Month six is finished. Cambodia was one for the books. I loved our ministry and getting to know the students we taught English to. It was great learning about culture from them, both through talking with them and just observing them in every day life. So here’s a little bit about my month in Cambodia.
1. High schoolers are too cool for school.
It doesn’t matter if it’s Cambodia or the U.S., there are going to be high schoolers who just don’t want to be at school and don’t care about learning. Especially English from a couple of missionaries who are only there for three weeks.
2. People sell stuff super aggressively and just looking isn’t an acceptable answer to give.
Going to the markets can be overwhelming especially when you’re not necessarily looking for anything to buy. They all come out and talk to you as soon as you look at something. Then if you pick something up or touch it, they ask you to buy and will give you good deal. It makes sense how aggressive they can be because that is their livelihood and there is a shop a couple of stands down that sell the exact same thing. So there’s the fight to get the sale so they can survive another day.
3. Cambodia people are really small in general. Not necessarily from malnutrition, but just have super small bone structures.
It’s crazy how small they are. We had 14 year old boys in our class who looked about the size of 10 year old boys back in the states. And it wasn’t that the boys didn’t eat, but their structure is just so much smaller. I’m only 5’8” but I would say I am taller than a majority of the men in Cambodia.
4. Google translate becomes your best friend when trying to teach English.
When you don’t know the native language, but are expected to teach English, it becomes pretty tricky. There’s only so many simple words you can use to try and explain what words mean. So what resource do you use? Google translate of course. Once we showed the Khmer words for the English words, we saw the light bulbs quickly turn on.
5. Since English isn’t the primary language, music has no filter out in public.
It was interesting being in a coffee shop and then hear English music with the words blaring, only to hear swear words blared instead of being muted or changed. When the majority of the population doesn’t even understand what the words of the song are, it doesn’t seem to matter if the words are appropriate.
6. Kids cannot be adopted in Cambodia because there is such a high risk for them to be adopted, then sold by their new adoptive parents.
This is such a reality because there are so many orphans in Cambodia. Over half the population in Cambodia is under 14, I think. It’s a result of the genocide that took place in the late 70’s that took out 3 million people of the 8 million that were in Cambodia at the time. So because of that, there’s a large amount of orphans. But none of them can be adopted because there is a problem with people selling kids that they adopt to human trafficking. It’s a really sad thing and I wish it wasn’t the case because Cambodian children are so great and deserve a better upbringing than they have.
7. Regardless of language barriers, kids still laugh at the same silly scenes in every kids movie.
We watched Despicable Me 2 in class one day and it was hilarious watching the kids crack up at the same silly scenes that the kids in the U.S. do. Even if there was the language barrier and they may have not understood everything that was going on, they still laughed. It’s cool how God makes part of a person’s sense of humor visual.
8. Going to a movie in a theater & getting popcorn makes me feel a little bit at home. Bonus is it’s half the cost.
We were able to see a couple of movies in the local theater. The great thing is I saw Now You See Me 2 for just $3. And Finding Dory in 3D for a great price as well. It was fun being in a theater again and for the 2 hours I was sitting in the movie, I kind of forgot that I was sitting in Cambodia.
9. You don’t need to be Cinderella to make the shoe fit in Cambodia.
I know this probably seems odd, but shoe size is irrelevant. Since sandals are worn by everyone everywhere, it didn’t matter if a person’s heel was hanging off the edge by an inch or two. Especially since shoes are often taken off before entering a building, especially homes. It was pretty comical to me to see adults wearing kids sandals because it was what was available.
10. It’s assumed that rice is ate with all meals everywhere else in the world.
While I was teaching, I had the opportunity to have my students FaceTime with one of my friend’s kids. They asked each other questions and got to learn about each other’s cultures, as well as find out that there are kids just like them on the other side of the world. But I had to laugh when one of my students asked “When do you eat rice?” and then see the confused look on my friend’s kid’s face because clearly that isn’t a typical everyday occurrence in the U.S.
11. Kids know sadness. And the thought of saying goodbye is hard when you know that it’s not the first time someone has left them.
Our last day teaching was a sad day. The kids didn’t want us to leave. And you could definitely feel it in the air. It was a very somber day around school, with many hugs, sweet notes, and even some tears shed by the students. And it was such a hard goodbye because I know that it wasn’t the first time someone had left out of their lives. And I hated that I was going to be another one who left them.
Cambodia was a great month. I learned a lot from my students, which was awesome. And I think at the end of the day, they were the better teachers of all of us.
