Baby Girl's New Friend

This is Issac! He and Baby Girl love playing together every afternoon at school!

MOST INTERESTING SIGHT IN WEEK 1

The most interesting sight in week 1 in Kampong Thom, Cambodia, was a man with a towel wrapped around his waist, sweeping his front yard with a broom! The front yard was pure dirt/sand~~no grass. He was sweeping the yard like he was sweeping a porch!

Our Cook, MON

Mon is our cook. She is an awesome cook!!! On Monday night we came home to steamed chicken, delicious green beans that had a "pickle" taste to them, and rice. We stopped on the side of the road to buy a small loaf of fresh french bread to go along with the dinner! MMMMMMMMMmmmmmmm, good!!!

On Tuesday night, Mon cooked tomatoes stuffed with pork!! How delicious!!! And of course, RICE!!!!

I can't wait till we get home at night to see what Mon has cooked!!!! It's always a surprise and it is always delicious!!!

More Changes in Class Size!!

I am now also teaching a class in the afternoon. These are the oldest students, ranging in ages 9-16!!!!!! It's a true one room school house and I am the teacher!! These students attend local school, and are only attending Clever Child International School for the "summer session". Their English is pretty good. WOW, what an easy group compared to my morning class!!!!!! This is like teaching first grade (only because they are just LEARNING English~~they are ALLLLL very smart students!). The first day I modeled writing for them~~I wrote about myself. Then I had the students draw a picture of themselves and then write about themselves, so I could learn more about them! We worked on spelling various words using letter blocks, and then played a game of identifying items that were "same" and "different". Later, I read them the story, Danny and the Dinosaur (An I Can Read book), which they loved!! They laughed at Danny riding on the dinosaur!! Today we will work on rhyming words!! I love teaching!!!!!!!

Changes in Class Size!!

After observing a full day at school, the teachers and I all agreed that
"Classroom 1" needed to be divided!! There were 18 two, three, and four year olds in a room that was about ten feet by ten feet. I could not even move around the tables to get around in the classroom!!! SOOOOOOOOO.....I will teach half of the class!! That will be my morning class. I am teaching the ABC's, numbers, colors, shapes, and counting. We sing songs and move around. THESE LITTLE ONES HAVE SOOO MUCH ENERGY!!! It's just like having 9 Ellis' around!!!! They pop up and down, run out the door, constantly are into my teaching material, have to go potty, need a drink, and anything else you could imagine!!! I am totally WORN OUT at 11:00 when class is over!!!! The children are learning English, so they speak to me Khmer all the time and I just nod my head or say "OK"......I have no idea what they are telling me....and they don't really know what I am saying!!! One thing I know is that when hug one of these beautiful Cambodian children,and give him a smile, I have made his day!! And when he smiles back at me, he has made MY day!!

DAY 2- School

The school hours are 8:00-11:00 for the first session, then 2:00-5:00 for the second session. The walk to school was very short~~about 6 minutes. All of the teachers greeted us and welcomed us back for another visit. The children were precious!! This is Baby Girl's first school experience!! She had a good day, but did a lot of scribbling, and the other children did a great job of coloring in the lines!! She also learned to write the letter "D". She did okay with that, but then scribbled all over her paper! Guess that was more fun!! I will save her work to note how much progress she makes while we are here.

We walk "home" for the lunch break, then walk back to school for the second session, then back "home" at the end of the day.......to rest, relax, shower, and get ready for the next school day!! Tomorrow morning I will start teaching a set group of children. Excited!! Gotta get busy planning!!!!

DAY 1 - Shelter of Love

Today we went to church at Shelter of Love (you can google to find out more information), and had a great time. Of course the service was in Khmer so I didn't understand it!! Ha, ha!!! The girls had a great time playing with old and new friends.

After dinner, I took the girls on a stroller ride around the town. You would not believe the STARES I got! First of all, we were WHITE. Second of all, THE STROLLER!! To see causasians walking around town in this area is not so common, and the people in this area do not own strollers! Many people stopped to "talk" with us and take a look at the girls! We even had little girls and boys riding bikes follow us almost all the back to where we are staying!

It's amazing how deeply you can communicate with someone by just eye contact and a smile! I love Cambodian people!!

After our stroller ride adventure, we took showers, and were IN BED by 7:30!!!! Sooooo tired!! I think the heat played a part in our lack of energy, since it was 110degrees yesterday!!!!! It is really hot. My body is constantly wet. It is not such a great feeling!