First Time Teacher

I slept the best I had slept since I got to Cambodia. And that was a good thing. The long anticipated first day of teaching was here. With only a few days of observation, no other teacher was going to be in charge. Amber and I were. We rode our bikes to school for the first time, which is quite the adventure, and then were handed a set of keys and a huge stack of books, and we were off. At flag raising our kids were so excited to see us. They all started to ask where we had been the last few days, tried to get us to help tie their ties, and tell us about their weekend. The first hour went decently smooth, but it just kept getting more and more difficult as the day went on. By the time lunch rolled around, I was pretty excited for a break. We shoveled down the usual rice and vegetables and then went to grade. We tried to figure out the grading system for the next two hours, and what we got done didn't seem to make a dent. The last period of the day is sophomore Algebra 1. Since these kids are older, they are much more animated and like to joke around quite a bit. One of the boys quickly gave me the nickname Teacher Alexander Graham Bell. It's a mouth full for an American, think about a Khmer trying to say it over and over. When the bell rang to end Algebra 1 to end the class period and the day, we were rather relieved. Not preparing for Algebra 1 made the class period more stressful than we had anticipated, but we made it through. After a bike ride home, we were determined to clean our apartment and try to do laundry. We have a washing machine that looks like it could shred our clothes. But it's a washing machine, so I can't complain. As soon as we got our clothes out of the wash, huge black clouds rolled on in, and instead of cleaning our apartment, it's now covered with hanging clothes. A stack of Algebra 1 papers now lay graded, along with some Spelling and Phonics papers. The day is over.

                                                                  Liza and Boreamey

It's been a long first day as a first time teacher. In the middle of the afternoon, I thought I was going to die. Amber and I were on our way to the library to grade papers, and a little girl, probably Kindergarten or 1st grader, walked past us and smiled a huge smile and giggled as she walked past us. It was just what we needed. It's incredible how a child can share so much joy and happiness with a little grin and laugh. We've only been in Cambodia for a little over a week, and only 4 days at the school, and we're already getting attached to our kids. If Amber or I don't show up somewhere, we're asked over and over "where is the other teacha?!" Two of my favorite girls Boramey (who Amber wrote about earlier) and Liza always brighten my day. Today Boramey wrote me sentence after sentence, making sure she had each word that was needed to form the sentence correctly. Liza taught us our names in Khmer and showed us how to write them. Once both girls finished their individual "projects" they would run back with huge smiles on their faces eagerly shoving the paper into my hand that they had wrote on. How can you not return a smile from such precious girls? The kids are going to recharge my energy everyday this year. They already have. One week in, and these kids already hold a huge spot in my heart. They are attaching me to Cambodia.

-Alex