Cambodia Adventure and Practicum

Still been pretty busy, but I am enjoying it. Last week we went on Cambodia Adventure. I went with two fellow trainees, Jen and Nathan (who are married). We visited James, a current volunteer in Memot, near the Viatnamese border.

Getting there was kind of intense. We stuffed in a taxi to go from Triang to Phnom Penh. It was a sedan with 5 seats. We had seven people in the car, all trainees. On the way back, the driver put his friend in the driver's seat to bring, the total up to eight. Apparently, that is not considered a crowded taxi in Cambodia. The driver was someone's host dad, so I guess we got a luxurious ride. Also on the way back from Phnom Penh, the driver stopped for about an hour to get a custom hat made. The sense of time in Cambodia is just so different.

In Phnom Penh we took a five hour bus to Memot. It wasn't too bad except it left late and the driver was on his cell phone picking people up. We actually got our own seats though.

James lives in a dorm at his school, which is a unique living arrangement. He has an English club where he works with his students on reading. He mostly works with the best students because they are the ones who study the most. Many of the other students don't have the time to study English, so do not participate as much or show up to class. This is unfortunate, but when Peace Corps Volunteers focus on human development, they need to work with Cambodians who will reciprocate.

The same is true when working with co-teachers. Volunteers look for teachers who need improvement, but are willing to work with the volunteers. Some teachers are just stubborn and won't change their ways. The harsh reality is, there is little we can do for them.

Memot is in Kampung Chung (sp?) province, which had amazing food. We ate some great fruit and fried noodles. We also spend time playing frisbee with the students and had dinner and drinks (warm beer mixed with ice) with James' co-teacher.

Overall, we had a wonderful few days outside of our training village.

When we returned, we began Practicum week. We were in groups of three and paired with a Cambodian co-teacher. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, we each taught Cambodian students for an hour. On Thursday, Friday and Saturday, we each taught an hour to the same class with our co-teacher. There were about 45 students in the class and we had to spend a lot of time lesson planning.

My group was lucky that our co-teacher was nice. It was a wonderful exchange; she learned from us and we learned from her. I lent her some of our training materials, so that she can continue to learn.

Throughout the week, we became more fluid as a team and I certainly improved as a teacher. It was my first time teaching a large group over a sustained period of time.

While all the trainees improved as teachers, others were not as lucky as us in terms of their assigned co-teacher. Some trainees had co-teachers who refused to lesson plan with them, would talk over them in class and would refer to them to their faces as "bad teachers."

During the afternoons of Practicum week, we would continue our language training. My language skills are continuing to improve. I still confuse and mispronounce a lot of words, but every day I am saying more.

Now that Practicum is finished, we are leaving Triang for a little while. On Tuesday, we go to the provincial town, Takeo, to find out where we will be stationed for our two years. We had a few interviews and the anticipation is building. I hope to post details about my permanent site in a few days.

As a health volunteer, I know my site will be the right size for me and contain a health center and a school. Our training officer visited the health sites and says the health center director is eager to work with us (more about health in a few paragraphs).

After Takeo, we head to Phnom Penh to meet teachers from our permanent site. We will then depart with us to visit our permanent sites next weekend.

When we return to Phnom Penh we are going to a Khmer Rouge Tribunal. I'm really happy that we will get to go because a colleague of mine from Haverford visited and she attended one of the trials. I hear it is a powerful experience.

We will then return to Triang for about a week and then we go on our health road trip. We will go to on an eight day trip to learn about the health sector in Cambodia. Out of the 45 trainees, 10 are health volunteers. We are the first health volunteers in Cambodia. Like I said, this means we will volunteer at a health center in addition to teaching.

At the end of training, when we do our community project in Triang, our training village, the health volunteers will do a health presentation. . . in Khmer! We apparently have a long list of health vocabulary to memorize.

The new interesting food of the week is fried sweet potatoes covered in sugar. They actually taste just like Frosted Flakes!

That's all for now. I look forward to finding out my permanent site. Again, I am sorry for the lack of pictures. I don't think I'll be able to post pictures until I can use wireless internet in Phnom Penh. Right now, I am at an internet cafe in Takeo.