Soccer tournament

Starting to teach some coaches soccer English terms. They are trying to learn enough to get there coaching license that will be held in Cambodia but taught and tested in English. So far I am teaching 4 guys. 1 very serious to learn and the others are so so. The youngest is 20 and knows very little English. He also works for salt. He is kinda a little punk. I have to basically drag him to class. I stand at the stairs and I scream perun ( his name) are you coming today. He just smirks at me. Then I say what do you have better to do. ........ He didn't come that day ( lazy boy bc I no he didn't have anything to do) the 1 guy who is very eager to learn and is very excited to know that I will be traveling with the mighty girls down to kempot ( south of Cambodia I am towards the north) thus I will still be able to teach him bc he is the assistant coach for the mighty girls. The tournament is 2 weeks long ( wt heck) it is similar to the state tournament.
I will be traveling with the team as a teacher. Since the tournament is 2 weeks long they still need to have class. They seem to be very excited for this. Which is finally good to see some fire in them for a game. However, one of my students tried to trick me and tell me we didn't have class today bc they needed to pack and get ready to leave. I laughed at her and said no we will have class.

At the orphanage
The season came to a close. (the team I co coach with -- did not win-- still need a little more structure : ) haha )) anyway- It will start up again after the Khmer new year ( biggest holiday in Cambodia) the orphanage had a party for the season yesterday. It was very cool. Kids running around so happy to have a tradition big meal that they loved. They stared at me confused at why I didnt eat it. It was also so neat to see that all the coaches ( mighty girls and I and some other volunteers) sat cross legged when we ate and all the kids sat with there feet pointing away and knees bent facing us. It is a sign of respect that the mighty girls had taught me the first week I arrived. When I sat down to eat with the mg the first week I naturally didn't want to sit cross legged so I sat how you should if your younger or sign of respect and they told me I didn't have to sit like that, so it was cool to see that all the kids just did it.

On way back from orphanage we ran out of gas ( that was Fun -- not going to explain it .........)

Had another great experience with food poisoning - this time was far crappier ( pun intended) hahahhahahahahah

Excited for this month ---- for the tournament , and I will be traveling for the Khmer new year time due to no soccer and teaching. They have a 2 week break so I will be heading to hong kong and Bali!!!

Pics -- teaching the boys and the girls

Fun picture

In this photo- I am being a back rest and an umbrella (they are waiting to get subbed in to play, and are keeping out of the sun) I get used for so many things here : )

Before I forget to tell you

This week so far-
I spent all day in the sun biking around. During the last soccer game I decided to lay down in the grass and watch. I picked the perfect spot and placed my foot in an ant nest!

Wasn't going to tell you this one but such as life-- no worries though- I biked home alone and two guys on moto pulled up beside me. Chit chatted away. ( note to you worriers I had my pepper spray in hand- but I never felt threatened) any way he then asked if I had a boyfriend I said yes and he said sorry and they drove away.

On monday a different girl left practice on me. This was a much different situation, then the last.

I got pulled over wile ridding with a co coach to practice. We got pulled over bc we had our lights on during the day. Haha this was on a moto

On the way to the big field you take the busiest and biggest road to get there. It is 4 lanes 2 one way 2 other. Fast crazy trucks and cars that never stop honking on the left motos and bicycles on right. Anyway There was a guy walking down the middle of the busy lane against traffic. All the mighty girls and I are in the back of the truck and our driver honks and honks, the guy doesn't move he then stares at us and is right in front of the hood. we go around him and he just stares at the girls.

One of my students this week wasn't in class bc her family got in a fight with another family and her dad was injured. She went to see if he was ok.

Hope you guys have a good week : )

Whats new

I had my English unit test this last week. It went very well. Some days I go threw class and they will stop me during a worksheet and say I don't understand. I say what do you mean you don't understand you have half of the worksheet done. Then they just look at me confused and I re describe how to do it and then they get frustrated and say no I don't understand -- then point at a word and they sound it out and say it " lake" -- I then relies they have no idea what a lake is, or bracelet, or simple words that I thought they knew. So then I go threw the process of describing it and showing pictures and and pointing and telling them you wear it on wrist. They then repeat wrist and say I don't know so then get the Khmer word for wrist and then they laugh and say o --- so basically English in a nut shell -I will have a lessen plan and it will start off great but then I end up teaching things like vocabulary words and then it's time for practice and I didn't make it threw half of my plan. I actually really enjoy class everyday, it's been fun.

I am such a bad office person. Can't handle being inside for half a day starring at a computer - pretty much drives me crazy. On Friday I managed to do it, and helped with the annual salt academy report.

