Sunday, October 25th Siem Reap, Cambodia

It’s almost been two weeks since I last posted – time has flown! The teaching has been going well, though last week was tough since we focused on grammar at our first school (the one where we do all the planning and teaching). NOT the most exciting topic I the world. Is there a more entertaining way to teach singular/plural, past tense, negatives, questioning, etc? Well we do try to at least finish with some games.

At least the rain has diminished a great deal so we’re no longer standing in water to teach. It does mean the mosquitoes have gotten a bit worse, though still not nearly as bad as I’d feared. There is still enough water in the river for the kids to do a bit of fishing during break time, but the fish they catch are about 2 inches max. Our students at the first school are really a range of English. Some grasp it all very quickly while others just look blankly at their paper.

At the second school, I have a co-teacher, Chantha (he goes by his nickname Toy.) So we usually follow his lesson plan and I do the readings and practice the grammar and pronunciation with the kids, who are overall more advanced than our first school. It was a bit awkward last Friday when Toy handed around a sheet with a story he’d written in English about the upcoming water festival. He asked me to read it out loud, which I did, but it was rather filled with errors, incorrect grammar, and run on or awkward sentence structure. I started to make edits on my copy to give him later, but he wanted to try to have the students make corrections real time. He was a great sport and said he was really glad I was there to correct the mistakes, but there were so many I offered to go home and retype the sheet, which I just finished. Even a relatively good English speaker has difficulty, which is why they so appreciate native speakers here.

Outside of school, Jen and I have done more exploring. Sometimes it’s just running errands, getting groceries or school supplies. We just hop on our bikes and navigate through the cows, blaring horns of warning and crazy wrong way moto-drivers wherever we need to go. I am so glad to be biking instead of taking tuk-tuks like the tourists. Much better exercise and much more local interaction. Though more often than not, someone local will start biking alongside either Jen or me and start a conversation to practice their English. Everyone is really friendly, but usually biking these streets is when I need to concentrate so trying to carry on a conversation and avoid running over small children or being taken out by a larger vehicle is not ideal!

Knock on wood, we’ve managed to avoid any serious mishaps, stomach bugs or . Well, I did manage to trip down some stairs and scrape up my knee like a six year old. But more entertaining was my ant battle. Overall, our hotel is really nice and quite clean. But there have been times of little ant swarms. They are teeny, but seem to come in numbers. From my college days and living in Somerville with occasional ant problems, these are not my favorites! So I keep all food in the fridge or thrown out in a trash can in the hallway. Even so, I’ve seen them from time to time and I have taken to using my 30% Deet Ben’s bug spray on them, One day, was finding quite a few of them in the bathroom after school. These were high up and I was afraid they were coming in packs out of the ceiling railing. At one point I put down the bug spray, saw some more and grabbed it again…only to have picked it up backward and my aggressive attack squirt went right into one eye! OWWWW!

Fortunately, I was fine by the next morning, but I left the sticky spray littered with a few ant corpses up at the top of the wall. Figured that would serve as a warning to any other little buggers who try to make their way in! HA! (And again knock on wood, but I haven’t seen any for a few days so maybe my strategy has worked!)

Jen and I have been trying to explore more in and around town. We’ve actually lived it up a couple of weekend days by hitting the pool at the Meridian hotel. Considering we’re talking about 100 degree heat and dripping humidity, a pool is just heavenly. In general, our hotel is far nicer than either of us might have expected. Reliable, though a bit slow, wireless, cable tv, A/C, delivery food options… It’s weird to have all these amenities, though! At least we see the other side with our teaching and our students and I’m certainly not going to complain about air conditioning in this heat We’ve also found a regular bar to hang out and we’ve met some westerners who are more or less local having lived here for a while. Some of them still don’t speak much Khmer though.

We had a third volunteer for a very short period. Karly was supposed to be here for two weeks but on her first day of teaching, she got word that her parents had been in a bad car accident. We’d first heard that one of them had died, but it turned out it was a taxi driver, not her parents. Still, they were in pretty bad shape and she headed home to be with them.

So Jen and I are on our own again. Thank goodness Jen is here! I would be having a very different time without a buddy to experience it all with. Yesterday we saw the artisan center, silk farm and floating villages on the lake. A very cool day!

And we are going to Laos on Saturday to check out another country while we’re here.
That means we’ll bump up our visit to the orphanage to Friday – hopefully we can find some Halloween masks to do with the kids. Our visits to the orphanage have been amazing. We play baseball, do sticker books or just play around with them. The orphanage is small and the kids seem very well cared for. They do hate to see us go though! It will be sad saying goodbye in less than two weeks!

