Laurie's World

Full disclosure: I’m getting a foot massage while I write this 😇.

I’ve decided that I deserve a treat every week! Each weekend, starting three weekends ago, I go to Le Sky and get a massage. It’s a nice place down by the Russian market! The first massage I got here was a footie, I’m sure I told you about that. Then last weekend I got a back & shoulder massage, today I’m back to the footie! While in all honesty the back massage last Saturday was truly excellent, my lower back is still painful to the touch from it! I asked for medium strength at that…..so unsure what full stength would have done to me 😝. So footie it is. These feet need a lot of work tbh! The massage is $10 for an hour. I forgot how strong  💪 these ladies are. I usually don’t  tip for massage in Thailand but it’s clearly a thing here. So I tip $2 and then I decided after the first week when I walked here that I can walk home, but need to get a grab to get here. My feet get grossly dirty and I’m all sweaty if I walk here even though it’s only a 12 minute walk.  I know they probably don’t care, but i feel bad, so I get the grab now. It’s 3,600 riel (which is about 88 cents). Totally an acceptable  amount. I also tip the grab driver 1,000 riel witch is about 25 cents. So all in, it’s just over $13 and is a really nice and reasonable way to celebrate the arrival of the weekend.  The girl doing my foot massage right now ‘found’ the site of the incision on my right foot of my ankle surgeries when I had the two ligaments replaced in 2018 and again in 2019. I could have used her when I was rehabbing those surgeries and the area needed massage to break down scar tissue. 😅😅 Massage is also a little weird on that foot sometimes since I have no feeling in part of that foot now.

(edited to add this after getting home) ALSO, the best part of this massage……as long as I booked a massage at either 5:30 pm on Friday or 10:00 am on Saturday (check for Friday @ 5:30 pm), and was here on time (which I was), I get a coupon for a free 30 minute back and shoulder massage! It’s a special promotion for the month of September called “on time promotion”. Hahaha! Are people not known for being on time here?? 😅  so I have my coupon in hand 🤩 and will be heading back to redeem 😎

As an aside to my tales of massage, I have officially survived 5 full weeks of teaching here and I’ve been here in Phnom Penh 6 weeks total! Crazy how it feels like a really long time since being at home, but at the same time, it has gone really FAST. Two more weeks of school then it a one week break!! What will I do with myself?? I could get out of the city, but supposedly that’s what everyone else will do, so maybe I’ll just stay in the city and enjoy that it’s quiet. After that week, Troy comes in two weeks, then 11 more days and I’m done my contract!!!! Totally doable when you look at it like that.

To address the questions of what happens after Oct 26th?? I’m still not sure to be honest. East-West will keep me on in either first or second grade if that’s what I want, or explore other roles if I want. I just don’t know yet. Last weekend I found a part of town I really like over by coconut park. I now have a real estate guy looking for me. He found a 3 bedroom place on the 39th floor of a building that allows pets and it’s $1,800 usd per month. It has a view of the Mekong river. I think from the 39th floor, a view of something amazing is 100% guaranteed probably 🤣🤣. If we stay this might be a good option for us! Stay tuned on this!! I didn’t hate my job this week, so anything is possible at this point

TTFN

Yes, it has been a while since I posted anything. Once again, this is mostly because things are quiet for me right now. I do have a ‘funny’ story from today though. Not funny haha, but funny perplexing. It’s been on my mind for the last couple weeks that I would like to bring the security guard a treat. I honestly think he has the worst job in the place. He sits down there at the garage entrance 24/seven and it just seems to me like he never gets to go anywhere. I’m sure this just seems normal to him but it seems to me like it would be nice for him to have a treat every so often. I think they feed him his meals here within the building because sometimes when I am passing through at suppertime someone comes out of the elevator with food for him. He also has a kettle so I see him making instant coffee in the morning. And you know how amazing I think instant coffee is! Even though it’s all I drink now too.
Last weekend it was my plan to get him a package of those small pandanas cakes from the Russian market that I bought the last time I was down there. I did talk to Makara and asked her if bringing him a treat would be appropriate. She assured me yes, and then I asked Landon about tipping him money, and he thought that would be a good idea too. Anyways it seemed easier to start with a pastry or something. Unfortunately, last Saturday when I was at the Russian market after my massage, (it was much earlier in the day than the last time I was there), the cart with the pandanas cakes was not there yet. So I walked to the Byon Bakery and got a couple things there. I bought what I thought was an apple turnover, but as it turns out it was something more of a savory/chicken pot pie pastry. I bought two so that I could have one for myself.

