So it turns out that the absolute best way to spend Valentine's Day is at a Cambodian wedding, followed by treat-giving to kids

Who knew? Well I suppose if I were being completely honest, I'd have to admit that I had a sneaking suspicion that this was the best possible way to celebrate Valentine's Day. To top it off, I was also notified that the day (particularly my attendance at Vanni's wedding) marks the day I became a Cambodian. Big news, yeah?

The whole affair was somehow both very formal and rather relaxed, quite traditional while intermittently improvisational. When we arrived(we being Donna, an email foster mom presently visiting her daughter; Chantha, said daughter; Touch, who would soon step up to the considerable task of teaching me to dance; Masa, my fashion consultant and resident photographer; Srey Mom, exuberant attendee; Papa Soeurn, deputy director of FLO; and of course our handsome driver), the celebration was already well underway. Entertainers were telling jokes to the wedding party and a crowd of guests, including a mob of jubilant ragtag younguns. Naturally the comedians couldn't resist including the newly arrived foreigners in their skit, and if I'm not mistaken both Donna and I were proposed to. Buuuut I could be mistaken. As any of my students(/teachers) can vouch, my Khmer's a little shaky. (Actually, the adorable truth is that none of them would say that. My Khmer is atrocious, but as long as I'm willing to toss up a word or phrase here or there I'm told that I speak Khmer very well all the time. LOVE them!)

It was after the traditional hair-cutting ceremony that most of the FLO kids who were in attendance showed up ~ and wow, do those boys Bring the party. About a half dozen of the older boys from FLO were esteemed wedding guests, and they were just a barrel of trouble and fun. We sat down at a couple tables ('Why can't we all sit at the same table?' I wondered to myself until I saw the lovely bridesmaids join the young gentlemen and all became clear.) to dine (on lemongrass stuffed grilled fish! - My SE Asian Favorite! - and more!) and down a few (mediocre) lagers before the dancing began. And oh dear. I'll let a couple photos tell the remainder of that story.


Anyway the wedding was beyond grand and Vanni was beyond beautiful. She was breathtaking. I had an utter blast and I'm so glad I was invited and able to attend! Congratulations and thank you Vanni and husband whose name I can't spell!

After a brief stop at Mt Oudong, we returned to FLO to hand out Valentines. February 14th happens to be "Auntie Donna's" birthday, and she had the brilliance to celebrate it by giving little gifts to the kids. They were delighted, and it's always fun to monkey around with them at the end of the weekend. They are all so busy with school and other classes most of the time; weekends are just priceless. (Remember the love from before? It's continuing!)

In order to top off my weekend of affection and certain romance, here's one more lovin' highlight: I walked into my writing class today to find my two (best, of course) students waiting for me with bunches of coconut flowers! Thank you boys, you jokers.

Need I repeat that these kids are the best?

All love,
am

Reality Check

Another blag post, another su s’dai. If you’re reading this, I’m thinking of you and more than likely missing you, too.

The faithful among you readers will remember that last week we celebrated Visa Extension Day. And a celebration it was – I must have taught three classes that evening! What a crazy night. As my memories of such legendary festivities gradually returned to me, I began to muse over one chain of thought in particular:

Even as I anticipate my next two and a half months (See how quickly the time dwindles! Joel, I still can’t and doubt I ever will handle the passage of time.) here in Cambodia and at FLO, my mind has started to wander . . . toward what will I direct my energy when I return to the US? Rents, you’ll be glad to hear I’m already applying for jobs, as a good deal of my motivation for returning at all is financial. (Attn Student Loans: I hate you.) And would anyone believe that as I flipped through my mental rolodex (So what if I still have a rolodex? It’s functional!) for future opportunities, I actually thought-sighed, “Back to reality.”

Oh, I’m sorry Ann Marie; did you just imply that you’ll be returning to reality? As though from somewhere else? Where exactly do you think you’ve been for the past month?

Good. Question.

