Last day of teaching, 22/07/16

It was our last day of teaching today before we leave! We took enough toothbrushes, combs and t-shirts for all the students as it was purchased last day, although it was very lucky as we only just had enough of the right sizes. We decided that today’s session would be a really fun hour, just playing games and singing songs etc but also just recapping what the students had learnt. To start, we all sang the hello song in English and Khmer which they all now know and join in with which is fantastic.

Afterwards we brought out the instruments and they played along to my ukulele while we all sang Our God Is A Great Big God. They also all know head shoulders knees and toes now so we had to obviously do that one and then played a few games of What’s the time Mr Wolf. Philippa then used Spot the dog (puppet) to get the children to ask and answer what’s your name and how are you and we recapped that. Most of the children now can confidentially say these which is great for us to see how far they’ve come. After giving out the tshirts we played one last game called Ladders. In this game it goes over numbers again as when the child’s number is called out, they have to race their partner over everyone else’s legs ams back to their seat. Everyone ended up in fits of giggles by the end and we had some other children from outside join in as well which was lovely.

Before we left we gave them each a toothbrush and comb which many of them started brushing their hair with which was cute. As their goodbye to us, the two teachers Map and Thedia, led the children singing the goodbye song we have been teaching them which was so lovely as well as a Khmer song. It was really sad thinking that this was our last time teaching them but we left a lot of smiles so that was good!

Garrett didn’t come with us today as he was leaving after lunch so we went back to the presbytery to say goodbye to him and then to lunch. It’s very weird to only have 3 of us left here now before we leave on Sunday.

It was also our last time at the St Joseph’s student centre and so we took biscuits for the uni students and pencils, note books, sharpeners as well as toothbrushes and tshirts. After playing hangman and talking with a few uni students for while, we went up to do our hour with the younger students. Philippa took a few of them from the group to get them to write letters so that they could set up pen pals back in England. Their letters were very sweet, introducing themselves and writing a few things about themselves as well as asking questions. They also drew pictures as you can see in the photos.

While Philippa spent the hour doing this, Chloe and I had the rest of the group and played hangman with them first.We then moved on to teaching them the game ‘I went to market and I bought’. Although they didn’t understand at first, with their teachers help, we managed to play a really good game. At the end we managed to fit in a game of ‘who do you love’ which the students love and get very competitive with. The session ended with a lot of photos and selfies being taken.

After dinner we had a quick trip to the Cambodian market before heading to bed.