Back to School.

Andie and I have been volunteering at a school here in Cambodia, it is for the kids who can't afford public school (public school for the kids here is less then 10 cents a day). So they go to this funny little school located about a ten min walk down a dirt road from our hostel. . Andie and I have uniforms that we wear, (I'll get up a picture soon) and I go to a class with the older kids (10-15) and Andie is with the young kids (5-8ish).

Our first class there was so freaken funny, I had about 8 kids in my room and the teacher. The class all stood and welcomed me, then I introduced myself. (seriously the most beautiful brown kids you will ever see) And then the teacher turned the lesson over to me, giving me a grammar book they were reading from.
ME! teaching English!! Grammar?! oh man! So funny.
The teacher's English was good but he had such a strong accent that I could barley understand him, and he kept making everything plural. . like "the rabbits goes down ta de waters" (the rabbit went down to the water)
It is blowing my mind that the kids are learning English from him. . . So when English speakers come they like to give them a lot of time to talk to the kids so they can hear how English really sounds.

It was a riot. At one point he just left the room. (if you can call it a room, more like a fence and tarp) So I made up some sentences and had them add the word I was missing, I taught them what opposite means, and we listed a bunch of opposites. Then at the end I had them all playing pictionary only speaking in English, if they spoke Khmer they lost points.

At recess I asked Andie how her class was, she said she sat by a little boy and every time she would talk to him he would laugh at her. She said there was a boy crawling around on the floor grabbing the other kids feet.
And like my class, she could barley understand anything the teacher said. 
Then she added "this is your kinda thing, not mine'" . . I feel bad for her future children, I hope she doesn't make me raise them for her. 

It was real eye-opening to be there. I wish I could stay for a year, teach them the all jumbled miss-spelled English that I know, help them get a better job when they grow up.

And yeah, there are a few jerks in the class, and weird-os but for the most part I am constantly impress with these kids, they are so grown up for their age, there has been dozens of times when the kid is the one at the store helping us out, getting our change, welcoming us or wishing us "gook luck" as we leave. Maybe it has something to do with being raised on a motorcycle, or maybe in Utah we just baby our kids too much.
It is funny to think how I wasn't allowed out by the busy street as a kid. When these kids are riding bikes that are way too big for them, with a friend on the back, and they are headed somewhere late at night riding along side the motorcycles and tuk tuks, 70% of the time they are barefoot.

I said to Andie last night on our way home passing kids on the road "do you think their Mothers worry about them?"
And Andie said "no she is probably the one telling them to ride to the store to get her something"
I thought about it, and yeah, that sounds about right.

So for you moms reading- next time you need some milk just tell your 5-year-old to get his 3-year-old friend and bike, on your bike, to walmart for you. It will save your husband the stop on the way home.