Deaf and blind schools

January 19th

This morning I went to the schools in Cba ampeu. There's two schools, one for blind one for deaf kids. It was so great. These schools are working so well and it's just amazing to see the work behind all this. We started by the blind school. When we arrived through the dusty path Corrinne recognized a group of blind kids who were walking towards their school. She stopped the car and called them. They recognized who she was and immediately jumped in the back of the truck. You should have seen them. Head up high and grins going from one ear to the other. They were proud like roosters. Not really common for kids in a country where a handicap is considered a result of a bad karma. It was amazing to see all the effort that was needed to make these schools work. There are only 4 blind schools and 4 deaf schools in Cambodia, all created and run by KT. They had to invent a Braille language for their 33 consonants, 20 vowels and 33 subscribed consonants. Then a former KT kid (sighted) who trained as a computer expert went to study to the States and brought back to Cambodia a program which tells the kids what they are doing. So you see all the completely blind kids surfing the net and writing up their English homework.
English is the other big thing in these schools next to computer classes. They are so eager to learn English as it helps them on the computers. So then they have to learn the English Braille system. Every single khmer school book, and English story book is translated into Khmer Braille on site for the kids. It was amazing going into the classes, seeing rows on quietly sitting children looking straight ahead and punching their sheet of paper away while the teacher was talking. Then we went to the deaf school. We first went to see the sign language committee, which includes people from the ministry of education, where they sit all day and rewrite each school book. Here too they invented a specific khmer sign language. So on the grade 1 book, there's loads of drawings of little people doing a sign in the margins. But on the ones for new kids, its just on new words obviously. I leaned a few words. One of the guys of the committee, a former student from the school, asked me what my name was . So Corinne told him I didn't have one yet and that he had to define it. He touched his neck with his index once. That's my name because of my beauty spot on my neck. Then we were around the classes. All the kids were asking what my name was and how old I was. I can now understand that and reply back. It's so sweet to see all these children that usually would be see as underdeveloped interacting among each other and playing like normal kids. If you can't hear or speak you have no chance in this country. And its awesome to see that they can have a chance to be normal. The classrooms were so quiet. It was funny cos while the teachers were writing on the board, the kids would cheat by talking to each other. But there was no way for the teachers to notice it obviously! Cheeky deaf kids. Here too the kids do loads of activities like dancing, painting, weaving. I bought a really nice scarf made by the deaf kids. Good idea for a present.

On the way back Corinne was telling me I had to be careful with the water here as even the water that comes in sealed bottles is not drinkable. You can still get parasites from them. They only use a chemical to "treat" it and she says that it usually not done at all. So I'm supposed to boil my water all the time. It's a pain. I'm quite sweaty here and feel dehydrated. I feel like I'm probably not drinking enough water as it is but if I have to boil my water all the time and wait for it to cool down, I'll probably be drinking even less… What a pain… I just don't want to shit worms. Especially as they are very hard to detect and can take ages before the symptoms arrive.

I went to sign up to a Khmer school during lunch time. In the end I had to go for private lessons as no group lessons offered writing and reading. It's more expensive though. I'm payed 20$ registration fee plus 50$ a month for 3 hours a week. Plus 3 x 2$ motodop to get there 3 times a week. The motodop driver who took me there today spent a lot of time finding where the school was. I had a map but they don't know how to read maps, so I was trying to give him instructions. When we found it I asked him if he could take me to class and back home3 times a week. He was really nice. He was like teaching me words I already knew and to count while he was taking me back cos he saw I was learning Khmer. He didn't speak a single word of English or French though. But we understood each other in the end, and from next week one, he will be there on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays outside my door to pick me up at 12.30, and driving me back at 1.30.

Tonight Julie's invited me to come to Capoeira with her. I said yes but oh my god this is going to be so embarrassing. I have never done before, hardly know what it looks like, and don't even have the gear for it (they seemed surprised that I didn't bring a sport kit with me…) I'm gonna be amusing the Capoeira class tonight… After that we're going to have dinner's at Corinne. She'd invited Julie and Silvere to talk about a potential job for Silvere at Cedric's (Corinne's husband) university and then she invited me along too. I think she took pity of me when I told her about how I cannot be bother to cook on my own in the evenings and end up not eating enough. That's cool cos her cook is amazing and she's making apple pie for desert! Yum… Anyway, gotta get ready for Capoeira.