A story happened in SUMMER 2016

My summer started and ended with a story of a TEACHER.

A CHALLENGE GIVEN TO MYSELF

On 18^th 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.

Bak kut teh from Malaysia

EXPLORING CAMBODIA: PHNOM PENH AND SIEM REAP

Central market in Phnom penh city, a place where you can buy souvenirs or try local food

Restaurant Friends, a place with nice food and souvenirs. All the purchase in this shop will directly help the poor community in Cambodia.

Mango fish

National Museum 

Killing field

Bread is one of the most frequent eat food in Cambodia

Visiting post office in Phnom penh and send out few post cards

Frog BBQ

Not the most famous, but its kinda nice to find such  a warm stall selling coffee inside Russian market

Famous Fish Amok

BBQ banana

Tuktuk, a very common transport in Cambodia

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.