Final Countdown!

The final countdown has begun before I leave Cambodia to travel into China.  It is really weird thinking back to four weeks ago when I had just arrived in Phnom Penh, Cambodia scared to death of dying on a Tuk Tuk, not knowing how to react to the local people staring at me and giving me their babies, numerous power outages (sitting through one right now as I type this into Word), how to use Cambodian money and trying to figure out why they wouldn't take my coins (coins are useless here) and lastly trying to discover some new friends.  Nothing that I just listed above was easy, it took some time, but honestly I will miss this place for some very simple reasons:

1) LanguageCorps has helped me find friends in places I never thought I would have friends (Cambodia, Russia, Thailand, Australia and Vietnam).  It's true I have never been to most of the places, but through the program I got to meet these people who hopefully in the future I will visit in their respective countries.  You build long-lasting friendships through this program as I have learned with my wonderful Russian friend who is coming (from Thailand) to visit me in Cambodia before I leave Saturday morning (meaning have a drink together and tell stories over our margaritas).  I will definitely visit her in Thailand when I get the opportunity (I want to take a picture with a tiger!!!).  I also learned so much about teaching from this program, yes classes were long and sometimes boring, but overall the experience has made me a more confident teacher, especially when teaching children.  Mandarin lessons are very helpful to me because I have begun to realize my mouth and tongue can shape better to their words (I even spoke some stuff to a Chinese girl and she understood, although I used our training book lol).  I chose this program because I had a gut feeling it would be right for me (as I did when picking which college I should go to) and it was the best for me.

2) My room has begun to feel like home and all the people here have begun to feel like my family, even though sometimes they drive me crazy or confuse me, I will still miss everyone (even the Tuk Tuk drivers).

3) The KFC girl.  She is super nice and she was originally going to be the girl I did the one-on-one lesson with but she goes to the University in the morning and works at night so she was too busy.  She wanted me to come back before I leave, so I will be visiting her today and giving her a drawing of a hummingbird.

4) Sean Eich Mouy.  She helped me pass this certificate course by agreeing to do a one-on-one lesson with her.  She is very nice and calls me older sister.  She also gave me free dessert every time I stopped by the restaurant to teach her.  She would give me different shaped rice every day and she also remembered by order.  She learned book-keeping, mathematical tables, and how to say that she is the waitress and cashier of the restaurant.  I gave her a picture of a turtle that I drew, she seemed very pleased.  I will miss her very much.

5) The puppies.  These puppies were born two days before we all arrived in Cambodia and I remember meeting them on my first day.  They were so tiny back then, but now they are fat and chubby, and their eyes are open.  They grew up with us in a sense.  I will miss their cute faces.

6) My kids.  I will probably miss my kids that I have taught for only two weeks the most as they have helped me more than they will ever know.  I was their first western teacher so that in itself makes me feel very blessed to have received that opportunity to work with them.  Honestly, I was afraid of teaching kids, so in order to challenge myself I put in a request to teach kids in Cambodia, and I got what I requested.  Sure they get a little rowdy and I have one who literally climbs the walls and my legs, but all in all I care for them.  

 I will for sure miss "Good morning, Teacher!" and "Teacher Kat! Meow!" and "Goodbye Teacher!" because when 3-7 year olds say that it just melts your heart. The manager always tells me how much the kids like me and its very humbling to know that.  The TA's are super awesome and help me a lot, especially when kids have to go to the bathroom or have a runny nose.  Hopefully they like my gifts to them (I drew them butterflies gave them my email address and the manager I gave a thank you card).  I also gave them all my worksheets and flash cards so they could use them in the future if they wanted.

It has been a lot of fun Cambodia, but now it is my time to travel to China!