Penang-ing

Part Two of our Christmas vacation in Malaysia:

After our initial few days in KL, we took a five-hour bus ride to the island of Penang (no music videos blasting this time thankfully). In order to get there, we had to cross the longest bridge in SE Asia, over 8 miles long. While our hotel was definitely not anywhere near as nice as the one in KL, it did have a nice pool area, as well as easy access to the beach. We spent the first two mornings reading in a little beach alcove surrounded by huge rocks, and exploring the small town of Batu Ferringgi. Our hotel was off a rather winding and busy road, so it was not easy to walk anywhere other than the beach. What a shame, I know...

We got in at least two good beach hours each morning before the rising tide chased us back to the pool. I really can't complain, we did a lot of relaxing, eating and reading -- three of my favorite things.

The Saturday before NYE, we found a wonderful little wine bar in Georgetown (the larger, more developed town nearby), where we felt immediately at home. As I said in my last post, Malaysia as a whole presented as rather impersonal to us, so it was a real treat to walk into a place that felt like it could be in Boston or Buffalo. We were greeted at the door by a British man who we later befriended; after one look at us, he could tell that we had had a rough time getting there (our taxi driver's phone rang every five seconds, he did not know where he was going and it took twice as long to get there as it should have), so he showed us to a table and insisted that we take our time and enjoy the meal. We probably spent three hours there over wine and delicious French food, and eventually the place began to clear out and we got into a conversation with the patrons. Ultimately, they invited us to come back for their NYE six-course menu, which we happily agreed to. Even though it was expensive, we decided that it would be our best option in terms of being surrounded by friendly, interesting people.

On New Year's Eve morning, we decided to go parasailing, which was better than I expected -- totally exhilarating, exciting and beautiful and a little scary. Definitely fun. The ease with which we were permitted to strap on a harness and fly behind a boat was comical, albeit alarming. We hopped a van from the hotel to the local beach, wandered down to the sand and met a good-looking Indian man in his late twenties who asked us what we wanted to do (they also offered jet-skiing, etc.). Once we told him, he shouted out some commands to a motley crew of men hanging out on the beach, who just minutes before I had taken for other travelers. They sprang into action, supplying us with life jackets and helping us into our harnesses. No waivers were signed, no extensive directions were given, we were not even asked our names or if we had done this before. Our backpack went into a locker and we were hooked up to the lead line within ten minutes. It was probably a good thing that everything happened so fast or else I may have given too much thought to what I was about to do.

 Right before we saw the boat pull up to the beach and knew our departure was imminent, a shirtless, dread-locked Malay man in his fifties imparted to Jeff the secrets about landing: "When you go up, you hold here (pointing). Not here (pointing). Here (pointing). We say let go. You let go. You up. You come around to beach, you pull down hard here (pointing). Not here (pointing). Here (pointing). Pull hard. We yell let go. You let go."

Well, glad that's taken care of then...

Before I even had the chance to turn around and ask Jeff if he was feeling confident on the landing protocol, we were instructed to "RUN!" And run we did.

After probably six or eight long, wobbly steps, just as I felt sure we were doomed to face plant into the sand and be dragged through the sand to our quite public death, the wind picked us up, the boat revved and we were up.

We were probably only in the air for about three or four minutes total, but it was very high and you feel like you are floating -- aka, you could fall at any time, because really, what is holding you up there in the first place? It was a rather grey morning, but we got a beautiful view of the entire island, and it was extra special because it was New Year's Eve. What a way to start the new year!

And are you wondering about our landing? See Facebook (it refuses to load here) for a video of Jeff's nearly perfect (he would give it a nine out of ten) landing.

Our New Year's Eve was rather low-key. We enjoyed our meal at the wine bar, but opted not to stay out too late, and ended the year with an episode of Friday Night Lights while fireworks went off over the ocean outside our window.

Happy New Year!

