Daily schedule

I get up at 6am each day (long after the tourists have left for dawn at the temples). After showering and applying copious amounts of anti bug spray I go down to the open area at the hotel for breakfast. There is an outbreak of dengue fever locally for which the only treatment is avoidance of bites unlike malaria for which I'm taking tablets. Breakfast is usually banana pancakes, omelette with delicious French bread or fresh tropical fruit salad with yogurt. Usually in this area are to be found the other long term residents - Belgians, Dutch, Americans (all teachers) plus we have groups of people who are working for an organisation called Cambodia Building Volunteers who are literally making safe and water proof houses in the villages. These people are usually on a team building exercise from their companies in Singapore etc. Then we have the tourists who are usually very pleasant. The majority of them are Asian (Chinese, Japanese, Korean), then come the Aussies and New Zealanders and then about 10% are European.

At 7.45 am I leave for school by tuk tuk, arriving after crossing the river at about 8 am to find that my morning group has opened the classroom, cleaned the floor and written the date on the blackboard.

 

These three are not in my class which has a bit of a floating population. Sometimes I get siblings who are being babysat and they sit quite happily with some crayons and an ABC book. The left hand side of the class are learners who are just starting on separate words getting the shapes and spacing right. Cambodian writing is very ornate and written in blocks so it is quite a challenge for children to learn English. To the right in the morning are my five "likely" lads + one girl who is very good and so I am getting her to read simple books then testing her for vocabulary and comprehension. The boys are doing phonics and really are very good at taking words down from dictation. We usually intersperse heavy learning with songs or games like Hangman. After an hour the children have a play and food break of about 20 minutes, then we start again with some art or other activities. This session finishes at 10.30 am when the children go home for lunch. Today Paul took the more advanced children into the library (now restored after the floods) and did some listening of John Denver's 'Leaving on a Jet Plane' on his iPad to get them listening and comprehending lyrics which went down well. Today's visitors into the school were two nuns from the same order as Mother Teresa whom I saw as I left.

Today we went to the office at lunch time to drop off my passport for visa renewal and then stopped at the photocopying shop to copy some activity sheets loaned by one of the other teachers. We are very much left to our own devices as to materials and make up of lessons. However, stationery etc is extremely cheap. This is what I brought for $24.25 for my students (sorry it's sideways)

The children love being given paper and are very good at copying so I am getting them to be a bit free-er in their designs (consequently I got loads of Angry Birds and Hello Kitty) but ... small steps! This is a picture of two of the children at the orphanage who were getting down to their copying and colouring a few weeks ago.

 

We then go back to the hotel for lunch but usually end up at the hotel next door where there is a pool and good wi fi! Lunch is soup of some kind then we return to school. I usually have Sechong with me to translate, if she is not available because she is guiding tourists, the Mr J comes into the class.

The afternoon group has more children who are learners so the make up is a bit different - today we did parts of the face and then had a rousing chorus of Head, shoulders, knees and toes which the children knew from previous volunteers. Again there's a break - very important when the temperature is in the mid 80s - today the girls had their usual fruit etc but I was puzzled by something battered on a polystyrene tray - fried frog in all its glory with its little legs all spread out! We finish very hot and sticky at 4.00 pm and return to the hotel.

I've been swimming every day then changing and going out for dinner. There are many many places to chose from so I've been exploring Cambodian food which is very good indeed although you have to avoid the evil red chillies if you want to be able to speak! People are very friendly - locals and visitors so I usually end up talking to someone interesting. Home for lesson planning and a bit of BBC World Service and a read before falling sound asleep under my mosquito net and cooling fan.

 

 

 

 

 

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