Part Two (The school in the slums)
Cambodia doesn’t require kids to go to school (and especially in the slums) so when the kids do go to school, they only go half of the day so they can work for their families the other half.
My friend from church has renovated her home in the slums to provide two different school environments each day so the kids who go to school in the morning can come learn in the afternoon and vice versa.
My Average Day this Month
I woke up around 10 am/11 am… had time to set a routine to start the day. No rollover, change, and have to be somewhere. ( for those of you who know me… this is a big step lol)
11:30am Gather my things, maybe have an apple and peanut butter, and head around the corner down the street to the local coffee shop that now knows my team pretty well.
Cambodian streets are hectic… crossing them means walking boldly into the sea of cars, motorbikes, bicycles, tuk-tuks, and bigger tuk-tuks called remorques.
Sometimes I made plans and met up with someone for coffee.
11:45am Have a coffee, spent some time reading the bible, and catch up with teammates before ordering a tuk-tuk to the slums.
12:30 pm Take coffee and ride through the city, use the time to catch up with friends back home and/or listen to podcasts.
1:00 pm Arrive in the slums to start the afternoon session of school with the kids. Get swarmed with hugs from all the sweet kiddos. <3
1:15ish. – there was one kid of significantly higher skill level that I worked with each day. Usually, they do ½ hour of English then ½ of computers, but he skipped computers for the week to work with me. With a whiteboard and a pad of paper we went over new vocab, creating stories, and verbal pronunciation.
As the week ended the school started to grow… from 7ish kids to around 22!!! Suddenly I was teaching three different level English classes. Such an amazing experience!
After that, sometimes we did math. I often worked with the youngest… he’s only 5. Helping with counting and simple math. Or every other day, it was time for art and they would color and create! 😀
Then all the kids came together for a game or two, they were so sweet and played mainly games that didn’t involve words or speaking Khmer while I was there. We would have a time of worship where the kids would start with fun songs and hand motions then into a more serious time. My heart was so blessed to hear the beautiful voices of all the little ones singing praises.
It was honestly such an inspiring space to be.
Then after snack time, a short bible story and then memory verse. During this time, one of the boys who came, his little sister would always sneak in for a hug ( or a lot of hugs). She is only about 4 so she is waiting until next year to attend the school. She stands at your feet and jumps up and down in excitement then throws her arms around you and snuggles as close as she can when you pick her up.
The kids had some time at the end to simply play with the toys and their friends before finishing up around 4:30. (I played a lot of “badminton” lol ) But oftentimes I would sit with my friend as the kids played. Just sitting and learning more about Khmer culture and her experiences. Such a wonderful time to just talk about God and the work that he has done in each of our lives. I was beyond blessed by their hospitality, their heart for God’s work, and their generosity.
4:30pm Several times I walked with some of the younger kids back to their houses.
It is a culture so unlike the US. We would walk a 5-year-old back and leave him home alone. We would walk past a girl who used to come to school, but then her dad started locking her in the house when left.
One girl who attends the school… suddenly became very withdrawn. Through her friends, my friend found out she had been raped, the little girl had told her mother and the police were called. The man (who was related to the little girl) had enough money and paid off the police, so he didn’t go to jail. This is a culture where it is commonplace for a man to believe that having sex with a virgin is medicinal and will cure him of AIDS or STDS… so it happens more frequently than our worst nightmares.
As I left, my friend would then go and check on the kids that didn’t make it to school that day… one boy age 11 lived “alone” as his mother (who was a prostitute for a living) had moved in with her new Chinese boyfriend. She just continued to pay the rent for her son to have a home in the slums. He had been living alone for several months… but missed school as he was visiting his mother.
4:45 pm/5 pm After more hugs and see you laters to the kids whom I have grown to love sooooo much. I head back in the tuk-tuk to our hostel. Our hostel is one of the few places to eat in town that offer more than enough food within budget! Sometimes I make plans with one or more of my teammates to go somewhere (there were several birthdays this month).
Usually, the $2 heaping plate of either rice and veggies or noodles and veggies hit the spot.
Then hostel life takes over… talking to the strangers who are passing through. Made friends from South Africa, from Spain, from Italy, and from Israel. So many different stories and reasons for traveling. Sometimes they are in town for more than one day and there is the opportunity to do something in the city… like, visit a museum or a market.
7/8 pm is team time. We all come back to our room. Do a general debrief on our days. Offer feedback. Then each person has had the opportunity to pick the “team time” activity. Sometimes we play a game together, or learn about each other’s passions, or we have even gone to see a movie together (Frozen 2 in the kid’s theater with a huge ball pit haha).
Everyone winds down between 9/10 pm. I have read books, sat outside on the phone or face-timing, or played card games downstairs. Lol, cause we all know I can’t go to bed before midnight… haha.
I am so happy and honored to have been a part of the school at all this month. It is a safe haven for many of the kids. Around 17 kids in the morning… and although the afternoon group started smaller, it had also grown to 22 by the time I left.
These kiddos have my heart and I pray for their futures, hoping that this educational opportunity will help push them closer to success and out of the poverty that many of them were born into.
But education aside… I’m so happy they have a place they can go where they can be kids. A place to laugh, to play, and to be hugged by people that love them. It is such a beautiful and colorful oasis where they can go and remember what it means to be a kid. <3
I will never forget the many things I learned there!