After five or six days, we bused back to KL for our last two days before flying home, the best part of which was the hotel we stayed in. It was gorgeous and modern, and our package included free breakfast, free tea time (basically lunch) and a two-hour open bar in their SkyBar, which looked out on the world famous Petronas Towers. Our first night there we took the elevator up to happy hour with a couple from Australia and ended up spending the next six hours with them over drinks, more drinks and dinner at a nearby Italian restaurant. We have an open invitation to their house in Brisbane should we ever find ourselves in Australia...

Overall, we had an excellent holiday.

However, perhaps the best part was being able to gain some much-needed perspective on Liger in specific and Cambodia in general. When we landed back in PP, we were greeted with a huge smile by one of our favorite tuk-tuk drivers, a rather cool breeze was blowing (shocking, I know), and within minutes we were cruising down the now-familiar streets on our way home. The rest of the day included a one-hour ($10) massage at my favorite spa, cashew-caramel ice cream at Blue Pumpkin where I started a new book, and then the Chinese Noodle House for dinner -- fried rice and 24 dumplings for less than five bucks. It was a great day and a reminder of why we love this place, despite the roosters crowing at all hours of the night (and day).

Liger Literacy

I realize that I usually post about the more general experiences that we have in Cambodia: observations, meals, trips, etc., and not too often about the kids. Since the students are the reason why we are here, I will try and give you a little glimpse into some of the teaching and learning that has been going on since returning from break. I sometimes struggle with the clash between the public nature of a blog and the private lives of our young students, so I will not provide names alongside the work samples.

Since returning from holiday, my literacy program has really hit its stride. I have between 10 and 13 students in each group (three rotating groups), for two hour-and-forty-five-minute blocks per week. So, for example, I have the same 13 kids on Mon/Tues mornings, and a different group on Thurs/Fri afternoons. JoJo is my eternally optimistic and incredibly dedicated intern, who has been working with me off and on (mostly on) since the start of the year.

Each literacy session is held in our colorful and inviting library, and begins with a group circle where we answer the question of the day. This opportunity to share is a chance for students to focus on and think creatively about something that they may never have been asked before. The questions range from: "If you could be a fruit, which one would you be?" to "If you could give your parents one gift, what would it be?" The answers, of course, range from serious and thoughtful to impulsive and silly. It is a great oral language exercise as well, because we always have the students start off with a sentence stem in English. Even if they are only repeating, "If I was a fruit, I would be a" and then shifting into Khmer, at least they are getting used to speaking in English in front of other students.

It's also a great teaching opportunity for me and JoJo. I mean, even with those two above questions, which may seem straightforward, we have to explain the difference between eating a fruit and BEing a fruit. And the word 'gift' has a lot of meanings, so are we limited to only material gifts? We have to get creative in our explanations as we don't have translation much of the time.

Some of the responses to the shares can get pretty introspective and rather symbolic of where these kids come from.

If you could give your parents one gift, what would it be?
-"love, because they always love me"
-"a big house"
-"a phone so they can call me anytime"
-"a birthday party with a big cake"

The phone response prompted an investigation into whether or not there is a working phone at this child's house. It was determined that his mother has a cell phone, but the battery is either broken or always running out, so she often has to call from a friend or neighbor's phone. We are currently in the process of getting a working phone for this family.

What law would you enact if you were the Cambodian Prime Minister?
-"I do not like the way the streets are so crowded, so I would make the rule that no one can park their car or moto on the street, but only on the sides (sidewalk, but they don't have consistent sidewalks here). Also, anyone selling something has to do it back from the road so that all the cars can go by faster and make less traffic."
-"I would outlaw all drugs and also would not let Cambodia sell drugs to other countries."
-"Everyone would always need to wear a helmet, no matter the time of day. Even babies."

It has been such a great start to each morning or afternoon to hear these responses.

Next comes the read aloud. I have been so focused on our students learning to read in English that I have not been reading out loud to them with the frequency that I would if I were a second or third grade teacher in the U.S.. So far we have read a few fairy tales together, including Little Red Riding Hood, Three Billy Goats Gruff, Goldilocks, Jack and the Beanstalk, The Gingerbread Man and Sleeping Beauty. These read alouds have also served to introduce our students to the English books in the library, so they will be more likely to choose to read them on their own at a later time.