Soccer- the mighty girls have advanced this last week to the state tournament. ( I am pretending that cambodia is a state and they won there section ( providence )) it's extra exciting for me bc I will travel with them as there teacher bc it is 2 weeks long if they win. The tournament is held in the south of Cambodia near the beach. I am excited to see another part of Cambodia that I haven't scene yet.

Orphanage I help coach at--- so I am trying to teach the kids some discipline/ structure/ rules. It is so hard bc they have never had this before. I had a girl leave practice on me : ( we started off passing the ball to make a square and you had to call for the ball. If you didn't call for the ball you are not suppose to pass it. They didn't care to follow the rules. I was determined to get them to follow my instructions thou haha. So I stopped the drill and raised my voice a bit and told them --do not pass the ball if they don't call for it. When I stopped them and raised voice and re demonstrated they all looked at me with wide eyes and basically like they had never had anyone stop them before. The other coach with me ( a mighty girl) was then describing to me how they never listen and how she doesn't no what to do some days. I say yeah i see that and we are going to change that. The drill went a little better. I moved on to a new drill a game. It was a competition and if they made a bad pass they probably were going to lose the game. One of the girls messed up and the girl next in line got mad and kicked the ball away from her as far as she could. ( not ok) so I go and look at her I made an x and put hands in air ( she doesn't know English) she gave me the meanest look and left practice. I have no idea where she went. The rest of practice didn't go so well it was a start to the right direction ha these were the mighty girls ( other coach) words to me half way threw " can we leave now" she was so frustrated with them. Needless to say week by week I hope it gets better and they start to play some real soccer and play by the rules. They are 12 and under team but very very low level. I don't know there history either so that could make a difference.

I'm taking a salsa class o yeaaaaaaah My salsa

When I bike in the day, as soon as I get off my bike my shirt is all wet it's sexy

I bought some BBQ chicken this week at the market I have been holding off - if you wanted to know I choose the one with out it's feet and everything still on it

I ate dog also ........

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Bahaba NO well not that I know of.

Pic- little taste of tragic
How they cut there ice
Students hard at work and loving it

Everyday is what you make of it

On Valentines day the girl salt volunteers (see photo, notice how tiny the Cambodian is in the middle) threw a party for the mighty girls. We tried to explain that it is ok to have a boy friend and how you should act or treat one another. Valentine day for a typical Cambodian is when some may loose there virginity, maybe similar to a prom night in the USA. None the less it is a day when youth have sex for no reason because that's what they think. So we threw them a party to teach them other ways to celebrate it. It was a ton of fun wile at practice ( I was in charge the head coach was gone so I was the coach. Of course that made me happy because I wanted to make them work hard and change the pase of there practice. I don't think they like me so much as the coach Hahah but it was good for them) any way wile we were at practice the others decorated the house with hearts and crap. They all had there own little pink and red bags on the wall and when they got home they made notes and cards for each other. Then we played fun little games. After the games we watched shreck, this was my favorite part of the night because they all sat around watching the movie. They had no idea what shreck was. They watched as though they had never scene a movie before it was cool to see. They loved it.
One of the English teachers was gone this week so I took half of her students. On Thursday we had all the girls together for English class and we split them up into four teams and played English games. We played a game where I put up a letter they had 2 minutes to come up with as many words as they could. One point spelled right, half point if it was a word. Then we played scrabble, and hang man. I bought the winners candy.
Again this week I met a Cambodian who thanked me- he said - thank you so much for helping to develop my county it means a lot to me, thank you so much.
At my house I have Cambodians who ask me, will you help me with my English.
On my day off I toured all of my city. ( Battambang) the day flew by I rented a tuk tuk ( see photo) driver for all day with 2 friends. It cost 18 dollars in total for him to bring us anywhere we wanted from 10am- ?? I got dropped of at 8pm! We went to all of the temples, caves, killing caves, markets and a village. We went to the main fish market were the smell was enough to not want to go in. I watched a dog pee on the fish hahahhahahahahah no joke how gross is that. I watched a guy climb a palm tree to collect the something ( no not coconuts) for wine that had bees stuck in it anyway so i dont think it looked edible. ( see photo) one of the caves at dusk has one billion bats that come flying out of it. It is something to see. It looks like a black cloud moving rapidly threw out the sky. On the way home I got educated on how they get crickets and bugs to sell at the market. It was dark on the way home and out of the city center they have floresent lights everywhere. Under the lights is water so the bugs fly up to the light and then get trapped for food the next day.
To end a great day touring the city I got food poisoning. Right when I got home I spent the rest of the night on the toilet. I am now putting the peaces together to find out from what. I also : ( had to skip out on the girls game this morning. I had to throw the dorthy card ( my grandmas name) and say well there just isn't a bathroom close to the field so I better not go.



