When I first got to my site, I was worried about being far from where I was before. I enjoy change but in the moment I hate change. I think I became calmer when I met my host family, the teachers, and school director at my school. Words cannot describe how I have met the nicest people in the word.
Before I address the two people who I think have already made a large impact on me, I will touch on everyone in the community.
First, my students. Because I teach at the primary school, I see kids that range in age from 6-14 and they always say “hello Teacher Alex!” and sometimes come running across the field to come give me a high five, a fist bump, or make a heart with their hands. Even when I bike past the school on my days off, the kids always yell to me “HELLO TEACHER ALEX!” and when I am in the town and pass a student they always say hello to me. It seems like something so little, but they make me feel so welcomed in the community (especially when sometimes I bike by someone I do not know they say “barang” which means foreigner). When you bike through town and have people know you (even if they are 6 or 7) it makes you feel welcome. I always bike home on this dirt road and when I do, I pass a lot of my students. Sometimes they come running down the street waving and saying “TEACHER ALEX TEACHER ALEX” and it is so cute. Lastly, if they see me in town they always come to school the next day and say “Alex, I saw you! What were you doing?” (I usually am buying fruit so that is what I tell them!)
Second, the teachers at the school have made me feel less like a volunteer and more like a teacher. To back track a little bit, I want to give a shoutout to the teachers at how appreciative I am of them for coming to my English class. In the beginning of my service, I offered to teach an English class for the teachers if they wanted to learn. I know not everyone wants to have another thing on their plate to do so I was just putting the option out there. In the end, almost all teachers signed up for my class, and still to this day mostly everyone comes to my classes in the morning and the afternoon (there are morning teachers and afternoon teachers and so they flip flop). My morning class goes a bit slower because we are learning how to read the Latin alphabet (because Khmer has a different alphabet) and my afternoon class is working on vocabulary and present tense verbs. I want to express how big of a deal this is that the teachers come to my class. They take time out of their busy days to learn for an hour with me (Monday, Wednesday Friday) and then they teach me written Khmer too. This is something truly special and really makes me happy even seeing the progress of the teachers (I have these two older teachers who always come and they say they can’t do it but they are getting so much better!) After I teach and they teach, they sometimes hang out and eat snacks and they always offer for me to stay and eat snacks and talk. There is still a language barrier for me to understand but they are so kind and know I am trying my best. The other day, too, they took a teacher picture in the morning and let me join in.
The teachers always give me snacks and say that I need to try all of the Khmer foods, fruits, and snacks and I think about the immense kindness that they put forth for me. Finally, I think the biggest gesture they all did (which was led by my school director and his wife, but I will get to that) is that for Valentine’s Day, they got me a whole cake that said “Happy Valentine’s Day Teacher Alex” and the teachers got me a coffee mug and carrier that says “Teacher Alex” on it. After my teaching session, the school director came into the library with a cake and they started to sing Happy Birthday and I was like aww yay whose birthday is it? And they said, no Alex this cake is for you. I actually started to cry tears of joy because they all went to all of this trouble to do this for me.
Overall, I want to share that although Cambodia is cheaper to live in than the United States, the cost of things still adds up, and usually the average teacher salary is not that much. However, all of these teachers (and everyone in general) always share with me and each other. If you have a snack, you should hope you have an extra to share with the other person in the room with you! I think this is something truly beautiful that no matter what, sharing and giving to others is a priority.
Speaking of sharing and giving, I want to get to the two people who have made such a large impact on me so far in my service and have taught me the importance of being appreciative.
First, my school director. Every volunteer has different relationships at their schools based on if they have a classroom/a desk/ where they hang out at school. At my school, I have a desk in the main office and so I speak a lot to the school director (whose desk is in front of mine) and one of the ladies in the office (who constantly is giving me snacks and fruit). My school director is probably one of the hardest working people I have met here. He is constantly busy, especially because he works so hard to make our school really (really) nice. Our school has had a lot of non-profits donate different things to our school (we have a water pump, handwashing stations, a new library, new buildings, etc.) The last building that was kind of falling apart (it was made of wood , had a hole in the ceiling, and uneven floors) was just torn apart and they just started a 5 month project on building a new building to have three new classrooms (I think he said we will have a Chinese classroom, and English classroom, and a computer classroom). He makes sure the school is super clean (the kids always pick up trash and water the plants) and he even was doing yard work for the school a couple weeks ago (with the little hand lawn mower). That is to say that this man is very busy. But he is never too busy to talk to me. The other day, I was leaving the school to go home but he stopped to talk to me about random stuff. This turned into a 45 minute conversation of the new projects going on at the school and everything he does. Although he is so busy, he always still stops to talk to me and make sure that everything is ok at the school. When we were talking, he told me about everything going on at the school and now he has very little free time to do other things. We also talked about how for Cambodians, traveling to other places/countries is really expensive. Although day to day life seems pretty similar for a lot of people (comparing US to Cambodia) of teaching/working, the exterior of day to day is different. In the US, many people save up to go on a big trip (or a small one) but when I talk to many others in Cambodia, it is so expensive to go other places, many people stay home for holidays (and also many holidays are religious related/country related and so people celebrate with their families). This just reiterates that although people may have less money, the overall kindness exceeds that of the US with sharing and giving to others.
This sharing and giving also transfers to my host sister. (She technically is my host mom, but we call each other sister). First let me tell you about her day. She gets up at 4-4:30am to do things around the house and makes breakfast, tutors kids in English at 5am and goes to school at 6:20am. She comes home at 11, eats lunch and rests for ten minutes just to go back to the school at 12. She sometimes doesn’t come home until 8pm because she is tutoring kids. We eat dinner at 8 and then she does work in her room sometimes until 11pm. So she is busy. But on top of all of that, she opened a house next door to us to let students from rural areas/whose parents work in Thailand come to live at our house so they can go to high school and get an education. She saved up all of her money to build this house so that she can help students and she always tells me “Knowledge is power”. She highly encourages studying a lot, reading, and not a lot of phone time for the high school students because she wants them to have better lives and to grow up and do big things. Some of her previous students have gone on to go to university, become doctors, and work in offices. My host sister’s own story is incredible and despite all odds against her, she still got an education, worked so so hard and has become the role model for the students today. I will not share her whole story, but please know that she has overcome things that many people could not even think of doing. While at home, she is the driver of me not becoming lazy with wanting to achieve my goals in life. She always tells me “Alex never give up on what you want to accomplish” and she is the one who encourages me to work harder. Many people know that I am already a very self motivated person, but having her as a sister motivates me even more to work to achieve my dreams. And it also motivates me to work as hard as I can as a volunteer, trying to give back to my family, my high school students, the primary school, and all others who surround me.
This post has no pictures, but I want to emphasize again the incredible people I have met and how that has had an incredible impact on me and my service so far. Especially my school director and my host sister, they want the education of the students at the primary school and the high school to improve significantly so that the kids can grow up to do great things! The sharing of kindness that I have experienced is something that I think has made service easier because everyone has been so welcoming.
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