The tale of Dara

My house on a typical day

Well, I am currently into the second half of my four part service and it has really made me reflect on my time here so far. Much like any endeavor we take on, it is difficult to know if you are doing the right thing at the time. Sometimes we realize immediately if we acted in the right way or the wrong way and sometimes it is not so cut and dry. With Peace Corps, it is the same. You can do something and immediately regret it and sometimes it takes weeks or months to see the reaction to your action. The reason that I am even saying this is because I had the rare experience of seeing first hand the fruits of my labor. For the sake of this story, I will call the student Dara (I still do not know all of the names of my 350 students…) Well, Dara is a boy in my 10Q class and he is probably the biggest trouble maker of all my students. For the most part, the entirety of my 10Q really makes an attempt to learn, although they are still not as strong as many of the other 10th graders. Well, Dara is pretty inconsistent in attendance but very consistent in making trouble for me during the class. The class is pretty dominated by girls and the boys sit together in the back. Within this group of boys, there are probably 5 boys that participate and are at the top of the class (they are also in English Club). So, when Dara comes to class, he sits in the back and distracts all the boys, never takes notes and refuses to speak English. When I ask him where his book is, he will say “now pdaia” which means at home. Much is the same when I ask him where his homework is, “at mein” which means I don’t have it. Well, this week, he was especially rowdy with his two cronies in the back. We started an exercise with seven questions and I told them that they were each to do one. They didn’t understand, so another boy explained it. They kinda freaked out and tried to plead with me, but my response was that if you come to class, you come to work, not to sit. Everyone is fair game in my class. So, the other four students wrote their answers on the board and these three boys went to the board and wrote their answers. One was right and the other two were just completely wrong. One sentence said “I never used to eat to the moon.” (The exercise was to take words from a table and construct a sentence.) Well, we went over the answers and I was very patient with those two and we all worked on the answers together. My coteacher usually calls those boys “not clever” and makes fun of them, but I decided that I wanted to show them they can actually do this. I tried to praise them as much as I could and make fun of myself to divert the attention from those students. Well, the next day, I was waiting outside the classroom when Dara came up to me and started a conversation. Now, he can’t really say much in English, so his questions were “House, where?” After he asked a few questions in English, I decided that he felt really uncomfortable, so we spoke Khmer. He asked about my siblings, if I am happy in Cambodia, do I miss my family, etc. He also told me a little bit about himself. He lives at the pagoda and is from a district pretty far away. There were some kids making fun of him but he didn’t really care and we actually had a nice conversation. I thought that maybe he was just trying to suck up after the class before, but when I walked into the class, he moved his seat away from his posse of boys and instead sat next to my coteacher. He took notes all class long and when I used a little Khmer, he said “very good” and gave me two thumbs up. I noticed that he was talking to the coteacher a lot and pointing to the board, which I took as an indication of asking her a question related to the class. Maybe it was an act, but I really think that he made a turn around. He is a total tough guy. What really stood out was that he moved seats. When I first came to Battambang and was trying to figure out what classes to teach, I was really torn up as to whether or not I would be able to teach 10Q. I knew that the class would require much patience and that the students wouldn’t understand me. I mistook their confusion as laziness for the first few months, but now I really understand the class and I can honestly say that this class is my most rewarding. Who knows why there are in that class, maybe learning disabilities, eyesight issues, they are poor, etc. I knew that I wanted to teach classes 11B, C and D because their skill level and interest would be high. I was torn up about 10Q because I didn’t know if I would actually do it because let’s be honest, patience isn’t my strong suite. But, this whole experience is about challenges. I want to develop these skills and teaching this class is really helping me to learn. Of course I am learning so much with my grade 11 classes, but it’s different. I am seeing the growth of a different kind of student. These are kids are different from the other ones. There are a lot of those kids in my English Club and teaching them can be so frustrating, but when they understand, it is the best part. Last week, we listened to “Real Love” which was originally written by John Lennon, but Regina Spektor sang it for a charity CD for Darfur. We listened to the song and wrote out the lyrics then talked about the meaning. They were so proud of themselves when they got all of the lyrics. I had to help them with a lot of the lines, but they were so happy and after we ended, I heard a bunch of the girls singing the song as they walked away. All in all, it is so important to remember that this is a marathon. I am in the second part of a four part series. You can have your highest highs and lowest lows within hours of each other. But those little victories along the way are what is keeping me going. I am curious to see how Dara progresses now that he (hopefully) has made the decision to study.

