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Goodbye

I have been back in the United States for a little over a week and I’ve already settled back into my routine. I’m no longer surprised when I wake up to my dogs’ heads resting on the edge of my bed, expectantly awaiting their walk, instead of the morning greetings from the menagerie of Happy Buffalo animals. I’ve already adjusted to the weather. I know the job I’ll be moving onto once my Minerva Fellowship commitment at Union is through. I even made it up to the mountain and got in a day on skis.

On most days, it feels like I have stepped back into my American life seamlessly. It feels almost as if everything froze for nine months, waiting for the signal of my return to resume. But, there are moments where I feel like I am in the wrong place. I sit up from lounging and watching HBOGO (the activity that has consumed most of my time since I’ve been home) in a panic, worrying that I have to teach G5 in ten minutes and I haven’t done my lesson plan. I think of a funny story I want to tell the G3 girls and remember with a jolt that I won’t be seeing them tomorrow, or next week, or the following week.

I am trying to find the balance between moving on and not letting go. I don’t want to constantly be pained by the fact that my time at The Global Child as a Minerva Fellow has come to a close. I am excited for what comes next and I am ready to push forward. But, I want my time in Cambodia to remain with me. I don’t want to forget the way a certain student’s nose would crinkle when she smiled, or how G6 would meet the simplest lesson with overpowering enthusiasm, or the time that we all gathered on the beach on Koh Trong and danced with fervor to Khmer New Year music. I also want to remember what it felt like to be an outsider, to be uncertain of how I fit in, and to have to improvise constantly.

I’m struggling to express just how lucky I feel to have spent the time I did at The Global Child. Nine months doesn’t have to be significant. There have been spans of nine months in my life where nothing particularly noteworthy or altering happened. Yet, during my Minerva Fellowship, years and years of self-defining moments, the kind that nestle deep into my person to shape who I am, seemed to have condensed themselves into nine months. I’m not a different person, but I have a wealth of different experiences.

I became a teacher, I ran a half marathon, I confronted moral conundrums I could never have predicted. Most importantly, I became a part of a community distinct from anything else I’ve known. To leave it was shaking and bizarre. But, I know that I haven’t really left it and that I won’t ever truly leave it. I have a journal that documents my time from the first day to the last day, I have a box full of letters from my students and mementos from Siem Reap, and I have the comforting understanding that I am forever connected to TGC. I have a place to go and a family to see when I brave the 35-hour travel day and head home to Cambodia. I see that trip as an eventuality and not a possibility, because when I think about TGC, I feel two things: warmth and resolve that I will make it back.

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An Ode to Our Students

I am wary of using words like “incredible” too often, lest they lose their meaning. When I hear people describe every aspect of an experience as “amazing” or “unbelievable” my immediate reaction is skepticism. How can everything be that awesome? By definition, extraordinary moments are few and far between. Yet, when it comes to the students at The Global Child, these seemingly hyperbolic descriptors are perfectly fitting.  

The students are incredible because of their maturity. Last week, our students took their semester exams. They sat for sixteen hours of testing in a stiflingly hot room over the course of two and a half days. They took exams in 12 academic subjects. Despite their grueling schedule, the students maintained their sense of humor and their focus. I proctored exams for Grade 11 and before each exam we did a huge group stretch and a little “shake it off” dance. As each hour passed, the students’ stretching and dancing became increasingly ridiculous. Instead of complaining, they simply dealt. They found levity in the situation. 

The students are incredible because of their resilience. Recently, a student mentioned to me that she had only gotten three hours of sleep the night before. When I asked why, she told me that her sister’s husband was drunk and wouldn’t let her go to bed. This student lives with her sister because her mother and father live in other parts of the country. She said that this isn’t uncommon, but that night it was particularly bad.  It wasn’t until two in the morning when she was able to ride her bike to her aunt’s house to salvage a few hours of sleep. If I am running on three hours of sleep and have gone through any sort of emotional turmoil, I am an absolute mess. She, on the other hand, asked insightful questions in my class that day, joked around with the other students, and flashed her ornery smile on multiple occasions. The next day, she told me she had gotten the highest grade in her class on monthly exams for the second consecutive month. 

The students are incredible because of their exuberance. Last night, Allison and I ended up playing an impromptu game of three-on-three soccer in TGC’s courtyard. The sky had been threatening rain all day, and about fifteen minutes into our game, it came. So, sliding around in bare feet with goals fashioned from pairs of flip-flops, we played for about an hour. As our game went on, our goal celebrations became showier, our passes sloppier, and our legs muddier. Pick up soccer is the go-to entertainment for the kids, especially those who live at the school. This night was nothing special for them, but they took such joy in it. Their verve can make the simplest activities feel extraordinary. 

