re with. And the vowels are written above, below, to the left, and to the right of the consonant. And each consonant has another form (like how we have capital letters and small letters) that can be written underneath another consonant to shorten the sound. So there are 122 possible phonemes. Which is why after living here a year and a half I have attained an approximately 2nd grade reading level. But I can read most signs, and I can write small words (an excellent party trick) so I consider myself successful. One last comment, the warning label on my eyedrops has informed me that possible side effects include bone marrow depression and/or newborn infants. What will happen? Will my bone marrow fall into a state of depression? Will newborn infants randomly appear? Stay tuned for more details. Love and miss you all!
01 February, 2010
A Cambodian take on accident prevention
Over the course of four weeks, four students at school were seriously injured, and tragically, one was killed. As you might suspect, rules regarding safety are enforced sporadically if they exist at all. Normally, we just joke about it, but sometimes the consequences are more serious. All the accidents but one involved careless driving. And the one exception was a girl who was refilling a gas canister (something prohibited by US law due to high risk of explosion). The thing is, there are some regulations here. There is even one speed limit sign in my town. But the only consequence of breaking the law is a fine. Which is handed to the cop right then so no need to mess with pesky paperwork and judges. The downside of basically bribing the police to let you off is that the police only work when they run out of beer and need money to buy more. So as long as you have enough money or the police are sufficiently inebriated you’re good. Until you crash because you see no good reason to drive at a safe speed.
But what is the response to this situation? More safety training? A call for better police enforcement? Nope. We will offer rice to monks. Clearly the problem is that God is mad at the school. So by offering food to the monks, we receive their blessing (they douse us with water) and all is good. This ceremony is called a flower ceremony, Each grade level made a tree out of gold or silver foil and hung money (flowers) from the branches. Then they took the trees for a walk around the school. Then they gave food to the monks. While I myself don’t think that this was the appropriate response to the situation (but who am I to judge, traffic accidents are the leading cause of teen death in the states, so we’re not doing much better), I have to admit the ceremony itself was a really fun day. Each grade took their picture with a money tree, and most asked me to be in the picture too. So then each student wanted an individual picture with me. And then one of them gave me a red scarf she had made in home ec class. The scarf is actually quite warm, which will be fantastic when I get home, but on 95 degree day it did feel like a bit much. I was already wearing the diamond bow-tie earrings that another grade had given me so I was looking quite stylish if I do say so myself.
Another exciting school related function was the soccer/volleyball tournament. It happened this past week in the provincial town. We played schools from all over the province. The students played surprisingly well, especially the volleyball team. They finished first in the province, the soccer team finished third. I was glad I was there, as I got to remind the other teachers to encourage the students and not be such jerks. It was a little ridiculous. Our soccer team played a team that had been practicing since the start of the school year. Here’s the thing, in Cambodia, practice happens during class hours, so the players don’t attend class. At all. Our team has only been practicing for three or four weeks. So their players may be better, but ours are smarter. It was fun to see them play, and the students were all very excited that I came. Whenever someone was like “What’s with the foreigner?” They’d be like “She’s our teacher!” I felt loved. The funniest part was when the soccer boys stole the first place trophy from the volleyball team so they could have their picture taken with it. They were so excited. Both teams climbed into the truck and cheered the whole way home. Whenever they saw people on the road they would beat the drum (a bucket) and start hollering to the rather surprised passers-by. And then there was no school on Saturday. So everyone was happy. Semester exams are about to start. Ironically this means students stop coming to school as they know they can learn more on their own than from class. So life pretty much stops for the students until after testing.
In other news, a word about foreigners. Being a foreigner myself has given me an entirely different perspective on what it means to uproot your entire life and move to another country. I have an excellent community that has taken me in, but if I didn’t have that small town atmosphere, the sense of isolation would be overwhelming. So I encourage you, whenever you meet foreigners, be as nice to them as you can. Because nothing makes you feel worse than when people treat you like dirt just because you can’t understand what they’re saying. I chose to live in foreign country for two years, and could honestly go back home whenever I choose. But many people who immigrate to the states left their old lives behind permanently, they can never go back. And now they’re in a place surrounded by things they don’t understand. So go easy on them, because this is tough. And for those of you who think that people who live here should learn English, please try to learn a foreign language yourself first. I’m not trying to be ugly, but it’s way harder than it looks. I totally think that people who live here should try to learn. But after two month of intense language study and a year and half of immersion, I am still not fluent in Khmer, a language that is ten times easier than English. So when people speak to you in broken English, appreciate the fact that they are trying. And when they don’t understand what you’re saying, be patient. While I know my readers already know these things, it never hurts to have a reminder. Being a foreigner is one of the toughest things I’ve ever done. Because people treat you differently, and even though the people here think of me as a part of the community, I’m still not Cambodian and I never will be. And strangers either treat me either like royalty or like an animal. Hard to say which is more annoying. So life is hard for foreigners. Show ‘em some love.
That isn’t to say that being a foreigner is all bad. In many ways I can do whatever I want because people will just assume it’s an American custom. I can say whatever pops into my head because no one knows what I’m saying. I’m sure there are many habits that will need to be broken upon my return to the States. Like if I’m supposed to work at 7 then I should probably get up before 7. Here, no worries. 7:00 class doesn’t start til 7:15. What I really like is when I show up really late, but turns out I’m not late enough. I went to school at six thirty the other morning so I could ride the truck to the provincial town with the soccer players. I was half an hour late. Clearly I was confused. Should have been an hour and a half late like everyone else. And I probably should wear clothing other than my pajamas in public. And should probably not say whatever pops into my head. So if you see me when I first get back I say something very rude, I apologize in advance. My last word – Geaux Saints! Much love to all the Saints fans and if you are not one than you should be.
