Week 19: All work and no play makes Chamcar Bei a dull place!

This morning we left the village in a tuk-tuk with Erin and headed for the office in Kep for the last time. Our main reason for coming – internet access – was pretty pointless because, as usual, the internet is broken. This will probably mean a trip to one of the guest houses later to use theirs. Nevertheless, when the office moves to the village on Tuesday we’ll have internet more often than we’ve had so far. There’s been quite a lot of excitement around CLC this week as the new office space is being prepared. It turns out that sliding down the mound of sand put down outside the building is a much better use for it than mixing it with cement for resurfacing the floor. I’m not sure how anyone working there will be able to concentrate with all the kids going insane at break time!

This week we planned to teach colours and shapes although, since we had a full week of teaching we assumed we’d probably be starting the next topic by the end of the week. The students obviously had other plans in mind. Sometimes at break time the kids like to take us by the arms, or any other limb they can grab, and lead us to the big tree by the gate to play games. On Monday we were a little confused when the procession led us past the tree, out of the school gates and left towards the reservoir. “Teacher, can you swim?” Next thing we knew, our two classes of kids were ripping off their shirts and shorts and jumping off the pier into the water. So much for colours and shapes but never mind – everyone was loving it. Of course word got round to the kids in Tom’s afternoon class who couldn’t miss out on the fun so they had their turn on Wednesday.

We brought the 100 plastic folders (bought in Phnom Penh over the weekend) to CLC on Tuesday and handed them out to the students who were very happy to receive them. Of course they all wanted to take them home but we explained to them that we’d give them to them when the school year is finished. It would have been better if we’d got round to buying them earlier but better late than never.

The Community Vocational Skills Centre English classes that I’ve been teaching have been a bit hectic this week. It’s supposed to be a class specifically for the CVTC producers but this week the majority of the students are the next generation of friends of last year’s “Coconut Project” class. I think they must be the sons of the farmers in the area and unfortunately they tend to be very rowdy and I reckon they only come so they can have a laugh at each other which is very off-putting for the CVTC ladies. Hopefully next week Theary can help to explain to them that if they want to learn English they should go to CLC.

On Monday evening we’d been invited by Phirom, one of our Youth Team friends, to his sister’s birthday party. We didn’t know his sister, let alone how old she was going to be and so we were quite surprised when we got there and found that there were over 200 people at his 9-year old sister’s birthday party. We saw quite a few of our Youth Team and BAB friends and met Phirom’s family. I think that by the end of the evening his dad had really taken a liking to us, to the extent that he insisted we should share a glass of rice wine with him and, as translated by Phirom, offered that we were welcome to take a bath and change our clothes if we liked. How very kind. Soon after we arrived it became pretty difficult to hear each other talking because the sound system was switched on playing all the latest Khmer hits. Throughout the evening the food on the table was continuously refilled – Tom and I imagined Phirom’s mum stirring the most enormous cauldron of pork stew in the kitchen because there was so much of it – and every time Phirom’s uncle walked past he motioned for us to eat more. The gifts table was absolutely laden by the time all the guests had arrived and was brought to the centre of the party area (set up outside Phirom’s uncle’s house) when it was time to cut the cake. The cake was surrounded by all the gifts on the table which were decorated with fairy lights so it looked like a pile of treasure. The birthday girl stood on a box in front of her cake and had changed into a red Chinese dress and had a huge party hat on. As Tom said, she looked like Mickey Mouse from Fantasia in the broomstick scene. It was incredible how patient she was as she had to stand there for ages while all the guests were ushered around so they were standing in rings around the table with the immediate family (and us) sitting in chairs at the front. With the display, the guests and the microphone finally in place the cake cutting “ritual” began. After many good wishes everyone sang Happy Birthday in Khmer backed up by a strange recording of it on the karaoke machine. Then the immediate family members came up one by one to be fed a spoonful of cake by the birthday girl – although they could only eat it after the uncle/cousin on the microphone had counted to three, which was of course made into a hilarious spiel. After this had been done Tom and I had to wish her well and give her a kiss. When the cake ritual was finally over it was time for the dancing and of course everyone thought it was very funny when Tom and I joined in and tried some Khmer dancing with them.

Back at the Red House we’re about to have a new neighbour – our project manager Sara is hoping to move into the Little Red House across the lily pond when the office moves to Chamcar Bei. She stayed at the Red House with us on Wednesday night and we had a very intense game of Monopoly (which Tom won as usual) and ate Rotterdametjes – Dutch sausages which Sara brought from Holland. It really will be sooo awful to have her living so close by ;)

And now for the most exciting news this week: we had RAAAIIIIINNN!