Saturday, August 20, 2016

A Fifth Year in the Kingdom of Wonder

Read all about it: ridiculous things seen on the streets of Cambodia, funny things my students say, and my new Exploration, learning about the Khmer Rouge.

I would like to start with a couple of wonderful traffic-related things that we have witnessed since returning to Phnom Penh at the end of July.

  • We were on our way to the gym (a critical part of the story), when I saw up ahead what looked like a father driving a motorbike with three, possibly four, children on the back. As we pulled up alongside them, I looked and saw that it was not four children, but actually SIX. There were three daughters, large, medium and small, who could be seen from the back, as well as a small baby squished between the dad and first daughter, a chubby toddler standing between the first and second daughters, and a young boy smushed in between the second and third daughters. When Jeff and I both turned and gave the father huge smiles of awe, he actually took his left hand off the bike and gave us a thumbs up. True story. 
  • On our way to town last week, there was a woman riding on a motorbike, sitting behind a male driver. She was wearing a light brown, long-sleeved zip-up. On the back were two words, written in glittery font and pretty hard to make out. Squinting, I pointed and said to Jeff "something girls?" He amended the guess to "typical girls." When we got closer, the actual words said, "Figfeet girls." Your guess is as good as mine.
  • This afternoon, on our way back from town (the gym played a role, but if I'm being honest so did a phenomenal charcuterie board, some gnocchi and a lemon tart...), we saw a mid-sized car, possibly a CRV or RAV-4, in front of us. It was clearly full of people, but as we got closer, we saw two faces peering out at us from the enclosed trunk. Upon further inspection, we both realized...they were grandmothers. Tiny, shriveled old ladies, relegated to the back for the duration of the trip. My guess? They were being sassy.
  • But, probably the best scope was a t-shirt, on the back of which declared: "Go to love! horse sweet."

I'll just leave that there.

Other than driving to and from Phnom Penh, since we've been back we have welcomed 35 new Junior students to Liger, aged 10-12. Our staff has almost doubled in size, with many new colleagues in both the Senior and Junior cohorts. The brand new Senior campus has been unveiled, and I am not kidding you when I say it looks like a five-star resort. All the hard work our students have put in the last four years truly earned them this amazing new environment to call their own. As per our Country Director's genius vision, cooking their own meals and managing their own house budgets will essentially be their first taste of running a small business.



With only two weeks behind us, it already feels like we never left. The kids' English is shaking off it's summer rust as they jump back into curriculum: math, literacy, Khmer, physics, biology and engineering in the mornings. Coding, robotics, podcasting, economics, current events and independent discoveries after lunch. And for Explorations, an eclectic mix of Khmer Rouge history, board game design, setting up the internal Liger economy, researching the prevalence of iron deficiencies in Cambodia, as well as solutions, and identifying and contacting global "change agents."

I am lucky enough to be working two hours a day with 12 Seniors (12-14 years old) on a project about the Khmer Rouge. One of our students spent three months in Siem Reap last year, on the set of the upcoming Netflix movie version of the renowned memoir, First They Killed My Father. With such a personal connection to the movie, of course we want to screen it for our kids. Therefore, we needed to grapple with the reality that they are now old enough, and mature enough, to begin to learn in-depth about the genocide that ravaged their country in the early 1970s. So, with a lot of help from many people, both at Liger and in Phnom Penh, I have outlined four different Explorations: the first is a look at the global factors that led to the KR taking power, including what Cambodia was like beforehand. The second installment, with a different 12 students, will focus on the time that the KR was in power. The third group of students will tackle the immediate aftermath, while the final group will work out the present-day implications of the genocide. How did the war shape Cambodia as we know it in 2016?

So far I have been amazed by the students' curiosity, questions, engagement level and knowledge. Our first trip was to the Documentation Center of Cambodia, an organization in Phnom Penh whose mission is to provide justice for the victims of the KR, and whose office is home to over one million photos, documents, documentaries, interviews and other primary sources from the KR period. In about two hours, we met with the Director (show below, white shirt, center), the legal department, the business office and the film/documentary/media wing, all while being hosted by the wonderful man in charge of national genocide education for high schoolers (standing, far right). I had goosebumps about twenty times, and was nearly moved to tears twice. Watching the students examine their own national identity, and ask major questions, all while expanding their understanding of the details of that time period has been an unparalleled teaching experience. In the photo below, you can see the many standing wall safes, filled with primary sources.



I will leave you with some of my favorite student quotes so far.

Reading a student's response to a chapter she had read in her guided reading book. She had written that the Mexican immigrants were focused on making money to "eat and feed their children." I highlighted the section and added a comment, saying, "The way this is written makes it sound like they want to EAT their children and FEED their children, haha."

The student's response? "Oh Caro, come on!"

Another student was writing about Bridge to Terabithia (so good!) and had written about Leslie's "funeral," when she meant wake. I highlighted the word funeral and commented: "really?" After a few days, I reminded her that she needed to make the proper edits. She went home that day, read my comment and responded, "Caro, you give me a headache. I don't get what you really mean."

