Last observation afternoon in Kampong Kantuot

Yesterday, was the last afternoon that my Physics students had to teach in Kampong Kantuot. So for me the last time that I had to observe them :(
The plan was to play some games with the pupils, because it's almost holiday, so not so many lessons anymore.
I completely agree with this plan! :)
But ...
When we arrived at the school at 1 o'clock, there were no pupils. Maybe five in total. So we were there with almost 10 student teachers and without any pupils ...

Empty school

So instead of playing games with the pupils, the student teachers started to do some administration work and I walked arround a bit with my Physics students in the school garden.
After that I've got some free Khmer lessons from in total I think five student teachers :)
I really love the language, but it's so difficult ...

After all the Khmer it was time for some photo shoots :) We took some nice pictures!

In the school garden

And off course the five pupils who were at school had to be in the picture :)

Start of the photo shoot :)

I think it was almost 15:00 pm when the students decided to visit some pagoda's on the way back. That was a lovely idea of them! The first one that we visited was really so beautiful! I really liked the red color. In the second place there were a lot of cute children playing and running around. It was lovely!

So the last observation afternoon in Kampong Kantuot turned out to be a very happy day, as my students would say! :) 

The only five pupils at school :)

My lovely Physics students

Visiting a beautiful pagoda

Me and Srey Keo Moeurn

I love this pagoda ;)

Happy day !

The cute kids

Thanks for the lovely afternoon!!

Amazing temples!

Sour sday!

There are so many things to do over here that I almost forgot about my blog! Sorry!

But here I am with some amazing temple stories. 

On International Woman’s day the 8the of march I left to Siem Reap by boat. Siem Reap is the city near by the temples. So I started a long weekend seeing a loooot of temples! 

At 7:30 am my boat was leaving from the river side in Phnom Penh for a 6 hours trip to Siem Reap. The view was wonderful! You could see the life along the river, the small boats, the houses at the river side, … The time was flying away with the sun on my face, the lovely breeze and the nice view. After 3 hours we came at the Tonlé Sap lake, the biggest lake of South East Asia. And I have to admit … It is BIG!!! I had the feeling that I was on the sea. Everywhere I looked I saw water.

Around 13:00 pm we slowed down to sail through the floating villages. It’s incredible how they live over there! About 13:40 pm I was in a tuktuk to the city center to meet Sophie (who was coming by bus) and find a nice guest house. 

The same afternoon we saw already our first temple on the Bakheng mountain, we hoped to see a nice sunset but it was a little bit too cloudy, anyway we saw some nice views. And … we had already a glimpse of the famous Angkor Watt temple.  

On our first day (Friday 9 march) we visited the most famous temples. I’ll write them down in the way  we visited them, so if you want to look them up, or it can help you when you see the pictures (below you can find the link to a few of my pictures). 

1. Preah Khan

2. Ta Prohm

3. Ta Keo

4. Bayon

5. Angkor Thom

6. Angkor Wat 

Ta Prohm was the temple with all the trees around/ in/ through the walls of the temple! Really amazing to see what the nature can do. One of my favorites was the Bayon (the one with all the faces) this temple was so beautiful, I couldn’t get enough of him. So many different views, every face looks different! 

In the afternoon we visited (and climbed) some temples in Angkor Thom the walled city. And last but not least … Angkor Wat!! Angkor Wat was really amazing to see, but it was pity that there were so many people. But still it was a very beautiful temple. On Sunday I went back to Angkor Wat at 5:30 in the morning to see the sunrise!! AMAZING! After the sunrise I went in the temple for the second time and he looked more beautiful than on Friday. The light was different, it was so early in the morning, almost nobody … I loved it! 

On Saturday Sophie and I did other things, Sophie went to the floating villages and the mangroves and I had a second day of temple visiting!! The temples that I did on Saturday where a bit less famous and further from each other so there weren’t so many people … that was much nicer!! My motor driver wasn’t only my driver but also my guide and my photographer ! These are the names of the temples that I visited on Saturday: 

1. Prasat Kravan

2. Banteay Kdei

3. Srah Srang

4. Pre Rup

5. East Mebon

6. Banteay Sambre

7. Banteay Srei (ladies temple)  

Banteay Sambre was one of the temples that the king was building before he build Angkor Watt, it was a kind of try out. These one was really nice!

The last one and the furthest one was Banteay Srei or the ladies temple. Waw! Amazing! So beautiful, the color of the sand stone was red- pink, the sculptures where so perfect, and beautiful, I have no words for it!

On the way back I visited the Landmine Museum of Aki Ra . It was really shocking how many mines there were/ are here. We also stopped to see how the people making the palm sugar and I both some delicious sweets.

Saturday night was our last night in Siem Reap so we had some dinner and drinks (again) in Pub Street ;) where the nice Angkor What? bar is :)

So on Sunday I woke up very early to see the sunrise after Angkor Wat and to visit the third level of the temple. We couldn’t visit that part on Friday because Sophie and I were too nude … :p At noon we had to take the bus back to Phnom Penh :(

  

I’m really impressed by all the beautiful and amazing temples that I saw. I’ll never forget these incredible four days! 

Bye...

Angkor What? Angkor NUDE! :p

Pictures Siem Reap

Dissection of the kidney

Last Friday, the second of March I had to give my first Biology lesson. I decided to do the dissection of the kidney. A dissection is always fun :)
On Wednesday I was sure that I would have enough kidneys to do my lesson, so I don't had to prepare another lesson... luckily...
I was a little bit nervous, but I had already given this lesson last year when some Cambodian teachers and students came to Belgium. Still it was a new group and a new environment.

After a short introduction of myself, the lesson was launched. Everything went very well and of course the dissection part was the most fun for the students.  The feedback that I got from the students was very enthusiastic. Sometimes I forget that the things that I say have to be translated. I have to take more breaks so everything can be translated correctly. PS. Thanks to Virak for all of the translations! :) 

Also stefaan was satisfied with my lesson. They even going to enter the dissection of the kidney during the biology workshop in the week of March 12.  

So I think I should be proud of my lesson!

"The big breathing game"

This week was the last week that I have to work together with my Biology students. :( too bad because I really like them. But we will still see each other a lot at the RTTC.
For the last week of teaching we wanted to prepare something 'special'.
So we decided to make a big repeating game about the lessons they seen the last four weeks.





The students made the questions and on Monday afternoon we made the game board. Making the game board was more work that we thought, but we did it.

On Tuesday we did the try out the game and it went very well! We had a lot of public :)

Wednesday and Thursday we played the game with the pupils in grade 8 and it was a real succes!

The pupils, my students and I were extremely satisfied!