After our whole group portion, the students usually break up into small group rotations: individual reading groups with me, sight word practice with JoJo and silent reading. This week I have been assessing sight word recognition and doing new running records to determine each child's reading level, so things have been a little different. After the rotations, JoJo begins a whole group project with the kids, while I go and pull different reading groups from Nica's class (our primary goal is for each student to get explicit reading instruction at their level every single day - unfortunately this means they get pulled out of technology sometimes).

Last week JoJo decided to introduce a 'scribble story' to the kids as their project, and it has been a major success. She drew a little scribble on a small piece of paper and each student got one. They then glued the scribble into their notebook in whichever orientation they wanted, and from the scribble, extrapolated a picture. They then had to write a story that matched their drawing -- they could write in either Khmer or English. I didn't expect that all the students would be so engaged in such an open-ended task, but for the most part, they have worked intently since the first day. My lowest group in terms of English speaking, reading and writing skills (as well as general motivation, focus and fine motor skills) really surprised me with the quantity and quality of their work. Some of them wrote up to two notebook pages in Khmer and their pictures have all been incredibly neat and detailed.

I went through the student notebooks today for the first time since they began their stories, and while some kids are not finished, the three below were too good not to share.

The first one is from a girl who writes about a farmer and his carrot. You can see the original scribble is the right side of the carrot, starting at the stem and curving down to the grass. I love this one because this girl writes the exact same way she talks.

Below is a story about a fish and Max, one of our interns. I love it because I could totally see this student and Max hitting the water for some fishing. They seem like a very compatible duo. Also, the quotations just make it... The scribble is the lower half of the big fish's jaw down into the beginning of his tail.

Below is a story written by one of our day students, who is a very precocious and sassy little girl. I love the way she turned her picture into a comic strip, despite it's rather phallic tooth (as Jeff was eager to point out). I think the initial scribble is the left half of the tooth. I also appreciate her story because it's relevant to her recent experience -- all the students visited the dentist at least once over the course of a couple weeks and many students had extractions.

Other than that, we are constantly pushing sight words (words like there, who and every that cannot be sounded out, but rather need to be memorized as they are exceptions to phonetic rules) and moving the students through the reading levels. Unfortunately, I continue to run into the problem of having access to culturally appropriate texts in English, at the students' current levels.

For example, today I was doing running records and the two books that I was heavily relying on were so contextual and vocabulary based that it didn't even seem fair to use them. The first one was called The Zoo and the text read: "A lion." "A tiger." "A bear." "A wolf." "An ape." "A chimp." And so on. Each page was accompanied by a photo of the animal. Most kids got through the first three and then came to wolf and looked at me like they had no idea what it was. There are no wolves in Cambodia. Same for ape and chimp. A few just went for "monkey," but others knew that was incorrect based on the first letter sound. I can safely assume that more than 90% of same-aged peers in the U.S. would have used the pictures and their knowledge of animal names and read through the whole thing correctly, even without looking at the words.

The second book was almost worse. It was called Let's Make a Sandwich. First of all, Cambodians do not eat sandwiches. They do not typically eat cold cuts or bread. Even when I read the title for them, they were still at a huge disadvantage when it came to words like lettuce, tomatoes, bread and slice. Again, this text would have been simple for the average first or second grader in the U.S. because of their background and experience, but it was very challenging for my kids.

The other thing that I am constantly coming up against is a lack of phonetic ability. Cambodian government schools do not teach strategies like sounding out, stretching sounds, tapping sounds, looking for smaller words inside bigger words, etc. They teach by dictation and memorization. My kids are still dependent on this method, to their detriment. At this point they all know their letter sounds, but continue to have a difficult time breaking up unfamiliar words and instead just say "what?!" or "I don't know!"

Despite all the challenges, our students have come such a long way in all their literacy skills. It is so exciting to watch them grow in their confidence and ability. Below are more pictures of some of the things we have done in literacy, and just some random fun ones of the kids.

