After a couple of days of being wowed by the ancient temples at Angkor Wat, we were ready, more or less, to get back to the business of volunteer teaching at the little school in Siem Reap.

It was a school with limited resources, where the students sat on uncomfortable (to us) wooden benches at ungainly (to us) wooden tables. But at least there was a functioning marker board on which we could indulge in some imaginative projects with the students, most of whom had very limited English — so the visual element was crucial. Unlike what (we suppose) would happen in most American schools, we didn’t throw away markers when they were empty, but refilled them from bottles of ink.

We also, of course, had very limited resources in our living situation. There was no kitchen as such, so we’d had to improvise a crude one. Without a refrigerator, we had to shop for produce at the nearby marketplace every day, or at least every other day. Our “stove” was of a type very common in Cambodia, a little single burner that looks like a hotplate, but instead of electricity, it operates on cannisters of gas (apparently butane) that resemble cans of hairspray.

One of these cannisters would last us about two and a half days, and then we’d have to take it to a nearby store to exchange it for a full one; we quickly learned the wisdom of stocking up on two or three of them. These containers had been reused so many times that whatever designs had been painted on them originally were long worn away.

Blowing out Candles in Siem Reap

Monday was Kimberly’s birthday, and somehow the teachers learned about it. So they were waiting in the lobby to sing her Happy Birthday in the morning. They also brought out a cake. After the cake had been set down, some of the icing smeared on the table. Not to worry, the household cat came along later and licked it up.

The teachers were always a presence en masse in the morning. In fact, before school even begins, they line up in front of the entrance to greet the students as they arrive, using the traditional Cambodian gesture of greeting that entails clasping the hands together in front of you (like what we would call “prayer hands”).

This, we learned, was not only the standard practice here, but at all schools in Cambodia. It’s one of those quaint little details that make Cambodian culture so charming and inviting.

10/10-12/2022