Yesterday I went to a class in Phnom Penh to add some finesse or pizzazz (I’m honestly not sure which) to my efforts volunteering with the handicraft shop at FLO. Several artisans produce traditionally crafted silk products there, and the proceeds they generate help to support the children at FLO as well as the handicraft project itself. All I’m doing in conjunction with them, besides saying good morning every day, is editing and updating the promotional material. Anyway we all sat down for lunch together, and I happened to be sharing a table with three NGO organizers who know Phaly (the director of FLO) and asked after her, asked what I was doing in Cambodia and where I was from, the usual third degree. As I began to ask likewise, they told me about different provinces in Cambodia and one of the gentlemen offered, “All of the people you are talking to are former refugees. This is how we know Phaly.”

How, I ask in sincere seriousness and not at all rhetorically, does one respond? It’s not so unusual, I know, to converse with a person and be unsure of what they’ll be comfortable talking about. The extreme degree to which this (I would say, quite appropriate) uncomfortable awareness exists in Cambodia talking to anyone over 40 is something I’ve never experienced. If you ask where someone is from, you should certainly be aware that the entire urban population of the nation was displaced thirty-five years ago. It’s impossible to fathom; as I write I’ve lifted both my hands to my head several times in futile effort to comprehend. It verges on the unreal. I can’t tell if my mind is just doing a very poor job of relating or if the situation is so unlike anything I’ve ever experienced that I don’t even know how to imagine myself in that place; I’m leaning toward the latter.

As I corresponded with a friend familiar with FLO recently, she very astutely observed, “So many people at FLO and in Cambodia in general have gone through so much tragedy that it becomes banal and is rarely spoken of.” Everyday I’m surrounded by ten-year-olds who have seen more hardship than I will in a lifetime. Furthermore, these kids are (for the most part) incredibly candid when it comes to telling their stories – one wonders whether it’s due to such an intimate familiarity with pain or relishing any invitation to accept individual attention, and I’m sure both contribute – actually I’m sure there are still more contributing factors that I’m unaware of and leaving out.

What is still more staggering is that the children living here are the lucky ones. Every evening over a hundred children from the village come into FLO for English classes; just over a third of my evening classes are village kids. I was walking back to FLO from the primary state school the other morning, and I saw one of the young ladies in my beginning English class outside her home. She offered me a ride (driving someone or riding on the back of a bicycle is seriously the best way to get around FLO) and while we biked I asked if she had school in the afternoon (most of the kids at FLO have class at the state school either in the morning or afternoon, full time maybe once or twice a week). She said no, and I asked what she was going to do that day, and she told me she would go to work, but she wanted to go to school. This isn’t atypical: two village kids have left my evening classes (in the month and a half I’ve been working) because their parents take them out of school to go to work in factories.

And the village kids who aren’t in school still have a distinct advantage (just given their proximity to educational opportunities) over kids in rural areas – when you say ‘rural’ in Cambodia, you’re serious.

All of this is to say that in the course of my time here at FLO I’ve only continued to explore and consider my own understanding and experience of life, and what I can grasp of reality. Sure, I can come out here for a few months and involuntarily tear up when I talk and dream about my students and new friends, but what is the end of my efforts? (In an effort to understand that much more about Cambodia I’ve been doing a bit of reading on Buddhism, and that last statement just got my mental wheels turning concerning what end to efforts there is at all. There’s a lot about Buddhist philosophy that I’m critical of, even at its root, though there are plenty of valuable thoughts wrapped up in there as well. Right now my thoughts are regarding the joy I obtain from making efforts and feeling even a little bit satisfied, though more than likely inspired, by my attempts to fulfill them.) When I return to my own usual experience of reality, will I have accomplished anything lasting and worthwhile? Not just for me, although my own growth is valuable, sure, fine, but really: will I have contributed something? It seems almost impossible that I will have. But I still hope so. So wish me luck, kittens. (Sometimes I call my students ‘kittens’ in class. They’re confused and amused by it.)

I want to sign out by saying that the I lunched with the same group of people today, and the same man who told me that they were all former refugees challenged me to tell a joke – I naturally opted for my favorite joke, the one with the he(a)rd of cows, and I think it went over pretty well – and then countered my joke with one set in the Pol Pot Era, which I feel begs the question, do I just wear my diplomatic sensitivity that conspicuously on my sleeve and he is just totally effing with me?