Well, that’s probably more of an update than anyone would have wanted and it’s getting late here so off to bed! Can’t believe I’ll be home in less than a month now…

Miss everyone! Thanks for writing when you can! I love hearing from people.

Val

Monday, October 12, Siem Reap Cambodia

Greetings all!

First the good news…I didn’t get sick at all from eating the crushed ice last week! Amazing! And I’ve tried several smoothies since then with no problems at all.
The bad news is I did feel a little under the weather today for no reason that I could think of! (Well, could be the Red Sox implosion and lack of sleep made me ill…) But considering there are no viable bathroom options at either school, I decided to play it safe and miss today. So I’ll use the time to catch up the blog a bit.

Thursday last week was hilarious! At the second school (the one with several inches of water on the floor) it started to downpour. Hard rain pretty much means the end of school for the day as it makes so much noise on the tin roof that nobdody can hear! Plus the sheets of rain were getting everyone soaked since there are no walls. So Jen and I got out a little early and celebrated with fruit smoothies at a “fast food” place on the way home. While we were there, it started to rain even harder and everyone stopped under the overpass to try to avoid it. Well, Jen and I decided what the heck and I put the backpack cover on and off we went! We were soaked to the skin in seconds, laughing nonstop and yelling Sou sday to everyone we passed while raising our smoothies in passing! I’m sure the locals all thought they must have been spiked for these crazy American woman to be out in the rain laughing and shouting! It was awesome!

Even better was I had scheduled a massage for after work! They do them right down the hall from us. $5 for an hour. It’s not a Swedish style massage but more like a Thai massage where you wear loose fitting pajama type clothes and they basically contort your limbs and body into all kinds of crazy positions! Almost painful at times, but still great!

The next day was Friday and since I haven’t been gainfully employed for a couple of months, it was the first time in a while that Friday felt like the start of a weekend and something to celebrate. I tried to turn TGIF into TBIF (thank Budda it’s Friday, but not sure it works in translation!) Usually by the time we get home, dripping with sweat and often with rain, we are ready for a shower and bed. But Jen and I had planned to “hit the town” this Friday night. So we got ourselves decked out (relatively speaking!) and went to the touristy area.

Jen’s been here on her own for a month and as our hotel is somewhat far out of town, she’s mostly been staying in and hanging with the hotel staff (who adore her!) So I think she was ready for a little western contrast. And after checking out the restaurant options, we both had a definite craving for Mexican food! And after all the rice and Khmer, it tasted pretty darn good. And since there’s no 21 year old drinking age here, I was able to celebrate Jen’s first legal drink with her!



After dinner, we headed over to a bar for a bit that turned out to be mostly Cambodians. Jen is extremely popular with the local boys (both in our class and out and about!) I don’t know that the Cambodian girls were as happy since there were definitely some there that were clearly “working.” So we didn’t stay too long but it was a great night out and definitely needed after staying in most nights.




Saturday and Sunday were both temple viewing days and I must have taken about 500 pictures! I love the crazy trees the best. I’ll have to watch Tomb Raider again now that I’ve been to the place it was filmed. Angkor really is amazing and each temple has so many hidden charms, detailed carvings, etc. It was great to spend the two days climbing all over. One temple was still quite flooded and we had to pay a dollar to take motor bikes across to view it. Even though the flooding has improved and so far Jen and I haven’t had any more tuk-tuks get stuck and have to get out in lots of water to push! (That was my first day!)








Saturday night it was raining again and we weren’t really feeling like going out. So I suggested to Jen that we try to order a pizza delivery! And it actually worked! Of course, we’d ordered veggie with half mushrooms and got half pineapple and half ham, but a version of Hawaiian tasted good too. And we just hung out watching movies. Jen is delaying her first year of college to volunteer, so we had a little pseudo college dorm experience going with pizza and movies in Jen’s room. Wild Saturday nights here, I tell you!

But one of the best experiences I’ve had was on Sunday when we visited the orphanage. Of course, with the Sox down two games, I pulled out all the stops to try to bring them luck. I’d brought a bunch of Red Sox shirts plus a plastic bat and wiffle balls (or rather Kat brought them over with her when she met me! Thanks Kat!) Since I’d given them Sox cards last week, they at least recognized the Red Sox and when Jen and I showed up in our matching red shirts, they really liked them. So how awesome it was to be able to pull out the bag of shirts for everyone! I had just enough for all the kids and the two staff working there. They were all totally excited and put them right on. And even more so when I pulled out the bat and balls.




I’d brought copies of my old childhood baseball pictures and we took some official Cambodia Team Red Sox pics. I even taught them the “horns of hope” for good luck! Then we used rocks for bases and everyone joined in. Fortunately, the yard area wasn’t flooded anymore. They grasped the basics quite well! It was just a terrific afternoon.