The set of four below is the result of a discussion after reading the book How Things Move. I challenged the kids to list other ways that people can move that were not portrayed in the book. At first, the students were very hesitant and limited to their Khmer. Once I introduced the white board and drew a few ideas myself, they went wild. Thankfully they are much better artists than me -- if I was forced to communicate through drawings I would be in a lot of trouble...

                                                                           Pedi-cab!

       
                                                                       Inner tube!

                                                           Jeff, wearing Makara's hat

                                        Dalin building a rocket ship with recycled materials

                           Samady, Chimean and Kanha all dressed up at the monthly birthday party

                     David, ready for morning assembly (small drum in hand, large one on his back)

                                    One of our closest day students, Sophart, and his parents

                       Veng Hour and his footprint...linking home and Liger before a holiday break

Luala Kumpur

Because we were unable to fly home for the holidays, Jeff and I traveled to Malaysia for two weeks instead. We began the trip in Kuala Lumpur, then spent four nights on the beach in Penang, and finally returned to KL before flying home.

I didn't know very much about Malaysia before I arrived, but it was an overall great experience, especially because it is incredibly different from Phnom Penh. First of all, Malaysia (or at least KL) seems quite wealthy. We went to more than one mall that was five or six floors full of designer stores, from Dior to Alexander McQueen. The streets are impeccable. The public transportation is efficient, clean and easy to use. The customer service was prompt, professional, attentive and knowledgeable. Our hotel was quite swanky.

Merry Christmas from the hotel lobby!

Malaysia is very diverse and multicultural, as we were told by almost everyone we met -- the population is a third Chinese, a third Malay and a third Indian. Therefore, there are two little Indias, a big Chinatown and a lot of other culturally robust neighborhoods/areas. Most of the people that we interacted with (cab drivers, waiters, hotel staff, etc.) were not born in Malaysia, but had moved from another Asian country. It seemed like a country of transplants, but all the transplants seemed happy. Many had brought their families with them, and most seemed to be working class, but definitely not poor.

Chinatown street food

Unfortunately, the first few days in KL (we arrived on Christmas Eve) ultimately made me feel more lonely than anything else. Of course I was excited to drink a Starbucks grande soy latte (mikemac) and get upgraded to an executive suite at our hotel, but the city itself presented as rather impersonal. Although there is such a diversity of cultures, it seemed like no one took ownership of making KL individualized or unique and instead it came across as almost devoid of culture. We could have been in any major city... however, I am definitely biased because Cambodia absolutely crawls with culture, personality, smells, sounds, greetings, smiles, and authenticity despite the chaos. KL seemed like a Stepford wife in comparison.

I think the other thing that stuck out to us was the lack of communication we had with people. In Cambodia we are constantly meeting new people/random strangers who are excited to sit down and talk, share a drink, invite us over, recommend a new restaurant, tell us about their life, anything. As we drive through the streets, we can't go more than a few blocks without hearing the "HELLO!" of small children and grown men alike. Even on its worst days, Cambodia is genuinely friendly. While we were in KL we were each other's only conversation for the most part.

Jeff's airport Starbucks

I also want to take this moment to explain a related facet of Malaysia -- it is a predominantly Muslim country, and therefore has its differences. One of the differences that became clear to me after only a few days was the treatment of women. It was striking at first to notice the more outward components of Muslim life: women wearing head scarves, long black burkas or burkas that covered everything but their eyes. But, I had expected that. What I did not expect was that the trains had cars for women only. And that local men did not address me at all. Taxi drivers would ask, "sir, where are you going? Where are you from, sir?" and not make eye contact with me or answer my questions unless I asked twice. Waiters would ask Jeff for our order. And during my one solo cab ride, the bearded cab driver did not speak one word to me except for the initial "where you go?," even when I asked him a few pointed questions. When I got out, instead of verbally telling me the amount I owed, he pointed at the meter silently. Suffice to say, it got old after a while and I found myself ranting a little bit about the archaic practices that are still in place.

