Trip to Vietnam - Mekong Delta Tour

Our first full day in Ho Chi Minh City and we left town. We went on a tour of the Mekong Delta. This is a part of Vietnam that the Mekong River and smaller canals run through. We drove to a docking station and got on a boat till we reached our first destination. A candy factory! Well we were definitely happy to see that. They made coconut candies there. Basically they boiled the coconut milk for a long time and added some sugar and out came taffy. These were cut into squares that were then wrapped in rice paper- edible so the candy doesn’t get your fingers sticky. It was very yummy!


Next we got on carts, sort of like roofless tuk-tuks and off we went. We rode through the villages and it was very tropical. Fruit trees, rice fields, brightly colored houses scattered about made it a picturesque ride. We stopped to see a rice field and fruit trees. We enjoyed a delicious lunch consisting of elephant ear fish made in front of us into spring rolls, fried taro and egg rolls, and soup. After eating we got in canoe like boats and someone rowed it as we soaked in the sights. We all put on the traditional hats and off we went. Slowly we made our way back to Ho Chi Min. It was a great way to see the countryside of Vietnam.



Janaya

Individualism or Community

Here is a challenge I have been wrestling with in my teaching. Is it good for me to impose my western ideals of individualism on my students?

Cambodian culture promotes working together for the common good. Traffic patterns are such that one is the safest if you move along with others. It isn’t such a good idea to insert your own independence, even if you are in the right. Many generations in one family live together, the younger ones providing for the older ones, while the older ones care for the children. In school, this means students work together, with often the brightest ones helping those that are weaker.

In each of my classes, I have a class leader. I have seen how he or she takes care of his classmates. If a classmate is late with an assignment, it is he that comes to me and asks how his fellow classmate will be graded. He turns in the late work. When I turn back work, everyone compares their grades. Inwardly I cringe at this – because I think about the problems this can cause in the US, both interpersonal and legal. But they all seem to rejoice in each other’s success, and quite frankly, laugh together at some of the comments I have given them on their work.

I am assigning a variety of written work this semester. While I have encouraged the students to talk about their labs and their conclusions, I have said at nearly every lab session that I want the writing to be their own. And I have promised not to grade grammar. As I collected their first lab reports, I could see that this message really didn’t sink in. I could group the papers into pretty much 3 or 4 piles, within each, the writing was identical. Corruption is certainly a part of the educational system, where it is fine for students to copy from each other and even talk aloud to each other during an exam. Grades can sometimes be bought. In my class, the impetus for copying each other’s work is even greater. I’ve asked them to write in English, and some of them have far better skills than others.

But I keep thinking, am I wrong to grade harshly those who have worked so closely together? In the long run, will this change how the students value community – something that is so different than our individualism in the west and frankly, quite refreshing. Is it really right for me to expect students to work alone? Are they better served working together?

My course in green chemistry is not conceptually difficult. In fact, the content is much simpler than what I’ve seen in student notebooks from some of their other courses. But one of my main goals is to teach them to think critically, and evaluate data and experiments, not just memorize facts. I want each of them to learn these skills, so I ask them to write their own papers. But I’m not sure I’m doing it right.

Roseann

More on Mondulkiri

Janaya has written about our recent elephant trekking, but let me tell you a little more about our recent trip to an eastern province of Cambodia. Mondulkiri is definitely off the beaten track in Cambodia, but we want to see more than just Ankgor Wat and the beach. We were, however, the rare tourist family in the wild east of Cambodia.

It took seven hours to reach our destination. For this trip, we decided to rent a car and a driver. Four of us were in the back seat of the Toyota Camry, Ron in the front. One of our national staff was sure to tell us that 7 Cambodians would fit in this car along with the driver, so we had it easy. The last 40 kilometers were entirely mountainous, and through road construction. A huge project is underway and for the most part, only one lane was open. Five bridges were being built, so each time we were taken on a detour down the side of the mountain / hill, and back up again. The mountains are similar to the Appalachians, not the Rocky’s. In fact, everyone commented on how much it looked like home. Only one flat tire, when our driver crossed a threshold between tar and gravel too quickly. He had a nice spare in his trunk, but we didn’t understand why he stopped nearly in the middle of the road to change it!

We stayed at an eco-tourism lodge on top of a hill, outside of the town of Sen Monorom. It was quiet and peaceful. The kids could get some personal space wandering around the grounds and our cabin. There were cats, horses and a dog for Acacia. The lodge’s restaurant resembled a tree house, built right in the midst of the trees and with lots of plants. Being so far out of town, they pretty much had a corner on the meals for all of their guests. But they had a large menu – western and Khmer, and never were out of a food we ordered. Austin claimed that he was still required to sleep under a mosquito net on this “vacation,” he was only eating western food. The days still were warm, though cooler than here. But it was so nice to sleep under a comforter as it got nice and cool at night.