Actually I think that more significantly displays the inherent positive nature that I’ve come to really adore about Cambodian people. A few of you are already familiar with my fondness for the biblical encouragement, “Be joyful always,” but I think there may only be one person to whom I’ve ever expressly stated why I consider it an important and valid piece of advice. We talk about and seek out and run after happiness all the time, but ‘joy’ seems seldom to be a goal, or even something we’re aware we’re capable of attaining. In my understanding, what makes joy special and worthy of pursuit is that it is happiness rooted in something more significant than immediate pleasure or some vague good feeling, maybe the absence of any present bad feeling. Joy gains its authority from faith (today I read of faith that “the decisive efficacy of faith is not that it stimulates its objects to act supernaturally but that it transforms the subject” – Mom & others reading or who have read tBK, put that in your treasure chest containing your impressions of Alyosha and bury it) that there are ideals worth striving for. Of course there's more to it than that, but there's always more to it than that.

Annnnd that’s enough out of me for one day! Thanks for reading, whoever’s out there.

am

Happy Chansy's birthday!

It’s Chansy’s birthday! Wherever in the world you are reading this, you should probably stop right now and throw a party, and only if it’s the best and most fun party in which you’ve ever been attendant will it be a near appropriate celebration of that lady.
I don’t have much to give, unfortunately, and actually Chansy doesn’t seem that into making her birthday a celebration, but I’m still so happy to be here even just to say happy birthday and give her a hug in person. Chansy has been a true source of joy for me here, even in the times I’ve felt loneliest. She’s an incredibly strong, smart and independent lady, and wonderfully sweet and piles of fun to boot. Not to mention that she is perhaps the only person I’ve met here who doesn’t treat me like a novelty, and with whom I can interact just like people. It has become the most obvious and appreciated of the many instances in which Chansy proves herself a very good friend.
(Now comes a potentially great parenthetical moment: I’d like to send out this bashful apology to every friend and love of mine – and there are a number of you – to whom I’ve ever fretted that my novelty was wearing off and I therefore must be less interesting to you, and you must therefore be less interested in me. I think I can safely say that I quite understand now that ‘novel’ is not a notion I really want to inspire in people, not in essence. It's true that there's some romance to relishing something new and exciting, but it seems like there is a richer value in something complicated and challenging, and you appreciate it as it becomes more interesting when you bet to know it more thoroughly.)
Today is a busy day; my classes (two down, five to go) are going smashingly, and there's more to come!
(I really just wanted to post today to give more observance to Chansy. She's amazing, she does so much, and she sees so little attention herself. Everybody aim love in this direction!)

As ever,
am

Seriously, that was a really, unusually slow tuktuk

Happy Visa Extension Day, one and all!

So I just returned to FLO from the most ridiculous tuktuk ride. This guy, Srom, is an utter anomaly among tuktuk drivers: sweet as all things holy, but the slowest motorist on several wheels (it just occurred to me that I have no idea how many wheels a tuktuk has. I'll have to count next time). [Edit: there are four wheels on a tuktuk; two on the moto, and two on the trailer.] Upon my word the only vehicles that didn't pass us were bicycles. On the positive side, I saw cows grazing on a median and another group of cows milling about a car lot (presumably shopping). Silly cows! Good ol' hilarious cows.

Even from an extraordinarily slowly-moving tuktuk, however, I truly enjoy spying on Phnom Penh. I dig the city, I do. Perhaps it’s the grit. Many of you know already that I'm an absolute sucker for a gritty city. PP was the natural next step following Chicago, and before that, Tacoma, the Gritty City of Destiny. While it's true that I don't know Phnom Penh well (at all) yet, I just have a good feeling when I get into town. It's probably a combination of that gritty city affection and the minivacation that just relaxes me that much when I make the occasional jaunt off the orphanage compound. FLO’s a really great place, to be sure, but we all need a change of scenery once in awhile. Some of us more than others . . . and myself, perhaps, more than most. It’s an attribute of myself I’m learning to deal with.

So the time I've spent riding in numerous tuktuks, biking, and moto-ing (Indeed! I drove a moto myself!) about in Phnom Penh, Saigon, Hanoi, Bangkok, Chiang Mai, and Siem Reap has given me a lot of insight into oh, every stereotype of Asian drivers I’ve ever heard alluded to. There is one main difference between driving in the US and driving in SE Asia, from what I can understand based on my limited experience: in the US, driving is a competitive sport; in SE Asia, it’s a cooperative effort ~ by this I don’t mean (at all, really) that anyone is working together, but that everyone on the road is operating with the understanding that they are surrounded by a lot of individuals in constant motion. I can’t really say it makes driving any safer, either. When I was in Portland visiting Famous Michael (Hey Famous Michael ~ I miss you!) we (mostly he) talked to a man from India who was telling us (him, really) that India is the freest place in the world, and the first example he cited was that you can drive as fast as you want. Hmmm . . . .