When I return to the United States and am asked about my time in Cambodia, I will become one of those people I am usually unconvinced by. I will describe each student as “amazing” and each day spent with them as “wonderful”. When I do, please know I am not exaggerating.

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Some long overdue pictures from the past few months!

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“Hot Yoga”

I think the first words Mom Pov, one of TGC’s incredible house moms, said to Allison and me upon our arrival were “hot yoga”. She was eager to continue the quasi-boot camp style workouts that Maggie had begun leading last year. Through invented sign language and soliciting nearby students to be our translators, we soon negotiated a time for these workouts: Tuesday and Thursday evenings at 7:30.

Our “hot yoga” does not resemble any Vinyasa or Bikram class I have ever been to. I think the name “hot yoga” was coined because Mom turns all the fans off so she can sweat more. We do one short flow at the end, but the workout usually consists of two ab circuits, one leg circuit, and one cardio circuit. We draw from a list of Mom-approved exercises that Allison keeps on her phone, because there are some movements she does not like. If we propose one of these, we are met with an emphatic “no.”

Earlier on, there were nights where I dreaded “hot yoga”.  I’ve been trying to keep up with my own workout routine while I’m here, so at times when my body was already aching, the last thing I wanted to do was go half-ass a few pushups in a stifling, buggy room. I also never felt like I had the energy by the time 7:30 rolled around. I would describe myself as introverted past 8:00 PM. I depend on some alone time at the end of the day, and since I have the sleep habits of an eighty year old, the end of the day is pretty limited for me.

But, like with so many other things here, I got used to it and ultimately grew to love it. Lately, more of our students have been joining, adding to the hilarity of the whole experience. Hot yoga is now engrained in my weekly routine. 

As our time in Cambodia dwindles, I’m trying to identify the little things I will miss. I know I will miss the kids deeply; I don’t need to remind myself to savor the moments I have with them. But there are some things that aren’t as obvious: waking up to monks chanting, getting a high five from our landlady’s granddaughter, or sitting at our every day lunch spot and being pleasantly surprised by a much-needed cool breeze. More and more, I’m certain that “hot yoga” will be one of those little things I’ll reminisce about with fondness. When I’m home, I will have access to a nice gym with air conditioning and actual equipment, but I don’t think it will measure up to lunging to Snoop Dogg with Mom Pov, Mom Lim, and a handful of our students in the entry of TGC.

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Don’t Make Me Go

The end of our fellowship is beginning feel real. In the period of time between receiving the Minerva Fellowship and actually leaving for it, I remember thinking that my departure date would never actually arrive. July was so far away and there were so many important events separating me from it—every Union “last” implicit in Senior Spring, graduation, plans for weekends across New England to say goodbye to everyone—it was easy to push the idea of stepping on a plane and flying to Cambodia for nine months to the back of my mind.

Until now, I had been able to do the same thing with my departure from Cambodia. Before this fellowship, I had never signed a long-term contract. I had never lived away from home for longer than four consecutive months. My longest commitment was to Union and it came with built in breaks. Nine months felt boundless. But now it’s February and nine months has somehow dwindled to two months and three days. Last week I remember looking at my calendar and feeling baffled when I realized we only had ten Saturdays left. Yesterday was Saturday, so I guess that means we have nine. The passage of time should not be a surprise to me, yet every time another week passes my thought is always, excuse my indelicate language, “how the fuck??”

Before leaving felt real, it was always a comfort. It was exciting to think about going back home and engulfing my dogs, family, and friends in a massive hug and making myself meals not bound by limited kitchen appliances and budget. I could simplify my departure in the way you can only simplify things you don’t have to contend with yet. When I thought about leaving, I thought, “obviously I’ll be sad, but I’ll be so ready to go home”. Part of me still feels that way. I’m ready to sleep in my own bed. I’m ready to take hot showers. I’m ready to experience seasons again. But then I remember that I can’t be in two places at once; going home means leaving another home behind.

It’s the worst possible timing. It took me around two months to learn the basics of being a teacher and feel capable. It took me another two to feel confident. It wasn’t until the last few months when I stood in front of the classroom and felt good at what I was doing. Last month, a student who was consistently getting 75% or lower on exams received a 90%. A group of students who were getting below 70% jumped up to the 80-85% range. It’s not just academic changes that have seemed more drastic recently. I’ve had more and more conversations and small moments with the students that make me feel as if I truly know them and not just the parts of themselves they choose to show to their teacher.

Maybe I just think everything is more significant because I am nearing the end of my fellowship; I tend to attach meaning to anything and everything if I know it will be gone soon. It feels like more than that, though. My role at the school, my teaching abilities, and my relationships with the students all seem to be reaching an apex just as my fellowship is reaching its end.  

