"Sva" means "monkey", not subject verb agreement

My alarm goes off at 6:30am. I blink, feeling bleary-eyed and still slightly jet-lagged. A slit of weak daylight has begun to seep around the edges of my curtain as I slide my feet into my flip flops and glance back at the bed I've just vacated. It's a habit I've fallen into here. On a good day, my sheets are bare. Today I spot one tiny, dark mass and see the mangled remains of an ant I squashed in my sleep. Only one. Not bad. I make my way down the short hall to the bathroom, noting the little gecko who likes to hang out on the mirror. He's incredibly tiny, delicate even, and doesn't alarm me. I send him scurrying as I shut the bathroom door.

Kim is already awake and I can hear her putting the pot of filtered water on the stove to boil for instant coffee. When I finish washing and dressing, I join her in the kitchen. Breakfast is two pieces of toast and two small bananas that I purchased yesterday from a roadside vendor. Well, "roadside vendor" might be too generous a term perhaps. An older woman with a banana tree on her property had simply put up a small card table alongside the road with a few bunches she had gathered that morning. For less than a dollar, I had purchased a bunch of ten. They are surprisingly unlike the larger versions I purchase from the grocery store at home. The skin is thin and the flesh is so much sweeter.

We sit at the counter--drinking coffee, munching our breakfasts--and put the final touches on our lesson plans. Bootcamp is starting to wind down. We're coming up on our final classes with our students and I am desperate to impart as much SAT wisdom to them as time will allow. Any further practice and preparation from here on out will largely rely on them.

At 7:50 we stuff our backpacks with our massive SAT books, worksheets, and water and make the short trek from our apartment to the main building. It's sunny and, although it's early, it's already 80 degrees. I can hear the junior students, already gathered, talking and laughing loudly in the open-air assembly space on the roof of the school. We pause outside of the main building to remove our flip flops. You don't wear shoes inside in Cambodia, and school is no exception. Even though it's our second week and I've started to become accustomed to this practice, I still feel a shiver of pleasure as my feet pass across the sun-warmed tiles and move up the smooth wooden staircase. I love being barefoot and I instantly feel relaxed and at home.

The senior students are beginning to trickle in, too. Some of them lean casually against the upstairs railing, chatting with each other and calling out "good mornings" as Kim and I make our way up the stairs. I see Malika and she starts to rehash our game of knockout on the basketball court yesterday. She and I are both feeling a bit under the weather and I tease her about getting me sick. We move closer to the doorways of our respective classrooms and I spot quiet Sopor and Sytong, who both offer me a wave and a smile. I walk into the classroom, which is already occupied by the more punctual students. Sopheak is there, leaping around, and she rushes up to give me a hug "just because". I ask the students how their homework went last night and I am met with both groans and smiles. Clearly, some of them are feeling more confident than others.

By 8:00 every seat is filled and we begin. Today we're talking about question types on the Writing & Language test. As we work our way through my PowerPoint, I identify the grammar topic being addressed in each question type, provide them with step-by-step strategies, and give them an abbreviation they can use to label the questions. I click to the next slide: this one discusses subject-verb agreement. The abbreviation for this question type pops up beside the title: SVA. I open my mouth to launch into my explanation and instantly hear tittering among the students. I look at them quizzically as the laughter begins to build. Dalin, one of my more outspoken students, quickly dispels my confusion. "Amanda, sva means monkey in Khmer!" she calls out between giggles. Of course it does. I give them a wry smile and thank them for adding to my incredibly limited Khmer vocabulary. Class continues.

I rotate through the two other classes as the day passes. In one classroom, Sreypich tells me more about her involvement on the frisbee team and asks if I play, while Sophat blares his latest musical creation from his laptop. He's posted it on YouTube and it's already gotten 6,000 views. He's ecstatic. Maya and Vitou arrive late so, with the students prompting, I make them sing a few bars of Ed Sheeran's "Perfect" and "Shape of You" as "punishment". They have good voices and the rest of the students clap and sing along good-naturedly. In the other classroom, Kimseng continues to thwart my attempts at correctly pronouncing Makara's name (pronounced Mah-kah-RAH) by shouting "it's MaKAHra" every time I ask her to repeat her name. He and I toss sarcastic remarks back and forth and I am reminded of conversations with my brothers. Venghour stands with a few other students practicing dance moves from a recent music video. He flips his hair back flamboyantly and struts around, flashing me a huge grin. He's always on the move. Always smiling.

