The Library

When I arrived I found it really tough here. I wasn’t sleeping because of the heat and was thrown in Monday morning with a class of 25 kids, all aged between 5 to 13 years old, with no real instruction other than to "teach them some English". I never finished my TEFL and wasn’t prepared for the limited resources or the fact that I would be teaching whole classes of Khmer children on my own!

The project I am working at is called "The Library" and is situated in a "slum area" on the outskirts of Phnom Penh. Although I have travelled through some very poor areas in Loas I don’t think I was quite prepared for where I would be teaching. These must be some of Cambodia’s poorest people. Whole families, with many children, sleep on a raised floor, made of very thin wooden slates, under a tarpaulin "roof". I went and sat in one house and they said they couldn’t sleep the previous night because it rained….bare in mind it’s the rainy season and often rains heavily for at least one hour a day! Many of the parents work collecting tin cans or bottles to sell. They make around one to two dollars a day and often work all night. Often the kids only come to school for two hours a day because they work too. The kids are always getting sick because there is no sanitation and some of the community has HIV or other medical problems, which they get no help for. The children are often dirty and I have to check their nails and ask them to shower if they come in too messy.

The children in the orphanage and the farm (the other projects here) have much better living conditions, however I decided I wanted to work in The Library with some of the younger children. Also I wanted to teach basic English as opposed to grammar, which I would be AWFUL at!!

They say the education system is free in Cambodia but children will rarely pass an exam or test without a bribe to the teacher and they must provide their own paper, which is totally unaffordable for my class. 50% of all Cambodians are under 16 and there is a sense that it is this generation that will re-builds the country after all the horrific things that have happened.

Although I was stressed to begin with I have settled in well now. At first it seemed like quite a depressing situation. For my free time I had "And then they killed my father" to read and the killing fields to visit (I thought I couldn’t take anymore emotional overload). Throw in no sleep, a language barrier and immense heat and I found it pretty hard.

However, I have some of the CUTEST kids that ever lived in my class, especially a few of the boys, and to hear them repeat things that you have taught them is AMAZING. They call me "Teacher" and, although they can be cheeky, they are absolutely adorable. They are always extremely happy and smiley and must be the toughest kids that ever lived. I always wonder what the kids would make of my house or of England. They get taught about the farmyard animals and "the farmer’s wife" like they live in the English countryside. I draw a house on the board and they all draw them on little stilts with shoes outside (although many of them don’t own shoes).

My daily life couldn’t be more different now! Instead of tube and train I get to work on the back of a motor bike or a Tuk Tuk (the roads are CRAZY here). I work Monday to Fridays so a relatively "normal" week to back home, going out in the evenings and away at the weekend (me and Lorna went to Vietnam this weekend, as you do – but that is for a different blog post!) All the volunteers are great and Lorna is an amazing roommate. At the library I am the only English volunteer. Channa and Sopheap are Khmer teachers and run the library. They are 23 and 22 years old and lovely. Channa has taken me to the local market (AMAZING) and I will go with her this week to something called "Pack o Dan" (that’s how it sounds) which is an early morning religious tradition in the holidays. I will write more when I know more about this! I have been introduced to their soap opera, which is called "Fire Love". I am just starting to follow it slowly although people seem to have several wives and it confuses me.

I've had such an amazing experience already and I just wanted to give you a quick overview of where I am working (sorry for the rambling)…I'll write soon about other things I’ve actually been doing and post some photos of the community and my students…as if I have "students" now, how crazy is that??
If you want to send anything for The Library let me know and I’ll send you the postal address... They’d be super happy!!