Call me "Your Highness"

March 18, 2011

Of all the strange things to look at in Phnom Penh, I find myself staring at dogs. Not because they are cute, not because they have great outfits ... but because they have BALLS. I realize that this is my second blog entry in two months that mentions balls, but I forgot dogs had them. Seriously, when was the last time you saw a dog trotting around, proudly waggling a giant set of balls? Poor little eunuchs at home; they make you forget what dogs actually look like from the back. All if this is a terrible thing to think about while you're trying to eat breakfast, which is what I was doing when Ben came by to pick me up. It was 7:00am, and I was ready for school: teacha' Ben (don't forget the English accent) was taking me to meet his K2 classes. We had spent the previous day stalking the city for balloons fit for twisting, and a pump capable of blowing them up. My goal: twist 80 animals, and get the hell out before they start popping. Each class started with a screaming chant in moderate unison: "Gooood mooorning teaaacha' Ben-10-alien-force. How aahh yoou toodayyy, I am fine thaaank you". Good lord, I thought, all of these Khmer children have English accents. Ben acted as the magician's-daughter's-beautiful-assistant, while I tried to teach the kids some real English between being mauled for balloons. I should mention that, for a large group of five and six year olds with a guest and balloons present, it was not total chaos. Part of it is Ben's gentle but firm hold on their attention, and the other is the teaching assistant who screams "SILENCE!!!" while whacking the closest, and most unsuspecting kid with a ruler. I know that every time she did it I wanted to sit down quickly and do some homework. The kids practiced spelling the names of their animals, and their respective colors while I fixed dog ears and elephant legs that had 'accidentally' come untwisted. Ben had so much fun not teaching, that he invited me to his High School English classes that the evening. Alas, we were out of balloons and all of my talents exhausted: I would just have to take the observers seat for this one. I was introduced to the Head Chancellor (who is addressed as "his highness") before sitting in on the class as 'an observer interested in teaching'. I told him I was Canadian, had a University degree, spoke some french and spanish, and had completed TESOL ... and he offered me a job. I laughed and told him I was already in love with Cambodia, and that if I came back to teach I would visit him again. It turned put to be 'test day', so teacha' Ben collected the exams and led the way. 'Sitting in' meant that I had to complete the the exam, according to Ben, and (theoretically) get a higher grade than a bunch if 16 year old kids. Right, I thought, that would be embarrassing, since English just happens to be my first language. What I didn't expect was that someone whose first language was obviously NOT English had written the exam. It boasted little gems like: "Write about a place that you used to visit before”, and “What is the bad affection of the western foods?” More bizarre, were questions like: "what was the title of the paragraph", when no title was given. Ben and I agreed later that if a student had responded "read the paragraph and answer, 5 marks" (the only text appearing at the top of the paragraph) that he would have given them 100%. I'm tempted to return to Cambodia after traveling to start what could be an extremely lucrative editing business. Unlike most other shops, the motivational poster on my wall would NOT read: "alone we are a drop, together we are fat as the ocean".

Slaughter.