My days here have been so incredibly full. Without an ounce of inhibition, these 51 students have opened their hearts and minds and classrooms to us. Drawing us in with their stories and antics and incredible thirst for learning. I can say, with all honesty (and after having taught on five different continents), that these students are the best I have ever had the pleasure of teaching. They are curious, diligent, motivated, responsible, creative and respectful. Having been hand-selected from poor, rural towns and villages across Cambodia and given a chance to live and learn tuition free at Liger, they recognize firsthand what an amazing privilege education is. This acknowledgement has created in them such an incredible drive and passion for learning and exploration. No, perhaps not created. Each of these students were selected because they already had those embers burning inside them. But certainly those embers are being fanned into roaring flames here. Each and every student is committed to wringing out every single drop of knowledge from this experience, and it shows.

I am so honored to have had the opportunity to make my own small contribution towards helping both Liger and its students move closer to their goal of "develop[ing] socially conscious, entrepreneurial leaders of tomorrow". While I know that I will likely never see most of these students again nor discover where their journeys lead, perhaps one day I will come across an article or podcast or news report and hear how Sovannou or Rika or Davit or Ketya are changing our world.

An afternoon in Ta Khmau

Over the last week, Karen (our tokkae-wrangler) and I have fallen into a fairly regular routine of going for a bike ride after classes end each day. These excursions have provided me the opportunity to explore the area where we live, Phum Champuh K'aek, and take full advantage of the wealth of knowledge from Karen's four years of living in Cambodia.

For our first trek, Karen took me across the river to Ta Khmau (pronounced TOK-mao). We left Liger's campus and headed down the wide, dusty, and relatively empty road that runs in front of the school. The street is lined with dwellings and a host of stands and small shops selling a variety of things: fruit, vegetables, gasoline, toiletries, clothing, etc. There's even a small coffee shop, Marin Coffee, just a minute from school that makes fancy Starbucks-esque coffee and fruit beverages. (Kim is slowly working her way through the menu and has already availed herself of three of their specialty beverages.)

After only a few minutes we took a hard right, passing through a stone entryway. Another wide paved pathway greeted us, even emptier than the main road. Immediately, on either side of us, intricately carved stone mausoleums appeared between the trees. Khmer inscriptions scrolled across their facades and each entryway was marked with a closed door or locked metal gate. We also passed tombstones covered in colorful Chinese characters. Karen explained this odd mix of mausoleums and tombstones. Chinese people prefer to be buried in the ground, while Cambodians are cremated and/or rest above ground. In the picture below, you can see the tombstones with Chinese inscriptions, and in the background stand the mausoleums of deceased Cambodians.

Monks swathed in their bright orange robes made their way here and there to the various buildings dotting the complex. Couples out for a stroll meandered along the tree-lined paths, while young children scampered behind each other as their parents sat chatting nearby. We passed two young girls, probably four or five, right in the middle of a game of hide and seek. One of them stood with her hands over her eyes counting loudly in English, while her little friend crouched behind a bush just mere feet from her. It was clear they were still working on the finer points of the game.

Most of the people in the complex, however, were doing what we were: riding their motos or bicycles (or the odd car) through the complex simply to get to the main road on the other side. When we first passed through the gateway, I assumed that this was a sacred place because of the very obvious religious buildings and statues dotted throughout, and because it also served as a cemetery. I even asked Karen right after we had made the turn if we were allowed to ride our bikes in here. She assured me it was fine and I was surprised to see just how much of a thoroughfare it was as we biked further in. There was no difference between the roads in this complex and those outside of it.

We wound our way through the complex and finally found ourselves turning onto a very busy main thoroughfare. Here cars, trucks, motos, and bikes all fought for a bit of road space. It had been awhile since I had biked and even longer since I had biked in heavy traffic (the last time was in China), and the experience was a little unnerving. I'm claustrophobic and being enmeshed in such a chaotic mix of people and vehicles does overwhelm me at times. But Karen was clearly a veteran of these streets and I followed her expert lead without issue.

