Friendly Cambodian Students
Pursat, 11th to 13th
June 2002 (Part 3)
The journey there was hard work, I had to go by the roads I'd taken
yesterday. By the end of the one hour journey I had a very sore
backside from bouncing up and down so much, and my blood had been
churned to butter!
Nonetheless, we reached Kompong Luang alive, and in good time.
Almost immediately, my driver handed me over to a boat driver, who
would take me on a slow cruise through the village.
For the next hour, we cruised slowly along the water between the
houses. I've seen a number of floating village now, but still
they're an amazing sight. The whole village is just like any other
village in Asia, except the roads are replaced by waterways. There
are houses, shops, animal pens, petrol stations (yes, floating
petrol stations!) and everything else you could need. It's quite
difficult to imagine if you haven't been here, don't think the
buildings are on islands, with rivers running between them, the
buildings are actually floating on a big lake. To make things
clearer, photos will follow later.
After an hour cruising around, I returned back to shore, and after a
quick drink, we started the drive back into town. On the way, my
driver asked if I know anything about computers. I said 'a little',
and he asked if I'd mind coming back to his house to help him fix
some things on his computer. As I didn't have anything else planned
until visiting the school again in the evening, I agreed to give it
a try.
After another nasty ride back, leaving me walking like a saddle sore
cowboy, my driver dropped me at my hotel. After taking an hour out
for lunch and a quick rest, he came back to take me to his house.
I'm not sure how many people in Cambodia have computers at the
moment, but it can't be many. Also, I bet the general level of
computer knowledge is quite low and customer support has got to be
pretty non-existent. So when people encounter problems, which they
will, they must have difficulty solving them. Anyhow, the next
couple of hours were spent looking a various things and trying to
figure how why they wouldn't work or how to do a certain task. His
family were all very friendly and were intrigued by what I was doing
on the computer. They gave me more than enough food & drink to keep
me fuelled when I was there.
At about 4 o'clock, after I'd solved some of the problems, but been
stumped by some others, it was time to leave. I needed to be back at
the school, so after he wrote down some notes to remind him how to
fix things later, he took me to the school, and after a big
thank-you, we said goodbye.
I had a good time again in the English class. Yesterday, Only about
1/3rd of the class had talked to me, the others were too nervous to
give their English a try. But today, almost everyone said at least
one sentence, some of them kept me talking for ages! I listened
while the teacher taught, and I actually learned a couple of things.
It's true that native English speakers do become lazy and often use
bad English!
The teacher made me stand up in front of the class and talk about
the things I think they should do to learn English quickly &
correctly. It put me on the spot a little, but once I'd started, I
think I gave quite a good little talk. They all listened intently,
and every so often, if they looked blankly at me, the teacher would
translate into Khmer. I came up with a list of 8 or so points,
before I was drained of ideas, and handed back to the teacher. When
I sat down, I was amazed to find that, in their exercise books,
they'd all written down the points I'd made! They were really taking
everything I said to heart!
The lesson again passed quickly, and I ended up swapping addresses
with at least a dozen people who all wanted to stay in contact with
me (and no doubt help them with their homework). I said goodbye to
everyone as they left, and one guy who I'd spoken quite a lot to
yesterday, gave me a photo of himself on a ferry in the middle of
the ocean Thailand as a reminder of my time at the school!
I went out for a bite to eat with the same guy as yesterday and one
of his friends. We took a short drive around town, before stopping
at another small stall for some traditional Khmer dessert. In the
little cabinet, the vendor had a large collection of strange
looking, porridge like substances. My friends were able to tell me
what a few of them were, but they couldn't explain the others in
English. So I jumped right in and tried a couple of them. They were
actually quite tasty. One of them was a bit like rice pudding, and
another was like rice pudding also, but with corn instead of rice
(if you can imagine it). It was certainly interesting to try some
local food.
After we'd eaten we took a short drive to a nice little park near
the centre of town. On the way, we made at a stop at one of their
friend's homes. His friend makes regular journeys to Phnom Penh in
his truck, always with goods and a large number of passengers. He
arranged it so I could travel with his friend back to Phnom Penh
tomorrow. We also sorted it, so that for an extra dollar, I could
have the whole front seat to myself! Yeay! Comfort!
At the park, the guy who spoke the better English of the two,
insisted that I take a photo of all of us as a memento. After taking
the photos, we took a seat and continued our talks about lives in
England and Cambodia.
After a while, it started to get dark and we soon called it an
evening. I wanted to make an early start so that I got back to Phnom
Penh at a reasonable time.
So they dropped me back at my hotel before saying thank-you and
goodbye. I insisted that if they ever get the money to come over to
England, I'd meet them and show them around my home country.
Wow! I've had such a great time in Pursat! A complete chance
encounter has made this one of my favourite experiences in South
East Asia. By going a little off the beaten track, I've done
something I'll always remember. But tomorrow it's back to the crowds
in Phnom Penh. Good night!
Next Diary Entry >>
|
