After we’d been teaching fulltime at Krou Yeung School for only a couple of weeks, we already felt like old pros – or at least like somewhat seasoned veterans. We’d fallen into a rhythm, a routine, a pattern, and being teachers actually began to feel normal. And the school was beginning to feel like our home away from home.

School Supplies Thanks to Our Patrons

Thanks to support from our patrons on Patreon, we were able to obtain some very useful supplies for our classrooms, including decorations and a new laminator to replace the old one that had been almost doing more harm than good.

Although classes didn’t begin until 8:20 in the morning, we’d always show up by 7:00 to 7 :10 (it was about a 10 minute bike ride from our apartment). This allowed us to beat the heat, the traffic, and the students. And it gave us a chance to plan our day and have a leisurely breakfast. Even at the time when we showed up, there would already be a few staff members stationed out front to welcome arriving students (a strictly observed custom at Cambodian schools), and of course they would warmly greet us as well.

The only other interval during the day when we had regular down time was during lunch period and the period just afterward. The students almost all ate lunch in the cafeteria upstairs. We could have done so as well (at no charge), but by bringing our own food, we made certain our exacting dietary specifications were met; and we also bagged a little peace and quiet away from the crowd.

After lunch, the children would take a 40-minute nap in a classroom designated for that purpose. The lights would be turned out, mats would be spread on the floor, and the students would plop down with blankets brought from home. And we’d revel in the strange sound of silence. (Later in the school year, nap time was discontinued and replaced by a period of games or other leisure activities.)

During October, Kimberly had a birthday. And our supervisor Lin, getting wind of it, decided to throw her a little surprise party. Which we fully appreciated.

Also in October, Cambodia celebrated Pchum Ben, a 15-day festival honoring deceased family members and ancestors, a Buddhist celebration unique to Cambodia. Celebrants leave offerings of food at temples, where they’re supposed to provide nourishment for the honored relatives, by way of the priests. The priests themselves, who often come from impoverished backgrounds where they didn’t have much other way to support themselves, get some relief from their usual life of austerity during this time — although some people also observe the occasion by tossing rice balls into the air or leaving them in a field.

During Pchum Ben, the gates of hell are supposed to open, and restless souls are supposed to stray out, and maybe be redeemed and sent to paradise. If your offerings to the priests are adequate. Interestingly, this takes place in October, when some Americans get all excited about — well, you know. In fact, the first day of Pchum Ben this year fell on Friday the 13th.

Most of the celebrations seemed to be private; the real payoff, as far as we’re concerned, was on the 15th day when everyone dresses up in their finery and goes to the temples en masse. Otherwise, the only evidence we see that it’s a special occasion is that most businesses are closed, and the streets are mostly deserted except for fellow ex-pats.

Halloween

But October, for us Americans, is all about Halloween. And while the occasion isn’t really big in Cambodia, compared to the U.S., some stores sell some of the commercialized Halloween merchandise. One of the Aeon malls in town even mounted a little “haunted attraction” which we went through; and it was really not bad at all considering the space it was in. And we say this as highly experienced “haunters”, having spent many Halloween seasons working as professional scare providers at such attractions.

Many of our students had never worn a Halloween costume. And almost none of them had ever partaken of that bedrock American tradition of trick-or-treating. We were determined to remedy that situation.

So we helped organize a Halloween party at the school. Our supervisor was a bit skeptical; she was afraid that the children would be genuinely frightened. But she was quite open to our reassurances and suggestions; the other teachers were also curious about the event and quite eager to give it a shot.

So they decorated the hallway, and provided some treats for the students, most of whom brought a costume to school and changed into it at the appropriate time.  There was a parade of costumes and competition, with several students winning prizes in different categories.  One of the winners was a hopping mummy — for some reason, he hopped down the hallway during the judging instead of shambling along in stereotypical mummy fashion. And it helped put him in the winners’ column.

Some of the classrooms were designated as “houses” for trick-or-treating, so the students could knock on the doors to receive candy. One of these rooms was Kimberly’s classroom, where we created an eerie atmosphere by turning out the lights, setting up a flashlight on strobe, and rearranging the furniture.

Some of the students also did a performance of the “Thriller” dance (accompanied by the song by Michael Jackson) which we’d taught them. It was a simplified edition of a performance version of the dance that we’d participated in at events in New England, and which was a near-replication of the dance in the original music video.

The participants included not only students from our own branch of the school, but the “upstairs” students, who have different teachers, and attend half a day (some in the morning, some in afternoon) to learn English while attending another school for the other half of the day. The event was a big hit, and we expect it will be repeated every year.

One other thing that happened in October was that there was a major milestone in our lives. Our friends back in California who had custody of our RV informed us that they succeeded in selling if for us (and they sent a photo of the family who bought it). That definitely marks the full end of an era, the tying up of the final loose end concluding our 30 years of being on the road in the U.S. We have crossed the Rubicon. The die is cast. The curtain has fallen. It’s a wrap. The cement has set. That’s all she wrote. The ship has sailed. The sale has shipped. Elvis has left the building.

And now it’s just us, our backpacks, and the big wide world.

October 2023