Although I thought my Khmer was pretty good, I had a terrible time communicating with our driver. We expected that he would go into town and find a cheap guesthouse and Khmer street food. But he stayed with us the whole time, even sleeping in the hammock on our porch. Felt like we had a guard. And he ate very little over the weekend.

Day one was our elephant trek to a nearby waterfall. On the second day we drove out to a plantation we had seen and walked around, seeing all sorts of tropical food growing. We continued on, on a road I would read later to be one of the worst in Cambodia. I think we got our money’s worth out of this car and driver! Very rough and full of big rocks, but alas, when we reached the waterfall, a national ecotourism site, it was beautiful. We saw a few Korean tourists there, but no westerners. Many Cambodians were there, but it was not too crowded. We certainly felt the beauty and the chance to cool off under the spray were well worth the drive. We hoped our driver did as well. He had never been there before. Our Khmer was good enough to bargain for and buy some locally grown pepper, and coffee. Later that day we drove to another waterfall, close to town, where the kids were hoping to swim. We watched some boys jump from the top into the pool, but alas, there was so much trash in that water, that we didn’t let the kids swim.

Mondulkiri – great choice for a long weekend in Cambodia.

Elephants fun or not so fun

Last weekend we went to Mondulkiri, a province in the eastern part of Cambodia. We had a five day weekend so we decided we should go somewhere. My dad wanted to go to Mondulkiri cause its the coolest place in Cambodia the rest of us wanted to go cause you can ride elephants through the jungle there.

So we rode elephants. Let me give you a pre-warning before you start to get jealous- Elephants are NOT comfortable. It was really fun for the first hour, a little scary looking out of the basket you sit in but pretty fun. But by the time we got off for lunch I was glad to. I was sore from being knocked around in the small baskets and not being able to stretch my legs.. But I was still enjoying the ride, we had rode for two hours before we stopped for lunch. Our lodge had packed us fried rice. We had lunch at a waterfall while the elephants rested. We cooled off in the water and Austin and Acacia swam in the pool below the waterfall. What was supposed to be a two hour break turned into a three and a half hour break.
Then we got back in the elephants and went on the two
hour ride back to the village. By the end I was very glad to get on my own two feet and was quite sore the rest of the day. All in all it was a cool experience but not one I think I need twice in my life, once is more than okay with me.

Janaya

A Day at the Zoo

A long time ago I wrote a blog about the animals in Cambodia. Since then I have had two pets, that have both died. But I have finally decided that if pets die so easily, I will not take the pain. So, my mom, Janaya and friends went to a Cambodian zoo, Phnom Tamao Zoo, where we saw lots of animals. We took a tuk-tuk 1 hour out of the city so the zoo was in the country. It was much a nicer than I expected. This zoo was started as a refuge center for animals hurt in accidents and illegally trapped. The animals were very healthy and had large cages, many of them right in the woods.

First, we went into a place where you could walk right amongst the animals. There were monkeys, deer and big birds (like herons and pelicans). Some very small deer and crocodiles were in their own separate cages. Another very large cage had some different birds. I really liked the otters and I got to feed them some fish. The zoo had a very large group of moon bears which had large cages with all sorts of climbing equipment.

For lunch, we sat and rested on a platform and in hammocks while a stir-fried chicken dish was prepared for us. Even though we had packed sandwiches and snacks, this is how the Cambodians would eat on a day at the zoo.

I liked the elephants the best because they were not in their cages and were taking a bath in the woods. We had to hike a short trail to see them, but then we were really close. The baby elephant had been hurt in a trap and had an artificial leg.

At the end of the day, we walked through the first exhibit again and saw all the animals being fed. The monkeys, the warthogs and the birds all ate their fish together. It was very interesting.

Acacia

Logos Bible Camp

A couple weeks ago I went to Bible camp with my school. All of Logos High School students are required to attend a week long camp 6 hours north of Phnom Penh. The camp was Jombak Hoas and we participated in low and high rope courses. We were split intogroups and participated in the activities in our groups. We repelled off of trees and swung on a gian swing, but also did activities that required teamwork to accomplish the goal. My favorite activity was the giant swing. I was nervous, but it was really fun. My favorite low ropes activity was called the dancing cable, where we relied on our teammates and trees to get across a long cable. We also did a compass walk through the jungle. My team came in fourth out of five teams after missing a trail and deciding to just go straight through the jungle. It was good that a camp leader was close behind us.