In all of the articles about returning home from another country, especially a developing country, you are told to prepare yourself for reverse culture shock. I don’t think that will be my problem. I don’t think I’ll abhor American consumerism and greed (at least any more than I already did). I don’t think I’ll feel immense guilt over what I have when I think of how people live in Cambodia. I’ve already dealt with that here. I’d like to think this experience has made me more grateful, more generous, and less materialistic, but what I have versus what most Cambodians have has not been the main take away of this fellowship for me, or even the starkest difference I have seen between life in America and life in Cambodia. Maybe my prediction is off base, but I’m relatively certain reverse culture shock will not be the most difficult part of returning home. The hardest part will be the change in the people around me.

I have essentially spent every day of the last seven months with my coworkers and 39 students. We don’t have much of a social life here. TGC has served an all-encompassing purpose; it is our workplace, but the people within it are our family, our friends, and our confidants.  I don’t know how I will fall back into my daily life and be okay with not seeing these people every day.  

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Leaving on a Jet Plane/Local Bus/Motorbike Taxi

It’s hard to notice how your own perspective has shifted when the shift occurs over the course of six months. There have been a few moments during my fellowship that felt transformative, but mostly my evolution and adaptation to Cambodia has been built upon small encounters— daily navigations of the market, a brief conversation during which a student tells me she used to wake up at 4:00 AM to clean busses before school, bike rides where I watch the city of Siem Reap fade into jungle and small houses on stilts—there is no singular instant I can point to and say “that’s where I changed”. I’m not even sure I could identify how I have changed. But, my mom and aunt recently came to visit me and they confirmed that even if it can’t be pinpointed, the change is certainly there.

I picked them up from the airport on a typical Siem Reap day (i.e.: extremely hot). They were bleary eyed from their nearly 30 hour travel day and as we loaded their bags onto the seat of a Tuk Tuk, my mom turned to me and said, “this is insane.” I think that was a sentiment they felt a lot. They loved Cambodia and Vietnam (we traveled to Ho Chi Minh City and Hoi An with my sister), but it was an adjustment for them. To be fair, our travels from Mondulkiri to Ho Chi Minh City included a local bus to a random border town, a little jaunt on foot across the border, a series of motorbike taxis, and yet another local bus. It was not exactly cushy travel and they were champs throughout the whole ordeal; their bewilderment was mixed with joy and amusement.

It wasn’t just the travel methods that shocked them- it was daily life in Cambodia. The insane bustle of Old Market coexists with an attitude so relaxed that buses regularly leave 20 minutes after their scheduled departure time. The staff and students at TGC greeted them with familiarity and excitement usually reserved for one’s closest friends and family. The students essentially attend school six days a week from 8-5, but the grueling schedule does not diminish their enthusiasm or dedication. The stark differences between America and Cambodia were not all positive; as we drove through the Cambodian countryside on our way to Mondulkiri, my mom and aunt were panged by the visible poverty.

I have grown accustomed to these realities, but when I think back to July and my first few weeks in Siem Reap, I remember how surprised I was by them. Some of them upset me and some endeared Cambodia to me. Having an outside perspective was both a wakeup call that I may have gotten a little too used to the more distressing aspects of Cambodia and a reminder of everything I should be grateful to see and experience in my remaining three months.

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Remedies for Rough Patches

The past few weeks were difficult for me. It seemed that all of the hardships implicit in the fellowship—feeling uncomfortable in a new culture, longing for family and family tradition, experiencing the physical manifestations of adjusting to a foreign country—hit me at once. The cultural differences that at first felt novel and exciting lost their intrigue and started to grate on me more harshly. I began to respond to miscommunications, confusing interactions, and daily inconsistencies not with wonder but with frustration. I thought maybe I had underestimated my predilection for the familiar and overestimated my aptitude for adventure. I struggled to reconcile the fact that it was the end of December with the fact that it was still 90 degrees and 80% humidity. Then I got hit with food poisoning, like a serious case of food poisoning. I couldn’t leave my room for two days and subsisted on tiny portions of plain oatmeal and grape juice. It sucked. It was painful. And it compounded all of the homesickness that had started to creep in. 

As my health improved and I started to feel human again (alternating between lying in your bed and lying on the bathroom floor for two days truly has the power to make you feel like a creature), I noticed my negativity dissipating. I got to go back to TGC and my classes and the kids. I got to return to our “hot yoga” class with the house moms and TGC administrators and enjoy the hilarious sight of four Cambodian women doing jumping jacks while Drake raps “Pop Style” in the background.  I found humor in misunderstanding and marvel in new experiences and sights. 

