Technology in the Third-World: It's implications for the American English teacher abroad...

What that title basically means is that my laptop has been broken for a long time, and getting it fixed was far less easy than if one lived in oh......I dunno, lets be generous and say North America.

First the power connection port was broken. No power = no typey typey...

They fixed the power after two weeks of meddling with my motherboard, but my internet port didn't work when they were finished. Of course I didn't find that out till I got back to campus.

Keep in mind I don't live in the city - I live on campus. It takes an hour on Smash (my moto) to get into town. So when I discover that my computer has all these problems I can't just turn around and head back in. Well... I could, but who would want to???

Anyway, then I figured while they were fixing all these various odds and ends, why not upgrade my hard drive??? My first computer, the family computer back in 8th grade, had a hard drive of like 538 MEGAbytes - most wristwatches now have more storage than that. My laptop had 37 GIGAbytes, a drastic improvement no doubt, but it had run out of space due to all the killer photos I've been taking and uploading. So....back to the computer store to get a new hard drive - 120 gb - heck yeah! Then, after installation, the internet port was not working AGAIN.

If you're still reading, rest assured I'm done talking about my laptop woes. It's fixed. Now I can blog.

Well, I finally started teaching, and just in the nick of time - I had almost forogotten why I moved to Southeast Asia. Most of the new team members, myself included, were PRETTY upset that we didn't start teaching until mid-November. That would have been great information for the organization to include in it's pre-field training.

The general letdown is like this, "WHYYYYYYY did I come here so early when I could have stayed home with family and friends????" It's a normal response. The answer isn't an easy one. ELI/C does all of it's training for Southeast Asia at one time. Other places like Vietnam and some schools in Laos start their school years at a more reasonable date. Cambodia has a late academic calendar, so there's always been this tension for ELI/C teachers here in The Kingdom of Wonder (yes...that's actually the offical country slogan for tourism purposes). "Blunder" rhymes very conveniently with "Wonder," so I don't hesitate in substituting whenever I get the chance.

So what do you do when you are and English teacher in Cambodia with no students??? Well...you find some, or find SOMETHING you can do to be productive. After all, I'm here on other peoples' dimes, people who sent me to help out those in need. With that weighty mission in mind, I set out to find an organization with whom I could partner and work in order to be productive and stay sane.

There was a neat little solution to my problem, in the form of an organization called Kone Kmeng. This group partners with local churches to identify and resuce children at risk from poverty, malnutrition, sexual & physical abuse, sex trafficking, lack of educaiton, etc. This is a Cambodian-run organization, but their support comes mostly from Britain and the US, so they really needed a native English-speaker to do their writing and publicity work. I've been blessed to work with them lately as just the guy for the task. I get to travel one weekend a month to one of their project sites where I take pictures, collect stories, and then write reports for a monthly e-newsletter. Their hope is that this letter will generate more funds for the organization. Another project as of late is the org's website. It's in bad need of updating and reorganization, so I'm going to be working on that.

These kids above and to the right are in a very poor area of Cambodia on the Thailand border. If you're interested, google Banteay Meanchey. It's the province where the communists held out the longest. Really, many of the people 40 and older were part of the old regime, and while I was there I saw many wearing the old black pajamas and red neck scarves, the hallmark outfit of the Khmer Rouge. It was chilling to say the least. In case you're wondering, this little baby is being pulled by his older brother in a little cart made out of wooden wheels and frame with an old tire as a......hmmm.......container? basket? carriage? I dunno... It was cute, and that's all that matters. I loved how the baby was like, "What is this guy doing???" His eyes didn't leave me the entire time I was within the vicinity. Oh the joys of being a white man in Asia...

Well, I'm teaching now. Just finished my fifth straight week of unadulterated, univeristy-level English teaching. It was like, "Oh, yeah... this is what I came here for. Now I remember." It was well worth the wait, and I'll talk more about that next time.

Bryant