Anyway, when I got back from the market on Saturday the power was out and I saw the security guard was quite busy with the massive generator that they have here that powers the building. I gave him the pastry and he quickly set it down (and I assume) ate it later as I was on the receiving end of some very nice big smiles the next few times I came through the garage.

Fast forward to today when I was walking Nichol after school. I remembered to grab money and thought I would get him a doughnut from a donut shop that I pass about about four times a day when walking Nichol. It’s called Daily Donuts and it’s just on the next block over. A donut is 80 cents, which is pretty standard pastry pricing here. So this time for sure I knew it was going to be a sweet treat I delivered! I picked one up for the security guard and when I got back he actually wasn’t there so I brought Nichol in and cleaned his belly and feet because it had been raining and he was quite mucky. Then Nichol and I walked the donut back down and I gave it to the security guard. (His name is Mr. Haeng by the way (I had Sam ask him when she was here on Monday). This is where it got confusing as he opened it up looked in the bag and then promptly took the donut and gave it to someone else. I know we have a language barrier but he didn’t even make eye contact with me. So now I don’t know what to think, maybe he just doesn’t have a sweet tooth? I suppose I’ll just stick with money from now on because I don’t think he’ll give that away …..

I have officially been here one month now, so I decided that I should treat myself! To Be Honest, I can’t believe I waited a whole month for this. There are actually several reasons why I have yet to get a foot massage, But I overcame all those reasons today and decided to go ahead and find a place where I could get a foot massage. So I’ve heard that petty crime in massage places here is a real concern in addition to wanting to make sure that I’m not in a sketchy massage place (if you know what I mean). I don’t have nearly as good a handle on where to find a safe massage here as I do in Thailand for example. I did find a place that looked kind of fancy dancy and was down by the Russian market which is where I need to go to get some fruit for the week anyway. It is called in Le Sky and a 60 minute massage is $10. Probably a little pricey but given that I’m on my own here I think it’s worth a little extra to make sure that I don’t have to risk anything. One of the things that I hear is an issue now is if you take your eyes off your bag they might go in there and change out any US dollars that you have in your wallet for counterfeit. (Or give you your change in counterfeit). I also want to get my foot massage in the front of the store in a chair. 90% of foot massages are just like this, but sometimes they have you behind a curtain laying down. I was very impressed with this place, it was legit, clean and I felt very safe! They had a reception desk on main floor and the room where you get the massage is all open and just happened to also be on the 24th floor so I had a beautiful view. (Tbh though, I mostly closed my eyes). It’s possibly because I haven’t had a foot massage in almost 3 years, but I have to say this was one of the best foot massages I’ve ever gotten. I walked there and it took me about 15 minutes, so I was sufficiently sweaty when I rolled in. The girl was very sweet about it and just carried on with cleaning my feet even though my feet were very dirty from walking in flip flops. I think I’m gonna need to remember to wear my runners next time so that my feet don’t get so dirty! Yes there will be a next time…..

I’m now at Brooklyn Pizza which has become my Sunday night thing. I decided to change it up tonight and get a burger. They just NEVER disappoint here! It’s a bacon and blue cheese burger and it’s absolutely delicious. I was going to try Luigi’s, which is another pizza place on the other side of the Russian Market that was recommended to me by someone at school…But they don’t open till 530 and I wasn’t patient enough to wait. (Sorry for so the food talk mom) the drink is blueberry line-aid. It’s a refreshing combination of sweet-and-sour. It’s also very good!

I did get myself some dragon fruit (red AND white this time) at the market and some mystery pandanas mini cake things to try. They were 5,000 riel, so I think I can give them a shot at that price ($1.20) stay tuned for the review  😉

ENJOYED my day immensely and when I finish my burger, I’ll head home to Nichol ❤️ (tomorrow is a work day after all 💪)

I had a really fun evening with Makara tonight. We decided to walk to the restaurant rather than getting a grab. It was a 35 minute walk for me, but Makara walked 30 minutes to get to me!  Makara had recommended a restaurant called Freebird where she says they have excellent steak. It’s owned by an American that I now know owns the Home of English schools that are all around me on my block. They are a huge conglomerate of schools.  When these schools dismiss at the end of the day they block traffic for miles.

The walk was perfect and it was really nice to have conversations with a new friend that were not all about school and the kids. Nichol somehow knew I was getting ready to go out though, so I got A1 puppy snuggles while he tried  to convince me to not go out.

The meal was delicious! $8.95 for a grilled steak, potato salad and grilled veggies. The mushroom gravy was an additional dollar! So worth it! Perfectly cooked medium rare!

After dinner, we walked back and we went past the Independence Monument. It’s absolutely stunning at night. Beautiful park full of people walking, talking and hanging out. The temperature was bearable by 8pm at night so we walked for over an hour.

