Loving the crapca out of APCA

I haven’t written on here since I arrived at APCA on July 26th because I’ve just been too overwhelmed. I’ve had so many wonderful, new and exciting experiences so far that happen what seems like literally every minute of every day, that I haven’t known where to begin. I know that no amount of writing or pictures can adequately describe all that I have experienced or felt in the 12 days I have been here so far, but I suppose I have to start writing sometime.

I’ll start with the basics: APCA is incredible.

There are about 64 children here, though the number tends to fluctuate fairly often with children coming in from the surrounding villages to learn or help out with their parents. A majority of the kids here are orphans, but some still have parents who live in the surrounding villages who simply cannot afford for them to live at home, so the kids come here in order to attend school and have a better life. There is a very strong community feel here, and it’s amazing to see how people take care of each other, and to see how much APCA is respected in this area. The kids’ ages range from 2-17, with about an even number of boys and girls. APCA is located in the Kampong Speu province in the Oudong district, about 50km west of Phnom Penh, the capitol city of Cambodia. We are in a very rural area surrounded by rice fields. The scenery is absolutely gorgeous. I still wake up every morning and go straight outside to the balcony to look out over endless green rice fields, coconut and sugar palm trees. The sunrises and sunsets are truly breathtaking. Our property is a decent size, but we only have one building that is three stories tall. There are a few other open structures with palm leaf roofs that serve as a classroom, sleeping quarters, a kitchen, and what is soon to be a place to keep chickens for the community. There are three bathroom structures outside for the kids that have running water and toilets. APCA has our own well on the property, and most of the time we have running water, especially just after we’ve had heavy rain. The water is usually a bit of a murky brownish color, and you can’t drink it, but it is what we use for showers and washing our clothes. We don’t have washing machines here, so everyone washes their clothes in buckets with soap and a bristly scrub brush, and then rinses them in another bucket of plain water. It has certainly made me appreciate washers and dryers.

About a ten minute bike ride down the road is a small outdoor market where we can go to buy basic necessities, lots of yummy street food, and any type of Cambodian fruit that is in season from lychees to mangosteens to dragon fruit. And all of the food is so inexpensive. I have been buying the kids bananas a couple of times a week because fruit is a rare treat for them. 70 bananas only cost $1.50 to $2.50, depending on the vendor. That’s only about 4 cents per banana! It’s unbelievable how inexpensive things are here. I bought a nice digital watch at the market the other day for $2. Ridiculous.

My main job here is to teach the kids English. That was literally my instruction from the director Mr. Dara: teach children English. No further explanation. So that is what I’m attempting to do. I started out teaching two one-hour long classes a day. In the morning I taught a class of about 20 older children ranging from 12-17 years old, and in the afternoon I taught about 40 children ages 4-11. My first week I taught colors to both classes so I could see what levels they were at and what they could handle. The ability levels in both classes varied greatly, and the afternoon class was almost impossible to teach effectively because it was so big. Some kids could say and spell all of the colors, while others didn’t even seem to know their ABCs. Plus there are only eight bench style desks that can seat about 24 kids total, (if they squeeze in like sardines) in our outdoor classroom, so many of the kids ended up on plastic chairs in the back. I talked to Dara about splitting the afternoon class up, and now I am teaching three classes a day with only about 20 kids in each class, and am able to teach more specifically to each class’ ability level. It still isn’t perfect because some kids are definitely more proficient than others even with the split groups, but I think the separation will be very good for both their learning and my sanity.

Since we have no book to go by and no lesson plans I am basically just making up my own lessons as I go along. It’s difficult because the children have been learning English consistently for at least two years now, but they don’t seem to have a lot to show for it. I think this is because many volunteers come and go, staying only a month or two at a time, and they don’t really know where the last volunteer left off. I’m hoping that since I will be here for about five months that I will have time to make some good progress with them. And I’m going to try to keep good track of what I am teaching to help out other volunteers in the future. So far lesson planning has been fun, and the children seem to be quick learners, which is awesome. They are really a joy to teach.

Not only the kids are fun to teach, they are amazing people to be around. I have never met such motivated or independent kids before in my life. Every morning they wake up on their own between 4-5am either to study, clean, or practice traditional Cambodian dancing. Then at 7:45am Kim teaches them Korean. At 9am and 10am Hazel and I teach them English. The kids usually eat lunch and rest until 1pm when their Cambodian teacher does their Cambodian/English lessons. Then at 3pm I teach my 3rd class. At 4pm Kim teaches all of the kids Tae Kwon Do. It’s adorable to watch the younger kids do it, and a lot of the older kids are getting really good. After dinner they study on their own, clean around the property and shower. They are busy literally all day every day, and this is their summer break! Dara really wants them to stay on top of their education year round, and they are so happy to do it. All of the kids study very hard in my classes and are really excited to participate every day. A lot of them even come to me during their breaks throughout the day and at night asking me to help them study. It’s really remarkable how motivated they are to learn.

So that is pretty much my day to day life here: teaching, playing with the kids, riding bikes to the market, and helping out with whatever needs done whenever I can. I have been reading in the early afternoons before my class, lesson planning, and really just enjoying the slower pace of rural living. Although nothing really feels slow about being here because there is always excitement and action going on, which I’m sure you can imagine with 60 some odd kids running around. The 12 days I’ve been here have flown by incredibly quickly, so I’m actually very glad I’ve decided to stay here for a long time.

