Up to now, I haven't had a chance to share too much about the girls I work with at the aftercare home. Some of that has to do with the fact that I'm still learning a lot about them. And some of that has to do with the sensitivity of their trauma - I didn't quite know the best way to share about them. But I gave the girls some homework a month back and I'm going to use that as my method for how to share about these beautiful, young people I've gotten to know.
To give a little background, the girls in the aftercare home are there between six months to a couple of years because they've been taken out of sex trafficking or sexual abuse. Their ages range from 10-20 years old. At the home, they get access to social workers and counselors to talk through their trauma, work on their social interactions with the other girls as well as the staff, use vehicles such as art and music as a part of their healing, and most importantly get the chance to be kids and simply have fun. That last part is where I mostly fit in. I've mentioned this before, but the reason why sex trafficking resonated so much with me was I couldn't imagine how anyone, especially a young child could come back from going through that type of painful experience. I don't know what kind of childhood that would be. If I could use my time to help these girls forget about those experiences, if only for a couple hours a day, and just have fun, then my time was well spent.
I've been working with these girls over the past 3.5 months in a couple of ways. My initial responsibility was to work with about half of the 19 girls on improving their english. I would lesson plan and throw in a few games to test them, let them have a bit of fun to break the monotony that is english class, and give myself an excuse to provide them snacks. Then about a month after I started teaching english, the director of the home told me a handful of the girls wanted to learn guitar and ukulele. Guitar was a go. I've been playing since high school, so that was no problem. Ukulele on the other hand was less of a slam dunk. I'd never touched one before, but the girls wanted to learn, so I said, "Sure." 30 minutes before my first ukulele class, I learned the only three chords I needed to know for the song I was going to teach them, and off we were! Relative smooth sailing from there.
My average day with the girls is an hour of teaching english followed by an hour of either guitar or ukulele, depending on the day. Over these past 3.5 months, the girls have been so great in welcoming me in and helping me feel a part of their family. Some took a bit more time to warm to me, but my strategy (as it is with all females in my life) is to keep making goofy faces at them until they start to smile, and so far it's worked pretty well.
Each girl I interact with is so unique and I appreciate so many different things about each of them. The homework assignment I gave them a month ago was to share one thing about another girl that they really liked, so I'm going use that same assignment to share a bit about the girls I get to interact with everyday. (Since I don't work with all 19 girls, I won't be sharing about all of them. And to be safe, I'll be using aliases instead of their real names.)
SP: I love that SP is so enthusiastic about answering questions in class. She's probably my smartest student, and she basically jumps out of her chair to raise her hand. She's slowly understanding that I want other students to answer questions as well, but that doesn't mean she's happy about it. She'll give me the pouty face if I haven't called on her for a few questions, which should never work, but always does. She even acts as my translator a lot of time for the other students since her english is so good. She's also learning guitar and she's basically mastered it in a couple of weeks. Basically she keeps me on my toes.
KNY: KNY is one of the younger girls and doesn't talk as much, but man, her smile. HER SMILE! I also love greeting her everyday because she'll run up to me with the mightiest high-five someone under four feet can pack.
KTA: I love that KTA helps KNY in class. Like I said, KNY doesn't speak a whole lot, and knows very little english, but KTA will always help her work out each question and come up with an answer that KNY loves to enthusiastically scream out even though she probably only understands half of the words.
PH: PH is so respectful to the point that it makes me chuckle. Without fail, each time she answers a question, she'll stand up, gather herself, and answer as if she was in the army. And when she's not doing that, she's raising her hand quickly to answer a question she doesn't know, and instead will just giggle, while standing up of course.
RM: RM also isn't as talkative, but she's really goofy and makes the funniest faces. What I also love about her is that she always offers me a snack from their 3:00 snack time, whether it's a banana or a slice of mango. A lot of my fruit knowledge comes from her.
SM: SM is similar to SP in that she's really smart and loves answering questions. I'm similarly working with SM to not just blurt out answers so the rest of the class gets a chance. Here's what a typical exchange with SM looks like:
Me: Please raise your hand if you know the answer.
SM: Blue triangle!
Me: SM, I said raise your hand!
SM: I know! But...
Me: OK, please next time raise your hand so someone gets a chance.
SM: OK...
Me: Ok, everyone, please raise your hand if you know the answer.
