Photos from the orphanage

Not an orphan, but the house parents' daughter...Sarah and I died laughing whenever we looked at her, because her worried expression and dropped jaw never changed.

Sokha, perpetually shirtless, an excellent fisher and dancer. He has an intense stare.

Mai Dalin, who knew she was too cute for words. Her adorable polka dot dress was filthy and drenched with sweat - hey, it's April!

Soklee and Srey Nih - her shirt says "Kiss me quick!"
Random neighbor girl (or old woman in disguise?) who spent her time swearing and spitting sugarcane chunks at us.

Srey Nai and Mai Dalin again, climbing to bring down cashew fruit for us - tasty but it dries out your mouth! (Aren't you glad you can't see their lice?)

The Orphanage

You always hear about people going to orphanages, don’t you? They start planning it 8 months in advance. They get their shots, sew their puppets, practice their skits, pack their crafts. Me? I decided about 2 weeks ago that I’d join my friend Sovannary this past weekend and see where she just started working. On Wednesday, my oldest class asked me about my plans for this week’s holiday, and 2 students decided to join me. No big deal – just a trip to the orphanage, out in a village in the province.

Orphanages are a dime a dozen in Cambodia. In fact, living in Phnom Penh’s NGO circuit, it’s kind of trendy to visit other organizations and help out for an afternoon or something. Many children in them aren’t true “orphans” – their parents just aren’t able to take care of them. If you’re not careful or scrupulous, you can even get kids from capable parents who just believe their child will have access to more in the orphanage than living with them. Many orphanages also deal with corrupt staff – corruption shows up at ALL levels of Cambodian society.

This one is far from a shining example. A foreign family started it several years ago, then moved back to the US, leaving people in charge who apparently lack both the competence and the virtue to do a good job. Sovannary was hired to try to get it back on track, visiting every weekend to manage it and hold them accountable. She’s perfect for the job in so many ways – a visionary, a great communicator, a no-excuses person, a real heart for God and the kids. But she says it’s daunting, and I believe her. The kids are lovely, although I’m sure they have plenty of issues. It’s the 5 staff members. Both house parents do hardly anything…during the whole visit, I never once saw them talk to any of the twenty children. The two cooks have huge fights several times a week, in which they scream obscenities at each other in front of the kids.

All of them claim to be Christian, but Sovannary believes they’re all pocketing orphanage money. Only half the food budget is spent weekly (the other half disappears), and the teenage boys complain that they never eat until they’re full. (Anyhow, I’ve seen what they eat: no fruit or vegetables except the produce from one fruit tree, and every dish is chock-full of salt and MSGs.) The house parents just keep saying “I don’t know,” not only about the food budget, but about the missing toothbrushes and toothpaste, and the shampoo, and other basic items intended for the children. From now on, Sovannary is having them write down EVERYTHING they use or distribute to the kids.

The best example to the children seems to be Rakhim, the computer teacher, who’s Muslim. He has a real relationship with the kids and is the only one who has earned Sovannary’s trust. He also displays the most interest in a genuine relationship with Christ; the others never live out their faith, but he has many questions for Sovannary. The staff are supposed to lead daily devotions (ex. Bible stories and singing) for the children, but lack the Bible knowledge to do a good job. When Sovannary offered to find them sponsors to attend a Bible school, only Rakhim expressed interest. Would it make sense to put a non-Christian in charge of devotions, and to send him to Bible school in hopes that he makes a decision for Christ? That’s what Sovannary is having to weigh in her mind.

As for me, the question I’m weighing in my mind is what I can bring them next time. This time, I treated everyone to mangos, for the large sum of $2 total: only 50 cents a kilogram! It’s a rare treat for them, one they’d have to save their pocket money for, because the orphanage never buys them. But I’d love to track down things for them to do, since there’s currently nothing. Besides some dancing and traditional Khmer New Year's games, we spent the day watching a few guys fish and playing hand-clap games. I’d like to bring anything that challenges their intellects or fine motor skills: books…puzzles…sidewalk chalk…crayons…buckets and shovels for the sand outside…I think it wouldn’t be hard to get them engaged in that kind of stuff, and they desperately need the stimulation. Not sure yet how to make this happen, but I’m praying that God will direct my steps!

