For me, and seemingly everyone else, the week started off pretty rough. Students were scared of participating in class, even if you asked blatantly, and you could never tell if they were enjoying themselves or not. One of the things that gets on my nerves pretty quickly is that Cambodians do not make decisions. If you give them an option between two activities for practicing vocabulary, they will not choose and tell you to do it... They are also incredibly diplomatic and fair. I was playing a game where one group did not answer perfectly correct so I asked the other two teams if I should give them the points. Both groups looked a little confused, and then they said to let them have another question. In the States, if you asked students questions like that, in that scenario they would be cut throat and never allow the group to have the points. Its a minor thing, but it's still amazing to see.
As for the rest of the weeks classes, they seemed to smooth out as more time went by. The shyness went away, and students started to get the idea behind a general lesson plan. I discovered that setting up a role play is much more difficult than I thought, and my two lower levels did not understand the concept so I won't be trying those anymore. As the last day of the week came, most everyone had a game day to review the weeks vocab, which seemed to go pretty well for everyone. It was a good way to review the weeks learning as well as get the class to go by quicker.
One thing I have to mention quickly is that my level 7 class was having trouble with the concept of the word occupy/occupant. I gave the example of occupying the chairs we sit in, occupying a house you live in, and I even left the class and yelled in that I no longer occupy the classroom. One student was still having trouble with it, and after class he came up to me and asked me about it again. Then he came up with "what about America in Iraq?" And then I answered that Yes, America occupies Iraq. After all my examples, it's an occupation of war that gets the point across.
Anyway, Friday concluded our first week of teaching and for all of us it couldn't have come quick enough. By the end of the week, everyone was exhausted and needed a break from the chaos of planning lessons at the last minute and the stress of teaching students that oftentimes can barely understand you. We essentially spent the weekend either doing nothing, or going out to have drinks. One strange thing that a small group of us did on Sunday night (we had Monday off for International Human Rights Day), was going to a gas station for some beers. We ordered our own personal 3.5 litre tower of beer. Essentially it was a large pitcher with our own spout to pour from. And since we ordered one of those, we got a plate of spicy mango slices and an extra half litre of beer in a pitcher for free. All of that for 24,000 riel (pronounced real), which equals about six dollars. And it's literally around the corner from our house. The rest of the weekend was spent doing a small amount of lesson planning, and more sitting around finding any possible way to avoid lesson plans.
Yesterday I went to the Russian Market, yet again a perfect example of the organized chaos of Cambodia, and Phnom Penh. It's an enclosed area with shops that sell literally everything. Clothing, car an moto parts, food, toiletries, shoes, pirated DVDs, CDs and computer programs, trinkets, accessories for any occasion, and the list goes on. But we were looking for some presents for Abbie's birthday and we decided to get some toiletries because no one likes buying them. So we entered at the clothing section and we thought we knew where we were going. We went straight for a few "blocks" of stores, down the narrow lanes that can fit about one and a half people. The lanes are also usually filled with people in chairs that are asleep and people going in the opposite direction. I can't help but feel bad for salmon that swim upstream. Then we turned left thinking that would take us directly to our destination of the beauty product type section. No. We started to recognize the all too memorable smell of the food in the market, that is mostly meats, vegetables and fruits that are sitting in the heat with flies buzzing all over the place. After quickly turning around, we made our way through the winding maze of shops, being heckled every step of the way and we finally came across the section we wanted. We couldn't see exactly what we were looking for so we decided to go to a shop outside of the market. On the way out, I decided to pick up a scarf (my standard gift to bring home). The main goal of shopping in the market is to bring the price down. She wanted four dollars, so I thought two would be good. She said three, I said only two and started to walk away. After quickly conversing with someone in Khmer she yelled back to me that two was good. Success.
All of us have adjusted to the weather now. For the past few days, I've had trouble getting out of bed because I've been so cold. I'm not the only one who has felt cold either, it's most everyone. I know I'll get no sympathy for this since the temperature hasn't dipped below 80 F (26 C). Regardless, it's been cold. We also experienced our first real rain in Cambodia. It came out of no where, and I've never seen such a heavy rain in my life. Some of us couldn't help but just stand on the balcony in the rain. After the heat of last week and the constant layer of sweat (from biking and the stress of being at the front of a class) we just couldn't help ourselves. Vicky even decided that she might get swept away by the sudden rain and found a life jacket and wore it for a while.
Just a few more strange side notes that I have to mention about life in Phnom Penh. One is that people love to wear matching fleece pajamas, at all hours of the day. No one understands it, but they're everywhere. I don't know if I mentioned this before, but karaoke is also everywhere. There is a bar down the street from us that plays karaoke every night and there are always terrible singers along with the music. No matter where you go, the twangs and screeches of karaoke seems to permeate your brain no matter how much you try to ignore it. I had more than that to write, but I've forgotten them for now so I'll just add them as I remember them.
On the bright side of things, Christmas is approaching fast and we can't be more excited. A group of 11 of us have booked a trip down to the southern city of Sihanoukville on the coast. So we'll be spending our short vacation of the beach swimming and visiting some nearby islands, and we couldn't be happier. The only thing I hope for is that the weather warms up, I don't know if I'll like the beach that cold.
you're not wearing shoes.
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