Six Months in Cambodia
on Mary In Cambodia (Cambodia), 18/Apr/2010 14:39, 34 days ago
Six Months in Cambodia.I’ve been a volunteer for six months now. The issues with food, traffic and culture have diminished in importance. Even the‘wild’ life doesn’t bother me that much. I can shake a few ants off a biscuit before eating it without a second thought.The big question for me is-what have I achieved? Progress in schools is slower than I had hoped. I would like my Khmer to be more fluent by now. My title‘Effective Teaching and Learning Advisor’ encompasses much more than I expected. The slow pace takes getting used to. I have had to learn to be adaptable, to accept that plans can change at a minutes notice, that a project worked on for weeks can be cancelled without explanation. I must admit that I learn more from the people I’m advising than they will learn from me. I see happy, smiling faces of children in playgrounds inventing games with bits of sticks and stones. I admire teachers struggling to teach multi-grade classes of 50/60 children, where buying a box of chalk is a serious investment.I have (I think) succeeded in building a relationship with the village community of one of my chosen schools. We arranged a village meeting, a new village leader and committee were elected. Since then we held a community work day, when all the parents turned up to install a toilet for the school children. The mothers prepared a meal while the men worked on the project. It was a good humoured, light hearted fun day.   Preparing food.                              Enjoying the food. Work in progress.By evening the shed had a new roof, water tanks were built and plastered, toilet installed and water piped up from the local pond. An inventive method of pumping water to the tanks by suction was designed and made by one of the local men.Since then it was decided that a coat of paint was needed, and so on another day a few villagers joined Gen myself and the school children. The two teachers joined in and the outcome------------        As the children have done most of the painting we’re hopeful they will claim ownership and take care of their toilet. I hope to organise a group of the older children to supervise health, hygiene and care of the environment a‘student council’.     In the coming weeks we are planning a hygiene class with these children, and a women’s health day with the mothers. We have enlisted the help of another colleague Alison, who is nursing advisor at the local hospital for this day. I hope this work has built some bridges between school, parents and me, so that they will trust me to help them bring the school to an acceptable standard and make life better for teachers and children.Work has been a bit more straight-forward in my second school. It is a new building, built by a Korean organisation, so structural work isn’t needed. There are two multi-grade teachers here, and I’m working with them to bring their classes to a standard where they can demonstrate good practise to other multi-grade teachers.The standard of reading and writing generally is very low in Cambodia. The concept of reading for pleasure is unknown.I organised a story writing competition among grade 6 children, which has been quite successful. The children asked parents and neighbours for stories and then wrote them down, teacher corrected them and then they were written into an exercise book. I have photocopied them, added a photo of the‘author’ and laminated them. We now have some reading material for the lower classes, and grade 6 children are anxious to get writing the next lot of stories. Grades 4/5 are asking if they can do the same. Hopefully we’ll soon have them using their imagination. Though progress is slower than i would like, at this stage teachers and children seem happy to see me, and I feel part of their school. Hopefully i have a good foundation for moving forward.