19th March

Ok maybe boring some of you by now but its a good way to keep a record.....got up earlyish this morning and had a talk from one of the guys at globalteer about lesson planning - most of it common sense i guess.

went into town to the supermarket and then to the bank, very posh bank and lots of fancy cars outside. had lunch at guesthouse before heading out to the project, the mornings seem to fly past. oh and ive been bitten all over by damn mosquitos - think it was at pub quiz last night. oh and forgot to say we were last in the quiz haha.

so today at the school, simon the other volunteer teacher in my class off today so it was me taking the class with the khmer teacher who are reluctant to help unless you really ask them. first class was a bit of nightmare as they had already completed workbooks they had been given for the week. they are very good at doing adding and subtracting but if you ask them to say the numbers ie 26 - twenty six they are unable to. also if you right out one rather than 1 they do not understand this. as ive said before, its very difficult as kids are all at such different ability levels in the one class. they got to watch a cartoon in the afternoon today though and they loved it - tom and jerry, mouse and cat as they said "teacher teacher, please mouse and cat now" whilst on 15min break in afternoon i got talking to a wee family who were in looking for money, was a baby there maybe about 9months, tiny but lovely. got to hold him and have to admit had tear in my eye when i heard their story. lady was trying to tell me but i only have few khmer words and she had no english so i got the khmer teacher to translate and she was showing me pictures of her hubby who was shot not long ago on the cambodia-thailand border? i think she was saying he was on a boat or something. very sad though as this looked a young lady with 2children who lost their husband/father :-( sad thing is many many more stories like this out here.

in the afternoon, my 4pm class wanted to continue learning about continents of world, yeah lets just say i am also learning as geography definately never been my strong point haha. the kids are so clever though, they asked me questions i could not answer but as long as you are honest with them and tell them you are not sure but will find out they are happy. one of the questions was about the year of a certain war etc...i didnt know anything about this. one of the boys, who lives with kerry from new hope is such an intelligent boy and his english is fab!!! nice to see them doing well and being so keen and eager to learn. english class at 5pm was interesting, we were going through new words they will be using in the new topic they are starting, its very difficult to explain some and especially when some words have two meanings.

out for a meal tonight, i had a nice lasagne haha. felt a bit squeemish in restraunt though so came home early. think it may be a combination of not drinking enough water today and it was soo hot, was a fan on but did not feel like it.

should be interesting weekend, plan to get up early in morning and go to a hotel pool for the morning, home around lunch time then at 2pm i am going to west barrai, apparently a little island for the afternoon with some other volunteers. might go to a doctors talk in the evening if im home in time. sunday i am up early again to go to a temple with waterfall with some of the other staff from new hope. will let you all know how it goes. away to my room to put air con on and read a book, great life! xxxxxx