home sweet home

After a week in Cambodia, we have all arrived home safely...

Gee…we’ve come to the end of our short stint in Cambodia. I’ve gained invaluable exposure from the training sessions, experienced the humility of people like Sopeap and Tidar who are ever so willing to serve the teaching fraternity in Cambodia, heard the inspiring sharing of Dr Chan Roath and Dr Suykry who are trying their best to make things work for the better in Cambodia and met foreigners who have so much love and burden for the poorer Cambodians, from Jachin’s Caucasian missionary friend to the Scotland lady whom I met at the massage parlour last night – she had come over to serve as a 2-week volunteer in an orphanage here. Even the French man who owns the Quad Bike business in Siem Reap loves the simplicity of this country. So I’m going back to the comforts of my country today, but certainly more appreciative of what I have =)

Day 6 - AngkorWat & Quad Bike

An amazing day...I'm in love with Siem Reap!

Day 5 - Travel to Siem Reap cum School Visit

For me, picture speaks a thousand words...

Siem Reap 很有味道...I will come back and explore this place one day...

Day 4 - Workshop Session 2

Today, the 5 teachers completed their 2-day workshop.

Now, we are in Siem Reap and will be visiting Angkor Wat in the morning. Will post more pictures soon!

Reflections Day 4

Reflections
We started our day really early today, leaving the hotel at 630am. Chay Huan introduced her school,Satwant covered the teaching of Model method, we had lunch at the biggest mall in Phnom Penh, then Kok Hoong shared about his school, followed by his lesson on Nets. I got the participants to try our P6 problem sums in ratio. We then had a closing ceremony and had a buffet dinner with our hosts. 

I guess one of the highlights of the day was when I had to, I repeat, had to... resuscitate one of the participants who fainted outside the lecture hall. It took me almost a minute to get outside as I had not initially thought much of the situation. By the time I got to where the participant was, she was not breathing (I quite sure about this) and I could not feel a pulse (it could be that I could not locate the pulse at that time). Her mouth and eyes were closed and colour had drained from her facial skin. I did 2 blows and 3 compressions and thankfully she took in some air and awoke. We got her to drink some water, drink some sugar water and eat banana. I think it could be due to the heat, lack of water, sugar or potassium, but of course I'm no doctor. I'm glad she awoke. I remembered, in the anxiety of the moment, that life and death are in the hands of the Almighty. I'm glad that in this instance, she kind of came back to life, I was praying real hard, I tell you. Phew!

Now I'm feeling really happy about these 2 days of training. Everyone did really well. Our leader May is also taking a much needed rest. Get well soon! 

Agenda for tonight:
Skyping my wife and daughter(if she's still awake)
Read "The Hole in our Gospel" by Richard Sterns
Goodnight.     

Reflections Day 3

Teaching the Cambodian teachers and trainee teachers was such a wonderful experience today. We in the team helped each other setup, distribute materials, facilitate group work and by prompting each other on what to do next, we made sure that the participants had an enriching experience. I sensed so much support from my collegues as I presented during the last slot of the day. Thank God the presentation went well; I got to introduce myself in Khmer , something I had intended to try doing. I learnt a lot from my colleagues as well, the presentations on fractions, triangles and times tables and Napier's bone were awesome. Let's keep it up guys!  

Our interpreter was great! I'm so envious of him! He speaks both English and Khmer
so well! He gave me feedback that it was harder for him to understand our Singaporean accent as compared to American accent. He also told me more about the universtities here.

Reflections day 2

Today we visited 2 schools in kandal province. We met the school principals and provincial educational leaders. We learnt about the educational system here in the government schools and also had a chance to distribute the gifts of books and toys we brought. 

It was especially moving to see how happy the children were when they recieved the gifts, even more so since I knew that most of the items were the excess donated. Old storybooks and used stuffed toys would so readily be thrown away by Singaporean children, but the Cambodian children's eyes so quickly lit up when they received the gifts. 

I also got to practice my Khmer vocabulary today.  These are the new words learnt

Water.  Turk
Minute.  near ti
Baby gon nAh
Mekong river dtoo oon lay me kong
Boy broah /bong
Girl kymang srei
Put dock knong
Stop choop
City mall psar Tom nerp
Olympic stadium Start Olympic
Meet joop 

I may have inadvertantly said something wrongly. I realized that I used the word nek to refer to my counterpart. The word I should have used should be boong or Loke which refer to counterpart or senior respectively. Nek should be used for children. Oops. Nonethelss I'm glad I took the opportunity to pracitce newly learnt words. 

Day 3 reflections

Day 3 - Workshop Session 1

Preparing ourselves and the interpreter for the session












Pointing the way to better Maths















10/10 for the Tangrams teacher


















Looking good!















Thumbs up for thumprinting































Teaching Fractions














One boat can take 2 trucks, 10 motrobikes, 15 people and 56 babies per trip
How many trips do we have to make across this river if we have 3 trucks, 32 motorbikes, 12 people and 40 babies waiting to cross?






The many faces of Cambodia

We made it across by the way...wind in our hair

Hi there, my first post here :)
The intense heat and humidity here is driving me crazy but I have a nice team to endure it with me! Having a slight headache now but the team has kept my spirit up :)

Today's session went well but I'm sure there will always be room for improvement tomorrow. Haha but I do not have to present tomorrow *grins* Well then, we'll still work as a team! Let's hope everything will turn out fine!

Dinner's here! Ciao!

~ May Ling ~

Day 2 - School Visit

Today, we visit 2 local schools in Kandar Province.

Thanks to the donations from our schools and TN, we managed to give out soft toys and books to the students in these 2 local schools. The students were very appreciative and happy.

Day 1 - R & R

We arrived in Cambodia, Phnom Penh on 6 Jun 2010, safely.

River Cruise along the river front was scenic and peaceful. We had good lunch, dinner as well as shopping in Russian Market.