My summer started and
ended with a story of a TEACHER.
A CHALLENGE GIVEN TO MYSELF
On 18th July 2015, I started my
journey to Phnom Penh, Cambodia under the Project Cambodia Child Care. It was
my first time to go abroad by myself. I actually had a hard feeling to go on
this journey. I was a bit worried but at the same time, I was curious on what
will be going to happen when I reached there.
CAMBODIAN
lifestyle started after two hours flight.
Cultural Shock??
Yes, I experienced it once I reached. It was the first time I
took a tuktuk
(one of the transportation in Cambodia, it is similar to taxi in Malaysia).
He was the driver who fetched me when I
reached airport Cambodia.
You can never imagine the traffic of Cambodia
until you experienced it by yourself. Right after the tuktuk, I rode a
motorcycle with a buddy named Sovanna to meet with others. I was shocked to see
that there was not much traffic rule on the road, people chose to go on with
their own way. It was kind of messy.
What I did as a
teacher in Cambodia?
For the past six weeks, I taught in Rachna
International School. It is not a school with international students. It is a
school which provides English subject. I was a volunteer teacher there.
Soon after the meeting of allocating classes
to teach, I started my teacher life there.
I taught three classes per day from morning
7.45am until 6.30pm. The students were divided into classes of different level.
Some in the class of alphabet which learn ABC; some students in the class of
starter which learn simple words whereas some in the class of simple grammar.
I faced quite a lots of challenges there. The
BIGGEST challenge was language and communication problem.
In Cambodia, Khmer language is their mother
tongue. Most of them speak Khmer daily. For me, this was totally a new language
for me. Students always spoke Khmer to me, but I did not understand at all. The
English level of the students is very low that we cannot even use simple
English to communicate. Luckily, we had
Khmer teachers to help us all the ways. I always feel so thankful to teacher
Van, Teacher Chandy and teacher Chhorn. I learnt quite a few number of words
from them. In a long run, I started to understand a bit of their words.
Sometimes, I tried to use Google translate to express my meaning. Throughout
these days, I found that body language and drawing were the best ways for me to
communicate with them.
Besides, I also faced the problem of how to deal
with naughty students. Fighting always happened in my class, especially when my
afternoon was almost all boys.
I always tried to figure out how can I solve
these problem. At last, what I found out was being their friend instead of
their teacher was the best ways to solve all the problem. This is because they
will more willing to share the reason why they fight each other’s. In order to
let them become a more patient person instead of fighting every day, I always
prepared a lots of handcraft session during the free times.
FOOD: One
of my enjoyments and challenges in Cambodia
In Cambodia, people here ate a lots of
vegetables. For me, I was a vegetable hater, I was quite picky in choosing the
types of vegetables to eat. However, in order to adapt to the local life, I try
a lot of food which I never dare to eat before, like bitter gourd.
Previously, I never cooked a meal. However,
when I was in the school, our principal gave us a task which is prepare a meal
from own country every Friday evening. This was really a big challenge for me
because I do not have any experience in cooking. And because of this challenge,
I found that my relationship with my mum became even better. We talked a lot
through messenger about how to cook the dish. At the end, I was able to prepare
that meal.
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| Bak kut teh from Malaysia |
EXPLORING CAMBODIA: PHNOM PENH AND SIEM REAP
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| Central market in Phnom penh city, a place where you can buy souvenirs or try local food |
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| Restaurant Friends, a place with nice food and souvenirs. All the purchase in this shop will directly help the poor community in Cambodia. |
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| Mango fish |
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| National Museum |
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| Killing field |
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| Bread is one of the most frequent eat food in Cambodia |
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| Visiting post office in Phnom penh and send out few post cards |
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| Frog BBQ |
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| Not the most famous, but its kinda nice to find such a warm stall selling coffee inside Russian market |
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| Famous Fish Amok |
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| BBQ banana |
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| Tuktuk, a very common transport in Cambodia |
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Angkor Wat one of the seven wonders of world    
it's worth visiting and it's better to hire a tour guide to travel
together
If there is a chance in the future, I would like to have a cycle
tour inside Angkor Wat.
This is what happened during my second year semester break. One of
my dream, to go to another country and live like a local. This is something
worth to try, if you are now reading this, I would definitely recommend you to
take a gap whether in weeks, whether in months or even a year to go on this
journey. Be a traveler but not a tourist, you will realize at the end it will
be a fruitful journey.
It was a journey which enable me to discover my limit, to discover
what I want to achieve in this life.
It was a journey which I used up my hard earned money, however,
it's worth taking.
It was a journey which I realized how blessed am I to have a
comfortable living condition, focusing study without worrying anything
regarding living requirements. (ps: I always complaining PTPTN is not enough,
but this is nothing when compared to their real situation in Cambodia.)
It was a journey which I tell myself not to become a person
who pursue blindly for brand cloth, brand purse, bags, shoes and so on in the
future, be a person who fulfill the need of life but not the wants of life.
It was a journey which I tell myself that I will start up a social
enterprise in the upcoming 10 years, to earn money to sustain my family while
making contributions to this society.
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