The Joy of Teaching!

By the time class was over, it was dark outside and the streets were not properly lit. Mr. Kosal drove me to my room on his motorcycle with my guitar on my lap. 

Back at my room, I fell asleep a bit until a knock at the door woke me up. It was the landlady. She stuck her head in, taking inventory of my mess. (I’d unpacked and scattered.) Then mentioned that she could let me have a table. I asked for a pillow and she brought a very lovely, new-looking fluffy one in.   

She was insistent that I go and get myself some dinner, so I went to buy water. The little old lady at the stand beside the rooms had an insulated cold box full of beer, and when she opened it and handed me a beer, I instinctively accepted it. It was cold and I was thirsty. I also bought some water and went back inside. It was dark and the streets were not well lit.

 

I slept well, although the bed was hard as a rock.

Next day, there was no school, so decided to get out and look for breakfast. I went to the market but couldn’t find a coffee. Then, I walked past my school and over an overpass toward what I thought was the centre of town. As I was walking, a motorcycle taxi pulled up to offer me a ride. He wanted 20,000 Riel. I insisted that I only had 18,000. He said that was enough. (Sure it was! That was equal to $5 when he should have been charging $1!) 

Note: In Cambodia, the going rate for a tuk-tuk is $2, but a motorbike taxi is only $1.

I discovered later that the reason my card wouldn't extract money from the ATM was because someone had stolen my money out of my account!

Note: NEVER go to your bank online at an Internet Cafe in Cambodia! I'm pretty sure that's where my account was compromised. After changing my online password, it hasn't happened again.

Mr. Tayly called to invite me to a Chinese New Year’s party at the school. He came to pick me up, bringing a carton of bottled water into my quarter kitchen.

At the party, we sat on little plastic stools at a low table and used our fingers to eat chicken, rice, fish and fruit. There was lots of beer. I sat between Soda (a young lady with glasses on) and Phearmon. 

Now Phearmon, as it turns out, is a born-again Christian, who, at the moment is a little wavering in faith and having doubts. However, when I told him that I came to Cambodia to win souls, he lit up like a Christmas tree. I asked him if he could help me and he said, “Yes!” Then he went on to tell me a bit about himself. He said he used to get up at 4 am in the morning to pray for his country and read the Bible. He won souls to the Lord and had a following of young men that were living together with him at a church. But, when the pastor left, the replacement pastor asked them all to move out. 

Since they were students, they had no place to stay, so they went to another church. Then they all had to move out of there and so they found another place together. He said he had lots of miracles God did for him that he wanted to tell me about later. He also asked if I knew where he could take a work-shop to learn how to serve God. 

He said he believed God wanted to use him again some day. I told him, “Today is the day!”

After eating and drinking a couple of beers, Phearmon took me home on his motorcycle. We agreed to meet up the following day for breakfast. Since the next day was a Sunday, he said he would also take me to church.

The next day, we went for breakfast at the market. Thinking it would be cheap, I ordered chicken rice, but apparently, chicken here is $20 per kilo, bought from the local farmers. And our breakfast cost $2. The way they make change is with riel in the hundreds. (That’s pennies.) 

A Jim Carrie movie was blaring at the restaurant in Cambodian. Quite annoying. A few dogs were grubbing up food from under the tables and one of them had one white eye. Then a blind man, holding a baby stood in front of me so that the baby was touching me. He couldn’t see me, obviously. After I touched its little hand, I realized the baby was sick, so backed off a bit.

We headed off to church which seemed a long way away. It was in an upper room and we sat on metal folding chairs on the back row. A young man handed me an Ipod of sorts with earphones so that I could hear the translation in English. But, there was a nasty buzzing in the earphones which made it difficult to hear the soft spoken translator who was sitting on the floor across from us.

While Phearmon was away from his seat, a lady in front of me motioned for me to sit beside her. Her name was Val and she was from Australia. She said she felt a connection with me. So we agreed to meet up for breakfast on Monday morning

After I bought a kettle and got dropped off, I went upstairs to eat lunch with the landlady and a couple of her friends and daughters. They had a cute little puppy hanging around outside the doorway. I met her son, Panal and told him I’d teach him guitar. So we decided to start next Sunday.

Then I went out to find somewhere to get online. This is when the next battle came on in full swing. The clerk at the Angkor Inn agreed to let me use their internet. When I checked my bank account balance, it didn’t register with me that there was money missing –until I got home! Then, I realized that over $85 had vanished!

The thought came to me that it could have happened at the Internet Café next to the school! The reason I believed that was that the withdrawal was made on the same day I'd been to my bank online at that location.

It dawned on me that I had brazenly declared to the head master that I didn’t want to worship money. Me and my big mouth. I guess the devil wanted to see if I really meant what I said.