Welcome to Cambodia!

Today makes the one week anniversary of my arrival in Cambodia! I have never experienced such extreme highs and lows in such a short amount of time ever before. The first few days were impossibly difficult; I was so lonely and homesick that all I wanted to do was come home, but then I got some sleep, ate some (delicious) food, met some people (both Cambodian and not) and all of a sudden, I was having the time of my life. Sometimes I am so happy and excited the feeling just literally bubbles up inside me and all I can do is laugh and smile.

Though I have only been here a week, I feel as though I have been here for much longer. Cambodia makes it easy to feel that way: the locals are ridiculously friendly, and they all want to practice their English and say hello. The children are the same. They want to play with you, to make you laugh and smile. They love to say “Hello, Teacher. Good morning. How are you today?” and take whatever you might be carrying for you to the desk. When you answer back, “I am wonderful this morning, thank you, how are you?” they smile their bright, open smiles and say, “Very well, thank you.” Not only are the people themselves welcoming, the city of Phnom Penh as a whole is really cool. There is a park running down the center of one of the bigger streets here, and in the late afternoons, When school lets out and everyone is off from work, the place fills with families and groups of friends playing badminton and a game like hacky-sack, walking or jogging, and just hanging out. At one end of the green, there is even free open-air aerobics (though, all the locals call it dancing).

The vibe of the park is one of great community and inclusivity, which is incredibly welcome in a country where not only can I not understand the language, I can’t read it, or even muddle through a conversation a little bit. When it comes to French or Spanish, the language has a similar sound to English and it uses the same alphabet. When it comes to Khmer, the language spoken here in Cambodia, the sounds, the alphabet, and even the way words and sentences are written, is completely different from anything I am used to. For example: there are no spaces between the words in a sentence, soit'slikewritingandreadinglikethis. The absolute language barrier makes everything else just that much more intense, and sometimes, everything is just so very overwhelming. But, at least it is not a tonal language like Chinese!

Tomorrow is my first day teaching solo, and I am so excited! I've been at the school for a few days now, but another volunteer has been teaching most of the classes. Hopefully there will be some funny student stories coming soon!