While I was sad not to be home for Christmas with my family, Jeff reminded me that we were on a vacation that many people only dream of being able to experience. This perspective shift was needed, and I tried my best to recognize and appreciate that. I will let the pictures speak for themselves, but the best things about KL were:

-our first Malay meal, absolutely delicious: Malaysian curry, lamb and morning glories, a bottle of wine, a friendly waiter, great ambiance

-starting (and finishing) Friday Night Lights Season One; so good!

-relaxing by the pool on the hotel's roof, reading a good book

-a visit to the Batu Caves, a large Hindu temple complete with monkeys, incense, gorgeous Indian families decked out in traditional garb and the largest statue of its kind in the world (or largest in Asia, I'm not entirely sure, but it was BIG)

287 steps. I counted.

I will also indulge a recount of the Canopy Walk, as I can now admit it was one of the best things we did. I can assure you that Jeff's account would be slightly different. If you know me, you know that the "hiking" genes skipped me and instead manifested in a disproportionately high number in my sister, Caitlin. When I was in middle school, my heart twisted with loathing and despair at the mention of a Saturday hike with the family in Zoar Valley. I remember one particular time when my mother was so angry with me for refusing to join the weekend jaunt that she took my cell phone AND the computer keyboard when they left me at home. I still refused to go. So, you can imagine the disgruntled mindset that slowly began to hatch when we got out of the cab and were told to "walk to D." Well, we were at A. So we walked on, having no idea where to go, until we finally found a tiny ticket office. We purchased tickets from a mean-faced woman, who instructed us to walk further into the complex of office buildings and recreational vehicles and then turn right at the bridge. We did. Then we entered what seemed to me to be a hiking trail. I was wearing sandals, white shorts and a strapless bra. Sorry for the personal details, but its pertinent for the females out there to understand just how ill-prepared I was for a hike I did not know I had agreed to go on.

We began to walk. There were interesting plants all around us, some with massive leaves and others with beautiful colors, so I was momentarily lured into a sense of calm. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad. Maybe this would be the exception to the rule, the hike I would enjoy. Then the incline picked up. And the temperature increased as the sun rose. And the mosquitoes sent out the notice that we were in the vicinity. All this led to sweat and anger and uncomfortableness. Did I mention I was carrying a leather purse like a messenger bag? Perfect for a hike, right? The terrain became increasingly difficult, to the point where I needed to grab on to small trees to support my weight as I teetered from step to root-infested step. Sweating. I am now dirty. Angry. After about an hour (or what felt like an hour), we got to a flat area with a bench and a sign and I resigned myself to sit on the bench and read/reread the sign until Jeff was ready to go back down. I informed him, pleased with myself for not complaining as much as I could have, but the look on his face (one I have seen many times before) told me that perhaps I did not do as good a job masking my disdain and annoyance as I had thought. At any rate, he continued up the mountainside/sheer cliff/forested jungle and two minutes later yelled down that I had to come up because we were almost there. Almost where, you might ask? The Canopy Walk, of course.

What is it about that name that would alert one to the fact that they may have to hike up a mountain? You tell me.

It turned out to be a series of three or four long walkways strung between the highest trees in the jungle. We were instructed not to have more than four people on one walkway at one time, and to keep at least six planks in between ourselves and the person in front of us. Without any other instructions or disclaimers, off we went. To add insult to injury, the person in front of me happened to be a damn toddler. Toddling along the shaky walkway with her mother cavorting beside her, snapping pictures. No fear. Probably not even sweating.

In the end, I was glad that we did it; it offered an amazing view of the jungle and far off city, as well as a sense of exhilaration that we could plunge to our brambly, bug-filled death at any moment. Jeff can attest that I apologized for my angst. But he can also probably attest that he would rather plunge to his death from said walkway than take me on another hike.

Right about where my malaise set in...

Happy to be finished? 

After our initial five days in KL, we took a five-hour bus to the island of Penang. Still to come...