Christmas came, and I expected to feel homesickness slither back in, but I loved our little Cambodian Christmas. TGC had a big party with Pin the Nose on the Snowman, a snowball (balloon) fight, caroling, and decorating. Allison and I somehow managed to make a gourmet Christmas brunch in our toaster oven, got Christmas colored pedicures, and went to a pool. Sure, my views were of red roofs and palm trees instead of mountains blanketed in snow and old pines, but we still managed to make it feel festive. 

So, if any of my fellow fellows are feeling a mid-fellowship slump, wishing they could be home with their families, eating their favorite meals, taking part in skiing and sledding and hot chocolate drinking, I have some advice for you. Just get incredibly ill and when it passes you’ll end up with a renewed appreciation for your surroundings.

I’m kidding, I wouldn’t wish that whatever evil bug I had on anyone, but being forced to take a break from my work at TGC and my life in Cambodia did remind me that the good far outweighs the bad. I’m not going to lie, I still really wish it were about forty degrees cooler and that I could go about my day with a little less perplexity, but being able to work with the kids at TGC and experience life in another country makes up for heat and uncertainty.

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Post-Half Marathon Musings

Sunday morning I stared ahead at a crowd of people who looked like they run a five-minute mile, and one guy dressed in a shark costume, thinking, “Why am I doing this?” In the moments before the race, a half marathon seemed like nothing more than a weird mix of masochism and ego feeding. I thought crossing the finish line would fulfill two objectives: making my body feel like it had gone through a medieval torture device and giving me the sense of superiority that comes with saying “I ran a half marathon.”

As we started running, I understood the reason so many people sign up for these things. The high fives from the throngs of Khmer children who came out to watch was invigorating. Seeing the hundreds of landmine victims in wheelchairs taking part in the race was humbling and awe-inspiring. The camaraderie that spread from the runners who completed the race in a little over an hour (read: insane people) all the way to that random guy in a shark costume was comforting and motivating. The scenery didn’t hurt either. I had done all of my training runs on the road leading out to Tonle Sap, constantly bracing myself for pungent smells, barking dogs, and trucks filled with live chickens. Running next to the magnificent temples in Angkor Park was a welcome change.

Because Allison and I didn’t train together, we weren’t expecting to run the race together. But some Minerva Fellow synchronicity must have been at work; we ended up matching each other’s pace the entire way. In the last kilometer, both of us dug deep and increased our speed. At our last 100 meters, we saw the crowd of TGC students and teachers cheering us on, and sprinted to the finish line. In that last stride, I was elated.

There is a happiness specific to the pride of people you love and respect washing over you. That is what I felt when the staff and our students were congratulating us.  My family wasn’t there to see me cross the finish line, but The Global Child family was a wonderful substitute.  The knowledge that we had raised nearly $900.00 to support the school sweetened the accomplishment. I am so thankful for the generosity of our friends and family, and I cannot stress how much this money will mean for TGC.

I couldn’t have anticipated exactly how finishing the half marathon would make me feel; it was much more than masochism and ego feeding. But, my initial predictions were not wrong: my body is revolting against me with all of its might and I am pretty self-satisfied.

Here are some (disgustingly sweaty) pictures of me, Allison, and our wonderful supporters at the end of the race:

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What Can Education Really Do?

Education has become somewhat of a catch-all solution in the economic and social development conversation. It’s hailed as a barrier to extremism, a catalyst for economic growth, and a tool to address gender inequality and discrimination against certain social groups. Read any policy recommendation or op-ed dealing with human rights issues or economic development and you will likely find wider access to quality education is a vital component of the proposed solution. I believe this whole-heartedly. Expanding access to education is one of the most proactive ways to change a society for the better. Given adequate resources and attention, an education system can literally shape the future by producing informed, curious, and empathetic global citizens. 

Despite that, I always thought education was a more long-term solution. Education does not immediately lift the conditions that breed violent extremism; it makes it more likely that future generations will seek alternative means of dealing with vast social inequality and discrimination. Education may erode strict gender roles over time, but what does it do for the woman who is prohibited by law to divorce an abusive husband? A fair education system will eventually create a more meritocratic job market, but how does it help the person who is currently struggling against a system where all the jobs go to members of a certain political party, religion, or ethnic group?

Before coming to Cambodia, I saw education as an invaluable tool for improving our world, but one that would take an incredible amount of time. I expected that coming here and being part of an organization that provides such a wonderful education to deserving students who would otherwise be denied the opportunity would be bittersweet. I would know everything TGC gives its students is not available to the vast majority of the Cambodian population.