Sunday will be a quiet day. I will decide at some point in the afternoon if I’m going to get the Sunday pizza.  🍕 🤔

So I have a new plan. Nichol pees on every planter we pass on the street so I went to the nursery at the end of the block and got a flower. So either this will work, or now I have a new responsibility to keep this beautiful little plant alive…..

Often throughout my day, as things happen, I say ‘oh I need to remember this so that I can blog about it’. So here I sit Friday evening after work, and I’m trying to remember all the things that I wanted to talk about. I think what I’ll do is just start talking to you all and see where it goes…

I will happily report that I have survived week three of my experience here. I believe I have 7 1/2 weeks of teaching left. 😂 That does not include the week off at the end of September. That’s a holiday week and is four weeks from now, but who’s counting? I have started to feel better about getting into the groove here. I didn’t have the terrible crashing impending sense of doom on Tuesday and Wednesday like I did in the previous two weeks. So I guess that’s progress! I started working intensively with my struggling readers, so I have a better understanding of what they need. Fleur, the learning support teacher (from Holland) is going to start working with them on phonics for 15 minutes at the start of every school day starting on Monday. I’m very excited about this and hopeful that it is going to be a great support for my students. One of my students that was really struggling in English and Khmer, has been moved to a first grade classroom per parent request. (They are a lot more fluid between grades here than what I’m used to in the states). This particular student has just never had a chance to learn the foundational skills that she needs to even begin to access second grade content. Her parents were open to having her be in a grade one classroom, having a tutor, EAL support, or anything that would be the best for her. So we decided to move her to a first grade classroom. She has had two days there now and she’s happy and learning and on her way to success. I think she misses me, which warms my heart ❤️ When she sees me in the morning at arrivals she runs up and gives me the biggest hug. But her first grade teacher is so sweet and loving I know she will be well taken care of. So now I have 14 students in my class, nine boys and five girls. Something that’s very fascinating to me here is the difference in how families treat to the Khmer teachers versus how they treat the foreign teachers. If you were to have asked me what I thought it would be like, I would have thought that families would have a special connection with the Khmer teachers that just wouldn’t exist with the foreign teachers because of the cultural differences and the language barrier. What I’ve discovered however, is that unfortunately families don’t treat Khmer teachers with nearly the respect and deference that the foreign teachers get. This is heartbreaking to me because my teaching partner is extremely intelligent, dedicated and educated and deserves all the respect in the world. Culturally they just don’t treat their own people the same as they treat the foreign teachers. I don’t know why this is, and I know I’m not going to change it. It does cause me to want to show Makara how much I respect her myself though. She’s amazing And I couldn’t do this without her! So what me caused me to share this is that when my student runs up to me in the morning and gives me a hug, she only does this with me. 😔

Have i shared with anyone out there what it’s really like to have a dog in Phnom Penh? It’s like going into mortal combat on every single walk FOUR TIMES PER DAY. 😬

Back home, I used to be able to walk Nichol while carrying a coffee, playing candy crush, talking on the phone, carrying an umbrella, you name it I could do it. Now I need to have absolutely nothing in my hands and absolutely nothing obstructing my complete 100% mobility at all times. I need to watch out for motorcycles, Tuktuks, cars, all kinds and manner of garbage food and bones on the sidewalks, piles of dog shit, other dogs, and if I’m walking past 7 PM at night (especially if god forbid it’s been raining), apparently hordes of cockroaches. The cockroaches come out at night and I’m not exaggerating when I say they are the size of small dogs. So the garbage gets picked up here every day and about 1% of the garbage is in garbage cans, which probably at the end of the day makes no difference. But all the rest of the garbage is just out loose in a bag, not a sealed bag, just a bag. The reason I mentioned the garbage is because I think it attracts rats and cockroaches, but it is also an excellent food source for off leash dogs. They don’t nearly have the restrictions on what they feed dogs here like I have for Nichol. For example I would never give him chicken bones. But they just throw old chicken bones out on the street here and let the dogs get into them.  That’s how a lot of garbage food gets spread all over the place. Myself being a responsible pet owner, I go down to the pet store and buy royal canine dog kibble for my dog at $30 a bag. Local people don’t have that luxury I guess. So they let their dogs eat garbage. The other thing to factor into the adventure is that for as many times as I have walked Nichol since I moved into this apartment, Nichol is the ONLY dog that’s ever on a leash. So while most of the dogs roaming here are “pets” a sum total of 0% of them are leashed. I think I may have mentioned this when I first got here. But the part of town I was in before I occasionally saw an expat like myself with a pet on a leash. But 100% of the dogs where I am now are off leash, (I live in a ‘local’ part of town, not in an expat area) and khmer dogs are big. Really big. Small dogs are not a thing here. So khmer dogs are just plain old BIG, and as all dogs tend to be, very territorial. So the last thing they really like is some new fluffy little non khmer dog walking down the street peeing on all ‘their stuff’. I get it. Nichol is at a distinct disadvantage in this situation, being on a leash, so what I need to do is be extremely aware of my surroundings at all times and be prepared to pick him up in less than two seconds. Needless to say I’m getting very good at this. I did get caught off guard this morning and we were ambushed by two from behind. (Can you say pack mentality??) But per my own rules I had nothing in my hands and so I was able to pick him up very quickly and saved ourselves from almost certainly a squabble or at a minimum, a confrontation. I have learned that there are some streets we just shouldn’t go down as the risk of these encounters are just too high, others are much better choices for us. Like for example I try to avoid “residential streets”. Except for, of course, my street is a residential street, but there is only one dog that we regularly have run into on our street. While the traffic is much worse on what I would call a “commercial Street“ we are much less likely to encounter off leash khmer dogs. So that leaves me with the dubious task of watching out for JUST the dog shit, garbage food, the traffic, and apparently cockroaches! To date in all our walks, I’ve only seen one roadkill rat, and two live rats. Not gonna lie I was more concerned about encountering rats than cockroaches here, so this is a reverse of what I was expecting. I just wish he would Pee on his little patch of Astroturf on the balcony so we could reduce the number of times I have to go through this. To date that has not occurred! 🤦🏻‍♀️