A few moments later we found ourselves on a dirt alleyway and Karen hopped off her bike. I followed suit and saw that the alleyway slanted downwards towards a small stand. Beyond that, I could glimpse the Bassac River. We stopped at the stand (which turned out to be the "ferry office") and paid the woman there thirteen cents each to cover our river crossing. Past the stand, we could see that the river level had risen so much (thanks to the rainy season) that the concrete ramp that normally led to the pier was completely submerged and wooden planks had been lashed onto a bamboo frame to precariously escort us from land to boat.

The boat itself was two wooden canoes that had also been lashed together side by side and wooden planks had been nailed across them to form a wide platform that made the entire thing look like a barge of some kind. We rolled our bikes onto the boat, waited for several more passengers, and then set off. I was now floating across a tributary of the very river I had seen from the plane, the Mekong. It was a beautiful view. From the middle of the river, I could see the shores of both Ta Khmau and Phum Champuh K'aek, alternating between swaths of green and the rust and reflections of corrugated tin dwellings. Farther up the river, where it turned around a bend, I could see the tall buildings of downtown Phnom Penh holding back the horizon. After the frantic activity of the road, it was incredibly quiet on the water and I basked in the silence and the feeling of being spread out against the wide open sky.

The bustle on the streets of Ta Khmau was even more frenzied than that of Phum Champuh K'aek. Phum Champuh K'aek felt much more suburban, or rural even, compared to Ta Khmau, which was decidedly urban. Real stores, not shops or stands, lined the roadways, along with restaurants, cafes, and hotels.

We stopped first at Lucky Supermarket to pick up a few essentials (I was thrilled to see that Cambodians also share my love for Mi Goreng instant noodles--there were so many varieties!). Then Karen took me to a funky little restaurant favored by expats called Spring, where I got to try a popular Cambodian dish, beef lok lak. I didn't have my camera with me, but below is a picture that is a pretty accurate representation of what my dinner looked like. Needless to say, it was as delicious as it looked.



By this time, it had started to grow dark. Being so close to the equator means the days are pretty much the same length all year round, and that means no long summer days filled with extra hours of sunshine. We hadn't brought headlamps, so Karen wanted to be sure that we made it back before it got much darker. Navigating the dark country road by the school, that had nothing in the way of street lamps, wouldn't be an ideal situation for two darkly-dressed cyclists.

I think I actually enjoyed our return ferry crossing more than the one that took us to Ta Khmau. Part of it had to do with the sky. The sun had set by the time we left the dock, and as we pulled out onto the river a thick swirl of grey clouds spun languidly above us. They were gently illuminated from behind and the whole effect made me feel as though I was looking up at the top of the world. Or situated in the eye of a storm.

Also on the way back, our little ferry was filled end to end with young monks who were returning from classes in Ta Khmau. The entire boat teemed with an ocean of orange cloth and neatly shaved heads. As Karen and I sat on the edge of the ferry speaking quietly to one another, one of the monks broke away from the group and approached us. He looked to be around 14 or 15 and smiled shyly at us as he approached.

"Where are you from?" he asked.

Surprised to hear English after being surrounded by Khmer for most of the afternoon, and even more so to hear it from this orange clad youth, I dumbly answered, "Ohio."

Karen, much more with it than I, clarified for him. "We're from the United States."

He lit up immediately and proceeded to tell us how he was taking English lessons in Ta Khmau and jumped at every opportunity he could to practice. He was thrilled to use his language skills, and with two native speakers no less! As we carried on our conversation, the other monks quieted down and watched the exchange with interest. We were the only two foreigners on the boat and I'm sure we made quite the pair: an older white lady with a head full of brilliant white hair and a lanky brown-skinned girl whose hair was as curly as Karen's was straight. There was no disguising the fact that we were the odd ones out.

