Field Trip?!?

There's a simple equation that every student teacher learns:
First-year teacher
+ Field Trip
__________________
Failure

OK, so I made that up, but it seems logical. There are plenty of variables to manage in the classroom; leaving the school multiplies them by about 50. So when my dear friend and fellow BBC period drama lover Suzanne Johnson suggested incorporating a tour of Vissot Food Corporation, I knew I was out of my league, but I was intrigued by the challenge.

Field trips are hard to come by here. Dan, the principal, encourages us to take students on trips whenever possible, even if it's a non-traditional destination. There's a zoo that's a bit frightening for animal lovers, a water park that lends itself to causing open wounds, an art museum composed almost exclusively of ancient statues of Buddha. Performances and exhibits are relatively rare; movie theaters only show horror films.

So our trips tend to be a bit creative. So far this year, various Logos students have gone to: a Christian-run village for AIDS orphans and elderly widows, the genocide museum, a remote village near the Thai border, and a brothel. Yes, you read that last one correctly. The Service Leadership class sent its girls to a brothel (one of three just down the street from the old campus) to distribute leaflets in Khmer about God's love to the workers. So, comparatively speaking, it seemed normal to go to a factory for an English field trip.

Vissot is a Cambodian-owned health food company, started by the Seventh-Day Adventist church about 10 years ago. Their original product, the delectable Peanut Crumble cookie, is composed of two round crunchy cookies (peanuts and cane sugar baked together) fused together with their all-natural peanut butter. It's available at most grocery stores here. They've since expanded their line to include various jams, curry pastes, rice snacks, and granolas. They employ mostly students and disadvantaged women, seeking to give them a leg up. Suzanne loves to sing their praises, and our colleague Sokcha (the physics/math teacher) once worked in peanut quality control for them. It's located between my house and the school, in my neighborhood of Toul Kork.

I realized that as part of the 8th grade nonfiction unit, we could do a "complex process" paper describing the journey of various products from farms to stores. So I scheduled a visit, handed out permission slips, booked a van, and had students brainstorm prior knowledge and questions about the production process. (That was a revelation: one pair, trying to guess the ingredients in jam, could only come up with "powder." They were shocked to learn it had real fruit.) We were told that since the plant is small, half of the 25 students would tour, while the other half sat outside (in the 2 PM sun) and asked questions of a Vissot representative. As a treat, I let students pre-order smoothies and iced coffees from Sovannary's restaurant for their outside segment. We had them all lined up to arrive when students were outside. I scoped out the factory in advance and clarified expectations with students twice. Sounds organized? Not really. I was a mess trying to figure out these few factors and how to use wisely the mere hour between departure and return. (The vans had to be back early for school dismissal, or we'd have had 90 minutes.)

The day of the field trip, one student said he'd lost his permission slip and hadn't gotten another. Could he just have his brother sign for him? After all, they'd lived together without their parents all last year. One of the girls had a signed form, but I didn't ask who signed it: probably her house helper, because her parents live outside the country. At least one other student was here without his parents for a month in the fall. Permission slips don't seem to fit Cambodia.

I also got a call from the guy who had arranged the vans for me. "Did you mean next Thursday? You told me 11:30 and you're still not out here." (I had watched him write down the real departure time, 1:40.) Thankfully, the vans were still available.

When we arrived at the factory, several minutes late, they wanted everyone to take the tour at once. By the time my students got their drinks (I felt so bad bringing them inside!), found a seat, and waited for the PR guy to begin, it was 2:15. We jammed in there while a hesitant PR rep gave his first-ever student tour. "Tour" is a stretch - we couldn't go near the machines without special gear, so we looked through the glass from a waiting area the size of my bedroom.

After that, we split into our two groups for student questions. They barked out the questions they'd written in class, sounding like journalists. At least my tour guide was Australian and had the upper hand over them in English fluency, unlike the Khmer tour guide in the other group. Students in my group were respectful and attentive; the other group needed some redirecting. But they all thought it was cool that the peanut butter doesn't actually have butter (or even oil) - just ground peanuts and salt. And watching the workers stamp the round cookies held their attention for at least 30 seconds. At 2:45, they were surprised we had to leave already. (Which is good, I guess, that it wasn't too long, although using the first 15 minutes might have been nice.) On Monday, we'll talk about showing respect to those with faltering English and acknowledging the greatness of what Vissot is doing.

So, with my first field trip under my belt, I think I can safely claim it as a learning experience, at least for myself. I learned that "paper wars" are really exciting for 8th graders in vans. I learned that 1 hour is not enough time for a trip anywhere, even one mile away. I learned that if I want strangers to work together, I need to clarify expectations a zillion times more than seems necessary to me. And I learned that Suzanne can put magic and perspective into anything. Most of all, I was reminded that what you want students to learn and what they actually learn are not always the same, and sometimes that's OK.

