The last few days have been pretty busy up here in Siem Reap. On Thursday my friend Kara came to my site to visit. She lives in Siem Reap province also and had a meeting in town, so rather than kill time in town for one day or go back to site for one day she came to my village to hang out. Thursday evening we had some tuk-a-luks (fruit smoothies with condensed milk) and watched a movie before having dinner with my host family. They were very excited to meet Kara and ask her all about her more rural site, pointing out that she does not have electricity and asking if she has to manually draw water from the well.
Friday morning after teaching we went to the market to pick up some odds and ends to make lunch and to explore. I bought the remaining ingredients I needed for my culinary adventures that day and found a whole section of the market laden with vegetables that I hadn’t been able to locate consistently. Since many of the stalls in the market look the same I sometimes get confused as to where I found things I liked so I can pick them up again later, so having an excuse to wander the market aimlessly was beneficial and a good way to spend a morning!
Upon returning from the market we decided to read for awhile before making lunch; this actually meant we fell asleep for about an hour an a half. It was a rare cool day and when reading under the mosquito net it is hard to not doze off. After our naps we got down to cooking and tried two new recipes: one for a cheesey morning glory dip that another volunteer had written up in our newsletter, and one I pulled off the internet for beer battered onion rings! Both dishes were a hugely delicious success. The cheesey dip was made with laughing cow cheese, garlic, milk, and morning glory and we ate it with my favorite cracked pepper crackers. Even my host family let their curiosity overcome their fear and dip in, and they loved it! My host father finished off the remaining onion rings with hot sauce at dinner and was clearly pro-onion ring. In the past it has been a challenge to convince anyone to try my “American food” but I found that just leaving it on the table and walking away for a while is a good strategy to get people interested enough to try things.
Saturday morning Kara and I headed into Siem Reap town to meet some other volunteers to bid Katie adieu on her last weekend in country. Due to some issues which I will not elaborate on here because it makes me angry and might result in me saying things that will get me in trouble, Katie decided to head back to the states but came to see Angkor Wat before she left. Luckily we also got to see her one more time and spend a day swimming and enjoying the company. Katie was a great volunteer and is a good friend and her presence will definitely be missed here.
I also ran a few errands in town, including dropping off an easy reader book to be copied for my first meeting of my Advanced English Reading Club on Sunday. However, when I returned to pick up the copies the next morning the copy shop was still closed and locked up. I decided I could wait a bit before heading back to site, so I tried again two hours later on my way out of town but the store was still not open. At least I hadn’t paid for the copies ahead of time.
I was a little irritated since I had lesson planned for the club based on having those books, but I decided I would just photocopy a short story I had on hand when I got back to site. Unfortunately the photo copy place in town was also closed when I got back. I had to try and think quickly to come up with a back-up lesson plan. It wasn’t ideal to kick off my reading club without a text, and to not have any homework to send with the students so they could read something before next Sunday, but as with most things here I just had to accept that it did not work out ideally and move on. I had the 15 students tell me a little about themselves, and I told them about what the club was all about, and they all seemed really excited and best of all they could understand everything! Almost all the students are tenth graders too, which is fantastic because it means I could work with them for both years I am here and if they are already this good I can only imagine how good they could be next June.
To wrap up the club meeting I played a game having each of the students say their name and “I’m going to the market and I’m buying…” finishing the sentence with something that starts with the same letter as their name, and then saying everyone else’s answers as well. The students caught on much more quickly than I thought they would and they really liked it. Plus I think I learned most of their names fairly quickly. I had visions of this game tanking, which would not have started the club off on a high note, so I was so excited when they understood. After so much anticipation I finally get to start working with a small group of students who have the basic skills to work with me and the ability to absorb information; I can’t wait to see how it develops.
I have also been spending A LOT of time grading homework lately. Some of the students unknowingly have some very entertaining answers to simple questions, which makes the whole thing a little less tedious. Here are a few funny ones from the past week:
1. “If I had a boyfriend, I could love her.” There is either a little gender confusion going on here or that pronoun is vaguer than the author had hoped for. Or maybe not…
2. “Will there be a beautiful girl to confess with you that she will love you? Yes, there will be next month.” Believe it or not the assignment was not to write a horoscope.
3. “Cambodia
4. “If I travel to America I will be able to see Sahara area.” This kid is on Sarah Palin’s speech writing team actually. He can see Russia
5. “If I could travel anywhere in the world I will go to the United Stad because it’s luxury for all seasons.” It surely is. Someone has a future in tourism, if they improve their spelling a little.
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