TbH, I don’t have a lot to report for weekend activity. 🫣this makes for a perfect weekend and exactly what I needed!!

For the second Sunday now in a row I find myself at Brooklyn Pizza. Last weekend I got the four cheese which was delicious, but tonight I’m gonna try the Brooklyn Bridge for $13.19 usd. I got four meals out of the last pizza so while $13 seems like a lot, it’s actually pretty good value.

I walked to the Russian market this afternoon. Primarily I was in search of fruit, since I’ve only been to a couple grocery stores and I felt like the fruit choices were limited. As it turns out I think that’s really all that’s available for this current season. I didn’t find anything vastly different at the Russian market than I did at the grocery store. I did get some more pears and a dragon fruit. I still have apples and oranges in the fridge. It could just be my imagination, but the apples and oranges taste better here than at home! Outside the Russian market, I did see some of the little tiny pineapples that are peeled and carved into cute little spirals. I didn’t get one though cause I thought I would see another cart and then of course I didn’t so at this time I don’t have one of those. While the choices for fruit are similar as the grocery store I think they are definitely less expensive because for three dollars I got three huge pears and a massive dragon fruit. I’m pretty sure I paid just over two dollars for two pears at the chipmong market.

I must confess I did absolutely nothing yesterday. Well, not exactly nothing nothin,  I did walk Nichol four times. Plus I went down to the kebab cart that’s kitty corner from the school. It was on my list of places to try as I walk past it multiple times a day. I also stopped at the Spring roll cart. (It’s right across the street from the kebab cart). The kebab was tasty, but not at all what I was expecting. It was only a dollar, so my expectations were low. The Spring rolls were average, so I probably won’t bother with those again.

The weather man is always wrong here! (Just like everywhere) There was absolutely no rain in the forecast for today, but when I came out of Brooklyn Pizza and looked north, I’ve never seen a sky so dark. So I kicked it into high gear and shaved some time off my dash home! I got back to the apartment and moments later, the skies opened up. It’s absolutely pouring right now. Full on thunderstorm/monsoon!!

OK so it might not actually end up being graphic like in an NC-17 way, but I want to give a heads up that this is not going to be a positive happy go lucky post. It’s a post coming out of intense frustration to be honest. (Ready for a RANT?)

