Pluggin’ Away January 29, 2009

There’s only one more week until Campmeeting… Can’t wait. That marks the halfway point of this term. Classes are still going good, though I went a little too fast though the chapters in almost all my classes, so I’m struggling to find things to fill the extra time. In English right now I’m trying to teach them some music theory. Even though I have the knowledge, it’s really hard to just pull it out of my brain in a logical sequence. Hopefully they’ll learn something from my babbling. Lately, I’ve been doing a lot of singing/playing the guitar with the students too. They love learning new songs. So, a lot of the time, if I run out of things to say, we just end up singing. But once they start to learn a new song, they want to sing it over and over, which makes me pretty fed up of whatever song it is.

Home Ec last week was interesting… I was planning on making smoothies with them just ’cause they’re easy to make, but I found out they already did that earlier in the year, so Wendy gave me another recipe that was pretty simple. It was called “Fruit Snowballs,” and included dates, raisins, carob powder, lime juice, and coconut. Yeah, that’s what I though–gross! But I went ahead with it since I didn’t have anything better to do. Wendy bought the ingredients for me in town (they don’t sell carob powder here–she already had some). When the kids started making it, we realized that the big bag of raisins had tons and tons of little bugs inside it. I was completely disgusted, but the kids said it would be fine, so they just poured them into the blender with everything else. After everything was blended, they formed the goo into balls and rolled them in the coconut. I didn’t even try them; I was too afraid of finding bugs crawling around my mouth. About half the class didn’t like them, and the other half ate them only because they were so hungry. The whole experience made me think of Michelle and Charlene Narita and how completely repulsed they would have been if they saw all those bugs covering the raisins. he he Good times…

We just got two new volunteers: a couple from Canada, Chris and Alaina. I think Alaina is a civil engineer and Chris is a chemist. So they’ve got the math/science area covered plus all the computer stuff. We’re getting another volunteer in the middle of campmeeting too, so my work load will be less. I’m stoked that I get to get rid of my home ec class, and then one other one as well, though I don’t know which one yet. Hopefully it’ll be one of the English classes. Freddy, the volunteer I wrote about last time, ended up leaving after one day of teaching. I guess his family is going though a lot of financial trouble right now because of the economy, so he rushed back to help them out.

Only about 3 more months til I’ll be home!

January 21, 2009

I’m in the middle of my fourth week of teaching now… The time really does go by a lot faster now that I’m busy and have things to do… and feel needed. Classes are going pretty well. I think I enjoy teaching math the most, much to my surprise. English is alright, though I’m realizing all the more how confusing our language with its endless rules. It’s good to review on all these things that I’ve forgotten about, especially in math. Right now I doing quadratic equations with 8th grade. It’s pretty hard sometimes to teach from these books they use. There really isn’t such thing as a teachers book, and the student books don’t explain the concepts and rules very well. I’m sure without the amazing teaching of Mr. Carle and Mr. Chinnock in math class I would be totally lost. And, of course, without Mrs. Lewis, these students would be even more confused then they are already.

Anyway, it seems as though I’ve been going into town quite a bit these past two weeks. It’s always just for miscellaneous stuff like getting papers copied or buying fruit at the market. Last week I had to go in to drop off my passport at a travel agency. With the visa situation here in Cambodia, I have to just go one month at a time; they won’t let me get a 3-month visa–you have to have a business visa for that, which I don’t have, and which they also won’t give me. So, just buying one month’s worth of visa is going to be a pain and quite expensive. I was a little wary about leaving my passport with them for this week; they have to send it to Phnom Penh (the capital) to get the visa. I’m just praying I get it back safely.

These past couple nights, some of the students have been coming over to our house to sing some song with us. Me, Maria, and about 5 students are trying to prepare a couple songs to sing at campmeeting. It’s a stuggle for me to just overlook their out-of-tuneness… They sing their own Cambodian songs great, but when it comes to English songs… I don’t know why it makes such a difference, but hopefully these “special songs,” as they call them, will turn out okay for campmeeting.

