I decided to go biking after a particularly rainy day, my gears got stuck with mud and I got a little more than dirty… In addition to what you can see here, there were splatters of mud up my back, all over the front of my shorts and shirt, smears of it on my arms, and flakes of it on my face and in my hair. When I met up with a crew of my students in another village, they spent a good 10 minutes telling me how messy I was, another 5 cleaning up my brakes which were still a bit clogged, and probably a good hour after I left laughing at me and the pieces of mud that had found their way onto every surface of my body. I did get my bike washed the next day, granted it has rained and is now dirty once again.
Oftentimes, because one teacher teaches as many students want private clas
s as they have (it’s a main source of income for said teachers, so the more the merrier), some students end up looking in through the window after the room holds more desks than it ever has and those desks are packed with students 3 or 4 to a bench. I’m not sure I’ve ever mentioned it, but there really is no personal space bubble here. I see the boys leaping onto one another and cuddling on the benches throughout the day, and girls hold hands and link arms when they walk, sometimes hugging when I make them nervous by saying hello, and they stack up to make room for me when I go to breakfast in the morning, even after I tell them not to worry – its just the culture. Anyway, after they are packed in, the rest look from the windows… and here is a photo of that.
So, last week I taught the ‘funeral’ unit for the grade 12 class, and because my co-teacher was kind enough to leave me in the middle of first period for some work with the VSOs at the hospital (Vo
luntary Service Overseas… the Peace Corps of the rest of the world, HQed in the UK). I love my fellow VSOs, they are awesome and do fantastic work. I am, however less excited that this particular teacher gets paid a salary to work one day a week if in fact he does actually work that day. That is beside the point. Since I only see these students one day a week and their English isn’t incredible (because they don’t have regular instruction…), I decided to do a comparison of Khmer funerals and American funerals, at least what I could remember. I haven’t been to many funerals at home and I have forgotten a lot about what happens – After a year of living abroad, I am somewhat surprised to find out how much has slipped from my mind about my own culture. This is the board after that class…between the morbid (and useless) vocabulary, and the ideas that were inches away from slipping out of my students’ grasp (the graveyard, and what to do when it gets full; the potluck dinner, and the idea that others would bring food to a gathering; the color black, and why it should be worn to a religious event; communal singing; burial; and funeral homes), it was a pretty fun day.
Oftentimes, because one teacher teaches as many students want private clas
s as they have (it’s a main source of income for said teachers, so the more the merrier), some students end up looking in through the window after the room holds more desks than it ever has and those desks are packed with students 3 or 4 to a bench. I’m not sure I’ve ever mentioned it, but there really is no personal space bubble here. I see the boys leaping onto one another and cuddling on the benches throughout the day, and girls hold hands and link arms when they walk, sometimes hugging when I make them nervous by saying hello, and they stack up to make room for me when I go to breakfast in the morning, even after I tell them not to worry – its just the culture. Anyway, after they are packed in, the rest look from the windows… and here is a photo of that.So, last week I taught the ‘funeral’ unit for the grade 12 class, and because my co-teacher was kind enough to leave me in the middle of first period for some work with the VSOs at the hospital (Vo
luntary Service Overseas… the Peace Corps of the rest of the world, HQed in the UK). I love my fellow VSOs, they are awesome and do fantastic work. I am, however less excited that this particular teacher gets paid a salary to work one day a week if in fact he does actually work that day. That is beside the point. Since I only see these students one day a week and their English isn’t incredible (because they don’t have regular instruction…), I decided to do a comparison of Khmer funerals and American funerals, at least what I could remember. I haven’t been to many funerals at home and I have forgotten a lot about what happens – After a year of living abroad, I am somewhat surprised to find out how much has slipped from my mind about my own culture. This is the board after that class…between the morbid (and useless) vocabulary, and the ideas that were inches away from slipping out of my students’ grasp (the graveyard, and what to do when it gets full; the potluck dinner, and the idea that others would bring food to a gathering; the color black, and why it should be worn to a religious event; communal singing; burial; and funeral homes), it was a pretty fun day.
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