My last day at Chey school, where I have been teaching kids how to use a computer, turned out to be a rather overwhelming experience and a great examples of how kids here respond to even the slightest bit of attention.
My last day was supposed to be Thursday last week but the kids more or less begged me to come back on Monday, for a proper farewell ... they wanted to give me presents, and boy did they give me presents!!!!!! Our Monday lesson ended 15 minutes earlier that normally and we then just chatted about all sorts of stuff, they had clearly all prepared questions that they wanted to ask me - how many brothers and sisters I have and what I do when I am not in Cambodia and what is my favorite food and if Greg is my sweetheart :)
At the end of the lesson, Rithy (the actual teacher) divided up the boys and the girls and first the boys were allowed to give me presents and then the girls. I was utterly overwhelmed, each child had written me a card and given me a present ... mangos, a pen, a used cuddly toy (someone had clearly given up their own), a shawl, hankies, soap, tooth paste, a necklace, a hair clip - have a look at the picture!!!!! All this gifts must have cost them money, so I was more than a little overwhelmed ... and, me being me, I of course cried which they all thought was very funny :) The thing that is most staggering is, that this generosity comes from a set of children who have next to nothing and after I had only taught them for one hour a day for only 3 weeks - that alone tells you quite a bit about the people of Cambodia!
Both Greg and I are very very happy to have spent as much time as we did in Siem Reap, working in the schools and getting to know actual people. It has made a huge difference to our experience of Cambodia and will certainly be one of the highlights of our trip.
Take care
Cxxx
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