I’ve been away from home for Thanksgiving before. Away from family. Maybe it seemed different then because I knew I’d be home for Christmas in just a few short weeks. Not this year. And I’ve been missing everything.

I miss family gatherings. Not just mine; any family. In an Asian culture where family is central to everyday life, I envisioned more gatherings of relatives. I asked my host mom once, curious if her family ever got together for reunions or celebrations. An innocent enough question, making casual conversation in my limited Khmer. I should’ve known what kind of answer to expect. I know the harsh facts of history. But her answer still hit me deep, in a way that the travel guide histories and even the museum photographs couldn’t.

There is no family.

The ones in this house, we are the family. The others…they’re dead already. My host grandparents? They died during the Pol Pot years. Of their five children, only Ma and her younger brother survived. Ma and Pa were married before the Khmer Rouge took Phnom Penh. They had a daughter. And then…then they sent to different places. Not knowing whether the others were dead or alive. Not knowing whether they would survive to tell the story. Not knowing, if they did, if there would be anyone to tell it to.

In this family, there are no reunions. Or rather, this—everyday life—is the reunion. A miracle that they were ever reunited at all. A miracle that life goes on. That everyone smiles and laughs and hides the pain that’s buried too deep inside. And too close to the surface.

And my hardships, being away from my family while they celebrate the holidays together, suddenly seem so trivial. No less real, but less unbearable. Maybe I can’t be with you now, family, but you are still there. And you will still be there when I go back. And that in itself is enough for some true thanksgiving.

What more could you want in an eclectic collection of photos? Check the new albums out with the link on the right. Sarah has some new ones up, too. Enjoy!

Indeed. I have officially begun my job teaching at the Royal University of Agriculture. Who says you need a doctorate to teach at the university level? Here, being a native speaker of English is enough to land you a job in the language department. At least if you’re willing to do it without getting paid, that is. The TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) degree certainly comes in handy, though, and it is quite rewarding to put what I learned over the past four years to good use.

Now that classes are finally in full swing, my schedule is significantly busier, which has its pros and cons. Has it really been a month since my last post? My apologies for the lack of updates. I will attempt to pick it up in the future. Time has truly been flying by. At first I was convinced that something about the Cambodian climate made my fingernails grow faster because it felt like I had to cut them all the time, but I think I just lose track of how many weeks are actually passing.

Since I haven’t described my job at all yet, I’ll give you brief rundown of what I’ve been doing. Most of my time is still spent with Lauren and Sarah, the other SALTers, along with Amy, our fearless leader. Amy worked at RUA (Royal Univ. of Agriculture) through SALT last year and signed on for an additional two years here with MCC. The other three of us are eternally grateful to her for helping us navigate the complex and confusing logistics of teaching at RUA. The internal workings of this institution are vastly different from the western models I am familiar with, and it is quite a challenge sometimes to shed my North American judgments about efficiency and adjust to a new system.

RUA is a government-run agricultural university located just outside of Phnom Penh (a 20- to 40- minute ride by moto, depending on traffic and road conditions.) Undergrad students study in one of eight faculties, ranging from agro-industry to veterinary medicine to agricultural economics and rural development. The campus is green and filled with trees—-a welcome change of scenery from city life.

My classes officially began two and a half weeks ago, after pushing back the starting date multiple times due to lack of students, lack of teachers, and lack of communication. I am teaching three classes this semester, each meeting for two-hour sessions twice a week. The placement test we administered before classes began divided students into Level A (beginning) or B (intermediate), according to their English ability. I teach one Level A course and one Level B course for first-year students. My third class is an IELTS (International English Language Testing System) prep course for second- through fourth-year students interested in taking the test in hopes of getting scholarships to study abroad. Between those three classes, my students range from those who scored less than 25% on a multiple-choice placement test to the top students of English at the university. All of them keep me on my toes and provide me with welcome challenges, along with some not-so-welcome ones.

The experience, as you might expect, has been something of a roller coaster ride of emotions. On bad days, my thoughts go something like this.

I’m sick of wearing skirts every day. And I hate wearing button-down shirts that don’t fit me because even an XL in Cambodian sizes is tiny. It’s a miracle our moto gets to the university at all through the 7am rush-hour traffic without somebody dying. Who knows if my students will even show up with all these holidays? I want to run some last-minute copies before class starts, but the machine jams every two pages and then runs out of paper. There is no more to fill it up. But I, being a good Goshen College teacher ed graduate, am flexible; I’ll do class without my materials. I attempt to give instructions to my students in painfully slow English with all sorts of gestures and receive only blank stares in return. I wish I could explain everything in Khmer, but I feel utterly incompetent in my language abilities. It hurts to watch my students struggle through curriculum that’s way over their heads. A few, miracle of miracles, are not struggling. No, wait...they've already given up. I vow to come up with a more appropriate lesson next time. I head to the computer to type up a lesson plan. It’s in Korean. There is no Microsoft Word. The internet doesn’t work. Neither does the printer, or the phones, or the markers, or the running water, or the lone toilet in our building. What next? The electricity goes out. Typical. So much for lesson planning. By now it’s time to go back to the MCC office for Khmer lessons. I’ll finish my computer work there. Plug in my flash disk to find my empty lesson plan form and 23 virus files from the computers at RUA. The fruit of the day’s labor.

To be fair, the highlights of the good days far outweight the frustrations of the bad ones, but I am unfortunately out of time to write right now. Leaving this entry with only the negative perspective completely goes against my philosophy of life, but you know, it is satisfying sometimes to vent a little and get that out of my system. Next time I promise a more positive view of my daily activities. Life is still good. And I do have more pictures to upload as well, so you should be able to see them soon. In the meantime, I hope all of you are enjoying where you are and the people you're with. Until next time.