Always the Teacher

*This is a typical phone conversation between Kim and me.

 

Kim- Hello my dear.  Where are you?

Me- At my apartment.

Kim- My students want to meet you.  Will you come?

Me - Where are you?
Kim- Hun Sen High School.

Me- Where is that?

Kim- It's next to the Police Station.

Me- (Thinking: We have a Police Station?)  Where is that?

Kim- It's not far.  It's before Ramy Bookstore.

Me- OK.  I will leave in 5 or 10 minutes.

 

*3 minutes later my phone rings again.  It's Kim.

Kim- Kerri, where are you?

Me- I'm leaving now.  I'll be there soon.

Kim- OK, hurry up.  I'll wait outside for you.

 

Hurry up?  There is no need to ever hurry here.  Kim shows up a half hour late for everything, but expects me to always be on time. 

 

I arrived at the school, thinking they were having some kind of celebration for International Children's Day.  The place looked deserted, but I could hear Kim calling my name from across campus.  When I entered the classroom, there were five students, and Kim says, "Kerri, I want you to explain the importance of learning English and motivate them."  (Whoa.  What?  Thanks for the heads-up.) 

 

As usual, I just rolled with it and told the students about myself and asked them questions.  I told them learning English would create many opportunities for them and described the types of careers they could obtain such as:  bank teller, store owner, waitress at a nice restaurant, tour guide, flight attendant, etc.  They practiced their English by asking me questions.  Of course, the first question was, "How old are you?"

 

I taught them the chorus in, "You Are My Sunshine."  We reviewed pronunciation of difficult words.  They taught me some Khmer.  (Tee-tee mean a little bit.)  I taught them some slang words like:  "That's cool!" & "No way!"  Then, I told the class that I was going to test Kim.  I wrote the word, huge, on the board and asked her to pronounce it.  She laughed and punched me in the arm because I know this word is extremely difficult for her and we have practiced it several times in the past.  On this day, she finally got it.  She said, "It took me 100 times!" 

 

Finally, I announced that I had to leave because I had many things to do (like watching a cheesy comedy movie on Amazon).  The students begged me to come back again.  I gave a vague response because hey, a girl needs some time to just chill out.