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Published: September 16th 2008
Kampot district
Students sit in an English class, thanks to donations through the Sydney Buddhist Library..
One thousand rainwater tanks to supply safe drinking water. Extra classes to help kids and adults who have missed education to catch up. Free distribution of soap powder, toothbrushes, toothpaste and condoms. Sewing classes for women who want to become dressmakers, classes in IT, and lots of English classes because everybody in Cambodia needs English to get ahead. The Sydney Buddhist Library, NSW, Australia (henceforth SBL) works to support urgent needs in Cambodia.
I visited the SBL’s flagship project on Cambodia’s south coast. My tuk-tuk driver took me along an unsurfaced side road, through some monastery grounds and pulled up in front of a row of classrooms. It was beginning to rain. Students were everywhere: students on bicycles, students under umbrellas, students lining up to register for classes at the start of a new term.
They looked at me with curiosity and then one older boy asked what I wanted. A young teacher appeared and said I could indeed meet Mdm Rin the Director. They lead me to a diminutive woman standing beside the man collecting registrations under an umbrella.
Uncertainty hit me: What was I doing, charging unannounced into Mdm Rin’s world? I explained that
Kampot district
My driver's face is reflected in his rear vision mirror as the tuk-tuk approaches the school. I was a reader at the SBL - a sometime English teacher, and a keen writer - who just happened to be passing. I gave her the small gift I had taken for the school. The teachers introduced themselves: Mr Sna, Mr Mom Socheat, Mr Swon Caan Thuch, and Ms Yim Sam Ath. Judging from their smiles, the chocolate biscuits that I brought for the teachers were a good idea. Two of them invited me to visit their classes.
Mr Swon Caan Thuch told his top-level students to ask me questions about myself. They were very shy so I wrote question words on the blackboard to help them. That worked.
Where do you come from?
Why are you visiting Cambodia?
What’s your religion?
Why do you follow Buddhism? This last question brought me up short. I never imagined standing in front of a class of children born into Buddhism, trying to explain why I attempt to follow their faith.
Ms Yim Sam Ath's younger class had thirty minutes to prepare their questions for me, and this time I had an answer prepared when they asked why I was Buddhist.
Then it was,
What’s Kampot district
The sala in the temple beside the school. your job?
-- I’m a teacher, an English teacher.
Will you teach us?
I borrowed a textbook from a girl in the front row and checked the topic. I held my backpack in one hand.
-- Where’s my bag?
It’s in your right hand.
-- Where is it now?
It’s in your left hand. I hid my bag under the desk.
- Where’s my bag now?
It’s under the desk. These students were very good indeed. I really enjoyed sharing Mr Swon Caan Thuch’s and Ms Yim Sam Ath students with them. I would love to go and visit them again.
For more information about the Sydney Buddhist Library project in Cambodia, and especially to send donations, visit .
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Morag
non-member comment
English Teaching in Cambodia
This is of particular interest to me, as my father visited Cambodia last year to address the subject of English language teaching in the country. I believe it is a project at Government level, and they wanted an outside specialist to talk to their teachers. That specialist was my dad!