Ball Game
This video post takes us back to November of 2008 where I had just finished teaching Miss Kim’s class with the education project manager. Afterward we walked over to Miss Kim’s home nearby. Miss Kim, a teacher in the village, kindly invited us for rice cake and tea. Outside her home are two of her children, who are students in her class, playing a ball game with the neighborhood kids. If I return, I’d like to bring Lego building bricks for the village schools. Monument Books sold a nice Lego set for $50. Ouch. As an example of the difference in prices charged to foreigners, Monument Books sold copies of Harry Potter printed in Khmer for $2.50 USD while the same story printed in English sold for $17 USD! Teaching supplies such as workbooks, lesson plans, pencils and dry erase pens were provided by my organization. I was glad to find oversized children’s books at IBC which were nice for reading aloud to a big class. If I needed other supplies, I purchased them at IBC, Monument Books or Lucky Market, all located near our main office in Phnom Penh.
It occurred to me that my posts about the subject of Cambodia’s education, literacy or poverty, could lead one to see Cambodia through my thick glasses. With a country that is unfamiliar to some, I was bothered that my experience could lead one to form a view about a country I, myself, don’t know a lot about. It’s a place that I have visited more than once and a place I recommend visiting.
Nicholas Kristof, a columnist for the New York Times wrote an interesting editorial about Harry Potter in Cambodia.
One of my favorite Khmer bloggers, Tharum, also wrote about Harry Potter in Cambodia.
The view I would be most interested in would be from a student in one of the Khmer village schools talking about why they did or didn’t enjoy Harry Potter.
