Erika's great adventure!: 8/29/10

I'm in the middle of my third week at Harpswell Foundation and I'm loving it here. I'm teaching about 10-15 classes per week at the Boeing Trabaek dorm in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. My classes are typically small, 3-8 girls, and cover a variety of topics. Right now I'm teaching English, including reading, grammar, writing and speaking; history; geography; critical analysis/thinking; leadership and current events. I usually teach early in the morning or later at night when the girls are home from work/school/both. We are instituting a new curriculum next week, so I'll be teaching intermediate English five times per week in addition to 10 group study classes and two sessions of the Cambodia Daily. The girls are very affectionate and frequently come up to give me hugs or compliment me on what I'm wearing. There are several I've come to know quite well and I'm really enjoying my friendships with them.

I'm also teaching once or twice a week at A New Day Cambodia, http://www.anewdaycambodia.org/, which was founded by Bill Smith, the official sports photographer for the Chicago Bears, Bulls, Blackhawks and the United Center, and his wife Lauren. A New Day started with three girls who were living in slums outside of a large garbage dump and scavenging for anything they could sell to support their families. Now the organization has grown and provides dormitories, food, uniforms, and both Khmer (pronounced Ka-mai) and English education for 100 children. The public schools are so bad here that the kids all attend private schools. A few kids initially went to public schools but after 2 years they couldn't even write the Khmer alphabet and knew more English then their own language! I've taught at the center twice now: once last Saturday and once today. I'll teach again tomorrow. Last Saturday, I taught the intermediate group of about 27 students and I enjoyed it but definitely found it exhausting. I had briefly considered a career as a high school English/history teacher after spending time with two teachers who love their jobs but after 3 and a half hours with 27 students, that thought fled my mind. I love teaching them new things and it's fun for a while to think up new ways to engage them, but I could not teach this age group for more than a few hours at a time. I don't think my voice would manage much longer. My class today was much easier on my voice because it was three sixteen year old girls and one 18 year old girl. The 18 year old was the first girl Bill Smith spotted when he visited the garbage dump for the first time and she inspired him to start the organization. I worked with them on writing and critical analysis by reading newspaper articles about Cambodia. I quickly realized that the articles were too challenging so I'll bring easier articles tomorrow.

For the most part, the kids look about 2-4 years younger than they would if they were from a developed country because they are so small. I was talking to a little girl today who I imagined to be about 6 because of her size, but it turned out she was 10. Another boy was the size of an 8 or 9 year old in the States but he is actually 12.

The road leading to New Day is filled with huge, several feet across, potholes and it's muddy after rain and dusty before. The garbage dump, which has since been closed and another opened several miles from town, is visible from the roof of the organization. I cross a bridge to get to the New Day house and garbage piles up on either side of the river. The city of Phnom Penh is filled with opposites. There are more Lexus', Mercedes', BMWs, Honda's and Toyota's in my gym parking lot than there are in the Stanford parking lot. Just outside, tiny kids run around barefoot with tattered, stained clothes. They all call out hello with big smiles when I go by, but I wish there was more I could do for them. I started working at New Day, in addition to Harpswell, because I wanted to contribute but also because I feel so horrible for the kids and women asking for money down by the waterfront while I enjoy my gin and tonic. It's not much, but at least I'm doing something. The sad thing is, for the amount of money flowing into Cambodia, it should be doing a lot better. I see organizations everywhere seeking to help a variety of different people and causes but everyone wants their cut so things move slowly. The educational systems are atrocious so even when the students graduate with a degree, many of them are not employable because they haven't learned much. It's a sad situation.

I've included a few photos from the dorm, and I'll try to take more in the upcoming weeks. It's raining like crazy now, part of the daily offering from the gods which will help the rice crop. It rains at least once in the afternoon and sometimes twice, usually with great ferocity and lots of spectacular thunder and lightening. Two days ago the thunder was so close that it shook the building like an earthquake. I was not a happy camper. Unfortunately the lightening gets so close that it kills more than 100 people, usually poor farmers in the provinces, every year. The easy solution is a lightening rod but the cheapest is $700 and that's far more than most people make in a year or even two or three. Hopefully another organization will come along to help if there isn't one already.

On a happier note, I'm coming home for Christmas! I was planning to stay in Southeast Asia but I've decided I want to see all of my friends and family. I'll fly back on December 17th and stay for about a month before flying to Auckland for the New Zealand/Australia/Europe part of my trip. Stay tuned!