Lying here watching my teammate, Allison, pack her bag for tomorrow’s travel day I find myself thinking 2 things:
1) Man I’m glad I’m done packing for tomorrow.
and
2) I can’t believe how sad I am about leaving my students and new friends this month.
Let me fill you in on some things since I haven’t done much, well any, blogging lately. You see, my team and I have been teaching English for the past two months: 1st in Cambodia and now in Vietnam.
In Cambodia- last month- we taught English to college students. The classes provided were free, and the students were incredibly motivated and just all around incredible. We lived in a girls dorm with a number of our students so we got to know them during our time there. The dorm exists specifically for college students who may not be able to attend college without an affordable place to live; it is affordable living, and the program we taught through sponsors these dorms. There is 1 girls dorm and 1 boys dorm, and the students act as one big, loving family.
In Vietnam- this month- we taught English to all ages! Anywhere from 5 years old/no English to 25 years old/better English than many Americans. The man and woman we worked with are a married couple who teach English in their own home to about 60 students- amazing! We were able to bless them by giving them some down time from teaching in the evenings. They were able to bless us even more by introducing us to our students and treating us like their own children; it really was like having a Vietnamese mom and dad all month. It was hard to say goodbye after class tonight. Love them both!
Anyway, I’m not going to reminisce about these past 2 months or tell you more about the difficulties that come with living and leaving every month. Nope. Instead, I’m going to share some wonderful memories and entertaining stories from teaching. Enjoy!
Cambodia
Story 1: We had our students get in front of the class to practice asking each other “W” questions: What, Where, etc. Well, one girl asked another girl, “What kind of boy you like?” The other girl casually replied, “I like the nasty one.” Well we just about died laughing- on the inside of course- and we didn’t have the heart to correct her. It wasn’t until later that I realized by not correcting her she might get herself into some trouble in the future. Whoops…
Story 2: When struggling to explain the meaning of the word “considering” to our students, I turned to Teacher Kat and said, “Considering English is our native language, we are not very good at teaching it.”
Story 3: Teacher Kristen taught our students how to properly use the terms, “Ya’ll,” “What’s cookin’ good lookin’,” and “Nah I-Be aight.”
Story 4: In our last week of class, Teacher Allison taught one of our classes about the middle finger. She taught them it was bad, but that did not stop them from trying it out. I will forever wish I had a picture of the students flipping off Teacher Allison- smiles on their faces the entire time.
Story 5: Before going to bed our last night in Cambodia, I got to stay up and have a wonderful conversation with one of my favorite students. We talked about everything for a couple hours. At one point she asked me about being away from home for so long. I told her, “It was hard the first 2 months, but now Asia feels like home.” At first I was just saying this to say it, but while saying it I realized I meant it. This was a pretty unexpected, welcome realization for me.
Vietnam
Story 1: One of our students wrote me a lovely Valentine’s Day card. My favorite part though was at the very end when she wrote, “I hope you will have boyfriend in next Valentine Day…” Thanks.
Story 2: Our students this month loved to feed us, which was perfect because we love to eat. After our last class, they fed us fish balls and milk breast.
Story 3: Vietnamese names are incredibly difficult to pronounce. The language is tonal so we are constantly getting our students’ names wrong. My favorite though was when we went to the lake for a day with our students, and Teacher Allison mispronounced Noap’s name. He was being a gentleman by helping someone carry a heavy purse, and Teacher Allison decided it would be funny to say to him, “Nice purse, Noap!” All the student’s cracked up…not for the reason she expected though. They told Teacher Allison, “Not Noap! It’s Noap (yup, still sounds the same to us). You just called him stupid!” So yeah, Teacher Allison said to one of our brightest male students, “Nice purse, stupid!” I still laugh about this.
I never thought I would enjoy teaching. I was an education major for a 2 years when I said, “Hell no,” and changed my major. Teaching is hard work, and it’s even harder when you start each month knowing you’ll have to say goodbye as soon as friendships start becoming real with your students. It’s worth it though. Memories like this are worth it. Helping my friends become better educated for bigger opportunities is worth it all.
Much love to everyone! Thanks again for your constant support.
If you want to see even more of Cambodia- tarantulas, tuk tuk dance parties, Angkor Wat, chicken tendons, etc.- follow the link to this video my teammate, Leah, made of our time there!
https://vimeo.com/117797926