I was severely underestimating something. I was concentrating only on education’s collective impact. Instead of highlighting the inequity of an education system where opportunities go to a few students, my time at The Global Child has taught me not to undervalue the experience of one person. I learned this lesson over the course of many classes, conversations with students, and hours spent at the school. But, there is one particular student who convinced me education is an immediate force for changing lives.

In the early fall, when TGC was in the process of accepting a new class of students, one applicant stuck out. I visited his home twice. He was solemn and didn’t speak much during either interview, but the answers he gave to the questions were thoughtful, and it wasn’t hard to tell he was an intelligent kid. His home was not in good condition; it wouldn’t provide much shelter during Cambodia’s frequent monsoons. His family situation was complex and upsetting, and as a result, he had to leave school so that he could work and contribute financially. I know it’s hard to accurately analyze someone’s emotions from two interviews, especially when said interviews were conducted in a foreign language, but I got the sense that he was resigned to his fate. I became invested in his admittance to the school, scanning the list for his name at every step of the process.

He ended up being accepted as one of our eleven new students, and the change in his personality was marked and immediate. He greets me with a huge smile every morning and eagerly raises his hand to answer every question in English class. He is a vigilant Simon Says player- never messing up and always pointing out when a classmate moves to touch their toes without the precursory “Simon says”. When I have the students stand up and say their names, ages, favorite colors, and something they did this morning to begin our class, I can see him anticipating his turn, turning over his answers in his head. He is an enthusiastic and quick learner. I have never seen someone whose love of learning is so observable, and I find myself forgetting how somber he seemed before he came to TGC. The act of being able to go to school every day changed this student entirely. 

I still think of education as a long-term solution to a host of social and political problems. I still think it’s important to search for more immediate answers to those problems. But, I have gained a new perspective on the power of education, because I’ve seen firsthand what it can do for an individual. I think of each of the students at The Global Child, and how their prospects have changed since being accepted to the school, and I’m overwhelmed. We don’t have to wait for them to grow up and better the society around them in order for education to have had a real impact. Its impact is real today, and measurable in the joy each student takes in attending school.  

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A collection of pictures from the past few months! 

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Gender in Cambodia

In 2015, Cambodia ranked 104th out of 154 countries on the UN Gender Inequality Index. A country’s ranking is determined by its maternal mortality rate, adolescent birth rate, women’s share of seats in parliament, the percentage of women with some secondary education compared to the percentage of men, and the percentage of women in the labor force compared to the percentage of men. It may not be a perfect metric, but it does represent the position of women in a country relative to their male counterparts fairly accurately.

The Global Child does not reflect Cambodia’s bleak ranking. We have more female students than male, and gender does not determine how the students are treated and educated. In fact, our principal, Dara, has made gender equality a cornerstone of The Global Child’s mission- encouraging teachers to emphasize the topic in our classes and reinforcing it through gender equal policies.

Outside of TGC, gender inequality is easily observable. When I first arrived, the older students were looking for work experience internships to bolster their summer school curriculum. I remember helping the students look up job descriptions and assess whether they had the necessary qualifications. At least four times, one of the required attributes for a job listed for female applicants was “attractive”.

As I went on interviews to select our new students, I noticed how the burden of childcare fell almost exclusively on women, preventing them from pursuing their educations and careers (the percentage of men 25 and older who have received some secondary education in Cambodia is more than double the percentage of women).

These pervasive inequalities do not only harm women. Allison and I recently went to see a documentary about Cambodian migrants to Thailand, and the pressure placed on Cambodian men to be the providers for their families was depressingly clear on the faces of young men who had endured abusive work situations only to return home, often jobless and penniless.    

The Global Child’s motto is “Today’s Children, Tomorrow’s World”, and I am positive that our students do not want tomorrow’s world to be one where 50% of the population is at a disadvantage in education and in the workforce, nor do they want it to be one where boys cannot be sensitive and girls cannot be fierce. So, Allison and I decided to implement a series of gender equality workshops to create an open dialogue with the students surrounding these issues.

A few days ago, we met with four of the older female students to hear their perspective on our plans so far. We wanted to get a sense of what topics they were interested in, what they thought was important, and how they thought the information would best be conveyed. I was blown away by their response. Not only were they invested in the program, and intent on listening to our plans, but they also understood the program’s purpose, and gave insightful critiques and helpful suggestions. 

Together, we created plans for girls-only sessions on women’s health, self-esteem and self worth, a session on engaging with gender equality as a boy for our male students, and co-ed sessions on feminism and the importance of global gender parity, as well as strategies for achieving gender equality. Our students’ grasp on the issues and excitement for the program gave me hope that as they get older, they will challenge the expectations for Cambodian women, and shape the society around them to function a little more like The Global Child. 

