Volunteers Stories
Sarah McKeith
In August and September 2009 I volunteered as an English teacher at Chres Village School and Orphanage after hearing about the orphanage from friends who had visited Siem Reap and seen the wonderful home of Fiphon and his family first hand. During my time in Siem Reap, I was picked up and taken to the orphanage on the back of a motorbike each morning and afternoon, and when I arrived at the orphanage I taught two English classes each day. My first class each morning was a class of 40 children aged between 11 and 18 years old and the afternoon class was a class of 45 children aged 5-10 years old. Teaching the children was incredibly fun and rewarding but very challenging too! Although I had had experience with tutoring children at home in Australia, I was not at all prepared for the difficulties in teaching English as a second language! I found the children in the morning class were the most advanced in English and our lessons usually involved more complex reading and writing exercises and conversations, although we still managed to fit in lots of games and activities too! The younger children in the afternoon class were just starting to learn English which meant that there was more of an emphasis on sounds, simple sentences and plenty of nursery rhymes! It was wonderful meeting all of the children and working with them, as they were always very thankful and were extremely appreciative of all the help they were receiving. The kids were so enthusiastic and would want to answer every question I asked them, some of them jumping out of their chairs at any chance they had to stand up and speak!! I especially loved the little ones in the afternoon as they were so eager to learn and LOVED singing together as a class – our favourite song was ‘Old McDonald Had a Farm’ and by the end of my time at Chres Village everyone knew it off by heart! At the end of each lesson the children would always stand up together and shout “Thank you, Teacher! Good bye Teacher!” which is something I will always remember of my time in Siem Reap.
While the English lessons were important and lots of fun too, I found that the most enjoyable part of my time at Chres Village was the time I spent playing and chatting with the children in between lessons. At each break the children would rush up to the volunteer teachers, grinning and shouting hello and would want to tell us all about their day and what they had done so far. One of my fondest memories of my time at Chres Village was the excursion to the Ta Prohm and Bayon temples at the Angkor Wat complex when 150 of the children travelled by bus to the temples for the day. The children were so excited to see the ancient temples, watch the monkeys and experiment with their English by chatting to other tourists! The biggest shock though was when some of the monkeys stole the food right out of the children’s hands – that gave everyone a huge fright! In the afternoon we had a picnic at West Baray where the children went swimming, played soccer and had lunch – it was such a great day and I am so glad I was able to be a part of it.
My time at Chres Village was an unbelievable experience – something that words cannot describe. It has changed my outlook on life - I am always so happy when I remember how amazing the children at the orphanage and school are. Saying goodbye was incredibly hard and even now, 6 months later, I still talk about my experience at the orphanage all the time and I miss the family and the children. I hope to go back to Chres Village School very soon – it is such a beautiful place and somewhere that I will never forget!
