Advertisement
Published: January 14th 2010
Edit Blog Post
A bar in Siem Reap
A bar in Siem Reap. When you buy a drink they give you a pen to sign your name on the wall. So I have been here for just over a week now and I am slowly beginning to acclimatise to the poverty and the heat.
Everything at the school is going well. I’ll be honest it has to be the most challenging teaching I have ever done. In Cambodia teaching is not regarded in such high stead as it is in the Western world, therefore you do not need to be trained or particularly well educated and the pay is minimal. Being put in a classroom full of 25 3-8 year olds can be difficult at times especially when they are not used to structure and don’t speak the language. Anyway we are getting there very slowly. At the moment it is a case of me teaching the class for half the day and the Khmer teacher the other half. That way I can show her my style of teaching and almost ‘teach her’ in a way. Because they haven’t been exposed to it the Cambodian teachers are totally unaware of the possibilities teaching can bring especially with no curriculum and they seem almost amazed. I have been doing lots of number games and songs, art and music with the children
The Temple Bar
Traditional Hindu dancing. These performances are put on to tourists to entertain whilst you eat in the reataurant. and trying to generally bring about some more structure to their day. They seem to be enjoying it and get really excited because everything is so new to them.
I am trying to get the children to show their creativity as much as possible because it is obviously a very useful skill to have. However, they seem to find this very difficult, for example the classroom has no visual displays so I cut some large numbers out of card. The idea was to get the children to decorate them and stick them around the room to help with counting. I provided lots of colourful pens and stampers to decorate the numbers with however they each chose just one coloured pen and coloured the whole number in the same colour not even going out of the lines. Back in England the children would have made a great big mess drawing patterns and using lots of colours. The Cambodian children also seem to find it impossible to draw a picture without the use of a ruler.
Today I turned around to see a little 3 year old in my class running off and in the distance crawling under a small
My class
As you can see the classroom is very basic without even chairs and tables. The children sit on mats handmade by local women which weaved from palm leaves. The children each have one pencil, one exercise book and a plastic folder to put them in. gap in a barbed wire fence. I automatically told a member if staff to watch the class and went running off down a track trying to find her. However, she was no where to be seen so I ran back to the school and breathlessly started explaining to one of the teacher’s how a child had run off. She looked at me quizzically and said ‘yes she goes home early some days and just leaves.’ How different to the western world. This child is only 3 and just leaves the school without telling anyone and wanders home barefoot on her own, this is just normal and no one bats an eyelid. Children are so, so much more independent here, they make their own way to school and you don’t see the parents at all. The children are a lot more boisterous and just throw each other around so they are covered in bruises and cuts but just get right back up again without crying. Achild in my class just wandered in today with what looked like a crater in his foot, there was a big hole and it was really infected but he seemed totally unfazed by it. Turned out
Traditional dancing
'The Fisherman dance' he got it caught in a rusty bike. I think the Cambodian’s think I am funny for getting so worked up about covering cuts. First aid here isn’t a big thing. I saw a child fall off a wall (they climb on everything) he got knocked out but just came round and got up again - putting a cold compress on a bump just doesn’t happen here.
I can see why people would fall in love with this country and want to stay here but speaking to other volunteers who previously came here as tourists you see a whole different side to the country actually working with the people. It is utterly heartbreaking seeing children out at night seeing books, flowers and CD’s. Apparently a lot of these children are orphans and are almost ‘pimped out’ to sell things. Some of them are put on drugs to make them all dazed out. They are trained to say to few phrases of English ‘I need the money so I pay for school,’ or ‘no school today so I stay up late.’ None of which are true because you see the same children out night after night. It is so upsetting
Temple
A beautiful temple which is located down a track which I pass everyday on my way to work. It is such a contrast with its surroundings. and you feel as though you just want to take all those children and love them and nurture them in the right environment. I don’t think I could stay here forever, it is a great experience just the country is very corrupted.
So yesterday one of the kind teachers sat with me and taught me some Khmer words, she said I could go back home and teach all the people in England. I love the way the Cambodians seem to have such a childlike sense of humour and even way of thinking. Anyway the writing is particularly difficult because it looks like pretty patterns but I have a few words now to use with the children so they understand when I say ‘sit down.’
Anyway must go, nice to hear your comments and know you guys are actually reading this J Hope you are all well. The sun is just going down here, it is glowing a beautiful red.
xx
Advertisement
Tot: 0.098s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 5; qc: 51; dbt: 0.0703s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
lisa moulton
non-member comment
wow xxx
Oh Ellen , I've just read today's entry and I'm in tears , those children are so lucky to have you out there looking after them . We all miss you back here . The munchkins are all doing well , but it's hard for them to understand your not coming back , my L - bean missis you the most though :( x Keep doing what your doing and stay safe xxxx lisa x