And finally, one of my male Seniors came by my apartment to help me carry over new library books that we had purchased when we were back in the States. I had also purchased 50+ sports bras for the girls. Upon seeing the bags of sports bras:

Student: "What are those, bathing suits?" 
Me: "...Sort of." 
Student: "For who?"
Me: "The girls, don't worry about it." 


His eyes got wide, he stepped back, looked me dead in the eye, shaking his head and said: "They are NOT going to want to wear those!"

Sunday, April 24, 2016

Hot Hot Heat

"It's like a sauna." -Khmer colleague, smile on his face, referring to our conference room

April has arrived, and with it, sky-high temperatures. Just take a look at this little ditty from a recent Phnom Penh Post article:



That is ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHT POINT SIX DEGREES mind you. Some Cambodians may feel a claim to fame about this, taking pride in their record; it literally strikes fear into my heart. I feel my lungs working harder to suck in the oxygen from the heated air around me, I clench my fists and howl in despair...

Let me just give you a small taste of what April in Phnom Penh is like.

Scenario One
Where: on the moto with Jeff, riding into town, following closely behind a large truck
What: said truck drives through a mud puddle on the side of the road, causing small water droplets, probably filled with God knows what bacteria, to sprinkle all over my legs
Reaction: "Ahhhh. That feels good."
My Defense: any sort of coolness from air or water is always preferable to living in hell; bacteria be damned

Scenario Two
Where: at a local hotel that doubles as a spa, after a massage (*it's not ALL bad over here)
What: clad in only my rather small bikini, I went into the dining room sans cover-up to order my lunch
Reaction: horror from the two older French ladies enjoying their Salad Nicoise; embarrassment from the three Khmer male twenty-somethings behind the bar
My Defense: if I had added another layer to my body at that time, I simply would have passed out and then they would have had to deal with that

Scenario Three
Where: in my classroom, around nine am, after the AC has already been on for about an hour and a half; sitting on the couch with a group of students
What: I cross my legs for comfort; fifteen seconds later, the leg on leg contact has already produced a gracefully flowing stream of sweat
Reaction: (inwardly) "Oh my god, am I peeing my pants?"
My Defense: I forgot that there was no skin on skin allowed during the month of April.

Scenario Four
Where: at a nice restaurant for dinner, in full AC, sitting on a leather bench
What: as I get up to leave, I realize I am leaving behind two full-on leg prints of sweat for the next patron
Reaction: "Oops."
My Defense: None.

Scenario Five
Where: on Rabbit Island, a small island off the coast of Kep; part of an end-of-the-year school trip with all students and staff
What: the students all got sunburned backs and faces after not reading the directions on the sunscreen bottle and spending the entire day in the water
Reaction: "What did you think was going to happen?"
My Defense: I feel no sympathy for Cambodians with their never-sweating bodies, who barely notice the heat and come to work in long pants and long sleeves. The fact that they have lived in this country for their entire lives and have NEVER been sunburned speaks volumes.

Summary: it is so hot here that when you leave an air-conditioned place for a non-air-conditioned place, it feels like you have been given this life as a punishment. The change in air temperature and humidity is like walking into a wall. It never ceases to astonish me (in the worst way possible). 

I have taken to shrieking at students for the following infractions: 
(1) not exiting or entering the classroom swiftly enough, and allowing precious cold air to escape
(2) not turning the AC back on IMMEDIATELY after a power outage
(3) sitting in an AC-ed room without fans on to distribute the gloriously cool air fairly
(4) sitting too close to me or touching me in any way, thus spreading body heat
(5) not turning on the AC well before I arrive in the morning (*this one may be going a bit too far)

This is no joke, folks. 

In other news: there are about seven more weeks until the end of the year. We just began our last round of Explorations, including a coding project with a programmer who joined us from Poland. We have several new hires starting work early, including a new tech/engineering facilitator and an English facilitator for the new cohort. Speaking of which, about 25 new Liger students have officially been accepted for the 2016-2017 school year, with another several months of recruitment ahead to bring that number up to a full 50. Parent-teacher conferences went especially well this year, with about half our students fluent and confident enough to translate for their parents on behalf of the Western facilitators.

I ran several Explorations this year, including a fiction writing team of two, who are well into their 15th chapter of a fantasy book written for kids their age in both Khmer and English. I also worked with a team of students on creating our own version of Humans of New York, aptly titled Humans of Cambodia. Check out our website and bear in mind that it was designed and managed by two thirteen-year-old boys. All the photos were taken by students, and all the interviews were planned, conducted, written out, translated, edited and posted by students.

Other big news (though I feel it gets less and less "big" as the years go by) is that we will be returning for year five at Liger, to witness the new cohort in all their glory, and make sure the senior cohort doesn't get their egos bruised too badly. I will be taking on more of an administrative role, stepping back from teaching literacy, while continuing to do Explorations. Jeff will continue doing Math with the senior cohort and running Explorations.

Finally, we will be home this summer for about seven weeks, bouncing around between LA (BABY CARA!), Boston, Buffalo and Florida. Let's make plans.