The camp was in the woods and much quieter than Phnom Penh, very refreshing. We slept in hammocks or bungalows. I chose a bungalow, which had many geckos, the large kind that we don't have at our house. Some girls were so afriad that they called guys in every night to scare them away. The bathrooms had many spiders.

One night the teachers had a special surprise for us. The freshmen were asked to perform their "tribal dance." Supposedly every grade does this. Not true. After performing our tribal dance we were told there was no such thing. Freshmen initiation.

We had devotions in the morning and evening, did activities duing the day and hung out the rest of the time. The theme of the camp was sacrificial service and the teachers led devotions on that theme. One day we went and built toilets for a local village.

All together it was a great week.

Teaching a new course at RUPP

Reflections on my first week of teaching

Last semester, I spent my time at the university earning trust amongst the staff, helping individual teachers with their laboratories and presentations, writing new experiments, teaching Infrared spectroscopy and incorporating it into the curriculum and starting my research. When I returned from my Christmas break, I was suddenly asked to teach a new laboratory course in Green Chemistry for the second semester. Three young teachers have left or are about to leave, to pursue master’s degrees in other countries. This left the chair in a bind, with a curriculum to teach, and not enough staff. So, all of the foreigners here (three in the department this semester) were asked to teach. I was asked to teach three sections of a new Green Chemistry laboratory course.

Now this is exactly in line with one thing I had hoped to do this year, as I have also wanted to teach such a course at Messiah College. But planning a new laboratory course with limited resources has been challenging. I was assigned a lab space that is ill-equipped, so I will be moving things around, and buying what I can at the local markets.

On Mondays and Wednesdays I teach a set of third year students that are called the “private class.” For many years, the university only accepted the best high school students, and they were allowed to attend the university without charge. More recently, the university has realized that there are more students who want to attend, and they are accepted as fee paying students, or the “private class.” A portion of these fees is all the money that a department receives from the university to run its programs.

I have yet to pin down my class list. This is given by the study office to the class monitor – as he or she is called. On the first week of the term, students do not know exactly which classes they have been assigned to so it has been more chaotic than I would prefer. But I’m going with the flow. Students do not choose any of their courses. Once they enter the university with a particular major, their courses are set by the department. No one changes majors either. I’ve asked them to sign in an English spelling of their name, alongside the Khmer one – but I may just go with numbers! At least for attendance and grading. It is hard enough for this old brain to learn 80 familiar English names.

Class began Monday with my students spending nearly 10 minutes cleaning the benches and sweeping the floor. This is automatic for them. There is no budget for any cleaning or garbage pick up. I do have an assistant in the class, who will learn the material with the students, and hopefully teach the course next year. Monday was a little rough. My assistant brought in copies of the notes for the day, but had not copied my schedule. Slowly, or so I thought, I talked through the schedule and my expectations. Since this is a lab course, I have planned weekly assignments, or reports. This is not something they are accustomed to I can tell. We also talked about academic honesty and plagiarism, things discussed at Messiah College, but even more important here.

My introduction to green chemistry involved a demo of traditional packing peanuts and the new starch ones, in a beaker of water. I don’t think the students had ever seen packing material before. They don’t buy things in boxes here, and they don’t get care packages in the mail! I encouraged them to talk about what they saw, in Khmer, and I think they got the idea of Green Chemistry. (Ironically, the old packing peanuts were green, and the starch ones were white!)

At the end, my assistant kindly told me that I had gone too fast. It was then that I realized I had used far too many big words. Before the end of the day I had typed a glossary of all these big words, and I will pass that out this next week.

Wednesday class went much better. By then the class monitor had passed out my schedule and the first notes to all the students. (They in turn pay him for the copying costs.) I could tell that many students had read my notes – things were underlined and highlighted. At least on the pages of the students sitting in the front row... (One never knows about the students sitting at the back.) I tried to bring laughs to the classroom, and tie the ideas of green chemistry to issues relevant to Cambodia. It went well.

On Fridays, I teach the scholarship class. These should be the brightest kids. Class today was broken into two periods, as there was a presentation from a Korean University in the middle of the morning that I was asked to accommodate. But the students were here, and waiting when I got here. They didn’t seem too excited when I told them we would have class from 8:00 – 8:45, the presentation was from 9:00 – 11:00 AND then we would meet again until 12:00. But as my American students know, there is no time to be wasted when learning chemistry!

To my surprise, they then proceeded to ask me if we could switch class to another day. This is common place here. Another one of their Friday classes had been cancelled (odd subject, no teacher) and they wanted the whole day off. No Registrar’s office setting a schedule here. But, not a bad idea. If my children have a long weekend, maybe we can head out early to the beach!

Every week will be a learning experience. I’ll keep you posted.

Roseann