Sharing My Trade: Teaching English

Our big plans for today was to go out to the village our translator Bella lives in and help her teach her English class. It was kind of a long, muddy, bumpy ride in the tuk tuk. At one point we almost dumped over sideways. We had to jump out and help get it out of the mud. After the tuc tuc could go no farther Bella's fiancé Peter took me the rest of the way on his moto since I have a bum knee. :( We spun out and got caught in the mud too...too much excitement for this old lady! (lol, you all know I loved every minute of it!).

When we got there it was not what I had expected. We were way out in the countryside and it was more farmland than neighborhood. We even saw some houses that actually rest on little bricks in the water way. It is called in "the roots" and the people can put up temporary structures there for free (kind of squatting I guess) but if the city needs to come in, they have to move their "house." It was extremely strange that just a bit farther down from these are huge mansions! They told us they were government or police people that are very high ranking.

The place we met to teach was just in someone's yard at their house. Bella and Peter do this as volunteers just to help give a hand to the people in their commune area. How sweet is that?! Well at first there were just the people that live there. One of the older gentlemen was making a makeshift car for the kids to ride on. It was completely out of wood scraps. The wife went to the edge of the road and started yelling out towards the fields. Slowly mothers and their children started flocking in and we were surrounded by all of these beautiful little faces, some smiling and some with their mouths open in awe of the foreigners that had arrived. We taught them some children's songs and even the ABCs. They were all so cute and I made a little buddy right from the start. He just walked right up to me and kept smiling right in my face. He was NOT shy in the least! I titled the pic of him and I as "the picture of the day!" It just makes me so happy to see it. Quite a few of the kids already knew quite a bit of English. I am not sure they know what they are saying but have some things memorized...its a start at least. We told the mother's that they were very good mothers to bring their kids to learn English and we told the kids that they were all very smart and to keep learning! My heart was so happy and my soul was fed!

Then off to a buffet with Bella, Peter and we also insisted that Mao came as well! It was a dinner show with traditional Cambodian dancers. It was so incredible, the costumes were beautiful and it was great to get a taste of this part of their culture as well. So wonderful to have some time away from our duties to go deeper into what life is really like here. This part of Cambodia reminds me a lot of Mexico. The shacks and the poverty but yet people that seems at ease and happy in their own sort of way. They both certainly know how to kick back and relax and how to make the most of what they have. One more full day tomorrow and then I am off to the airport for my long journey home!

My photo of the day. This just makes me happy! He smiled like this the whole time we were there. I switched the iPhone camera so he could see how we looked as we took the photo. My all time favorite selfie!