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Newfound Family

For my Minerva Fellowship application, I wrote a series of vignettes, one of which addressed what community is to me. It was the easiest vignette for me to write, because the answer was obvious; I had found true community in my closest friends at Union. I still feel that way. As much as living 8,500 miles apart sounds like it would hinder a friendship, it has done nothing to hurt ours. However, it’s an adjustment to seek advice, support, or a much-needed laugh from a FaceTime screen, rather than an in-the-flesh person. It’s strange to hear life updates a week after they happen. It’s odd to hang out—me in my room in Cambodia, my friends in their respective post-grad apartments (or from their fellowship post in Uganda, shout out to https://dancinginddegeya.wordpress.com)– instead of within the walls of the barely insulated Victorian house we called home senior year. 

So, without my familiar Union community surrounding me, I am curious: why don’t I feel lonely?

I remember reading Davis Cutter’s Minerva Fellowship blog last spring during Hal’s class. Davis is a fantastic writer, and many of his posts stuck with me, but one rumination feels particularly relevant now. Reflecting back on his time in India, Davis wrote, “I had few friends, but was welcomed by new families”. I think that answers my question.

TGC, and everyone that encompasses it, is a family. The students bicker and love one another as siblings do. Sometimes, I feel like an older sister to them as much as I feel like a teacher. The staff has dedicated themselves to the students as a parent does to their children. And the school itself, with years of student artwork lining the walls, students sprawled across the floor of their classrooms playing Uno during their breaks, and the reliable cool of the air conditioned Teacher’s Room, where we do most of our lesson planning, feels like home.

I am not lonely because I have a family. 

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Communication Gaps

I have been reluctantly playing weeklong games of charades and Pictionary. The Global Child has its eleven new students, and most of them come to us with knowledge of English that begins and ends with the ABCs. This is problematic for me, because my Khmer vernacular consists of “Hello, how are you?”, “How much?”, and numbers 1-30. Hence the involuntary and constant string of charade and Pictionary games. 

I am teaching our new students two hours a week, and for the first month, Teacher Soben is assisting me by translating when my gesturing and limited artistic skill fail to convey to the students what I am trying to say. However, I am attempting to use his Khmer translation as little as I can, because in a month’s time, I won’t have it as an option. So, I’ve exhausted the TGC printer with endless picture flashcards, and I don’t think I’ve ever spent more time pointing at random things around a room. 

Teaching English to absolute beginners has revealed how tenuous my grasp on my own language is. I’ve always considered myself to have a pretty solid understanding of the English language.  Years of constant reading have given me a vocabulary I am proud of, and high school and college Latin provided me with a stronger hold on English grammar than my English classes ever did. Yet, teaching classes to our new students, it’s clear my knowledge of the English language does not run deep enough to explain its workings without actual words. It has also exposed questions about English I have overlooked, the most fundamental being, “what are the most essential parts of the English language?” The answer to this question shifts based on the purpose of its asker. A tourist to an English speaking country may only need to know basic greetings, how to order food, and how to ask for directions. But the purpose of TGC’s English instruction is fluency; ideally we want our students’ prospects to be bolstered because of their strong English skills. We want to shape futures with English. Frame the question in that light, and it feels a little daunting.

What foundation is fluency built on? Should I be focusing on phonetics, vocabulary building, reading, writing, speaking, or some other category I haven’t even considered? 

With the older students, the foundation is there; my job is to secure and build upon it. I can recognize where the students’ weaknesses are, and assess how to improve those areas. I can talk to them about their ultimate goals, and base lessons off of those aspirations. We can discuss gender equality, or urban development, or cultural differences between the U.S. and Cambodia. Simply by being present in their classes, I know I am of some help, because they can engage in complex conversations with a native English speaker. I don’t think my presence is as automatically beneficial for students who do not have that foundation. I think having a native English speaker will be helpful to them, but I have to do a lot more work to figure out how it will be helpful. In the meantime, you can find me wildly gesticulating in front of eleven fifth graders. 

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Homecoming

Last week Allison and I traveled to Malaysia while the school was on a ten-day break for the Pchum Ben Days, eager to capitalize on cheap Air Asia flights and being in a new part of the world. The trip was incredible, and could easily constitute about twenty blog posts, but I want to talk about our return instead. On the last day of any vacation, I usually feel a sort of exhausted content: appreciative of all that I’ve seen and done, but ready to go home and give my body a break from constant sight seeing, and in the case of our trip to Malaysia, constant eating. But, as we boarded our 6:50 AM flight back from Malaysia, I found myself in need of reminding that I was going home, but home is now Siem Reap, and not Vermont or Union. 