I have also been into Phnom Penh five times already since I got here for many different reasons, usually running errands with Dara or picking up/dropping off people at the airport. The trip into the city takes about one to one and a half hours. Last Sunday I went into Phnom Penh early in the morning to visit Monica, Alisa and Jessi at the Palm Tree Orphanage for Monica and another volunteer, Mike’s, going away party. It was so nice to see the girls again and to get to see Palm Tree and meet the kids there. Palm Tree is a much different place from APCA. It is nestled right in the middle of Phnom Penh in the hustle and bustle of the city. They have several multilevel buildings, both a girls and a boys dormitory, at least five indoor classrooms, laundry facilities, and a music room with lots of instruments. They also have a covered eating area with tables and chairs for all of the kids. It is a very impressive set up.

The party was so much fun! We ate traditional Cambodian cuisine, drank Angkor beers (very delicious), and danced with the kids for hours. The kids there were so sweet and very smart. It was sad saying goodbye to Monica because I have no clue when I will get to see her again, but I’m really glad we were also to see each other both in Thailand and Cambodia. It is cool that we got to experience more adventures on the other side of the world together.

I took a moto back to APCA early Monday morning. A moto is what they call motorcycles here, and they are the alternative to taxis, which actually don’t even exist here. Basically if you want to get anywhere in Cambodia you hop on the back of one and the driver will take you to your destination. The hour long moto ride was a much different way to experience the trip as compared to the air conditioned APCA van, which is how I usually go. I won’t go into too much detail about the ride as to not freak out my parents or relatives, but it was definitely an exciting and interesting experience.

I had a wonderful time visiting Palm Tree, however the visit also made me realize how much APCA is lacking. The kids don’t even have a proper area to eat here. They usually squat on the ground to eat their meals, which isn’t incredibly sanitary. Instead of dormitories there are palm leaf covered areas outside where some of the kids sleep on raised wooden platforms under mosquito nets. Many of the kids also set up their mosquito nets on the floors and balconies all over the building. Unfortunately APCA doesn’t have enough funding to build dorms for them yet, so for now the kids just kind of sleep wherever they feel like it. I feel incredibly spoiled to have my own room here with a real bed.

Yet the kids never complain about anything, and are extremely grateful for everything you do for them or give them. I’m not trying to make you feel sorry for them. They are extremely happy children, and their basic needs are met. It just kind of sucks that APCA doesn’t have the means right now to build more structures that would make their lives more comfortable. Dara is currently trying to get funding from our Korean and American donors to get a covered eating area and a boys and girls dormitory built, so hopefully that will happen in the near future.

Hazel left this afternoon to go back to England. It was so sad to see her go. We have become fast friends the past couple of weeks, and I feel lucky to have been able to meet her and spend time with her here. I will miss having her here a lot, and I know the kids will too.

We had a party for her departure last night and it was so much fun! For dinner we had the Cambodian version of spaghetti, which is very thin, sticky white noodles, in a fish soup broth with lots of veggies. Apparently it’s one of the kids’ favorite dishes. And I can see why, it was really tasty, or ch’ngun as they say in Khmai. I’m slowing attempting to pick up some Khmer, but so far it’s slow goin’. I have mastered about 80% of the kids names though, which I think is pretty good. We danced to a lot of Cambodian music, which often has specific dances associated with it. I have never really considered myself a good dancer, but I got a lot of compliments on my skills from the kids and even some adults. I’m sure they’re just being nice though, as that does seem to be the Cambodian way. I have seriously never met such constantly happy, smiling, positive people. It seems like everyone in Cambodia is happy all the time, no matter what they are doing. Considering Cambodia’s incredibly difficult and recent history, peoples’ attitudes here are amazing.

The kids also danced to some hip hop songs, a few of which they had routines to because they have been studying hip hop on the weekends with a dance teacher from Phnom Penh. They are really good! I wish I could have taken pictures, but I couldn’t get up to get my camera because Veasna, a hilarious and adorable four year old boy who has really taken a liking to me, fell asleep on my lap, and I didn’t want to get up and wake him. He falls asleep on me probably every other day and wants me to hold him a lot. He also gives the most awesome hugs.

Though I have only been here a short time I really feel like everyone here has accepted me as family. I feel really lucky to be surrounded by such loving, kind people here, especially because I am so far from all of the loving kind people I know and love at home. I really don’t think I could have asked to be in a more amazing place to have this experience, and I’m so happy to be here.

Another cool thing about being at APCA is that I will have the opportunity to help with field work in the 14 villages APCA supports, as well as with some other NGOs we partner with. I think this Sunday I will get to go with Dara and Kim to the Vietnam border to see the work that our partners in the Rural Economic Development Association (REDA) are doing in their villages. I know they do a lot of work for orphans with AIDS as well as drug abusers, so that should be interesting to see and learn about. I’ll definitely let you know how it goes.

I think I will stop myself here for today and try to write more later. I hope you are all doing well wherever you may be. Shout out to my friends and family-I LOVE AND MISS YOU ALL VERY MUCH!!

Peace.