19-12 to Wales, and a whole lot of grammar

The last week has gone by in a flash. My first week out alone in Cambodia. Though being on my own has been brilliant - not having to worry about anyone else - there is nothing like being surrounded by people you don’t know very well to make you feel lonely. I have been working in a school in the South of Phnom Penh. After being in the tourist centre of the city, this was a whole other world. This area was like an equally impoverished, urban version of the villages I worked in in Ratanakiri. The houses were the same size, though this time made from corrugated iron instead of wood, and the streets were lined with dust and litter. The school - the Centre for Children’s Happiness (CCH) - is the hub school for UWS. This is something Chris has been trying to enforce both here in Cambodia, and in Sri Lanka, where Gilly is going to be working. The hub schools are schools that are already set up, by different people, that can potentially, in the future, have a part in UWS. CCH has been running for a long time and was set up to bring children off the streets. I stayed at the main centre - the school is spread out in a few different buildings - where most of the girls live. I shared a room with five other girls who have all been at CCH for different amounts of time, the longest being around 10 years. The youngest was just five years old.

The girls were all very welcoming. The eldest all wanted to practice their english all the time and the youngest would crowd around me for cuddles and play with my hair. So for a few days I have had to hide in classrooms or the library to get any time alone. Not ideal for my first few days traveling “alone”, but they were all undeniably kind and sweet and seemingly a little deprived of adult attention. They have one house mother, a wonderful smiling, but obviously strict Khmer lady, and Papa Sohka, who lives next door and set up the whole project, but who is very busy, though he tries to make time to play games with the girls in the evenings and has also set up a band with a couple of the older kids that rehearses some evenings. One thing I had against living there was the food, which, though admittedly tasty, always included rice. this would not have been an issue if they hadn't tried to feed me rice for breakfast! I don't care how long I've been in Cambodia, I am never eating rice for breakfast!

The teaching was exciting - I have never really taught in a classroom properly before, so standing in front of a class to teach English was scary to begin with. Most of the time I was just supporting another volunteer - a 20 year old Danish girl - so it was easier. It was interesting for me to be helping teach English grammar, as I know it all but have never really stopped to think about how many rules and irregularities there are. It is difficult to explain the intricacies of a language when, in you head, “that’s just how it is”.

The one thing I found hard about being at CCH was seeing the other volunteers work. Some were wonderful and energetic and good at teaching, but others were blatantly doing the Gap Year thing with very little understanding of what teaching really means. Many classes I saw descended into chaos.There was one memorable incident where a Begian couple arrived one evening to teach for a week. At 8am the next morning, they showed up at the centre, having managed all of 10 minutes of teaching and decided that they were going to leave because they were teaching kids who were younger than they expected, and didn’t know what to do with them. It’s moments like that which make me feel very good about myself, if also a little exasperated and astounded by the panic I witnessed.

Apart from working at CCH, I also managed to watch part of the 6 nations, something I haven’t been able to do before. I was emailed by the Welsh boy I met in Kampot, who asked if I wanted to meet and watch the game together. I went to a bar by the riverside in Phnom Penh and watched the match. There must have been at least 15 Welshies there and the atmosphere was so like that of a pub in Wales that I had to keep looking out at the tuk-tuk filled street to remind myself that I was still in Cambodia.

So, week one alone has been an overall success, I haven’t lost any money, had anything stolen or been taken in by any creepy strangers. Tomorrow I head off to Siem Reap for three weeks to teach in an orphanage. We’ll see what that’s like. I am refusing to have any expectations - apparently I expect too much from things...

the youngest

the cafeteria

play time

evening studying

some of my English students