First Post From Cambodia (after 2 months)

Yoooo.
First, its taken me way too long to get this blog going, been here in Cambodia for 2 months and I'm just getting this blog going. I just got internet in my apartment so now Ill have more time to write stuff here. So much has happened since I got here, and unfortunately I'm not going to be able to catch up and write about it all. Cambodia is a crazy country, especially during my first few weeks here I saw things on a daily basis that blew my mind. Another thing that stands out is the people, they are so nice, helpful, and friendly. For such a undeveloped, poor, corrupt, and dirty country it's surprisingly safe and I feel safer here taking a late night stroll through the streets then through Glen Cove, although I’m sure Phnom Penh has its bad parts.
The first month here consisted of my training with LanguageCorps, I was with a group of 25 other people who after 2 weeks would go off to Vietnam, Thailand, China, or stay here in Phnom Penh, Cambodia to finish another 2 weeks of training. The group of people were really great, I got along with everyone. There were all sorts of people in the group. Some guys and girls my age, some 25-35 year old, and a few older ones 45-60. These people came from all over the U.S., England, Australia, France, and even one lady from Burma. An early 30’s something girl named Leah lives in New Hampshire but grew up on Long Island and whose cousins live in Glen Hood which she visited often. No matter where I go I somehow always meet someone from Long Island.

As for the people who stayed in Cambodia after training, there are 5 of us. Cheryl, a lady about 65 years old from Utah who has decided to travel the world in the last 10 years. She got a job right away at a good school teaching kindergarten. Myat Myat who is from Burma, a very shy lady, but that’s just the culture she comes from. She is so positive and happy about everything, her cartoonish laugh is by far the loudest things you’ll hear from her. Unfortunately because she’s not a native English speaker (and her skin isn’t white) she hasn’t found a job and doesn’t have the money to stay here without pay and so she’ll be going home in a few days. Then there’s Alex from Boston who spent some time living in Hawaii before coming here. He’s an interesting one and seems to be about 20 but he’s 28. He just got a job at a good high school, but I’m not sure how he likes it yet. Then there’s Lorna, my housemate who’s about 35 and from England. During training we decided we would get an apartment together. I could tell she would be a good housemate, as apposed to Alex, which would have been like living in a crappy college house again. It’s funny living with Lorna because she’s always using British words or sayings that I have no idea what they mean, so I’m learning some new stuff. She got a job about a month ago, originally as someone to just help other teachers, but they’ve got her teaching lots of classes, it’s full time and they don’t pay great so she’s not loving it, but it was her only option. Also Leah, the one who’s cousins live in Glen Head just came back to Cambodia, she had left to go teach in Thailand but came back when LanguageCorps offered here a job with them here.
And then me, I just got a job 2 weeks ago, just part-time at a school with a bad reputation for being unorganized and dishonest. I was hesitate but checked it out and took it since it was only 3.5 hours a day and my only option to make some money. It’s not too bad, but it’s definitely unorganized and loose, but at least that means there’s minimal, almost no pressure on me. On my first day I was told I was teaching kindergarten which was actually more like 15 kids aged 5 to 10. It’s pretty hard to teach them since there’s such a difference in age and level of English, but it’s fun. Some of the kids are really cute and nice, I’m lucky I have no trouble makers, just 5 year olds that get up and wander around the class. I have books I use which are pretty unhelpful except for coloring in, and a Khmer teacher assistant who helps me keep them in their seats and listening to me. I’m looking for more work somewhere else, or to get full-time somewhere else, I also realized I want to teach olds kids. I taught an hour class cultural communication/English class to 16 year olds which I really enjoyed. Also this past week I got some more part time hours at a school 15 minutes outside of Phnom Penh, again not ideal, but I’m getting paid $10 an hour there. Again I was thrown into a classroom without much direction except for being given the teacher and students text book. However, after a rough first class, my subsequent classes have gone great and I really enjoy the. I’m teaching M, W, F 5:30 – 8:30pm. A pre-intermediate English class to 16-20 year olds, most who speak good English so I cant easily communicate and teach. The second class is intermediate English with just 2 students, both about 30 years old. The first 3 classes they didn’t have the books yet so I just sat in between them and we worked through the book. I really enjoy this class because they speak enough English to pretty much communicate anything they want to say, although sometimes it’s hard to understand because of their pronunciation. I really get to go off on tangents and teach them about American culture or just meanings of words they don’t know, which is nice and makes me feel like I’m using my brain, as opposed to teaching 6 year olds which doesn’t.
I’m also spending some of my time learning Khmer, the Cambodian language. I’m getting lessons from this tutor, who is Khmer but also speaks great English and he’s been tutoring for about 5 years now. He’s really cool, and has a very structured method of teaching me and giving me HW which is really the only way I can see myself learning the language. He comes to my apartment 3 times a week for an hour at a time. I’m able to say simple conversational phrases, and make other basic sentences, although it takes me some time to think it out in my head before talking. I’m hoping to keep taking lessons for a few months.
I have plenty of stories to tell about the cool/amazing/beautiful/crazy/dangerous things I’ve seen and experienced here and as I have time, Ill post them here. Here’s a good one, just the other day I was eating during my break at school in the cafeteria, getting swarmed by the 50 or so resident fly’s when this student walked in with pen writing all over his face. His friend immediately jumped up and grabbed his face to try to read it while the kid tried to cover it up and get away. As they struggled I saw the writing said something like “Savon was late to class again”. The kid finally got away from his laughing friend, who I asked what the writing was from, although I had started to figure it out. He told me that one of the Khmer teaching assistants must have wrote it across the kid’s face because he was late to class or forgot his homework again. I laughed pretty hard to myself, because by now I’ve come to terms with how they do things differently here, but I also realized how crazy that is, and how completely unacceptable that would be in our culture. To these people there’s nothing wrong with this kind of punishment (writing on a student’s face), so really all I can do is laugh at how absurd it all seemed to me.

Above is a picture of me at Rabbit Island which Ill post about soon. The second one is me at Angor Wat, the biggest temple complex in the world. The last one is me on my new mat/carpet for my bedroom. (click to enlarge)

Here's the link for the pictures from the first few weeks of my time in Cambodia. I'll be uploading more shortly.
http://joshed24.picturepush.com/album/73747/p-Cambodia.html

-Josh