Anyway, my point is, Mom, Auntie, Addie, others who show regular and understandable concern for my shocking propensity towards physical malady resulting from my utter lack of coordination and magnetic attraction to clumsy situations, don’t worry: all moto drivers and passengers wear helmets all the time in Cambodia. I, of course, wear a helmet whenever I’m mobile. And in the tenderly rocking arms of a nearly immobile tuktuk like Srom’s I can get around Phnom Penh in perfect safety. Very slowly. Ahem. (What can I say, I desire to be a quickly moving lady!)

Needless to say, I prefer Chansy’s moto. Driving a moto is fun, but it’s more relaxing to ride along, and I (am going to sound like the biggest nerd saying this but it’s true so I’m going to say it anyway) feel so cool riding with Chansy! This is in large part due to the awesomeness of Cambodian people. The culture here is so warm. Before coming out here I didn’t know anything at all about what people in Cambodia are like, and I’ve been so frequently blown away by the sincere joy that comes from welcoming someone around here. (Of course the kids are the very best example. But there are plenty of others, too!) But a person, just any person on the street, if they don’t smile immediately upon seeing you, give them a smile first ~ a reaction in kind is guaranteed.

Oh, not long ago my Mom (look, Mom, it’s like a whole blog post dedicated to you!) asked a few questions about some general things in Cambodia, and since maybe a few other people have the same questions I’m going to answer them here. Also I don’t remember if I ever emailed back regarding those questions. (Sorry!)

Khmer is the name of the language most commonly spoken in Cambodia ~ you can pronounce it either k’mer like the first syllable of mermaid or k’mai like the first syllable of the name Maya; either is acceptable. Khmer is also the name for the major cultural ethnicity of Cambodia. Some 97% (?) of Cambodian people are ethnic Khmer, so generally the terms “Cambodian” and “Khmer” can be used interchangeably, but they don’t mean exactly the same thing. For example!
On my first trip into Phnom Penh on Chansy’s moto, we met her friend Moni to guide us around the Royal Palace, and the three of us were meant to hop of the moto to go to the National Museum. I’m a giant here, so I was worried that we wouldn’t all fit, and said so. Chansy and Moni laughed and Moni said, “We are Cambodian!” (And we all fit ~ rather easily. The most people I’ve seen on one moto is six. So far.)
When I was staying in Siem Reap and Chansy, Sieng Eng and Bora brought lunch back to Min (I can’t spell her name; it sounds like “mean,” but she isn’t) and me, we were presented with rice, salty fish and watermelon. When I eat at FLO, fruit is usually served at the end of the meal for dessert, so that’s the role I assumed the melon would play. However, Bora told me to eat the melon with the fish, in one bite. I paused with my mouth full. As this suggestion met with incredulous disbelief, Chansy and Sieng Eng insisted, “It’s Khmer style.” (And tasty!) Yull?

I’m doing my best to pick up some Khmer while I’m in Cambodia, and it’s been slightly easier than I’d feared due to my having as many Khmer teachers as I have English students, but the language is Difficult. One of the girls in my writing class (Emily, the one who is your little Cambodian sister!) told me today that there are 23 vowels and 32 consonants in the Khmer alphabet. What?! (Angkor Wat, the kids reply. The jokers.) I’m trying to learn to write, too, so whenever anyone teaches me a word they also have to teach me how to write it. The kids think it will be easier for me to learn to write word by word, but I want to learn the alphabet so I can take the words apart and figure them out. Hah, I’m sure I am going about this in an entirely hackneyed manner. But I’m working hard at it! I have plenty of encouragement and motivation, though: everytime I use or write a word correctly (in class or out), the kids positively erupt into applause and grins, and Wanee, one of the girls who works here at FLO, tells me I look more beautiful when I speak Khmer ~ and eat Khmer food. So, okay, good deal, I’m in, is what I’m saying.