I’m not understanding much of what’s going on here in this educational system and I’m struggling to find my place, do s hood job and how to best support the kids. I’m gonna try to explain what’s going on here while remaining ‘kind’. The school I’m working at is in this weird place where historically they haven’t had good curriculum and in some cases any curriculum at all for academic content areas, let alone science, social studies, the arts or social emotional learning. They are really trying to put some structure around their programs, develop content and curriculum and align themself with standards. So in my opinion what they need to do is buy some curriculum! I’m well aware that this is not an inExpensive thing! But the alternative route that they have chosen, which on the surface appears far less costly, is just trying to invent it themselves. In the long run this is gonna end up costing them a lot of money, probably teachers, and students. For anyone who comes from a place where true curriculum is being used, this makes literally no sense. Basically, someone sat down s as far picked monthly target goals for each academic area. Then basically they say go and be free and teach it however you want, and oh yes there’s a website with a bunch of resources, print and use whatever you want, but there’s one printer for the whole primary school (K-5th grade) and no photocopier. To get something copied into s class set, you have to print one copy three to four days in advance, get it to the office, put in a copy request for them to send away to some mysterious location where the photocopies are made.  1/2 the time they come back too light to even read, so you have to go back to office and ask them to get it redone. But then oh yeah we want you to create weekly lesson plans a week in advance and submit those and then reflect on those the week after so that we have all that information for next year. Oh yeah and if you can do everything in two languages, that would be great! Oh wait, that part is not optional, but we’re not really gonna tell you how to do that. You can Work it out with your khmer teaching partner. Oh yeah and can you also do all of this with the bare minimum of supplies and resources?

So then you finally figure out where to get the current reading levels for your sweet little second graders, and you learned that you have four students that are an aa reading level. So for you non-teachers out there, let me just tell you that is essentially what we call a student who is not reading yet. Typically you would see second grade reading levels between E and N. But given the fact that we are dual language program and that English is primarily the second language here for reading and writing, it doesn’t surprise me that I have students between B and E. But students at an AA level, will require a whole separate intervention group to even get them started. They don’t know their letter sounds yet as they’ve never been in an English school (they are brand new to east west). So I am all over this of course, and I go straight to the learning support teacher and ask her about doing some reading intervention support. She wants to discuss and come up with a plan! I’m very pleased!  It seems prudent to ask the other second grade teacher if she has any students at this level that would benefit from this group but she shut me down hard. She said there is no reading intervention at this school and I just need to differentiate my instruction. Well of course I need to differentiate my instruction, it’s all I do all day long got everything…..but reading intervention is a whole separate thing from me ‘differentiating my instruction’. I’m just not exactly sure what she thinks the learning support teacher is for if not for something like this. Don’t get me wrong I really like her, but I’m not sure how this is going to end up. I literally have 45 minutes a day to do all my English literacy instruction which includes reading and writing. So I don’t have time for a phonics group on top of that, and I’m only one person ……

I’m worried this is going to ruin teaching for me 😞 i hate to go out like this but I don’t have the bandwidth to deal with it. I’m already counting down the days until it’s done.

It just felt hot and muggy all day long. The temperature is always hot here, and the humidity is always high here, but it felt different this morning right from the get-go. Usually the monsoon happens closer to 5 PM and it’s definitely over by 6:30 or 7 pm at the latest. Today at 3:30 PM I knew I was in trouble when I saw the first few raindrops coming down. It’s my preference to get home and walk Nichol before the rain obviously. So far we’ve been lucky! But this early monsoon situation did give me an opportunity to try out my new resource/strategy. East-West laid new astroturf on the playground last week. I asked the school today for a small left over chunk of Astroturf for my balcony so that Nichol has an outdoor potty spot for situations just like this when I know he’ll need to go and it’s simply raining too hard. I know he spent seven years living in the Pacific Northwest, but he definitely does NOT like the rain, never has and never will. (And the rain stakes are much MUCH higher here than they ever were in Woodinville). So today was the day, if ever there was a day, that we (he) could make use of a patch of fake grass on the balcony. Lots of people lay Astroturf in front of their  shops and on the sidewalks here, and almost 100% of the time Nichol happily stops and pees because I assume every dog that passes by there pees on it. Somehow I had it in my head that he would see this patch of green Astroturf on the balcony and just go over to it and Pee on it. Needless to say despite all my convincing and begging and pleading, he would not and did not Pee on the Astroturf.

He looked at me with those sweet eyes and desperately tried to get me to put on his leash to go outside. So since I know that he has not Peed since 6:45 this morning, I give in and take him downstairs. The second we get to the drip line at the garage door it’s a hard no from him on passing over into the rain! I knew that was going to happen, but we were already down there so I dragged him out and he Peed on the very first thing he found and then I let him come back inside. The security guard found the whole thing very funny, right from me coming through the door the first time from school looking like a drowned rat to the shenanigans with Nichol. I’m glad we can provide entertainment.  He’s a really nice guy, speaks no English, but he’s trying hard to build a relationship with Nichol. It’s very sweet. Plus it’s a lesson learned… I’m only two minutes away from school but I should still get an umbrella! ☔️

This is exactly what’s still happening at 5:45pm. 100% accurate. Thunder lightning and torrential downpour. I guess the upside to the monsoon rain is the temp has dropped to 80 degrees. But hopefully it’s over soon, so Nichol and I can take a real walk.