At our first staff meeting at the beginning of last week, I was introduced to all six of the English teachers at my school. There are three with whom I can see myself working: Loak cru (Male teacher) Chuon Nam Heng has several gold teeth, mocking eyes, and almost perfect English; Chum Cheeung is very kind and has a nice laugh; and Nek Cru (Female teacher) Soweechia is clever and speaks English fairly well, having studied at the Royal University of Phnom Penh. There are two other English teachers, but I don’t see myself working with either of them: one is going crazy (literally), and the other is abrasively enthusiastic, which makes me want to run the other way whenever I see him. One day while I was running, he pulled up on his moto and ordered me to stop on the side of the road to have a chat: not what I want to do when I am sweating and intent on collecting endorphins. “I really want to improve my English. Okay?!? Mean that… I really really wants yous to teach to me!!!!” I know it’s not fair of me to turn away from someone who is this anxious to work with me and I’m trying to change my attitude about him, but it’s really hard… If you met the guy, you might understand.

            

Then there’s Loak Cru Ot Dam, who showed up to our first staff meeting wearing a grubby white t-shirt and dirty pants, muttering to himself audibly. “Oh don’t mind him, he has mental problems” the teacher to my left assured me. Having given my number out to all of the teachers at this meeting, Ot Dam has since called me every day and night an average of ten times (I don’t answer anymore). His mom even called me one evening to inquire about his teaching schedule. His mom!

       

Despite the water that is still in the school and the surrounding area, preventing many students from being able to come, we’ve still been meeting every day. The kids don’t have their books yet, so these “classes” have quickly turned in to what I like to call “American Culture Happy Hour,” by which I mean, me, standing in front of forty unblinking eyes, trying desperately to eat away at the time by yapping about what I know (or think I know) about America. Luckily, when I am on the edge of despair is just when the students start to participate. “Do you know how to eat Cambodian food?” “How many cities are there in America?” (Right.) “Can I have your number?” I am quickly forming my own philosophy about what it means to be a good teacher, and while I am sure it will develop from its now crudest of forms, I think that maybe a huge part of it is being willing to boldly venture forth from any sort of “comfort zone” to make a point- and to be willing to make a total jackass of myself repeatedly to (hopefully) foster some sort of connection.

Wading to class…

The market lady who sells me coffee in the morning has quickly become my best bud. She calls me every night after dinner to ask what I ate for dinner, what I am doing now, and to tell me she misses me. Our capacity for conversation is quickly exhausted and we just giggle at each other for a few moments before she says “Ok byebye!” and hangs up. She invites me over to her house to hang out and watch the workers fixing the siding on her house, eat fruit or an soam jay- banana with sticky rice- or just let me hang out while she tuts around going about her various business. It’s a nice place for me to go to get away from everything else for a little while. I feel safe there- I can be in a great mood, or a not so great mood, and I feel like she genuinely accepts whatever it is I am that day, and wants me around just the same. She’s brings me back bread when she goes to Phnom Penh, and buys me fruit and soy milk at the market. She bought me a delightfully tacky broach today that she insisted she help me put on the moment she gave it to me: a bedazzled spider with green rhinestones and painted silver finish. Let your imagination run wild. I’ve helped her bake nompia, a sort of biscuit-like pastry filled with a crushed peanuts and marzipan that she sells at the market in the mornings. By “help” I mean that I laze around in front of the fan basking in the attention of the yays (grandmothers) who pet my arm or pat my butt and feed me fruit. It’s great.

Peanut mixture inside of the Nompia

S’rei Ohn, my new friend, working the dough.

One of the yays, displaying the finished product

I could be a hand model, don’t you think?

One last story that’s kind of funny: I was drinking coffee with Chuon Nam Heng- my new Khmai teacher and hopefully, co-teacher- the other day when class was over, and suddenly he sighs, a propos of nothing and says, “Don’t mind me. I am not sad, I am just thinking about my son… And that… I wish he were married… Oh! Look! Here! I have his number! He lives in Phnom Penh and speaks English! You call to him.” Maybe it’s time to make up a fake boyfriend.