Alright, I’ve already written much more than I’d planned but I’m going to include one last bit of news: I’m going to a Cambodian wedding! Wanee is getting married next Sunday, and she invited me to her wedding! I’m stoked. It will be the best Valentine’s Day ever.

In other, less exciting news, my morning classes were cancelled today. The sort of thing I just love learning when I walk into the classroom. More time for Khmer lessons and less formal kid hangabouts!

Later, taters!

am

Cutest event in the universe reported yesterday at 1700 hours

So somebody's been spreading rumors among the children that I like to sing, and now everytime there's a lull in conversation (and there is the occasional lull), the kids ask me to sing. I was walking around with Sovann, Panha and David and they asked me to sing. I said I would sing for them if they sang for me. So, Sovann started and Panha and David joined in singing a Khmer song, and so did the kids who were setting the tables for dinner (the kids eat at 530, and we were sitting at the edge of the dining hall). Pretty cute already, right? Well brace yourself: when I came through with my end of the deal and sang a little song for them, each child immediately started playing the airguitar, airkeyboard and airdrums. It was the best band I've ever been in! Sugarbasket, you should get out here and, you know, jam!

(Edit: The cutest recorded event in the universe actually occurred last Sunday at approximately 1700 hours. I just didn’t have time to blag about it because I was spirited away to Siem Reap for a week.)

That’s right, faithful readers, I was in Siem Reap for a week! Several of the staff here at the orphanage were evidently concerned (with good reason) that I hadn’t gotten out of FLO much in the month I’ve been here so far. (A month already? How crazy.) This concern happily coincided with a handicraft fair in Siem Reap that a few staff members – including my pal Fancy Chansy – were going to be attending. Chansy, by the way, is totally the Addie of my FLO experience. For those of you to whom I've never gushed my adoration of Addie, that's the highest of compliments. (I'm in the regular habit of saying that if the only good thing to come from me living in Chicago were meeting Addie, it would be enough. Totally enough!) After processing quite a bit of welcome but required encouragement, I packed my bag and boarded a van full of silk products. The better portion of my week was spent helping out at the handicraft fair, but the real highlight, of course, was catching my first glimpse of Angkor Wat. It’s amazing! Just like everyone says. Who knows, maybe I’ll include a photo or two for your viewing pleasure (yes, your personal viewing pleasure). Maybe. Our first evening in Siem Reap, my Khmer travel companions sneaked me into the temple and Chansy took me on a frantic whirlwind tour. Later in the week, I treated myself to the pleasure of renting a bike and touring around a few of the temples – by my lonesome, but lovely nonetheless. I spent the most time back at Angkor Wat and at Bayon (the Bayon? I don’t know how to properly talk about these places), a ruined temple full of stone faces within the ancient fortified city of Angkor Thom. I met a few traveler friends, and also had a really great time being back on a bike. (I miss Bikey!) I made it out to the temples and back to the fair without so much as breaking ol’ wristy.

Since my little journey, I’ve resolved to make myself a little more regimented in my blagging. I’m going to try to post more regularly, maybe even a few times a week, even if I don’t have much to say, if I do have anything to say. Even when I feel like I’m falling into something of a routine, the crazy truth is that there are new things springing up around me (around all of us) all the time! And since even my pretty insignificant new things are springing up in ways with which I’ve been heretofore unaccustomed, I might as well set them down here for you all to see. My resolution is really in response to a couple wonderful ladies in particular (That’s you, Auntie and Fallon!) who have remarked on their habits of checking up on me, and I want to give them something fun to read. Incidentally, if anyone has any questions about what I’m doing or what things are like around here, please ask! It’s nice to see that people are interested, or at least that someone’s reading. Makes me feel less like I’m just releasing pieces of my mind into the ether. Not that releasing thoughts into the ether isn’t just a fine use of writing space and time.

Another resolution I made on this trip is, next time I travel by car, to spill more beverages on myself. I’m not sure it’s possible, but that’s not going to stop me from trying!

Oh, in other very exciting news, I’d like to welcome a very special new reader: Hi Grandma White Bear! Thank you so much for blog following me! I’ll try to clean up my language J

And while I’m shouting out to individuals, Happy Birthday Kevin!

