I was feeling brave today and decided to take the plunge into some new (for me) technology and create a blog. This way it will be up to you to think of me and check out my blog rather than sitting back and waiting for my emails! So here goes - my first post!
Life is moving quickly for me here in Phnom Penh. In the last week I have got myself three jobs, started running again, done lots of shopping and seen the King!
Jobs first. I suppose I can call myself a teacher now - I taught my first English class the other night at a local language school. I'm trying to ignore the fact that the name of the school is spelt incorrectly (well for us Aussies anyway!) the American Academic Center. The class went well for the most part. It was a beginners class and the topic was cooking! To elicit vocab, I mooed like a cow, tried to explain popeye's spinach eating with some muscle flexing, drew a very bad prawn on the board and did various other ridiculous things. They laughed at me which was good. It was fun! At the end they were meant to write a recipe in English but unfortunately their English wasn't good enough for me to get a good Khmer recipe to try. I still need to figure out how to solve the problem of mobile phones ringing in class - and them answering and having a conversation...
I will also be teaching a couple of classes at another language school close to our house called the InterED Institute. It's on the top floor of almost the tallest building in town (5 floors) and has good views of the city from one side and from the other side you can see the convergence of the Mekong, Tonle Sap and Tonle Bassac rivers. Quite a perk! I will be teaching writing classes for more advanced students, like Khmers working in NGOs who need to write reports etc. I think that will be a good relief from the blank looks of the beginners.
My third job is volunteer work at the Cambodia Defenders Project or CDP www.cdpcambodia.org which is a legal aid/human rights law NGO. Have a look at the web site! I haven't done much yet - just given a bit of help with documents in English and I have been asked to do some research on a case but that involves getting a transcript of a judgement from a dossier in a court in the provinces somewhere, then having the transcript translated to English - each step will involve a lot of time.
Read about shoes and XXXXL pants in the next blog...
# posted by Natalie @ 11:09 am