English Language Learners

It’s been an interesting time all year, trying to figure out my students’ abilities in English. (90% are English language learners, or ELLs, meaning English is not their first language.) In many ways, they’re quite advanced. The books I teach are the same level, often the same books, as what I read as an honors student. Most Logos classes are taught around the level of an honors class in America. Graduates now in US colleges, or those who move to the US, find the classes easier than Logos. Logos is generally regarded as the toughest school in Cambodia. (Although, with about 6 international schools extending to twelfth grade, that’s not saying as much as it might. High-caliber education is a very recent development in Cambodia.)

On the other hand, students have to put in tremendous effort to meet our standards. You might think that after eight or ten years of attending school taught by native English speakers, my students would have the same English language ability as a typical native speaker. But a language is such an enormously complicated system of information. It’s more and more amazing to me that anybody is ever fluent in a language, let alone that God created children’s minds to acquire their native language without really trying. My students have three major disadvantages: they didn’t learn English from infancy (even though several have now forgotten Khmer and use English exclusively), most things outside of Logos are not in English, and they learn from many models of incorrect English: namely, each other.

Take grammar, for instance. My students still struggle with when to put “the” or “a” in front of nouns and when to add “-s” or “-ed” to verbs. Some mistakes are deeply engrained, like “few days later” instead of “a few.” They still write truly mangled sentences from time to time (especially newer arrivals), as well as many that just don’t quite work. This is something I expected, but I’m still working on what to do with it. How often do I correct students’ mistakes in essays and projects? Should I ever correct them verbally? Which grammar activities help, and which are too isolated from their real-life experiences? One history teacher has remarked several times that it’s hard to decipher student papers, and I wonder what to do to help them write legibly.

And vocab! Students study the words on vocab lists, but are missing many common words that don’t show up often in the classroom. So they’re mostly comfortable with academic or Biblical words like “punctuation” and “perseverance” and “predestination,” but might have no idea about words like “pacifier” or “pitcher” or “pioneers.” They also tend to know fewer synonyms and thus feel more comfortable using boring word choice in papers, like “said” and “went” instead of “retorted” or “dashed.” A few at the opposite end go thesaurus-crazy, with a tendency to put in obscure or inappropriate words. A recent example: “He searched for poetic sources from the everyday happenings. From that careful double-check, he derived into a conclusion.” Lessons on word choice can easily lead to a sense of frustration and inadequacy if I’m not careful.

Interpretation is a huge one. Students are often insecure about what they’ve read, making them more hesitant to rely on context clues to figure out new words. Critical thinking is also not a value emphasized in Khmer culture, which instead values rote memorization. Some adoptive parents told me their teens have no idea how to put together jigsaw puzzles. A few of my students have amazing memories for detail: they can describe a scene and recall characters much better than I can after several readings, but they honestly don’t know how to infer things about it. Thankfully, this is certainly not the case for all my students, and critical thinking is something they’ve worked hard to learn. Even in upper levels, though, it’s sometimes quite difficult for them to draw connections that seem obvious to me.

I love my ELLs, and overall I’m amazed at how well they do. Not only can they define “perseverance,” but most of them live it out, fighting to understand each new reading and to express ideas clearly. Learning is such a messy process, particularly developing abstract skills like those involved in a Language Arts class. I’m trying to remember to be patient with myself as I guide their development: I’m neither their first English teacher, nor their last.

Wondrous Words

Did you know that I wanted to be a librarian when I was little? Books have always been so dear to my heart. A job that combines reading books with ministering to teens in Cambodia is more of a dream come true than I can tell you.

Other types of literature, though, I’m just now starting to appreciate. I never read anything Greek besides “The Odyssey” in high school, so I’ve had to catch up this year in teaching various myths and a version of “The Iliad.” It’s been neat to see many of my students come in with FAR more passion for Greek literature than I ever had before this year.

Likewise, it’s not that I hated poetry in school, but none from high school stand out to me as much as some I’ve read since then. I’ve really found some treasures this year.

If you’re gagging right now at what a nerd I am, skip this post. Otherwise, read on for some wondrous words.