Sadly, the Sox couldn’t respond with a win! I think my Cambodian kids team could have done better. The game started after 11:00 pm my time and I made it until after 2:00 am before falling asleep with the Sox comfortably up by three. Of course, we don’t need to talk about the ninth inning, but I certainly picked a good year to be on the other side of the world during play-off season.

Ok, time to work on school lesson plans for tomorrow!

Later in the evening....
Just finished watching the Amazing Race and they were in Cambodia! They unfortunately didn’t make it to Siem Reap, but still really cool to see while in the country. And I invited Ta, one of the ladies who work in our hotel, to come in and watch it with us. She got a kick out of it and the scenes of Tuk-Tuks, markets and monkey challenges. Guess we’ll try to watch it weekly now!

Val

Wednesday, Oct 7th, Siem Reap Cambodia

Sou suduhee! (Hello in Khmer)

Well, I’m writing this on Wednesday evening pretty much waiting to get sick later on. I violated one of my basic travel rules for underdeveloped countries and ate a whole cupful of crushed ice from a street food place. But what do you do when your students want to take you out for a “sweet” after class!? It was a very yummy iced treat, kind of like a snow cone with some jelly gumdrops in it. I asked about the ice and they said it was fine, but I’m skeptical. So keep your fingers crossed that I avoid a bout of “block island fever” later on.

I figured I’d better do an update while I can since the days have been so busy! I arrived Saturday night after four flights and a long travel day from Borneo. But I really have to say kudos to the folks at Bangkok Air! My flight from Kuala Lampur to Bangkok was almost two hours late and I figured there was almost no chance to make my connection leaving in less than 30 minutes with a whole airport to cross. I was mentally thinking about how to find a hotel in Bangkok and notify my program coordinator in Cambodia that I wouldn’t be on the flight in.

But when I came out of the jet way at a run, there was a sign with my name on it. I was plopped in one of those airport cars which zipped me across the airport. Then I was handed off about six times to people running with me down various corridors (in heels!), rushed through check in and security and taken to a private van with the engine running to zoom me to a distant runway where I was the last to board! The entire process took only 11 minutes! Six sigma could learn from Bangkok Air.
Of course, no chance for the luggage so that had to wait until the following morning.

Since I’d come in a day early, I wasn’t sure how busy Sunday would be, but it turned out to be packed full! I had my orientation with my coordinator, Meng, was taken to temple to be blessed by a monk (thank goodness fellow volunteer Jen told me the right way to sit in advance!), bought a bicycle (so much for all those skirts I bought to teach in!), visited the orphanage and did coloring and games, visited both schools where I’ll be teaching and had a welcome dinner where I got to try local loc lac and lemongrass soup. And you know – it’s pretty much like the Elephant Walk! Awesome – especially with a local Angkor beer!

I’ve definitely benefited a ton from having Jennifer Hicks also here as a volunteer. Jen has got to be one of the most impressive 18 year olds I’ve ever met! She’s doing a gap year before college and volunteering here for three months and then in Tanzania after Christmas. Jen got here a month ago and has learned the ropes, from figuring out the way the teaching goes (meaning they look at us and ask what we are going to teach that day!) to knowing the routes by bicycle and learning a really impressive amount of Khmer.

Having Jen around makes a huge difference, just to have someone to ask questions of or bounce ideas off of. Plus it’s just more fun!

The schools are both open air partial rooms with dirt floors and a single board to write on. Well, the second school actually has water for a floor right now as flooding from the rains has been really severe. So Jen and I have been teaching in six inches of water, or balancing on boards if we’re lucky. And as we bike through town, you can see all the houses and shacks filled with water up to knees or higher.
In the mornings, I’ve had Khmer lessons though I know I won’t come close to where Jen already is with the language! The mornings are spent preparing lessons for class and what we want to teach. Jen and I share a class at the first school, but at the second there are 2000 students so we’re spread as thin as possible to maximize the English speakers. I had thought there were existing lesson plans that we would just be incorporated into, but for the most part, we are the teachers and the local teachers may help translate. So I’m making it up as I go!

Of course, makes me realize how much I rely on spell-check as now I’m trying to write words up on the boards. And after years of business facilitation, I’m used to writing on whiteboards in all capital letters, which is confusing to the kids! So I’m relearning some of the basics. And also some of the basic grammar terms! Since when do I think of words in Past Simple tense! We’ve been doing body parts this week, which is fun and interactive.

