What happens in Cambodia, stays in Cambodia

Our first week of English camp in Lamduan is finished, 4 days of teaching grammar, pronunciation and vocabulary really is quite tiring. Luckily we try to make these lessons as fun as possible to throw in a couple of games and fun activities.

Because we will only be holding this camp for 5 days, it was a real struggle deciding which parts we really wanted to teach. We managed to provide a lot of variety for the pupils and still let them experience what it feels like to follow a coherent course.

We noticed that the level of the pupils in this school is higher than the level of the pupils in Sally’s school. This could be due to the fact that our school tries to hire a native speaker for at least one year. I don’t need to tell you that this really does help the pupils’ progression, do I? This, plus the fact that we only have 7 pupils, makes the pace of the camp a lot higher.

Like I said before, the organization of this camp is far worse than on Sally’s school. On Wednesday they forgot we like to eat during lunchtime so we only had 10 minutes to gobble up our meal. Not that bad, but if you are having trouble eating rice in the morning, it is hard to skip lunch. And in this heat (approximately 40°C) you really need your nutrients and sugar. Especially the sugar.

On Friday we gave out pupils the task of creating a booklet about English camp. Because we had already received some beautiful ones during our other camp, we wanted to extend our collection.
On Friday night I had the realization that another week had almost passed. Time flies when you’re having fun. But time is flying really fast now...

On Saturday we left the country. Just like that. We were sick of Thailand and we wanted to leave. Just kidding! We needed to get a stamp on our visa in order to prolong our stay for at least one month. Otherwise we would be illegal immigrants and since this can cost you around 20.000 Bath and some jail-time, we decided to get the stamp.

P’Mook picked us up on Saturday morning together with a Science teacher and off we were! After a one hour drive and a nice lunch we arrived at the border where we were ushered to a man sitting behind a register, checking our ID cards. We were often passed by some Thai people throwing money in his booth, and what do you know, they didn’t have to show anything…
We followed our ‘guide’ out of the office and we were in Cambodia! The first thing you noticed: four big casinos. Since gambling is illegal in Thailand, there are a lot of Thai people hopping the border every weekend to try their luck in one of the big and beautiful casinos right across the border. Cambodian marketing at is best.

After having our picture taken, paying way too much money (money you know never reaches the right person) and waiting for our visas we were back in Thailand. In the end, I think we passed four control booths for two stamps. Hail bureaucracy!

After this we went to a famous market just near the border. You could practically buy everything you wanted here. Name it and they sell it. Car parts, furniture, clothing, army supplies, food, wooden structures, plastic plates, tablets made by Apple running on Android, “Sumsvng” cell phones and so on. A nice place to browse for stuff you don’t really need.

At night we watched a movie and went to sleep peacefully. Tomorrow’s plans? Doing laundry and doing some work for school. That’s all folks!

Strawberry and Chocolate Potato Chips