Two People Be Like – Eve Merriam
(I read this with Grade 7)

That man
stuck in traffic
not pounding his fists against the steering wheel
not trying to shift to the next lane
just
using the time
for a slow steady grin
of remembering
all the good unstuck times

and that woman
clerking in the supermarket
at rush hour
bagging bottles and cartons and boxes and jars and cans
punching it all out
slapping it all along
and leveling a smile
at everyone in the line.

I wish they were married to each other.

Maybe it’s better they’re not,
so they can pass their sweet harmony
around.

Hurrahing in Harvest – Gerard Manley Hopkins
(I read this with Brit Lit)

Summer ends now; now, barbarous in beauty, the stooks arise
Around; up above, what wind-walks! What lovely behavior
Of silk-sack clouds! Has wilder, wilful-wavier
Meal-drift molded ever and melted across skies?

I walk, I lift up, I lift up heart, eyes,
Down all that glory in the heavens to glean our Savior;
And, éyes, héart, what looks, what lips yet gave you a
Rapturous love’s greeting of realer, of rounder replies?

And the azurous hung hills are his world-wielding shoulder
Majestic – as a stallion stalwart, very-violet-sweet! –
These things, these things were here and but the beholder
Wanting; which two when they once meet,
The heart rears wings bold and bolder
And hurls for him, O half hurls earth for him off under his feet.

April is the cruellest month

Unlike Pennsylvania, which can have blue skies, snow, hail, and mild showers in the span of twenty minutes, Cambodia has very little variation in the weather from day to day. For example, it’s rained only twice in the past four months or so of dry season.

If you look at a travel guide, you will learn that Cambodia has four seasons:
1. Wet and hot (June to August)
2. Wet and cool (September to November)
3. Dry and cool (November to February)
4. Dry and hot (March to May)

If you talk to an expat who’s been here a while, they will put it differently:
1. Wet and stiflingly hot (June to August)
2. Wet and still decently hot(September to November)
3. Dry and as hot as Pennsylvania in July (November to February)
4. Dry and absurdly hot (March and May)
5. Someone PLEASE send me to a sauna to cool down for a while! (April)

Even before I arrived, I started hearing about April. It brings on a reverse Seasonal Affective Disorder for many, where tempers flare, immune systems are compromised, and work ethics sag. Now it’s upon us. And I’ve noticed already this week: I used to not sweat if I had a fan pointed directly at me, but now, even with it on a higher power, I still find myself perpetually perspiring. A “cold” shower no longer carries with it the momentary shiver that it once did, even late at night. And…the real clincher…even Cambodians think it’s hot, including the seventy-pound ones like Sarah’s teaching assistant, Sinuon.

The interesting thing is that Cambodians don’t necessarily change their dress depending on the weather. At least, not in the way I would expect. In Sinuon’s case, she wears long sleeves in the morning because it’s still “cold” then (mid-80s), and changes into short sleeves at lunch, when it’s at least 92 degrees in the classroom. One Khmer student recently wrote the following journal entry:
“The weather is horrible because it’s very hot. I hate hot weather because it makes my day worse. When it is hot, I can’t stand to do anything because it burns me to death. The word hot is always in my mind because everywhere I go, I feel hot. The heat makes my skin burn and turn black. When I drive my motor back home, it’s very hot even though I have my long-sleeved jacket on, it is still hot.”

In other words, long sleeves are not just an issue of protecting against suntan – Khmer people actually feel that they soften the harshness of the sun’s heat on your skin. I can accept this theory, although I haven’t personally tested it out. The part that gets me is that that some people seem to think, if thin long sleeves help, thick ones must be even better. I see people wearing fur-lined coats on their motos at midday. The guy who fixed Sarah’s moto yesterday (her tire blew out) was dripping sweat in the shade as he worked, but never took off either of the zip-up jackets he was wearing. Often, I get the impression that because it’s always more or less hot here, you just dress in what you like, without regard for the weather forecast or even the season.

I'm almost at that point too. I know I'll sweat through anything I wear, so it doesn't matter whether it's a breezier outfit or a slightly more oppressive one. If I want to wear it at all in the next eight weeks, today is as good a day as any, even if it IS in the 90s. That doesn't apply to my cardigan and jeans, though - I'm saving them for summer in Pennsylvania, which in Cambodian terms is known as "bitingly cold season."