Chimps, Piranhas, and Tarantulas, Oh My!

My trip to Thailand between Christmas and New Years was delightful! See photos here.

The Notorious Bong Nath

Sarah with Bong Nath and her family

I finally got to meet her this week. For months I've heard stories about this woman, known for her perseverance and boldness that are sometimes beautiful and sometimes aggravating. I don't understand everything about her, but she embodies a lot of my questions and musings.

Last Sunday, I visited the Khmer-language Bible study Sarah's been attending at Bong Nath's (pronounced Bong Not) house. While Sarah taught the kids and led a Christmas program for them, I sat with Bong Nath and others, looking at photos of her kids growing up. Then I gave them a small talk on Luke 3, the Christmas story, which Bong Nath's daughter Samedi translated. Bong Nath was a gracious hostess as always, cooking a big pot of mouthwatering chicken curry with rice noodles and French bread. (The surviving chickens ran around us during the whole Bible study, as we sat in a circle just outside her house.) She sent us home with leftovers, as well as several mangos and two pumpkins that she had grown.

Bong Nath is connected to Logos in that she used to cook and clean for several of the teachers. She's been unemployed since they moved back, and is fighting hard for another job (she gave me her CV to pass along to friends). She's a master at networking, and knows a Khmer TA well, in addition to a number of teachers and students still at Logos. Her family is among the poorest in Phnom Penh - they have two rooms in their house with walls made of scrap tin, and they have often lived hand-to-mouth, including likely right now.

I asked Bong Nath about her faith story, and instead heard a rambling 20-minute tale involving her family's many years of dire poverty. It was in the midst of fruitless job hunts, wandering door-to-door with her CV, that Bong Nath stumbled onto her first Christian church service in the 1990s. The white missionary leading the meeting agreed to hire her in his home, and at some point Bong Nath accepted Christ. Since then, foreign Christians have been directly involved in every good thing in her life. Through them, she's received a steady income for a while at several different jobs, Bible teaching, training in cooking and medical work, scholarships for her two sons (now 8 and 10) at a modest Khmer-language school (public schools are essentially worthless here), and trips to the countryside for her teenage daughters. She's grateful, and proudly showed photos of all the expats she's gotten to know over the years.

Without knowing those foreigners, I doubt that Bong Nath's four kids would have all survived until now. So it's not too surprising that Bong Nath has grown to rely on foreigners for everything she needs. When Samedi graduated high school last year, Bong Nath dreamed of her attending an American university for medicine. A generous and dedicated former Logos teacher arranged for sponsorship at a local Cambodian nursing school, but Bong Nath was not satisfied. She began to rant against this woman, and against the missionaries currently leading a Bible study in her home, who made it clear that they would not give her money. She eventually told them they couldn't lead that Bible study there anymore, causing a split in members.

Now her Bible study consists mostly of non-Christian and new Christian neighbors. It's a neat opportunity, and she's fighting hard for a foreigner to come lead it. (She told me at least a dozen times that I should come every week and teach, despite my flat refusals.) But many Westerners are drained by her incessant "prayer requests" for a job, a scholarship, money, a better life. There's no guarantee that the new teacher wouldn't be similarly kicked out once Bong Nath realizes they won't be her financial savior. Sarah has avoided most such inquiries by explaining that she is paying college loans - a difficult concept for Bong Nath, who pictures everyone having sponsors as her children do.

It makes me wonder: how do you help someone with practical needs in a way that embodies the Gospel instead of replacing it? I think Bong Nath really does love Jesus. She's devoted to other Bible study members and compassionate about their personal struggles. Neighbors know, when they're in need (as they often are), she'll help them if at all possible. But many Khmer and expat Christians have confronted her about trusting rich people rather than God for her finances.

It's hard to deny that for her, as for many Christians, conversion to Christianity has brought significant economic opportunity. In modern Cambodia, where getting a job is all about who you know, her Christian faith is still one of the most marketable things about Bong Nath. Is that a bad thing? Is it always better to give to an impersonal organization than to someone you know? Because the Bible is pretty clear about Christians' responsibility to help when we see someone in need (Isaiah 58, Matthew 25). And it seems hypocritical for someone comparatively wealthy to sing praise songs next to Bong Nath in church while her kids faint from hunger. So what's the answer?

Thankfully, Bong Nath's behavior is not typical among Cambodians. I've heard that many Cambodians' faith in God's provision puts expat missionaries to shame. But the vast economic divide between Cambodians and expats, even those on missions support, creates a dangerous imbalance of power. It takes a lot of wisdom to help Cambodians without creating dependence. It's a question as old as colonialism, but one I certainly haven't figured out. For now, I'm dodging the question by not giving directly to anyone.