It's 6:30 AM, and the alarm wakes you up, if you haven't already been woken up by the crowing roosters, the cultural wedding music being blasted from megaphones nearby, the creaking wooden bed frame, or the heat. In Cambodia, life begins with the sunrise, which is almost always before 6 AM, so sleeping until 6:30 is late here. After a quick shower to cool off and clean up, I'm already sweating again by the time I put my clothes on. The temperatures this time of year hover around 95 degrees, with a heat index almost always well above 100 degrees. It's toasty, but that can't stifle the excitement of being in a country full of culture, history, and truly remarkable and friendly people.
A typical day begins with a quick breakfast, likely a Styrofoam container of rice and pork with eggs and pickled vegetables, a popular breakfast dish here. After shoveling down our food, we get on our tuk-tuks to go teach. Tuk-tuks are a common and popular mode of transportation here. The rickshaw cart attached to a motorcycle--its engine screaming with the weight of up to 8 large American bodies-- is a memorable way to get around, with the breeze blowing through your face and the plethora of smells wafting in your direction (some pleasant and many others quite the opposite) and the little children waving for your attention. When we arrive at our destination-- likely a school or NGO-- we teach for a few hours. It's so rewarding to see the faces of the students light up as they learn something new or find a new passion for sharing the knowledge they have.
After we teach, we take pictures with the students, say our goodbyes, and go to lunch. Khmer food is delicious. Rice is the staple, and it is eaten with many different stir fries and soups. The blend of spices creates delicious flavor. Some dishes are very sweet, others spicy, others peppery, and others sour with the addition of lemongrass or tamarind. It's nice to be able to eat a delicious meal and get full for only a couple dollars.
In the afternoon, we return to our guesthouse to prepare lessons for the next day. We must do research and prepare slideshows and posters and translations for the lessons we teach. It can be tedious and taxing, but it is always rewarding when you see a well-planned lesson succeed and see the students understanding and enjoying the lessons. As one of the few Khmer speakers in the program, my main role was as a translator for the lessons. I may have learned to speak Khmer as a missionary, but I definitely did not learn all the technical words required to teach about sexual health or environmental safety. I spent many hours researching words and phrases I would need to use to translate the lessons. It is so important to me to make sure I'm translating correctly because if I don't translate correctly, then all of the work the team put in to prep the lesson was in vain. The students will not understand the lesson, and the lesson will be a flop. Preparation is so important.
After hours of prep time, we eat dinner. Sometimes, the owners of our guesthouse would make us dinner. Other times, we would go out to eat at restaurants. Evenings are fun. Many times, we go out to the riverside in Kampong Cham and stroll past food carts and Zumba dance groups and kids playing soccer on the sidewalks. Other times, we sang karaoke, a favorite pastime in Cambodia and throughout Asia.
On weekends, we enjoyed cultural sites. We visit anything from abandoned military towers to the Royal Palace to little mountains adorned with Buddhist pagodas to worldwide tourist attraction Angkor Wat. The opportunities for exploration and learning in Cambodia are limitless. This is a country where you can learn about what truly matters. The Khmer people have endured cruelty, corruption, and injustice. For nearly half a century, they have struggled to survive from day to day because they are denied opportunities. Yet they press on. They keep moving forward and enduring, and they do it with smiles on their faces. As you look at their faces, you can see the wrinkles of stress and worry, yes. But as you look into their eyes, they are filled with hope for a better future. They are filled with pride for their identity and heritage and with joy to have their families and their lives to live. A day in the life of an intern in Cambodia will surely be a day that will hopefully change that intern's life forever.
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| A cool old military tower we checked out across the Mekong River in Kampong Cham. |
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| If not for any other reason, everyone should come to Cambodia just to see Angkor Wat. |
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| Royal Palace. Beautiful place to visit, and it provides good cultural information if you get a tour guide. |
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| Phnom Bros in Kampong Cham is a place we visited on a weekend. The pagoda is amazing, and there is no shortage of Buddha statues or of monkeys ready to steal your food and potentially your money and other belongings. Keep an eye on them! |
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| Our days were filled with teachings at schools, but sometimes we got to do service projects, like this one at the dairy farm, where we scooped poop! |
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| No trip to Cambodia is complete without karaoke. Here I am singing one of my favorite Cambodian songs. The employee came in and recorded me, so maybe that means I sang it alright? |
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| Sometimes, if we needed a break from lesson prepping, we would go to the top floor of our guesthouse and just enjoy the view of Kampong Cham. So green and so peaceful! |
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| We played Guess Who? with the students at English Club. We taught English, as well as sexual health, environmental safety, food and water sanitation, and more. |
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| It was a huge blessing to work with awesome organizations who are doing so much good in Cambodia, like this one. This organization helps install playground equipment and other equipment at schools to improve them. They were awesome! |
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