As I’d begun to say (or at least begun to think) earlier, it’s interesting how easy it is to settle into a routine, how quickly strange and new things can come to seem normal. As Chansy and Tey and I talked about returning to FLO at the end of the Siem Reap trip, I even found myself saying, “Back to normal.”Just a month ago, everything I did every day was part of something I’d never done before, and within a matter of days those things have become habitual; I was even struggling to think of what to write in this contraption because even new things were starting to feel the same. The truth, however, is that new things are new! So I'll write about them.

And for now, off to class. Til next time ~ am

51% Sugar, 38% Cream, 11% Coffee

The above description is the ingredients listed on the package of instant coffee I typically consume each morning. Now, if you know me, you know that as a matter of principle I drink coffee strictly recreationally and not according to any sort of dependency or addiction. But when I do drink coffee, I want Coffee: strong and dark, no sugar or cream, thank you…but I’m an absolute sucker for Phearun’s flawless hospitality. So I’ve been drinking instant coffee…rather, instant sugar with cream and coffee, every morning that Phearun offers it to me. This guy is “so great” (A handful of you reading have heard the characteristic way Phearun says, “so great.”) Today, I walked into the canteen, and he said, “Ann Marie. What a woman, Ann Marie.” I about died laughing; I think that’s the best ‘good morning’ I’ve heard yet in Cambodia.
Good news, everyone!
This week, my beginning writing classes will begin! It’s been something of a challenge to organize, but I’m quite happy that these classes will finally get rolling. Alright, not being used to using any teacher lingo, I’m going to do my best to describe my new classes properly: I’m already teaching two sections of a rather advanced writing skills class for the older students whose English is very strong, and who are practicing academic writing in particular. The interest in these classes has really grown, however, and I had new students coming in every day, pretty much at random. So! I’m beginning two new sections of a grammar-intensive writing skills class for students who need to hone a few skills before entering a class like the intro to academic writing class. For the students whose schedules don’t allow them to join either class, I am meeting weekly with those smaller groups and arranging at least one other time during the week when I can meet them up individually. Fun, right? Yes, fun is right. Morally right. Right? Of course right. Perhaps obviously, these new classes are likely to change quite a bit as I assess the abilities of the students; fortunately, the class sizes are pretty small so it should be easy to transmute a lot of that individual attention I so love to give.
This seems like a good opportunity to clear up what precisely I’m up to over here – over here being in a village nearby Phnom Penh – and what I’m not up to. So, I’m working as a volunteer at the Future Light Orphanage of Worldmate (alias FLOW). I think it’s alright for me to say that as long as I also say that the views and opinions reflected upon in this blag in no way represent the views and opinions of FLOW. (Incidentally, http://xkcd.com/148/) (Hi, Joe Grange!) (Also, hi Ryan O’Neill!) Alright, I think I’ve explained sufficiently about the classes I’m teaching….Oh, it’s completely worth mentioning that the kids here are incredible students. They are all smart, motivated, and respectful – in short, probably about the best group of kids with whom I could have an initial teaching experience.
Just to be clear, don’t be too nice to me, everybody: I’m not actually running any marathons. Mika, this very nice and awesome Hawaiian (actually, Samoan) fellow ran a marathon around and about Phnom Penh in support of Cambodian orphans in particular, and orphans the world over in general. He did the whole marathon-sized marathon; I (and a handful of other nice and fun folks) ran about 10km, from FLOW to the airport and back. Not even a quarter marathon, you guys! It was more like what I prefer to call a “mini marathon”. Still lots of fun, still supporting the orphans, but – sadly enough – not an actual marathon, for me. Maybe someday. Some day in the distant, distant future. For the time being, however, all that training I did for a half-marathon I had hoped to run in October sure came in handy. Yup…all that training. Makes me tired just thinking about how hard I trained.
Ah, thinking about running makes me think of a few people and things that I miss about Chicago and the general US: I miss Fallon, of course, and I miss yoga. Now I’m going to list a few more people and things that I miss! I miss Amy, and the South Loop Wine Cellar, and wow do I miss drinking wine. I miss real coffee, although I did have some very delicious coffee in Vietnam and Thailand. I miss ice cream, but I’ve heard rumors of a very good ice cream parlor in Phnom Penh. That will be checked out imminently.
Of course, for everything I miss, I’m constantly discovering new things that delight (or at least intrigue) me and make me so happy to be here. For example! Green mangoes and chili salt. Pineapple soup (I struggle to recall a soup I’ve consumed in Cambodia that has not featured pineapple in some way). Oh, these really awesome tiny eggplants and (not tiny) green tomatoes. Well, those new delightful items were all edible but this next one isn’t: being called Sister (“Sisteh!”) all the time. (Thanks Pat for noticing that that is, indeed, awesome!)
Regarding my boasting about learning kids’ names last blog: individual attention means the world to these kids. I got so proud of myself for learning so many names (I think rather quickly – though I had no idea how hard it would be to learn names in another language. I can’t tell if it’s gotten easier of more difficult as I discover kids with the same names as others) because they So Love to be remembered individually. I said hi to one of the girls in my beginning English class by name the other afternoon and she responded, “Ooh! I love you Sister!” She was so happy; my heart glowed!
Well, this has been unnecessarily lenthy. Now, for my mom, I’m including a photo of the view from my window. It’s ephing pastoral.
Love!
am
P.S. Chansy just brought me a cup of black coffee. !