When our conversation ended, Karen turned back to me to continue her running commentary about life on the river. She pointed out to me a few long wooden boats with roofs that arced over the middle. It looked like pieces of flexible metal had been bent into an upside down U and nailed down to the boats. She explained to me that these were the homes of Vietnamese river people who lived their entire lives on those small vessels. As we pulled alongside the dock on the other side of the river, we saw that one of these boats had docked nearby for the evening. Karen instructed me to take a quick look inside as we passed.

Under the small roofed section of the boat sat a young mother with her small child. There was one electric bulb that had been strung up which illuminated their tiny living area. From my quick glimpse, I could see piles and stacks of a variety of things, neatly tucked away to maximize living space. I even spotted a small circular clothes rack standing in the far back corner. I couldn't fathom living my entire life (with my family) in a space no larger than my walk-in closet.

The monks, Karen, and I streamed off the boat and began the short bike trip back to Liger. As we zipped past the long orange stream of monks walking home, a few of them waved and smiled. One of the most enjoyable things about being out and about here in Cambodia is the fact that nearly everyone will greet you with a smile and a cheery "hello", or "suostei". Cheesy as it may be, I find that there are few things in life that match the simple joy of going out in to the world smiling and having the whole world smile back.

You're never truly alone...but even more so in Cambodia

Living in a tropical locale almost always means drastically reorienting your relationship to wildlife of all shapes and sizes. After my brief stay in Honduras, I experienced a different meaning to “shared living space”. Not a moment passed that didn’t involve an encounter with an ant, gecko, or cockroach. No space was sacred. No space was safe. Most of the time it felt like it was I who was, in fact, the intruder, and it was their home that was being invaded.

If you’ve kept up with my blog over the years, you know that it was this “insect invasion” that partially factored in to my decision to leave Honduras after only two weeks. The mental and emotional trauma of waking up to walls and floors covered in cockroaches every day was just more than I could take. Now, perhaps this means I am weak and cowardly. Perhaps there are those of you who are not fazed at all by creepy crawlies and welcome their spindly legs scurrying across your countertop or cozying up to you in bed. To you, I have nothing to say. Except perhaps that we need to have a frank discussion about personal boundaries.

I am not an idiot. I knew that in agreeing to come to Cambodia, I was also implicitly agreeing to share my living space once again. But we humans are funny creatures. In spite of negative previous experiences, we somehow manage to convince ourselves, when confronted with another similar situation, that somehow it just won’t be as bad as before. How does that saying go? “Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, and expecting different results.” So yes, not an idiot. But definitely insane.

Granted, I had spent time in Malaysia and Thailand and hadn’t encountered any unpleasantness in the numerous hostels I had frequented, so part of me honestly believed that things wouldn’t be as bad as Honduras. And, to be fair, they aren’t. Mainly because I haven’t encountered a single flying cockroach. We do, however, have copious amounts of ants, several of whom have made it into my bed, a swarm of yet-to-be-identified flies, and several geckos. We also spotted a rather large spider on our living room wall this morning. But still, all of these things I could live with (though gingerly). The thing that has pushed me over the edge and given me endless anxiety is this guy:

In Cambodia, these lovely specimens go by the name “tokkae” (pronounced TOH-kay), and in addition to looking thoroughly unnerving, they also produce an ear-grating screech to ensure that your encounter with them is an unpleasant one.

I first came across one in our shower. Mercifully, I was not in the shower at the time. (I had simply poked my head around the partition to see how our fly population was faring that day.) Its sudden appearance in our shower literally took my breath away. I cautiously backed out of the bathroom and informed Kim that we had a brand new visitor, and no, this was not another cute gecko, but a beast of a whole different caliber.

Thankfully, a little later that day when I poked my head back around the shower partition, our tokkae had vanished. By this time, I had realized that the six squares in our shower wall that opened directly to the outside needed to be remedied, and quickly. Otherwise, we were going to have an endless parade of other guests marching around our apartment. And let’s be honest, the bathroom is the worst place to entertain wildlife. You’re most likely either naked or on the toilet and in no position to defend yourself well.

My plans to shore up our shower wall didn’t happen fast enough, however, because while I was taking care of business later that afternoon, I happened to glance up and there, right at the top of the wall, another brightly colored tokkae gleamed back at me. My eyes never left its wriggling body as I finished up and scurried out the door. This was getting out of hand quickly.

