I haven't been able to wear makeup for weeks because it slides off my skin in this South East Asian heat. Most of the sweat comes from teaching dancing, riding my bicycle and eating curry though.
The classroom I'm mostly working in has no fan. It's 32 degrees and outside the kids are burning rubbish. Yes, the rubbish from the classroom is dumped at the back of the school and burnt there. The smoke wafts into the open windows and unsettles my already unsettled stomach. They are un-phased. Some are wearing jeans under their school skirts, ready to work.
One of my main aims in working as a volunteer for Move teaching dance in schools in Kampot, Cambodia, is to try and push the children to be creative with their bodies themselves. They are great at copying me (got Gangnam Style down) but when I ask for them to do their own thing, it's resulted in them either copying me or doing nothing. Until this week. I got them to do an activity I learnt from Sarah Boulter (renowned Australian Contemporary dance choreographer) where the students pretend they have an eyeball on their elbow and the eyeball has to see every part of the room, so they have to find ways to move to make it do so. After a slow start, there was a room of organic, unique movement. The next time around, they copied me again, but we got there eventually.
Most of the kids have minimal English. While I think I am good at communicating visually, my gestures are for English words, not Khmer. From what I have seen, they aren't an over the top physical culture anyway. I would be lost without the local teachers here, who translate and also teach me how to teach them, what they respond to, etc. It takes a lot of patience and persistence to get an instruction across.
Next week we are doing a performance of two dances and a Maori song and dance I have taught them. Normally, before a performance of any kind, I'm running or having intense rehearsals where we do it over and over, cleaning each movement, and if anyone has missed more than one rehearsal, they usually can't do the performance. In 32 degrees and no fan, these conditions make things somewhat different. Whatever effort these young people make is an achievement.
I won't miss wringing out my t-shirts, but I will miss a lot more.
Like the 75 cent beers I'm about to go and drink.
Jj
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