I've learned the names of all the sudents in my elementary English class and BOTH writing classes!

That's over 30 kids altogether, plus the few randoms I've learned just because they're always hovering about - and i do mean hovering about in the most affectionate, adorable sort of way. So I am beginning the wonder if the world might be full of plenty of people who have something to give and a great desire to do good but really no idea what to do with that. There’s probably a pretty good chance that I’m a person like that. These past days I’ve had to look seriously at myself, several times, and remember that this is a place where I can really do nothing but good, and the capacity in which I’ll be best able to do that is something that I have to consider thoroughly and just take one day at a time. Of course, trying my hardest.

I realized after I wrote a few days ago that I kind of interrupted myself right in the middle of the whole “average day in my present life” bit. So as much as I enjoy talking to Phearun, my day doesn’t begin and end chatting him up over breakfast. Right now I don’t have any classes during the day on Mondays and Thursdays, but that will probably change as my schedule develops. Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, I teach two writing skills classes to some of the older students; most are in grades 10-12, though I have one college student and one in grade 7 (I know! He’s amazing.) The writing skills classes have generated a lot of interest, however, so I’ll likely take on an additional weekly class or two for the students who want to be in the writing skills class but need to hone their English a little more. A few of said kids will become my first tutoring students! About which I’m pretty stoked, as I feel much more comfortable teaching one on one than I do in front of a whole class – although it’s admittedly much easier than I’d feared to be in front of a classroom. No disrespect, actual teachers: as I’ve always suspected, teaching is a lot of responsibility and challenging in its own right. In the evenings I am teaching three English classes with intern teachers (who are all wonderful, bright and hardworking), two beginning English classes and one elementary.

I spend most of the rest of my time during the day outside, maybe somewhere around the kids, trying to look approachable, reading, writing, or otherwise attempting to be a good example. If I feel like I need to do more before the night classes I go over that material, but I usually try to prepare enough for class the evening prior. Getting the ball rolling on this writing class is turning out to be something of a challenge, so I kind of feel like I’m really inching my way around trying to prepare adequately for that.

I stay here on the compound in a guesthouse, and I recently moved from a big room on the first floor to one of the more manageably-proportioned volunteer rooms upstairs. There are fewer frogs and lizards, which is slightly disappointing, but more geckos, and I’m pretty happy about that. My two favorite things about this room are the tree outside my window, which grows incredibly fragrant flowers (they have six thick, waxy petals and smell like bananas!), and my view of the pond, fields and village over the wall around the orphanage. Is it okay to say in a blog that I’m working on an orphanage? Well, if it isn’t okay, don’t tell anybody. But for now, since I've let the orphan kitten out of the bag, I'm going to post two photos of two of my favorite fellows who always seem to show up wherever I am, and I absolutely love them for it.

(Honestly, genuinely and sincerely loving over 200 tiny people is about the craziest emotion I can imagine. It's really, really amazing.)

Well that’s what’s new! I’ll write again when I have something interesting to say. Please keep thinking of me! If you’re reading this, I can pretty much guarantee that I’m thinking of you.

Til next time,
am