A challenging but rewarding first week in Phnom Penh

COUNTRY: Cambodia
PROGRAM: UniBreak
PROJECT: Teaching
WRITTEN BY: Sarah Bensen

Wow! Great! Exhausting! Those were the overriding thoughts after our first day of teaching, where we were really thrown into the deep end.

Our week began on Monday where we were lucky enough to be guided around Phnom Penh by the most amazing Cambodian tour guide. While we saw the generic must-see sites such as the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda, Tree's personal stories relating to his experiences during the Khmer Rouge regime gave us direct insight and lineage to the atrocities and hardship endured. This made visiting S-21 prison camp and the killing fields in the afternoon much more difficult.

Having spent Monday being uncultured, Tuesday meant it was time to be taught some Khmer, meet John from PIO and to visit the schools. Meeting John and seeing the living conditions around the school gave us a greater understanding of the role we would be playing and instilled in us a drive to give everything we can to these kids; if they can be as resilient as they are, then they only deserve the best from us. It also put into perspective how truly lucky we are. Our accommodation is incredible, and the outdoor pool area is quickly becoming the communal 'chill out zone', which is in stark contrast to the uneven, garbage littered streets and shanty houses or singular rooms that these children and their families would be living in.

Wednesday was Genocide Day and so a public holiday, which after our crash course in lesson planning, meant we spent hours preparing for our first classes which were first up Thursday! Our classes are kindergarten and grades 2, 3, 5 and 6, and regardless of the year level we all had hours of planning to do!

Thursday, as mentioned, was challenging in different ways for all of us. As none of us have education degree backgrounds the nerves heading into the first lesson could be seen. Although it didn't take long to settle in (with the help of our lesson plans) by the end of the day there was definitely an exhausted yet satisfied feeling among us all. We actually taught classes English! While Friday was again off to a great start; a power-outage from 9am meant that classes were cancelled for the rest of the day. However this too had advantages, as it gave us plenty of time to connect with the kids in an informal environment. There were an abundance of games being played, smiles and laughter, which really just capped off the end of the week.

This week has not been without challenges- with about half of us feeling sick at some point- and at times feeling overwhelmed. While I'm sure next week will provide it's own unique challenges I have no doubt that alongside them there will be incredible memories and accomplishments.