So the third day of our orientation was on Sunday. In the morning we had a Khmer lesson with our volunteer coordinator Theavy. It was lots of fun - but we were all terrible! All i can remember is how to say hello, but luckily I wrote it all down if I ever need to use it. I would like to try to learn some though!
In the afternoon we went to the Tonle Sap Lake for a riverboat trip. The ride in on the Tuk Tuk was incredible, we saw so much of the more rural areas! After being used to seeing Siem Reap we got to see how others live, with tiny huts on stilts to avoid the flooding during the rainy season that lasts from May-October. Everywhere is always buzzing with life, people are always out doing things- it seems a very sociable place.
The riverboat trip was incredible. We had a small boat that took us through the floating villages. It was so weird to think that people live in this lake in small wooden huts, and I cant even imagine how they survived the rainy season. The lake was enormous, it strecthes all the way from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh - the biggest lake in South East Asia. We all climbed out on to the bow of the boat and dipped our feet in the water whilst watching the sunset- perfect! However I swiftly moved my feet after Theavy told us there was CROCODILES (!!!!) in the water....scary!!
We then went back to a restaurant in the floating village and drank Angkor beer on the rooftop overlooking all the village. The restuarant had a pen full of crocs caught from the lake, and crocodile skins hanging from the cielings! Very odd! A small child also walked over to us with a huge live snake around his neck saying 'One dollarrrr one dollar!!' Again, bit strange! The poverty here was quite shocking and we did have a lot of people begging at the boat which was difficult.
Then Monday we had our first day at the placement. Luckily I dont have a long journey and can ride my bike there which I am getting more and more confident about by the day! We had a meeting with the teachers and discussed hours. Today was my first day teaching, and I was thrown right in at the deep end and was expected to teach straight away for a 2 hour lesson! Bit daunting with very little planned, and after doing what I had planned I made things up on the spot! I really enjoyed the lesson, I just hope the students did too! Hopefully with more planning the next lessons will be even better. I found the existing teacher's methods a little boring with waaaay too much on grammar, so I am hoping to make the lessons a little bit more fun! It will certainly be a challenge!