For a couple days, there was another volunteer here, Freddy, who is also from California. I don’t know how he heard about this place ’cause he’s not a Christian, but he had planned on staying 3 weeks. Unfortunately, his family was having financial trouble because of the economy or something, so he had to leave after just 2 days. It was kind of sand talking to him. When I asked if he was a Christian, he said he has come to a point in his life where he doesn’t need a God. He feels that a person can possess all the qualities of a Christian without actually being one. It was almost depressing to talk to him… I just pray that God will continue to work on his heart and show him that he really can’t do it all on his own.

Well, not too much exciting things have happened around here. I’m just pluggin’ along… I guess my dad is leaving for Micronesia in a couple days, and so for two weeks, our whole family will be in different parts of the world. Pretty amazing. Again, thank you all for your prayers–they are appreciated and needed. GB!

Settling into a New Routine… January 11, 2009

Classes have started here at the school in Cambodia. It’s been a little hard to get used to, especially since I had no idea what I was doing when I began. I had to get all my information from Maria, the other volunteer I’m living with. Tim and Wendy are so busy that they weren’t able to help me out much with the teaching aspect of things. It went okay though. I feel sorry for these kids, getting new teachers all the time before they’re even used to the one they had. Teaching isn’t so bad, but I don’t think it’s my life calling. I know this is completely different from any teaching job in America, but it’s the same concept… I know God wants me to go through this though. I’m learning so many things each day. Between getting up at 5 a.m. and taking a shower outside at the old fashioned pump while it’s still dark, teaching kids who don’t understand me, teaching classes I have to learn myself (specifically home ec!), riding to town on a bike with one gear on unpaved roads, fighting off gigantic spiders/lizards, sleeping under a mosquito net filled with mosquitoes, and learning about a whole new culture, I’d say this whole experience is an adventure. It’s pretty fun actually; Maria, having been here 5 months already, has been able to show me the ropes of the place, and we try our best to have fun in all situations. That sounds like something Mitchell would say… “If everything went as planned, it wouldn’t be an adventure.”

In Home Ec this last week, I made peanut butter with them. I roasted the peanuts beforehand, and then they blended up the peanuts in blenders til it turned somewhat creamy. The only reason I even remotely knew how to make peanut butter this way is cuz we SM’s seem to crave peanut butter quite frequently. So, since it’s so expensive over here, we have to make our own on occasion. After they made the peanut butter, they made PB&J sandwiches with it and cut out shapes with cookie cutters. Now I just need to come up with more simple things like that to do in Home Ec… If you have any suggestions, leave me a comment…

Sabbaths here are really nice. Church starts at 8, and since it’s in Khmer, I get some to catch up on my journal or read my Bible during that time. They have Sabbath School after church, and there’s even one that’s mostly in English. Afterwards, us volunteers get to go to Tim and Wendy’s for Sabbath lunch. Wendy is a really good cook and a firm believer in every form of coconut. Lots of times there will be visitors that come to see the school and orphanage, and they eat with us as well. The afternoon is pretty lazy. I stole a guitar out of the 8th grade classroom (not really: there are about 10 in there, but most of them don’t have any strings), and have been entertaining myself with that quite often. There’s a boy in 6th grade, Narith, that plays guitar well, and he’s been trying to teach me a couple new things on it. Saturday nights are when the kids get to play games. Last Sabbath, Maria and I played with them. Their games, or at least some of them, seem to be a unique variation of American games, like Duck, Duck, Goose for example. Let’s just say I got some good exercise.

Sunday is usually the day I am able to go to town to buy stuff or get on the internet. So, if anyone is ever interested in talking to me on Skype, your Saturday nights would be the most opportune time. That is, if skype actually works at this internet place. It worked last time, but now I’m having at hard time getting it to connect.

