Today I thought I’d share an experience I had a couple of weeks ago when venturing out on my rickety and rusty bike to get some photocopying done for my afternoon class.
Unbeknown to me, 11.00 is the time when the morning’s Khmer public school ends and kids leave en masse to go home for lunch, and a timeslot to avoid at all costs! At 13:30 the next shift fronts for their classes, while those from the morning, such as some of the more privileged New Hope kids, (who can afford a school uniform), go to another school to study English, usually with volunteers.
At 11.00 a siren sounds, flashing boom gates come down to block the road, and hundreds of kids race out of the school gates and miraculously connect with their parents and older siblings waiting in their cars or on their motos (up to five one the one bike) or the occasional tuk tuk. Other kids cycle off in a wave of bicycles, dust, heat and perfectly organised chaos.
Some of the kids linger to flick through the strips of stickers hanging in the ‘shop’, or to pick up a snack of sugary ‘candy’, delicious-looking sweetcorn or “Coka”, from the vendor, strategically positioned across the road from the main gate.
It’s definitely a sight to experience – once.
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