Shell shocked! There’s no other description for it.
Today I inherited a class room and three hour-long classes with children ranging in age from six to 20, supervised by an eight month old Cambodian woman with limited teaching ability and not much enthusiasm, understandable when you’ve been on your feet all day, lugging an almost-cooked fetus around in 30+ degree heat with 99% humidity.
But before I even begin with the teaching, I need to paint the picture of my arrival at New Hope. We were forced to dismount from our tuk tuks 500 metres beyond the entrance, to tread warily along a make-shift path of partially dried but still squelching mud, the fall out from the recent floods, apparently only this bad once every 30 years. All was forgotten however when we arrived at the gate and were literally bombarded by the cutest little kids wanting to hold hands, legs, whatever they could.
I had a whirlwind tour of the centre which was so much smaller than I imagined – four classrooms to cater for the different grades, which are not necessarily determined by their age. (I had a 35 year old in one class with others around 12. She is delightful). Already the main room has generously been assigned to me!
My first class was to assist Donna, an English girl who has been here for a full week, to play time with her group of toddlers. This ‘class’ was held on mats outside the beauty salon and the medical centre. We had to move a few metres up the corridor to distance the children, not to mention ourselves, from the clearly very sick children and their mothers. We coloured in photocopied images with dreary pastels and inappropriate pencils. Both pastels and pencils miraculously disappeared, swiped by the little monkeys in a matter of half an hour. These kids were truly gorgeous. Though we couldn’t communicate a word, we managed. Some of them apparently have HIV; one had a shaved head, a Cambodian custom when a close family member (her father) died. She was three. Others were filthy, had hacking coughs or runny noses. I am so glad I had all those vaccinations.
I was then scheduled to observe classes for the rest of the afternoon which just didn’t happen. Instead, I was handballed a “Let’s Go Level 1” manual and a list of words for a spelling test, and was basically left to it. Lia, my pregnant Cambodian assistant was more than happy to hand things over to me, despite my pleading looks. Nick, the Globalteer supervisor, who was supposed to teach and set the example for me, was apparently comfortable with my “ability” (?) and left after about half an hour. I actually did love this class and felt good about it but that feeling soon went with the next two classes of older kids, ranging from 12 to 35. Clearly they were bored by the wrote-learned teaching style and the fact that they had already done Workbook #3 before. (The answers were already written in their books from round one), not to mention the flirting between some of the cockier students.
So, I tap danced as best I could and returned ‘home’ armed with the teaching manuals to prepare for tomorrow’s classes, which I’ll clearly be leading if Lia has anything to do with it!
At 6pm, as we left the front gates, one of the ‘Playboys’ had a ruckus with another, knocking him off his motorbike at our feet. It was a one off apparently, according to two of the girls who have been here for five months. That’s comforting. But the walk back to our tuk tuk, waiting on the other side of the muddy quagmire was an eye opener. The street was lined with make-shift karaoke bars with ‘Karaoke Girls’, most definitely prostitutes, already soliciting business while the children worked home saying “Bye bye teacher” to us all.
So, tomorrow is another day and one that will at least allow me to plan my classes and take back a little control, I hope. Feel free to send any suggestions for lessons and I’m definitely on the hunt for children’s clothing, story books, whatever. They are beyond desperate.
For now, I’m about to fall asleep as I type. Until tomorrow …
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