Many of my English II students have decided to join us on this trip to Cambodia, even though they are missing 3 days of classes and a 2-3 page essay on Autism. In exchange for skipping that assignment, I decided to offer my students write daily blog reports on what kind of things we were doing in Cambodia. Today, we split up, with groups heading in 3 directions: to an Adventist academy (similar to TAPA and TAAS) called Cambodia Adventist School (CAS), a Vietnamese Illegal Aliens school, and a Feed & Read* school. One of my students, Angel, decided to focus her article on her experience at the Vietnamese school.
Today is our eighth day in Cambodia. After helping in the orphanage for two days in Siem Reap, we went to visit the Vietnamese schools in Phnom Penh today. The Vietnamese school we went in the morning gave me a big impression because of its locationand its mini size. The school is in downtown city but located on the side of a street with an unobvious appearance. At first, I thought its was an normal Cambodia apartment. It wasn't untill the van stopped that I realized we had arrived the school.
The children in the Vietnamese school have a big difference from those in the orphange we went the other day. They came to school with their own bag packs and were all well dressed. Under the teachers direction, the student behaved really well. They sang song and pray together. They lined up in lines by themselves when they were having assembly. Also, the teachers at the Vietnamese school speak better English than those in the oprphanage even though they were all really young.
At the Vietnamese school, we separeted ourselvese in to two to each class to teach the students. The thing that created us a great difficuties is that the students here usually speak in Vietnamese and only know a little English. They way that we got them interact with us is through out songs. These kids love to sing. They not only like to sing their own vietnam song but also love to learn new song from us.
At noon, we had our lunch at the school with the students. The food provided by the school was very nice. They children here also eat much more than the children in the orphanage. In the afternoon, we went to another Vietnamese school which had only started for three years. The school is located at the edge of the downtown city. As the sponsor of the school said, the the neighborhood of this school is the crimional area, and the students here are mostly come from a family with difficulties, such a single parent. The sponsor hope, through the school's system, these children can be raised up in the right way and be trained into great people who can contribute to the society.
It is really nice to visit these two Vietnamese school and see the culture difference in Cambodia. I appreciate the chance to perform skits in front of the children and teach them songs. Although it takes one a lot of effort to entertain these young kids especially only knowing them for the first time, I felt the efforts we paid is really worthy since the goal of this Cambodia mission trip is to learn to give rather than take. To give the love and joy to those students is the best gift and memories we can even give them. After today's great visiting, I really look foward to the visit to CAS tomorrow.
*From what I've determined, the Feed and Read school is a place that homeless (but not necessarily orphaned) children can come to get a free meal and a little education every day.
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