"Erm, Teacher Jasmine? Maybe you could help with this?" I knew my long division gremlin would come back and haunt me at some point and here it was leering up at me from the page of an exercise book and the expectant turned up face of a 12 year old boy. Teacher Katie slunk away to help the younger kids with nice friendly things like adding up and taking away. My mental arithmetic and spelling is being dug out from somewhere deep in the back of my mind and I'm rather enjoying it.
The school is made up of children from very different backgrouds. Muoy's aim being to train children in social interaction not limited to economic circumstances. She is a fiercely intelligent Khmer woman with a PHD in French, who returned to Cambodia for her retirement and opened the school with the mind to change the Khmer attitude to education and work. She believes that, despite all the wonderful elements of the Khmer mentality (if indeed such a mentality can be assigned to an entire nation) there lie some serious flaws. The kind of flaws that allow horrific atrocities to take place. She wants to set about moulding the young mailable minds of "our future" to see if she can produce the kind of people who might lead Cambodia into the 21st Century and out of the 3rd World. I admire her drive, she is single minded and very stubborn but she gets things done. Us volunteers scamper about under her watchful eye and hope that we live up to expectations.
There are 7 of us now. Socially, of course, this leads to much merriment although getting us all organised is quite a feat and transport is often tricky: 7 in a tuk-tuk or 3 on the back of a moto (impressive and amazingly not impossible). We are heading off to Sihanoukville on the coast this weekend with another house of volunteers which, I have no doubt, will be a lot of fun, if chaotic...
We have all been feeling a little guilty, the comfortable house, the swimming pool... not really the 'roughing it' volunteer 'experience' we expected but we bare the disappointment as best we can.
The teaching is demanding, however, and very rewarding, the children are fantastic, so bright and hungry for knowledge. It is a full time job though. Some of the children live at the school which can be a little unsettling when creeping out of your room on a Sunday morning, feeling a little fragile, to be greeted with a cheery chorus of "Good morning Teacher Katie!" But I think I might actually miss it.
It is the end of another excuciatingly hot day - April being the hottest month of the year - and I think it might be time for another little dip in that pool...