"Do you have free time today?"

It's been a month since I arrived at my site, and it has simultaneously flown by/crawled at a snails pace. If you notice a similar theme running through my blog posts thus far, I would say it's due to an approach I've been taking to my time here. My dad gave me a book many years ago that I happened to bring with me as one of my few non-electronic books: "Wherever You Go There You Are" by Jon Kabat-Zinn. He writes about many Buddhist principles, mindfulness and being present in terms of the practice of meditation and weaving these concepts into everyday living. I have been reading a chapter or two each morning in an attempt to change my mindset from a momentum based non-stop work ethic to one of flexibility and understanding. One of the reasons I came here was to do just this and transition from my hectic life teaching at a high stakes inner-city charter school, and this is definitely the antidote to my former life. School started up this past week after three weeks dedicated to living here and familiarizing myself with my town. I have an incredibly difficult time sitting still, so this has proven to be a trying time for me. I am happy to say that due to coming here with an open mind, it has been surprisingly easy to become accustomed to the pace at which I approach each day. Literally, I begin to wear a watch less, unless I'm working, as an attempt to let time flow a bit more organically. Since I tend to be a very analytical/philosophical thinker, my mind is preoccupied with these thoughts for much of my day, so part of sharing my lifestyle here, is sharing what's in my busy little head.

On another note, school did start last week which was not what as I was necessarily expecting as I have heard that many schools did not really start until after the Pchum Ben holiday which is around the 15th of October, but really began October 1st. Here are some selections of notes that I took on the first day of school:

*Arrive at 7, no one is here as it is raining except for a JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency) volunteer
*Invited into her office which has many electronic pianos and computers (maybe a staff lounge?)
*Spoke to a psychology teacher who knew a lot of English, he said he didn't know the schedule for the day or when classes would even start; in fact he thought that the director was at a workshop through this week
*Director shows up (I breathe a sigh of relief) then facilities guy shows up and gets to clearing out a desk for me immediately (doesn't seem most teachers have desks, only the other volunteer)
*Some other teachers show up as do some students, no sign of action at 8:30
*Meeting begins at 9 (pictures below), seems semi-official as I am instructed to sit at a table with artificial flowers up front along with the three Japanese volunteers and the school director
*All volunteers introduce themselves to the 60ish second year trainees in attendance, I give an impromptu Khmer speech; other teachers give some words of wisdom it seems, when asked if I had anything to contribute to that, I declined
*Students are then released to do the inaugural school cleaning; I awkwardly loiter around my new office while other teachers seem to be playing games on the computers - I am informed school would not start until two days from then so I head home for lunch

Although I am not teaching at a high school or primary school so this experience was not directly comparable to my first days of school as a student and teacher in the States, this was definitely very different than I had imagined.

Infrastructure does not inhibit learning

Teacher Trainees

School starting means that I now have more of a regular schedule. In addition to a 2-4 hours of teaching at the PTTC, I am continuing to teach an English class several hours a week to staff at my school and have just begun assisting my tutor in teaching one of his free English classes each day. He is a great teacher to work alongside, and he has great students who are eager and curious learners which is not too common among Khmer students who tend to be more reserved and obedient (which is a huge difference from my years teaching American students). One of my co-teachers referred to the teacher trainees who range in age from 18-28 "dull" and further explained that they tend to listen but not respond too often. Critical thinking is not a common task asked of students throughout there education here and groupwork dominates individual thought production. This is evident whenever a student is called on, it is a class effort to help that student complete the task at hand. Students are not often held responsible to generate independent thought. I look forward to changing that.

This semblance of a schedule means I have less "free time" which is a common refrain I hear from new "friends" or students that I talk to: "Teacher/Sam, do you have any free time?" I'm still working on what this truly means when it is asked of me as the Khmer concept of free time is not the same as mine. I can happily report that I think I have begun to make some Khmer friends, some women who are around my age and also some characters in the market. It may be too early to say, but I shall call them my friends for the time being. It's sometimes hard to determine someone's motive in coming to talk to me or expressing interest in spending time with me as I was warned before coming that people just like to be seen with the token foreigner or may want free English lessons. I like to think that these people do not belong in that category as I do not get those vibes from them and one even bought me chocolate ice cream at the Tela (a pricey treat that equals true friendship). When I am not making plans with new friends, I still spend plenty of time with my sisters and the neighborhood gaggle of children. Today I made them brownies (although it turned out to be more chocolate cakey) for the second time which we now also associate with watching "Mulan". I like to think of this as a session of culture sharing. Notice how enthralled they are below:

Mulan in English, I think they still got it

Please check out some new pics of ongui langing here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sam_wise/sets/72157631710877176/