Peace Corps came for a health site visit and I went with the two medical staff (one is from America and the other is the sweetest Khmer woman named Navy) to this hospital called Emergency. It is really close to my house and I ride past it everyday, but I have never gone in. We went in to look around and it is simply remarkable. It is an Italian ngo and they cater mainly to accidents from all over the country. The medical care is completely free and the staff consists of medical professionals from Italy as well as Cambodia. They train doctors and nurses so that the international staff can phase out, which means that the hospital will be completely Khmer run and operated. It was a really great experience. I was able to get to know Navy, who is the newest Peace Corps medical staff member. She studied medicine at Tulane and UC Davis. She is a remarkable doctor and an even better woman. She embodies all the characteristics of being a powerful woman. She survived the war and educated herself, but never lost touch of her roots. She is extremely gentle and affectionate, which is very common amongst women here. I cannot say enough about her and I really look forward to getting to know her.

Darlene and I are working with two K2’s to plan an event for International Woman’s Day, which is on March 8. The event will hopefully be at the University of Management and Economics. We will meet in a week from Monday with the university and a ministry official to talk about the details. We want to pair up our high school girls with university students as a sort of mentor program. The theme will be about the importance of education and we will have guest speakers. Many of our female students know what they want to be, but not necessarily how to become it. We will most likely have 3-5 girls from each of our schools come to the UME and have the girls work together. It is going to be a really fun event and I am hoping that I will be able to lay the foundation for the girls’ camp that Keiko and I are planning. One of the amazing parts of Peace Corps is that we have this ability to say “Ok, I think that we need to work on empowering girls, let’s have a camp.” We are going to identify girls that we think are the best candidate for this position of leadership. At my school, we will most likely have an essay contest involving everyone interested.

The statue upon entering Battambang (symbolizes the tale of manu battambang, which means the man with the disappearing stick.)

English Club is going well. The grade 12 students are super busy because they have tests coming up, so they haven’t really been coming. But the grade 11 and 10 students are really consistent with their attendance. On Wednesdays, I usually meet with a group of grade 11D students in the library and we just talk and work on writing and they ask me questions. One student asked me if he could make a presentation to the group about Cambodian customs, which was such a great idea. So, we decided that every Wednesday, one or two students will make a presentation on something that interests them. We will all have a discussion and give feedback. That way we can work on public speaking as well, which is important. My goal for English Club was to have the students really run it, but I just monitor. This was such a great first step. I will be there to guide them and correct them, but they are really taking initiative in their club and their education.

A typical classroom in Cambodia (70 students to each class means about 3 students to each desk

I also went to PP this weekend. A bunch of volunteers went in and essentially did what our friends are doing at home- eating pizza, going to bars and seeing other Americans. What we do in PP is basically all of the stuff that we can’t really do at site- spend money, eat western food, buy bootleg DVDs and show our knees and shoulders. It is really refreshing to go into PP and really not have to worry about being really conservative and have our guard up. Obviously we have to be careful in PP, but I am at home by 5:00 every night in Battambang, but in PP I don’t have to worry about offending my family. While going into PP is a great break, I am always really happy to get back to site. There are currently tests going on at school, so I didn’t have class yesterday or today. Tomorrow classes start again and so does English Club. I’m excited to get back to the daily grind.

Typical wedding clothes for women