So, two weeks of teaching have passed, and according to Tim, we have 10 more weeks of actual school left. Half way through this term is Campmeeting, which is held at the school. That should be pretty exciting with tons of Cambodians all together. I think David Gates is the speaker…

I’m off to make up some tests for English class, so GB to all!

Teaching Begins January 1, 2009

So… We made it to Vietnam and stayed there for about 5 days. Basically the only really interesting thing we saw was the Viet Cong tunnels. We got to go inside them and see all the bobby traps the set up for the Americans. Our tour guide was really proud of how clever his people were. We came back to Cambodia on the 22nd, and then went to Angkor Wat the next day. We had a tuk tuk pick us up at 5 a.m. so we could see the sunrise come up over the temples. It was really beautiful. I’d love to post pictures of it, but again, I’m at an internet cafe in Siem Reap where they don’t have wireless… Anyway, Angkor Wat was awesome. It would have been nice to have a tour guide, but it was still interesting walking all through the temples and seeing all the statues of Budda everywhere. One of the smaller temples we went to had these huge trees that somehow grew up over the walls of the temple. The roots were really wide and long, and eventually collapse the walls.

When we came back to the school, Maria, a volunteer from Denmark who has been here for about 5 months already, had arrived back from a 2 week vacation to Malaysia. She’s the girl I’ll be staying with in the house while I’m here.

Christmas Eve wasn’t too eventful. We tried cooking a few things and made some no-bake cookies. We found a little Christmas tree underneath some stuff in a corner and put it up with some lights. Maria had some little Danish ornaments that she put up, but that was the extent of our decorations. That evening, we lit some candles and ate cookies while telling each other about Christmas traditions back home. Then we sang some carols and read the Christmas story. I think all of us were wishing we could be home that night, and we ended up talking til midnight.

Christmas Day wasn’t too exciting either. I did laundry, if that tells you anything… We did have a really good Christmas dinner though. Emily made an apple crisp in the Maddocks’ oven; the door of it doesn’t close all the way so the crisp took forever to bake. We also had mashed potatoes and stuffing that Holly’s parents had sent her. That was probably the closest to a real American meal I’ve had yet.

Last Friday, Tim talked with me about which classes I was going to teach. We ended up deciding on 5 classes: English 9, English 8, Bible 8, Math 8, and Home Ec 7. Each class (at least in grades 7-10) has 9 English periods a week, and they aren’t spread out very evenly throughout the week. Like one day they might have 3 English periods and the next they won’t have any. The reason it’s so willy nilly is ’cause there’s only 5 of us teachers: me, Maria, Tim and Wendy. Tim and Wendy are so busy to begin with that teaching full time as well is pretty overwhelming. For those of you that know me well, the thought of me teaching Home Ec will give you quite a laugh. It wasn’t my first choice, but everyone else was busy during those periods, so I had to do it. Those poor kids…

We started classes last Monday. It’s quite the challege to teach these kids because most of them don’t speak English very well. You have to explain what the book says, and then explain what you just explained. And you still get blank stares. It’s been pretty fun so far though, and keeping busy like this will make the time go by quickly I’m sure.

The other SM’s, Holly, Emily, Phoebe, and Rob, left on Tuesday morning for Thailand. All but Emily will be gone by the time I go back to Thailand, so I had to bid them my final farewell. It’s kinda sad to think I won’t see some of them ever again…

Today being New Years Day, we had a holiday. I don’t know why they just didn’t wait til after New Years to start school… Last night, the kids invited Maria and I to come help dig up this big root that they cook in the fire and then eat. It was good to bond with the kids a little more, though I still can’t remember any of their names. I think this is the first year since I was little that I didn’t stay up til midnight on New Years Eve. So sad…

It’s hard to believe that it’s already January and my time here in Asia is almost half over. So far so good, though. God has been teaching me a lot about myself and how to adapt to so many different things. Even if that’s the only lesson I learn here, it will have been worth it.

Well, Happy New Year, eveyone! Wish I could be there to clink glasses with you… GB!