Friday - January 23rd
It's been a busy week for me as I've started meeting with all of the Leadership Academy students to learn more about them and their English language needs.  I've been able to meet with 19 of the 34 so far and their skills range from extremely basic - Hello, How are you? to excellent conversations about their families, education and life goals.  By next Sunday, I'll have met with all of them and will  be ready to start some English classes for them.  The following week, I plan to get those ready connected with Conversation Partners in the USA - and to work with the Conversation Partners on the best ways to use Skype and promote learning over the internet.

Additionally, I have met with several different agencies here and begin networking.  I've had followed up contact with the Peace Corp - SSI is working with a school in the Aural district to request a PC education volunteer as well as with the medical clinic located there to request a medical volunteer.  I've also been able to visit Don Bosco Vocational Institute which is located about 1/2 mile from the Leadership Academy to gather information on admission criteria - some of the students who are in the LA have had difficulty passing the 12th grade examination which is required to enter the university settings.  SSI wants to be able to guide the students into appropriate vocational training institutes in addition to the university.  Don Bosco offers associate degrees in Automotive, Electronic, Welding, Computer, Electrical, - and also training in Printing.  It was very interesting visiting their campus and we were warmly welcome.  Their mission is to help the very poor - which all of our students are - and I hope that soon, we;ll be able to have more students from the Aural district be able to be trained in some of these fields.

I've also visited several free English classes that the LA students take and one new English school that just opened down the street.  I really want to know what is available to the students already so that we can create the English Zone as a school that will fill in some of the gaps in their English education.

The boys and I attended the annual school carnival last Saturday at LOGOS - reminded me of home!  Jonathan's class was running the bowling game - which he helped at for about an hour and Brian's class had a Haunted House (a classroom).  Both had a great time and I was able to meet some of their new friends as well as some parents and other administrators.  I've connected with the special education coordinator and plan on going to their sister school - Asian Hope - on Monday to observe 4 children who need speech therapy services.  Hopefully, I'll be able to work out a few mornings a week to go and work with them and their teachers.  Who knows!  Maybe when I get back to OSU, we will be doing Skype speech therapy with Asian Hope as part of the clinic.  They do not have many SLP services her in Cambodia it seems....

Both boys have told me at separate times how much they like their new school and the new friends they are making.  That is wonderful because if they were unhappy, it would be a lot harder to be here.
Neither of the boys are very adventurous eaters.  Last week, we tried jack fruit and dragon fruit.  Yes on dragon fruit, No on jack fruit (I liked both).  Jonathan has tried an curry potato pastry served at school and is beginning to develop a taste for that (India) -Brian wasn't too sure about that.  At school, they alternate days between Asian food and "american" - some they are eating and some they are not.  Brian will just eat a giant bowl of rice if he doesn't like the menu that day.  Jonathan said one day he only ate a piece of bread.  I figure when they get hungry enough, they'll try more.

I will  posted more pictures on the link - of the carnival, the local market, and street noise....