What You Give to the World is What it Keeps of You

Maggie and I have been a bit busy these past few weeks. We've hosted a speech competition for the first years and a debate for the second years, both went extremely well if I do say so myself! We went to our first Khmer wedding in our Khmer dresses. We heard classical American music from the Chicago Trio and Friends group as they made their way through Cambodia.  We went to the home of another teacher where we played a very intense game of Uno with brothers and volunteers from Kenya, Pakistan, France and India. We went with the other teachers to the beach and up a mountain where we saw this HUGE Buddhist statue to Yeay Mao (Grandmother Mao) who protects the sea and forrest. We've been running around all over the place, but it's all been so much fun! For more details, check out Maggie's blog!

One thing that I really love, but haven't gotten to do much of, is to go to oratory with our girls. Our students go out into the provinces and teach school kids how to improve their English. The girls split up into several groups, some big and some small, and go out every Sunday morning. They aren't required to do this and most sign up because they want to, but at the beginning of the year they were struggling to have students sign up. Sister Blanchi, who is in charge of the oratory group, asked us to speak to the girls why their help is so important. I used a line from a Noah and the Whale song, Give a Little Love. I shared the line, "What your give to the world is what it keeps of you." I explained to them how when we die, we don't get to keep anything. Maybe that's a bit morbid, but follow me; if we share what we have learned and give back to the world by teaching it to others, that is what the world keeps us because it continues on. I told my students that the education you learn now, can shared with others and help other students be successful too. Maybe by that point I was preaching to the choir, but most of my first and second year students do participate in oratory!

On the way to the provinces, breakfast in hand! 

One of the girls confessed to me last week that initially she wasn't sure she could do oratory.  She, along with many other students, were nervous to be teachers, which was a feeling I could totally relate to. Most of the girls in my class know that I am a social worker by profession, and not a teacher, but that I want the girls to be successful, so I try to teach them as best I can. This girl shared with me that when she gets nervous to teach, she thinks
about Maggie and I. She knows we aren't professional English teachers, but that we care about our students and that that is enough. Can we talk about how my heart basically melted? I almost cried as she shared her little secret with me. It didn't really occur to me how they were also nervous to teach, or that they looked up to us like that. I'm glad that even in ways we weren't expecting, Maggie and I can be good examples for our girls.

Haha that smirk got me all morning!

Soccer meets Keep Away!

My students with their students!

So last Sunday, Maggie and I went to Kandal Province, 30 minutes outside of the city, to help our students with oratory. Don Bosco used oratory to teach his students, but also to play with the students and teach them about God. It was so awesome to see them teach their own students how to use has/have. They play soccer with the students after they give the lesson and they really get to know their students. I stayed with my girls who teach a class of 15 year olds for the first half- a class of almost all boys, and they're quite the handful. I wandered around to see what the other groups were doing. Most were continuing with their English lessons, but the group with the 7 year olds stopped to take a singing break. You read that correctly, a singing break. I walked into a group of 20 something 7 year olds passionately belting songs in Khmer. I asked my second year student why they were singing and she said, "They looked tired. We thought having them sing might wake them up more!" I thought it was a perfect response because my classes frequently do "Tr. Amanda Yoga" and The Chicken Dance when they start to look too tired. I loved that the kids were singing different songs, even though I didn't understand any of them, so I decided to share one with them. I sang a line from a Khmer pop song, Knhom Mis Sok Che Te which everyone in Cambodia knows because it's only two lines, though I've only mastered the first. I then had them do Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes, which they loved because everyone loves a good action song!

  I love going to oratory with the girls because they make me so proud, sharing their education with others! I know that teaching English is a small action on a bigger scale, but it's really cool to see how it already has an impact on the future of Cambodia!