Only one week left!

Believe it or not, today marks my 2nd week in Cambodia and I can hardly believe it! The time was flying by before I arrived in this country, and now with a daily schedule it's whizzing by quicker than I thought possible!

My two weeks here have been absolutely amazing. The volunteering is going really great, and it feels wonderful to know that my presense is making a difference. The kids I teach from 9-4pm are the most charming kids ever, as they greet us each morning with smiles and affection. They are such a smiley group of kids, and are so grateful that we are there to teach them. They all bow their heads and thank us when we hand them worksheets to do, and their faces light up when they are assigned homework. It's really the most bizarre thing ever. It makes me ashamed to think of how I grumble and mumble over homework, and complain about assignements and essays. It's so easy to forget how lucky we are to have good quality education available to us. I hope to return to school in January with a new outlook and attitude.

The most challenging thing thus far with the group of 13 that we have is catering to their different ages and levels. We have some kids who are very bright and pick up on things very quickly, and then we have others who struggle to read and write in Khmer, let alone english. It was managable handling this obstacle with two people, but unfortuantely Nicola left me this weekend to venture to Vietnam, so I am now flying solo. I'm hoping things will go smoothly, and I'm also hoping that the brighter kids will help teach the younger ones once they have finished their work. We'll see how it goes.

After finishing teaching the children at 4, Nicola and I had have a refreshing banana shake at our guesthouse while writing a summary of the day in the log book. Then it's off to the Wat Demnak Pagoda to teach two more classes from 5-7, which are classes focused on speaking, rather than writing.

I've really enjoyed my classes at Wat Demnak. My first group of kids are in their early to mid-teens, and like all the other kids I teach, they are very happy and enthusiastic. Their written english is all fairly good, but their speaking skills are definatley what needs the work! Cambodians have a tendancy of putting an 's' at the end of some words where it doesn't belong, and then not pronouncing it where it does belong. They also have difficulty with he 'th' sound and the 'sh' sound. I try and get them to practice making these sounds, but often all I hear is 'ssssssssssssssss'. Cambodians have a great sense of humor though, so most times we just end up laughing at how silly they sound. At the end of class I often get gifts from some of the students, such as paper bills folded into things such as hearts and flowers. I don't know how they do it, but it's really neat.

My second class is something I really look forward to. It's a group of older kids - in their late teens and early twenties - and all of them can speak english. We work out of their textbook, which is basically just different articles relating to topics and events in our western world. My job is to read the articles for them to get a sense of the pronouncation, and then they take turns reading it out loud. There's lots of slang and volcabulary in the reading that they don't understand, so I try to explain that to them as well. For example, on Friday there was an article about a teenager coming home after his curfew. First off I had to explain what a curfew was, and then I had to go into detail about how teenagers in North America are typically disciplined, and what it means to be grounded. It's really interesting discussing these types of things, because in return I get to find out how things are done differently in Cambodia. It's a culture lesson for both them and me.

By the time Nicola and I finish teaching at Wat Demnak, we're hungry and tired. We usually grab a bite to eat and then relax and go to bed. As a result I haven't had much of an oppourtunity to suss out Siem Reap, but this weekend was a free weekend so I finally got out and about.

Before Nicola left on Saturday afternoon we went to visit the Land Mine Museum. Land mines are still a major threat in Cambodia today, and there's not a day that goes by where I don't see someone walking in the street without an arm or leg. The museum was very informative and very well set up.

During my time here in Cambodia I've also had the oppourtunity of meeting a man named John Ryder, who's a dentist from the states and puts a lot of money into keeping programs like PACE (the orphanage I teach at during the day) up and running. Last week John purchased a newly built guesthouse and hopes to have people from programs associated with the Life and Hope Association run it. It will create job opportunities for the people, as well as give them experience in the tourism industry, which is becoming such a huge part of the Cambodian economy. Nicola and I were invited to go see the guesthouse, and it looked more like a 5 star hotel! It's to be named "Imagine Angkor", so for anyone going to Cambodia I'll recommend you stay there!

This last week a ceremony was held where all the kids who are a part of any program associated with the Life and Hope Association received backpacks and school uniforms. All of us volunteers were honourned guests at the ceremony, where the goods were distributed and the kids put on different cultural dances. The govenor of Siem Reap was present, which was a pretty big deal, and it was wonderful that we were able to take part.

Today was my first real day off, and I spent it cooking! A girl named Mouy who works at my guesthouse knew of my interest in cooking, so she offered to take me to her friend's house, who's a chef, to cook some traditional Khmer food. First we took a trip to the market to get all the fresh ingredients (and when I say fresh I mean FRESH! The fish were still alive when we bought them!) and then we cooked up a storm! We made a really yummy Sweet and Sour Khmer Soup, which consists of fish, pineapple, tomato, lemongrass, garlic, and numerous other delicous spices. We also had fish with a type of mango salad, which was spiced with chillies and garlic. I'm slowly becoming accoustomed to spicy food, and I really enjoyed this dish. Lastly we had fried frogs! It's not the first time I've eaten frogs - to be honest they kinda taste like chicken, and I really like them!

After eating our delicous feast it was time for dessert, which was fruit dipped in salt and chillies - something found all throughout SE Asia. Then, after cleaning everything up, it was nap time - also a big part of SE Asian cultures.

The longer I'm in Cambodia, the more I fall in love with it and it's people. There's just a real genuine quality about the people here that I can't get over. For those of you who don't know, from the years 1975-1979 the Cambodian people went through one of the world's worst genocides. A Communist Khmer group named the Khmer Rouge overthrew the Cambodian government in April of '75, and proceeded to evaculate the cities and herd all people into collective farms. All intellectuals and skilled workers were assassinated, and millions of other died from starvation and overexertion. I've read several books about what they went through in those years, and I guess that's what ceases to amaze me about these people. I often find myself staring at people who appear to be in the 30s and over, and wondering what their story is - wondering how they survived those aweful years. You'd never guess by the look on their faces that something so aweful could have happened so recently.

So tomorrow will be the start of my last week here in Siem Reap. I will finish teaching on Friday and then I plan to head to to the capital, Phnom Phen, for a few days before flying out to Bangkok. At this point I'll only have about 3 weeks left of my year adventure, and I'm undecided at this point what I will do with that time. I've applied to volunteer at an elephant orphanage outside of Chiang Mai in Thailand, so hopefully I'll get to spend a week there. I've also planned to meet up with Brin on the islands in Thailand, so hopefully I'll get to spend at least a week or so being a beach bum and soaking up as much sun as possible! I'm really starting to get excited about coming home though, and I can't wait to chat and catch up with all of you! Thanks again for tuning in, and I'll be seeing you soon!