Love and miss you all
Brittany
Over the course of four weeks, four students at school were seriously injured, and tragically, one was killed. As you might suspect, rules regarding safety are enforced sporadically if they exist at all. Normally, we just joke about it, but sometimes the consequences are more serious. All the accidents but one involved careless driving. And the one exception was a girl who was refilling a gas canister (something prohibited by US law due to high risk of explosion). The thing is, there are some regulations here. There is even one speed limit sign in my town. But the only consequence of breaking the law is a fine. Which is handed to the cop right then so no need to mess with pesky paperwork and judges. The downside of basically bribing the police to let you off is that the police only work when they run out of beer and need money to buy more. So as long as you have enough money or the police are sufficiently inebriated you’re good. Until you crash because you see no good reason to drive at a safe speed.
But what is the response to this situation? More safety training? A call for better police enforcement? Nope. We will offer rice to monks. Clearly the problem is that God is mad at the school. So by offering food to the monks, we receive their blessing (they douse us with water) and all is good. This ceremony is called a flower ceremony, Each grade level made a tree out of gold or silver foil and hung money (flowers) from the branches. Then they took the trees for a walk around the school. Then they gave food to the monks. While I myself don’t think that this was the appropriate response to the situation (but who am I to judge, traffic accidents are the leading cause of teen death in the states, so we’re not doing much better), I have to admit the ceremony itself was a really fun day. Each grade took their picture with a money tree, and most asked me to be in the picture too. So then each student wanted an individual picture with me. And then one of them gave me a red scarf she had made in home ec class. The scarf is actually quite warm, which will be fantastic when I get home, but on 95 degree day it did feel like a bit much. I was already wearing the diamond bow-tie earrings that another grade had given me so I was looking quite stylish if I do say so myself.
Another exciting school related function was the soccer/volleyball tournament. It happened this past week in the provincial town. We played schools from all over the province. The students played surprisingly well, especially the volleyball team. They finished first in the province, the soccer team finished third. I was glad I was there, as I got to remind the other teachers to encourage the students and not be such jerks. It was a little ridiculous. Our soccer team played a team that had been practicing since the start of the school year. Here’s the thing, in Cambodia, practice happens during class hours, so the players don’t attend class. At all. Our team has only been practicing for three or four weeks. So their players may be better, but ours are smarter. It was fun to see them play, and the students were all very excited that I came. Whenever someone was like “What’s with the foreigner?” They’d be like “She’s our teacher!” I felt loved. The funniest part was when the soccer boys stole the first place trophy from the volleyball team so they could have their picture taken with it. They were so excited. Both teams climbed into the truck and cheered the whole way home. Whenever they saw people on the road they would beat the drum (a bucket) and start hollering to the rather surprised passers-by. And then there was no school on Saturday. So everyone was happy. Semester exams are about to start. Ironically this means students stop coming to school as they know they can learn more on their own than from class. So life pretty much stops for the students until after testing.
In other news, a word about foreigners. Being a foreigner myself has given me an entirely different perspective on what it means to uproot your entire life and move to another country. I have an excellent community that has taken me in, but if I didn’t have that small town atmosphere, the sense of isolation would be overwhelming. So I encourage you, whenever you meet foreigners, be as nice to them as you can. Because nothing makes you feel worse than when people treat you like dirt just because you can’t understand what they’re saying. I chose to live in foreign country for two years, and could honestly go back home whenever I choose. But many people who immigrate to the states left their old lives behind permanently, they can never go back. And now they’re in a place surrounded by things they don’t understand. So go easy on them, because this is tough. And for those of you who think that people who live here should learn English, please try to learn a foreign language yourself first. I’m not trying to be ugly, but it’s way harder than it looks. I totally think that people who live here should try to learn. But after two month of intense language study and a year and half of immersion, I am still not fluent in Khmer, a language that is ten times easier than English. So when people speak to you in broken English, appreciate the fact that they are trying. And when they don’t understand what you’re saying, be patient. While I know my readers already know these things, it never hurts to have a reminder. Being a foreigner is one of the toughest things I’ve ever done. Because people treat you differently, and even though the people here think of me as a part of the community, I’m still not Cambodian and I never will be. And strangers either treat me either like royalty or like an animal. Hard to say which is more annoying. So life is hard for foreigners. Show ‘em some love.
That isn’t to say that being a foreigner is all bad. In many ways I can do whatever I want because people will just assume it’s an American custom. I can say whatever pops into my head because no one knows what I’m saying. I’m sure there are many habits that will need to be broken upon my return to the States. Like if I’m supposed to work at 7 then I should probably get up before 7. Here, no worries. 7:00 class doesn’t start til 7:15. What I really like is when I show up really late, but turns out I’m not late enough. I went to school at six thirty the other morning so I could ride the truck to the provincial town with the soccer players. I was half an hour late. Clearly I was confused. Should have been an hour and a half late like everyone else. And I probably should wear clothing other than my pajamas in public. And should probably not say whatever pops into my head. So if you see me when I first get back I say something very rude, I apologize in advance. My last word – Geaux Saints! Much love to all the Saints fans and if you are not one than you should be.
Love and miss you all
Brittany
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