I reasoned that as long as I could keep said tokkae out of my bedroom, I could at least seek refugee there when it all just proved to be too much. Both Kim and I made sure to close our bedroom doors while we went to take care of pre-camp planning with some of the faculty and staff.  After a few hours of work and dinner, we headed back to the apartment, exhausted. It was only Day 2 and our jet lag was still in high gear.

I opened my bedroom door, tossed my backpack on my bed, and nearly choked on my heart which had relocated to my throat. There, on MY BEDROOM WALL was the tokkae!! This was too much. There was no way I was going to be able to sleep with that thing glowering at me with its beady eyes all night. Just, no. No, no, no. I considered for a moment how I could tactfully excuse myself from boot camp and hop on the first US-bound plane. Then I rushed to the kitchen, grabbed the broom, and prepared to wage war. The plan was to guide this tokkae out of my room (and hopefully back into the bathroom and out the window). But instead, he ended up darting into the space between the wall and my wardrobe.

At this point, it was clear reinforcements were needed. While I stood on my bed, broom in hand, I instructed Kim to run next door and grab Karen, another LLA faculty member who had naively offered to ask her for anything should we need it. She came right over and, after assessing the situation, headed straight to the science lab to get a giant net. With her skilled coaxing, we were able to capture the tokkae after several attempts and took him back outside. Then we proceeded to remove the netting from the catcher to cover up the openings in our shower.

Though shaken, I felt much better now that the tokkae was gone and all available entry points appeared to have now been sealed. However, I still passed a fitful night, jittery from the encounter and fearing that somewhere in the recesses of my room another tokkae still lurked.

By the morning, though, I was feeling considerably calmer and ready to tackle the first day of camp. What was one silly little lizard after all? I was a grown woman and I could handle it.  I opened my door to head to the bathroom and was immediately greeted by Kim who was already up and showered.

“There’s another tokkae in our bathroom,” she said, by way of greeting. “It’s on top of the door.”

I froze in my doorway. All thoughts of using the toilet instantly replaced by dread. I looked at her and in my head all I could think was: “I’m not freaking out. YOU’RE freaking out. I’m not freaking out, YOU’RE FREAKING OUT!!” How had this happened?!? I thought this situation had been handled. I had just barely regained some sense of inner tranquility and it had instantly been shattered.

I puttered around the kitchen for a moment, delaying the inevitable, silently building up the courage to go brush my teeth. It’s just a lizard, Amanda. Just a lizard. It can’t hurt you. You’re huge, it’s tiny. You got this. You GOT this. All you do is win, win, win no matter what!

I marched down the hallway, DJ Khaled shouting encouragement the whole way, and saw a tiny green head peeking over the top the door. Well, at least this one was noticeably smaller.

I hurried through my morning routine, relieved to be out of the bathroom in under five minutes. Unfortunately, my anxiety was still running amok as I got dressed and it was a struggle to manage a few bites of my granola bar.

Moments later, there was a knock at the door and Karen, the previous night’s savior, was there to announce that breakfast was being served. Kim was quick to inform her that our little apartment had been compromised yet again and Karen sprung into action. She secured another net from the science lab and headed to the bathroom to scoop up the miscreant. Much to our dismay, however, he was nowhere to be found. Karen left the net with us and assured us that she would come back and catch it should it reappear.

And that is currently where the situation stands. Somewhere in our humble abode, a tokkae lurks. I am not foolish enough to think that he took the hint and departed. And so we wait, not knowing when or how or where he will make his presence known.  I wonder how easily one can acquire Xanax here…

First days in Phnom Penh

For it being the rainy season, the sky was surprisingly clear as we began our descent into Phnom Penh. I had expected to be greeted by a torrential downpour. But instead the sun shone down fiercely on rectangular patches of green and brown, and on the wide, milky brown river slowly winding its way past tiny houses with roofs of orange and bright blue. Occasionally, I caught sight of a tall, ornately adorned building which I took to be a temple of some kind. After roughly 3 months of planning and preparing, and nearly a day’s worth of travel, we had finally arrived in Cambodia. 