This paragraph of my blog may be very confusing. I am going to tell you some of my thoughts, that go threw my head on a given day. Now remember these are thoughts. I understand this is a different culture yada yada--- I don't say these things.
1- what the heck do these people do all day.
2 - (riding my bike) is it really necessary for you to honk at me. Really I think you should try and pass me a little closer. Develop a system ahhhh so dumb, I wonder how many accidents happen boom there goes one right in front of me a guy on a motto ( moped) and the other on a peddle bike. Ride on your side of the road. How old are you. Ahh I need a mask. Wow that was a close one. Don't come into my lane to turn so dumb. Don't stare at me. Haha dog don't attack me please please don't attack me.
3- ( apparel) I don't even care I am showing of my shoulders today. I'm sexy and I no it. Ok fine I will try and respect your culture. My shorts aren't even short. Some of the girls when it is hot they wear turtle neck hat gloves pants.( see photo) - this is not a thought. I always ask them what the heck they are doing. That it dosent make sense. They don't want there skin to become darker. They try and be as white as they can.
4- ( food) o NO I will not eat that. Ick why do you eat that. The smells = barf ha
5- I don't care if we are in Cambodia it dosent mean everything needs to be late or so lade back or not getting stuff done, or just hanging out or disorganized or............
6- they have a machine for that, so old school, I don't even understand how this is working.

Pics

English class

First quiz went well. Yay they are learning.
This week was a good English week. Thank you to Laura zard who gave me 20 web sights with free worksheets on them. How ever I also had a fun day were I didn't teach out of the book we just talked and I showed photos of my life. They had to ask questions and discuss. I also played charades one day were one student had to ask the other what is Jess doing. ( my chapter is ing ) ( eating sleeping reading extra) I would act out and the other would ask using --what are sam, Jess, and Linda doing? ( I held up really good stick figures of other people doing it with me Hahah) then other student would say -they're sleeping. ( trying to get them to pick he's she's they .... And so on) it was fun and they enjoyed it bc I must say I am quite the actress : )
Struggles for me- I forget they don't know what a lot of things are. So when I say baseball cap they say I don't no. Then I say hat they look confused like they know it but just cant remember. I then go get one and they say o yeah yes hat. Hat same as baseball cap yes ( yes). I sometimes have to think hard on what to say so they understand, and I have to speak so slow!

Soccer was low key this week. There was a holiday so Monday- wed there was no soccer. I had 5 girls on me at once this week they thought I was a jungle Jim or something. Then I told them they were monkeys they didn't no the word monkey. ( 12 and under team that looks like they need more love) so I acted like a monkey for 8 minutes and then they understood what a monkey was. I made them repeat several times monkey : )
Saturday I had the day off. So I took a Cambodian cooking class. They start off taking you to the market explain how it all works. The market is the women's job. Farmers bring there crops to the market around 430 am and it's hopping once the sun comes up intelligence about 5. We made three dishes. 1 Fish or chicken amok 2 spring rolls 3 beef lak lak
The chicken amok was disgusting. It also took the most work. Had to make a paste ( similar to curry) for 15 of grinding it. Arm got sore. I told them they have machines for that kinda crap. Ha after making the paste you make your banana leaf bowl and stick the meet in and the paste and coconut milk. Then steam it and of course surf with rice. Spingarn roll yum, not so yum for you. The beef lak lak I would recommend to anyone. Was very good

My neighbor and I chit chat every night. Her story-
She is a survivor of the Khmer rouge her dad and her were outside her village when the Khmer rouge came and killed everyone in her village, including her sisters, brother and mother. She then was separated from her dad. They met again and escaped to Thailand. On her journey to Thailand they had to follow the path and make sure to stay on it because of all the land mines. She had one pair of clothing, and was happy when she had food. She said she was lucky to eat once a day. Also her cloths were always wet and she had a continuos rash from it rubbing. She then came to the USA. When she arrived in Washington dc airport she thought it was the most amazing thing she had ever scene. they had a shelter for the Cambodians. She had to re begin her life. Learn English and find a way to live. She grew up in America and came back to cambodia 8 years ago for the first time. She now is 50 something has 2 kids 19 and 22 they live in the USA. The night she told me about this she kept saying how amazing America is and how lucky she was to go there. She then told me about when she came back the first time 8 years ago how scared she was. She wouldn't leave her husbands side not even to go to the bath room. She didn't trust anyone. She now has been back 3 times and the reason she was my neighbor is because she is buying farm land and hopes to retire here, and open a small farm and help other Cambodians by giving them jobs. She still of course has flash backs of her experience.
She was never o sad me or wanted anything she actually was a lot of fun and very American. She this last week found her land and left today to go back home ( USA) but to return back home home soon (cambodia) before she left she wanted to say good bye to me. When saying good bye- she thanked me for volunteering my time and helping her country. She said it meant a lot to her and thanked me again.