Yaap Maan

In my title, I'm teaching you a bit of Khmer or how it sounds to me, yap man meaning very difficult....we say it to the sisters or the girls and they think its so funny, kind of like you are a piece of work or that at least how I have decided to use it!

I really need to improve on this.  I thought it would be a good idea to only post once a week, but by then I have too much to say! I'll try to work on this!

So,  another week of teaching, well three days because Monday was considered the actual day of an actual two week holiday for some who choose of Chinese New Year so we had the day off!  I didn't do much though, hung out with the girls, welcomed back all those that went home for their long weekend, took a wonderful nap and got dragged even further into the Hunger Games series....Poor Peeta, Gail and oh Katniss, what are we gonna do with her, luckily I will be able to get the movie about the time you can see it in theaters :)  So Monday was great , great day or rest and celebrating our new year of course, well the one for this month, Khmer new year is in April after the rice is harvested and people celebrate for a couple more weeks.

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday always go so fast between teaching and our schedule for the day, Tuesday was a bit rough in class because it seems as if the spent the entire weekend NOT SPEAKING English, hey can you blame them, but it took a little time getting back into it on Tuesday.  We were working on Where you live?  and there are so many, many things I take for granted and when discussing these words and what kind of shops, rooms in houses and things you find in house because several of the things in the book, the girls don't know about, not because it is in English, because they don't have many of these things in their houses and places they go within the city, but I really do think they are warming up to me.  I am trying to do alot of icebreakers and keep them moving and talking because I DO have them for two and half hours and it is English and those things usually help.  Then on Friday one of the other Don Bosco elementary school was having a fun day at school with a long jump, relay races, volleyball, soccer and many other festivities.  Some of the sisters were going over and said we would be back in time for my class, but once we got over there and were in all of the fun, we ended up staying through our classes :/ the sisters just told us to enjoy and my girls were going to review for our test today and it was only a 35 minute class so I didn't feel too bad.

But good news, I have learned enough to be able to make friends with the little ones.  Suc saaa bye (this is not how they spell it oof course, but its what it sounds like)  it like a greeting but literally means How are you?  so I would ask that and then I can ask what their names are and after that we were holding hands and best friends.  The grounds at that school are very big and do not only house an elementary school that holds somewhere around 500 students, but also has a Don Bosco cooking and hotel management type program similar to ours for those out of school consisting of two years and an internship.  So we walked around and saw alot of it as well as some of the sisters and teachers that work there and many of the precious children.  Nothing is as precious as a 4 year old running up to you only to put her hands to her chest and bow as to say hello, something beautiful.  We, then continued over to the cooking part where we tried all sorts of things!  Donuts, mango cake and different kinds of breads.  So we eventually made it back home in Tuol Kork about the time the bell rang to end my class :/ and of course the girls were pretty confused as they walked down the stairs from my class to see me standing in the hallway, so interesting to watch them as you see them trying to form a new sentence, so many words and several languages floating around up there!

Friday night was the usual, dinner at 6:30 and then play time with the girls, volleyball is still the main focus because we are completing this week, but the basketballs are making an appearance, making me very happy of course :)  Then as I made my way up to my room for the night, I stopped by to see what the girls were watching because they were cracking up every couple of minutes.  Friday and Saturday nights are TV nights and the girls beg and beg to watch love stories everytime, but this night they explained that it was some sort of game show and although I had no idea what it was saying, it was pretty funny.

Saturday, we had a meeting in the morning with all of the teachers, where the girls wrote basically like an expectation or how are you feeling sheet out right before Christmas and we were going over them, trying to learn more about each of them.  But I'm starting to feel so bad for the other teachers because every Khmer conversation must be translated :/  But it was a good morning and then for the afternoon me and Carmen decided to go to the National Museum, where once again we were surrounded by white people and had no idea what to think....just not used to that these days.  But we looked around at many different statues of their gods and took some beautiful pictures and even tried to sneek a few of the monks, I love the pictures, but I don't want to make it obvious that I am following them around for pictures so usually me or Carmen will pose for a picture and have them in the background and then just cut the other out of the picture :)    After dinner, I went over to see what the girls were up and I was helping with their speeches they had to give about their heroes in front of the entire school on Tuesday (today).  We worked on pronunciations and things and then got to talking with several of them about what kind of job they were hoping to get after their schooling, and they never cease to amaze me.  So many of them are saying they want to work for organizations :)  They say they would like to be able to go back into their villages or help other poor children find a way out.  They would like to be able to help and give back everything that have achieved and learn from the sisters and the Don Bosco school, such a wonderful thing to hear.

:) yup this is very normal

You find the incense everywhere, in front of every statue and home!

The tile in one of the temples, so much detail.

Don't they make for such beautiful pictures.

Grafitti.

So right in front of the river they have a row of exercise equipment, bikes, elipticals, all sorts...

JOY

Celebrating

Precious little one at one of the Don Bosco schools

Still trying to figure out the whole Buddha thing, because I showed this to someone here and they said this isn't considered Buddha, but this is the usual picture we get!

Another temple.

Entrance doors, so pretty

The National Museum

Enjoy.