Kim, a recent Princeton grad, and I will be spending the next two weeks at the Liger Leadership Academy (LLA) teaching in the school’s first-ever SAT boot camp. LLA is quite a young school (it opened in 2012) and will be graduating its first class in 2020. To ensure that as many of them as possible are well prepared for admission to an American university, the administration thought it prudent to devote a couple weeks specifically to SAT prep.

After taking time to review LLA’s mission statement and goals, I knew that this was an organization that I wanted to be involved with. The school’s mission statement reads as follows: “Liger Leadership Academy educates promising youth of today to develop socially conscious, entrepreneurial leaders of tomorrow. We provide a residential scholarship program for economically disadvantaged students that combines a comprehensive, internationally competitive education with an innovative STEM and entrepreneurship curriculum. Liger believes a meaningful investment in the right few will change the lives of many.” LLA believes in empowering their students so that they are able to go out and have a profound impact on the future of their country, instead of leaving it in the hands of others. Needless to say, I am thrilled at the opportunity to work with such an organization.

We made our way through Customs & Immigration easily and were pleased to see that both of our bags had arrived without incident. Outside we were met by Jeff and Caroline, both veterans of LLA, who had also just landed in Phnom Penh after spending the summer at home in the states. The heat and humidity was palpable as we introduced ourselves and waited for Sotia, our driver, to come collect us.

With great skill and some squishing, we managed to cram all five of us and our suitcases into Sotia’s crossover and began our trek through downtown Phnom Penh to LLA. We got our first glimpses of Cambodia as we inched our way through the downtown traffic. Having spent time in various developing countries, I began to note the commonalities between Cambodia and other places I had visited and lived. Here was the frantic, jumbled mix of cars, mopeds, and motorcycles vying for road space. Here was the precarious, yet impressive, balance acting that consisted of multiple humans (and multiple packages) situated on one motorbike. Here were the dusty roadside stands selling street food and knock-off brand backpacks. Here were the equally dusty storefronts where shirtless toddlers scrambled about and elderly women sat stoically by their bottles of shampoo and racks of polyester clothing carefully covered in plastic. In some ways, I could easily have been back in Ecuador or Honduras or Thailand.

After thirty minutes or so, we bumped our way through a small gateway and found ourselves on the grounds of LLA. The school’s campus is situated just outside of Phnom Penh on a beautifully lush and secluded plot of land. All of the clamor of downtown had faded away and was now replaced by the screeches and caws of the birds and lizards nestled in the foliage. Branches with large pink and red flowers arced over our heads as Caroline led us down the walkway to the two-bedroom apartment where Kim and I would be staying. We were impressed to hear that the apartment had actually been designed by the students. LLA values project and experiential based learning and the students are continuously creating, designing and building.

Once we had dropped off our bags, Caroline gave us a quick tour of the campus. It was only Saturday and the camp didn’t begin until Monday, so the school was more or less empty. We were shown the main building (which houses all of the classrooms and offices), the swimming pool, the sports court, the soccer field, and the large colorful buildings that housed the Junior and Senior students. The Senior apartments were of particular interest to me because the students are completely self-sufficient. They are allowed to eat lunch in the dining hall, but they are responsible for cooking all of their other meals. They are also expected to maintain their own living spaces and do their own laundry.

By this point, my initial “arrival high” was quickly being replaced by overwhelming jet lag. The rest of the day passed in a blur of exhaustion and feeble attempts to stay awake until the clock read an acceptable bedtime. (Needless to say, both Kim and I failed to meet said acceptable bedtime.)

And now, two days later, here we are on our first day of camp. We had an assembly this morning to greet all 51 (of our very enthusiastic) students and immediately kicked things off with a practice SAT (which was met with far less enthusiasm). This afternoon, Kim and I will have an hour of icebreakers and introductions with the students, and I look forward to learning more about each of them. I can tell that the students here are well-loved and love their school in return. As a teacher, one of the greatest gifts is students who come into your classroom eager and excited to learn. I have a feeling I’m going to be quite spoiled by the end of this experience.