When we got back to our apartment in Siem Reap, I FaceTimed with my mom to tell her about the trip.  Seeing her sitting at our kitchen island, drinking coffee out of one of her familiar mugs (quick plug for wellfordpottery.com if you haven’t seen my mom’s gorgeous pottery!), and trying to ward off my dogs as they pace around her, ready for their morning walk, I felt a pang of longing for my actual home. My mom flipped her phone camera to show me the view from our kitchen of Mt. Ellen, Lincoln Peak, and Mad River. I could see a few hints of peak foliage already, and it wasn’t hard to imagine what the crisp Vermont air would feel like if I could sit on our back deck.  It seems a bizarre concept to be jealous of the air someone else gets to be in, but what I wouldn’t give to feel the Vermont breeze instead of Siem Reap’s 100% humidity. When my mom ended our FaceTime call, unable to fend off my dogs’ persistency any longer, I was left with my first real moment of homesickness. 

It didn’t last. When Allison and I arrived at the school the next morning, we were immediately overwhelmed with excited hellos from our students and fellow staff. We spent the day dancing, playing games, and watching our students welcome the new kids- the selection process I discussed in my blog post “Revelations in Rural Villages” came to an end with summer school, and TGC now has eleven new Grade Five students- with warmth. When we got back from lunch, the staff was patiently awaiting some surprise orchestrated by the students, and told us to wait with them. After a few minutes, the students opened the doors to the school, and lead us to chairs they had set up in front of a big banner reading “Happy Teacher’s Day”, which they had surrounded with balloons. The students gave each teacher and house mom a corsage made of jasmine, and a card they had decorated and signed. My card read, “Thank you Emily for teaching us. We all love you the best and we hope you are always happy and keep in touch with us”.  Though much of the ceremony was in Khmer, the authenticity of the students’ thanks was immensely clear to me. Once they finished thanking us, we got a chance to respond, and I bumbled through articulating to the students just how lucky I felt to be their teacher. 

I can deal with 100% humidity at all times if it means I get to continue working with The Global Child. I don’t mind missing out on the foliage if I get to watch a students’ face when they grasp a difficult concept, or see them actually get excited about something we’re learning. I can do without giving my dogs a big hug every morning as long as I get to watch the students crack up when Allison and I dance with them. Now, it makes perfect sense to me that returning home means returning to Siem Reap. 

[edotincambodia-blog]

Weekend adventure to one of the Lotus Farms about five miles outside of Siem Reap

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A Tale of Two Cities

Siem Reap sometimes feels like two cities that just happen to occupy the same physical space. In the Old Market area, you have rows of $1 banana pancake stands, stalls filled with elephant pants, bracelets, and Angkor Beer tank tops for sale by merchants who will insist that they will give a special price for such a pretty lady if you so much as glance at one of their products, and of course, Pub Street, lined with bars and clubs that are virtually indistinguishable from 821 on a Saturday night (save for the fact that they are filled with drunk backpackers instead of drunk college students). If you go a mile or so in any direction from this area, the roads quickly turn to dirt and all of this disappears; it is replaced by road side stands where a stir fry or curry costs $1-$3, tuk tuk carts selling taro sesame pancakes (which are heavenly), and dried fish pieces (which are not so heavenly), acres of rice fields, fishing villages, and little general store type shops. There isn’t a pair of elephant pants in sight. Things are not catered toward the swarms of Angkor Wat visitors.  As a westerner who is not a backpacker, I inhabit an interesting space somewhere in between the hostel-lined Sivutha Boulevard and the crowded, dusty market on National Road Six where the locals shop for groceries. 

I am currently sitting in the upstairs of The Hive Café. The décor is what your avid HGTV viewer might call “industrial chic”. They are playing Tame Impala, and I just ate a chicken, mango, cashew salad and drank a matcha green tea latté. In other words, I am chilling in a hipster Mecca that would not feel out of place in Brooklyn or San Francisco or Vermont or Schenectady. It’s a little Sunday ritual of mine to spend my afternoon in one of these expat locales, throwing my Spartan food budget out the window for a day and enjoying a meal that does not include even one grain of steamed rice. I spend these afternoons blogging, lesson planning for the upcoming week, working on projects for TGC, which right now means drafting the Summer Newsletter and writing an updated mission statement and new blurbs for the Joe to Go website, writing in my journal, and working on my pet project (some research on Cambodia’s governance after the genocide, because I weirdly miss slaving over JSTOR articles). No one questions my presence here, and almost all of the clientele look a lot like me. But, for the most part, Allison and I spend our time in the other Siem Reap. 