We bike to the schools, which is great to get a bit of exercise and also see the land and people a bit better. Everyone is very friendly, waving to us and trying out their English. The streets can be a bit hazardous, both from the flooding as well as the Siem Reap traffic. Helmets and vehicle safety do not exist – yesterday I saw a man on a motor scooter with a small baby on the seat in front of him held by one hand while he drove the scooter with the other! And people carry everything on the back of bicycles and scooters: three or four people, massive piles of wood, three dead pigs at a time…etc.

The kids are great. Wide range of English so it’s challenging to balance. And especially at the second school, kids are all ages and in and out so you have to be flexible and creative. But they are thrilled to be able to work on their English as it can really open up job possibilities for them. We finish around 7:00 pm (though tonight, my Khmer teacher asked if I could start staying until 9:30! I told him that was a bit late to be biking home by myself in the dark! So we’ll see how it goes.

But overall, things are good. The volunteering is challenging but rewarding. The hotel is nice, though a bit far from the town center. We’re the only guests so they take excellent care of us and love to help us practice Khmer. It’s nice to have regular internet connection to stay in touch better! I’ll be visiting Angkor Wat this weekend, which I’m really looking forward to!

Hope all’s well in the states. And of course…go Red Sox!!!

Val

Friday, Oct 2nd, Tawau, Borneo, Malaysia

Well, last night in Borneo and it’s been a terrific, action packed week. I was on my own for the first day as Kat had flight issues that delayed her 24 hours. So I did some solo orangutan viewing and got up at 3:00 the next morning for a jungle boat ride. Saw some more wild orangutans and some proboscis monkeys, plus two crocodiles (only for a second before they disappeared under the murky water.)

Kat arrived around lunch after a brutal 48 hours of travel. She was a trooper though and rallied for some pool time and visits to the orangutan center and the proboscis monkey center. The proboscis monkeys are hilarious with their large noses and there were about a 100 of them right by the viewing point. Very cool!

We both crashed early and caught up on some sleep and then it was off to Sipadan the next morning. We were psyched to stay three nights in a really cool resort set on stilts in the middle of the ocean! And the place did not disappoint. The huts were beautiful and clean and we viewed turtles, starfish and other marine life from our own private balcony.

It was entertaining to go through the orientation talk to learn things like where the panic button was in case of pirates! We were also advised not to worry to see the military walking around with machine guns as it appears they have a base at the resort. Though seeing kids who look about 15 walking around with guns might be more scary than the pirates! Guess they had some really issues a few years back with kidnappings, but fortunately, we did not have to call for the guard.

We had an orientation dive that afternoon and it was a little disappointing. We’d heard such amazing things about Sipadan and the beauty that the nearby reef seemed a bit dull. However, we did learn to really appreciate the micro marine life like pygmy seahorses and beautiful tiny creatures that can be overlooked in the excitement for the big stuff.

We had a great time hanging out with our Belgian buddies Christian and Grete, who shared our very bumpy boat ride out to the resort. They are hard core divers who were staying a full nine days so our three nights seemed a bit paltry. We had a lot of fun meals and good times drinking some wine watching the sun go down and spotting turtles from the dock.

We finally got to dive Sipadan island yesterday and it did live up to expectation! We saw sharks the second we dropped. White tip, black tips and grey reef sharks, most quite small but a few were around six feet or so. Also tons of turtles, moray eels, huge schools of barracuda and just an amazing amount of beautiful fish and coral. Really great day.

Last night got interesting as a storm swept through. It felt like the middle of the night and we couldn’t believe it was only 11:30. The wind was howling, the hut was shaking and we could feel raindrops through the slats in the bathroom. Actually, the whole bathroom was pretty much soaked – thankfully Kat rescued my towel!
But all had blown over in an hour and today was another beautiful one.

Kat and I are both fighting sunburns and some ear issues from the full days of diving but it was totally worth it.

Upon getting back to the mainland and checking into the hotel, I got an urgent message from my brother! Of course I was a bit concerned and logged on to email for the first time in six days. Guess mother nature was having a field day all over Asia with a series of earthquakes, tsunamis and typhoons and the family wanted to know we were ok. Kat and I were completely oblivious and hadn’t heard a thing about it. So I sent emails home to reassure that Kat and I had not drowned in a collapsed stilt hut under a massive wave while crushed by earthquakes and blowing into the ocean from a typhoon.

It’s been great having Kat visit and she’s amazing for making it all the way out here for just a week visit! I hope her trip home is smoother than the one out here!

And hopefully by this time tomorrow night, I’ll be in Cambodia and starting to get ready for the actual volunteering part of this venture! It will take me four flights and 12 hours to get there through, so we’ll see how it all goes.

And at least the Red Sox are in the playoffs, so all is right with the world…

Cheers!
Val