My first day.

Well I still am having to remind myself that I am here or atleast look out the window and usually that does it, such a completely different world.  So I was greeted at the airport by one of the sisters and our driver lol where we began my first adventure of my new home, driving through town!  So crazy, there are motos, tuk tuks and even bikes weaving in and out of the few cars and trucks out on the road.  I believe I will be taking my first tuk tuk ride tomorrow and explore a bit of the town for the first time tomorrow.  So then we arrived and my new home and school for my time here.  We were greeted at the gate by all of the girls, who were all on their lunch break.  They sang several songs and gave me a beautiful scarf and a ring made of flowers, jasmine I believe, that they slipped onto my wrist, both things very prominent of their culture.  Shortly after I found CARMEN, and we got to go eat lunch where I was introduced to the rest of the sisters and met our two lovely pets, Internet and Google :) bahah they said they used to have dotcom but he died and yahoo, but he died also, give you a guess on what the next one will be!  After lunch Carmen gave me a quick tour of the grounds including the technical school, parts of the house and the precious kindergarten side, all of them running up to bow to you and then running off before you can try to say anything to them!  Then about 2pm here, 3 am texas time so I made it to my to my room, thinking I would a bit of a nap and wake up again for dinner, hoping to start getting myself onto a solid schedule, but NOPE!  I slept straight through it and then woke up around 2 am here ready to start my day :/ so I ended up reading and pretending to sleep until it was time to wake up for Friday!

Friday was my first full day!  I woke to have mass with the sisters and the girls that chose to come at 6:15 and them breakfast at 7.  Now the school day usually starts at 8, today I was just going to go observe classrooms and my girls!  I am teaching the first year girls, they have divided them into three sections:  A, are the girls who know little to no English, B, are the ones that know a bit more and C, the ones that the most of the first years and this is the group that I will be teaching!  I have them from 1 to 3:15 pm everyday and for right now this is the only time I am teaching for right now, I believe that I will continue to pick up more the longer that I am here.  So, friday I went into this class and go to watch their conversations and meet the girls!  So they did their conversations for a bit of the class and then they asked me to stand up and answer some questions so they could find out a little bit more about me!  Of course one of their first questions was "Teacher, are you married?"  And I would reply, No and then the next question, "Do you have a boyfriend?" One track mind these girls!  They also ask about my family, where I am from, how long I am staying, what I already know about Cambodia and why I decided to come here!  They are very curious and are very excited to get to know always stopping in the hallway to bow and say hello.  That is another thing, that always bring their hands together and bow to say hello, to say thank you, to say welcome, to say goodbybe!  EVERYTHING, they even sing to me when I come into my class and before they leave either welcoming and to say good morning or to say goodbye and thank you and then they wait for me to either dismiss or to sit down to get ready for class, so different from anything I am used to that they stand and sing until I tell them thank you and to sit down.    Then we also had a volleyball game against the first years and the second year and they were all around beating on tubs and making all kind of noise, having such a great time, it was something that was really fun to see.

For this weekend, Carmen is taking me out to explore the city and meet some of the volunteers working in the city, my first ride in a tuk tuk :) and exploring the markets....wish me luck and I promise I will start to take pictures, sorry I have nothing to show you yet!!

peace and love,


Kaitlin