Back to school

Unbelievably, we’ve just finished week two of our language class. How time flies when you’re having fun!

We came to Kampong Cham nearly two weeks ago to start our language training. There’ll be more about our current home in a later blog I’m sure but I thought I’d discuss the important things in my life in this installment. For Gordon it’s the price of beer – for me it’s stationery and sugary treats.

Two weeks ago, nine nervous volunteers turned up for day one of our language class at Western University clutching a pen, enthusiasm and not much in the way of Khmer language knowledge. At this point I'd only just figured out that Khmer is not pronounced K'mer, it's actually K'mai. Anyway, we were all given a new notebook (pink for me, blue for Gordon) and a pen. Free stationery - so far, it was going well! And then the onslaught started.

Okay, so it wasn’t exactly an onslaught - I’m not sure an onslaught can ever be an enjoyable experience and this was brilliant - but yowser did we learn a lot in day one. None of your ‘my name is…’, ‘I’m 31 and from Scotland’ for us! Oh no. We learned how to say I, we, you, him, her, they. We learnt verbs, conjunctions, negative statements, lots of food related nouns… I genuinely didn’t think I had it in me but after day one, “Knyom chole-chet rien pea-saa Khmer ch’raan!” (approx. I really like learning Khmer language.)

When we left our first class I was delighted to discover many of the other volunteers shared my love of making study notes looks pretty, so we set off along the road to find different coloured pens and coloured card for flashcards. After stopping at a couple of roadside shops, where we managed to get some fancy double-ended highlighters, we hit paydirt at the market when we discovered the stationery stall.

Heaven really is sparkly pens with Disney princesses on them. Who knew that all the different pens and nice paper that I left at home would have been just as well coming with me…

Our language teacher, Dara, is a legend. 

Dara at his whiteboard

He has somehow managed to give us the capability to hold a (basic) conversation in Khmer and two weeks later I’ve also learnt rather a lot about the English language that I didn’t know before! I now know about subjects and objects, prepositions and pronouns – things I’m sure I was told at school but have forgotten the names of.

Of course, we need food to sustain all the learning we’re doing and there’s a lot to choose from. Again, I’m sure there will many posts about food in the months to come (especially given Gordon’s capacity for consuming it) but the best things about a new country for me are discovering what sweet treats they have in store. 

Today we had this little dragon shaped wonder from our local bakery, and the other day we had the wodge of sticky delight pictured underneath. 

Neither are particularly sugary (says the girl with the sweet tooth). The dragon had some sort of bean paste inside it, dyed to look yellow so that it looks like an egg inside (we think… when we asked what it was we think they said ‘pong taya’ ie duck egg so we had presumed it would be savoury) and the rectangle of cake is topped with sesame seeds, some little green things (seaweed?) and candied ginger (I can’t think what us Scots would call it, but one of our new Canadian pals said it and that’s exactly what it is!)

Ellen, our Dutch volunteer, came across the waffle lady one afternoon. For days we thought she had been hallucinating as none of us had seen her, however yesterday, there she was!

a waffle plus another lovely coconut cake ma-jig

waffle lady! (plus Ellen who sneaked into the pic)

Of course, we haven't only eaten sugary sweet treats. The fresh fruit is also delicious and Anna, who has been in Cambodia since the summer and has just started with VSO, has been introducing us to a whole new world (NB deliberate Disney link) of tropical fruit.

Here she is chopping up a Pomelo - a cross between a giant orange and a grapefruit and delicious

jack fruit

And here's the jack fruit being prepared - very sweet and sticky 

they look like a small potato, but they're more like golden kiwi fruits

sweet tamarind - gooey and yummy!

And finally, Gordon would never forgive me if I didn't mention one of his new favourite foodstuffs - banana in sticky, coconut rice, cooked over coals in a banana leaf. We get ours from a lovely wee lady on the street corner behind our hotel who laughs whenever we try to talk in Khmer.

not a particularly good pic as all you can see is charred banana leaf - but the white bit in the middle is the rice with the banana inside!

And, for no reason other than I like it, I leave you with my favourite Khmer saying that I've heard so far

Mean teuk (have water)

Mean try (have fish)

Mean loy (have money)

Mean s'rey! (have women!)

lea hai!