COUNTRY: Cambodia
PROGRAM: UniBreak Groups
PROJECT: Education
WRITTEN BY: James Cook University
Our first full week at the MHDC has come to an end – and what a full week it was. The week started with concern as we were told on Sunday night that there was a cyclone headed our way due to hit Monday morning – Lisa still hasn’t lived down her famous cyclone warning; “Guys, there’s a typhoid coming!”.
Lucky for her we’ve started a book full of quotes that members of the team have regretted saying as soon as it leaves their lips, so she isn’t alone! We woke up Monday morning to clear skies and nothing else, which was very lucky.
Our group split into two groups – eight people went to construction, and six people were teaching. The construction groups job was to go out to all the houses within the community and install gutters and down pipes to catch rain water in the clay pots. The construction team loads up the van in the morning with all the equipment for the day and head off to the first houses. Even though the same thing is being installed on every house, each house is very different. The houses at the centre are quite small and typically have one small versatile living space and an external bathroom, so many people use natural materials to build extensions to their roofs to make a bigger outside living space. It’s amazing to see how natural resources can be used in so many different ways, for so many different purposes.
Our team is very lucky to have the skills and expertise of our resident tradie – Paul. Even though Paul hasn’t worked in a classroom over here yet, we think he’s getting very good teacher training working with the construction team as he’s a soon-to-be secondary Manual arts teacher! The construction team runs most things by him to make sure we don’t make to many mistakes – so far we’ve done a pretty good job getting the gutters up. It’s very satisfying to see the final result of all our fundraising, time and effort, and to see the people who live at the centre so appreciative of our work.
Working in the classroom is a whole different world to classroom – in construction you can see real results very quickly, whereas in the classroom progress is incremental and at a vast array of different levels.
Some students struggle with basic greetings and words in English, whereas others have quite strong English. There are different challenges everyday in both jobs, one of the biggest in teaching is not knowing your students knowledge and skill levels, and not knowing how many students you will have! Each day is so different and gives us great opportunities to develop skills in working with English as a Second Language students in a very dynamic environment.
Alongside professional skills, we have develop skills in dealing with animals in the classroom! It’s very different to Australia – many students have pet Elephant beetles that they key under their shirts or in their pockets all day. The Elephant beetles cope pretty well with being a pet, some students even attach string to them to walk them. There’s also a lot of dogs around the streets of Cambodia so classrooms often have four legged visitors that walk in and out all day, but the children don’t take much notice of them! Our teams have rotated so there are new teachers and new construction workers, which keeps things pretty interesting.
Sadly our lecturer Kelsey left us yesterday to head home to Australia, we were pretty sad to see her go but so glad she could come! She gave us a lot of guidance in our work in MHDC and made an awesome team leader when it came to navigating ourselves through the sights of Cambodia. We hope you enjoyed your trip Kelsey and look forward to giving you the full rundown of the remainder of our time in Cambodia when we return to Australia!
We all had a pretty exhausting, fun filled weekend – but there’s only so much excitement I can write in one blog before it turns into a novel! The next will have to wait until I can do the weekend some justice in my writing.
Much love to all of our family and friends in Cambodia – we miss you all!
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