We go about our day in the areas where it’s relatively rare to see other westerners. And, as a result, by our apartment, out by the school, walking to buy our bananas and sweet potatoes, taking a bike ride out toward Ton Le Sap, or running by the river in the morning, our presence is not a non-event. When I visited Siem Reap for a few days on my South East Asia backpacking trip last December, I never felt like a sight to see because I only went to the places I was expected to go to. Now, every time we hop on our bikes to go somewhere, we get some odd looks, and usually a few unsolicited comments from the people we pass. The stares and comments are never ill intentioned, but I don’t think I’ll ever get used to feeling like a spectacle. Despite my aversion to them, I get the reason behind the looks. I don’t look like someone who lives here, and I will only live here for nine months. Although I spend most of my time with Cambodian people, I still likely have way more in common with the clientele of The Hive Café. I can’t expect to occupy space in someone else’s world without causing a little bit of confusion. But, I do think this experience is an interesting reflection of the way the tourism industry has shaped Siem Reap, and how tourists remain almost completely separated from the daily happenings of Siem Reap. 

The residents of Siem Reap are used to seeing westerners, as long as they’re drinking on Pub Street, shopping on the outskirts of Old Market, or eating at a restaurant run by an Australian expat. They are used to seeing westerners in the areas that have been built specifically for the influx of westerners brought by the Angkor Temples. They are not used to seeing westerners anywhere else. I don’t think that’s necessarily bad or good. I don’t know that the Siem Reap locals would be too thrilled with a more in depth tourism industry that brought westerners into their daily lives and routines. I know that as a Vermonter, I’m happy to welcome the economic benefits brought by the leaf peepers and out-of-state skiers while keeping my interactions with them to a friendly “hello, how are you? Enjoy your visit”. I just think it’s interesting that the tourists’ Siem Reap and the locals’ Siem Reap is so divided that walking down Pub Street, I am expected, but in the areas of Siem Reap that I actually spend the most time, I am bewildering.

[edotincambodia-blog]

Let’s Do the Time Warp

It’s been a little over two months since I left home, and I’m in that special sort of limbo where time is confused. Boarding the plane back in July seems simultaneously months and months removed, and like it happened yesterday. The rhythm of life in Cambodia feels engrained in me: wake up to my favorite Happy Buffalo resident, the rooster, around 6 AM, go for a run before the heat washes over (more of a three day a week sort of thing then part of the daily routine, as much as I’d like to say otherwise), and head to school for the day of classes, and lesson and project planning. But, as I wrote in my last blog post, the newness of Cambodia and my place within it is still at the forefront of my mind as I go about my days. That’s where the contradiction in how I perceive time is coming from. As I gain experience with teaching, with the students, and with Cambodian customs, I have moments of feeling expert, or at least proficient, here. Those are the times I feel like I’ve been here for months on end. Soon, some event or interaction will remind me that I am still very much a newcomer and the memory of stepping on the plane, filled with anxiety and anticipation, feels sharper.

This balance is good for me. As a westerner or barang (white person), as random children often yell at me, not versed in the Khmer culture or language, and equipped with only the level of knowledge of the country’s history that I could get from reading a few books over the summer, feeling overly familiar could easily lead to feeling I have the authority to make decisions and suggestions that I cannot fully grasp the implications of. However, my purpose here is to aid TGC’s students in any way I can. To categorically assume that because I am not of the culture, my ideas will never be fully thought out, or helpful, is to defeat any meaning my presence here holds. When my journey here feels blurry and distant, and my time in Cambodia feels more considerable, I build the confidence to take action.

With summer school coming to an end, I have started thinking more deeply about my classes for the full academic year. Because we jumped in right in the middle, summer school felt scattered, and I questioned what I was building upon as I moved through each class. But scattered or not, I did become familiar with the kids, with their learning styles, and with their capabilities. As I plan for the full year, I feel confident in deviating from the textbook sometimes, adding in more long-term projects, and trying to develop skills I think are important, but maybe have not been taught to the kids previously, like creative writing, or analytical discussion. These were not liberties I felt comfortable taking at the beginning of summer school, when I felt a constant sense of otherness. 

I guess what I’m saying is that if I think about my departure and the present as two points on a map, there would be two lines connecting them: one about an inch long, and one about a mile long. And these coexisting views of my time here are creating conditions where I feel good about my role. I feel like I am not being brash; like I understand I don’t have sufficient knowledge to take unilateral action, or action that is not first deeply considered and run by those who worked at TGC far before my arrival, and will continue to do so long after I leave. But, I have shaken the feeling that it’s not my place to decide or suggest anything. It has to be. Otherwise, when I leave, what will have been the point of me coming in the first place?