SM: Red circle!
Me: SM!
SM: I know, I know...
She just gives me her sheepish smile each time I ask her to raise her hand. My other favorite thing about SM is how far she's come even in the short time I've worked with her. When I first started teaching, she would always sit quietly, not engaging or smiling. Slowly, maybe from hearing my broken khmer or seeing my random dance moves, she started to smile a bit more and she quickly turned into the non-hand raising participant she is today.
SPN: SPN is really shy, so she rarely raises her hand and doesn't like being called on. But what I appreciate about her is that she'll always ask the other girls for help if she doesn't know the answer. And then they'll work out an answer together. And being completely honest, one of my favorite sights during my entire time out here is when SPN knows the answer to a question and jets her hand in the air excitedly yelling out the answer. I see her pride swell in these moments and I do my best to soak in that second before moving on to the next question.
SD: SD is similar to SPN in that she doesn't love to answer questions. What I love about her is that she is such a copious note taker, which means she's really trying her best. She'll even reprimand me sometimes if I start to erase the whiteboard before she's done copying down her notes.
CH: CH is the girl that is most to herself. She doesn't really participate in class, but joins us everyday nonetheless. What I love about her is she's always the first face I see when I get to the home and she'll wave to me. I'll ask her, "Soksabai dei? (how are you)?" and she'll give me a quiet, "soksabai (I'm fine)." She's the hardest girl for me to interact with because of her quietness and lack of english, but she always finds me to say hello and that's a great way for me to start my day with the girls.
SL: SL is the girl who on my first day visiting the home asked if I was married, then commented on the fact that I'm probably too old to find someone at this point. That's the point I knew I would love this girl. I don't interact with SL that much because she's one of the older girls that goes to her own school, but I'll see her for a handful of minutes each day before she goes to dinner. We've worked out a handshake, and she braided my hair in a way that made my teammates at Gates actually like my rattail, which is pretty much a minor miracle.
MRI: I don't get to see MRI that much either because she has her own school, but she tries to sneak into my class for the last 10 minutes whenever she can. She'll come to game day, and basically just answer every question. She's like a hired gun. It's funny, too, because she's so nonchalant about her excellence. She sneaks her head in, answers a bunch of questions, then just skips away when she's done. For the love of the game.
MAR: MAR is one of the older girls and you can see her maturity. I appreciate how she acts as an older sister to all of the younger girls and basically helps to take care of them, even though she's still pretty much a kid herself.
RN: RN is no nonsense. I think my first image of her was of her arms crossed. It was as if she was saying, "Impress me." I loved it. I don't teach her english, but she's one of my guitar students and she's fierce with that, too. If RN communicates something, I know that's how she feels, which is a trait I really appreciate in her...now that I'm not scared of her anymore.
SK: SK is also one of my guitar students. SK is generally really reserved and to herself, but my favorite thing about her is when her determination comes out during guitar lessons. I've been working on strumming patterns with her, and it's one of the harder things I'll teach her. SK will work on a pattern, mess up, giggle, then turned stone-faced in a blink of an eye and calmly, but intensely say, "Again." It cracks me up every time. There's no time to dwell in the giggle. It's time to move!
SR: SR is like another caregiver to the girls. She's been at the home for a good amount of time and all of the girls look up to her because she's really mature and takes care of everyone. I so appreciate her maturity and her care for the other girls. She also plays a mean ukulele.
I've been immensely lucky to get the chance to work with these girls everyday and similarly to the girls, I've grown some as well. I remember in the beginning of my 3.5 months teaching them, I probably focused a little too much on lesson planning, and didn't just be present and enjoy my time with them. But as I thought again about what my value was to them, I reminded myself that I'm pretty sure they won't look back at their time with me and think warmly that I taught them simple past tense. Instead, I hope they'll look back and remember that they were cared for, thought of, worthy of being loved, and that they had so much fun laughing and playing and just being kids.
To give a little background, the girls in the aftercare home are there between six months to a couple of years because they've been taken out of sex trafficking or sexual abuse. Their ages range from 10-20 years old. At the home, they get access to social workers and counselors to talk through their trauma, work on their social interactions with the other girls as well as the staff, use vehicles such as art and music as a part of their healing, and most importantly get the chance to be kids and simply have fun. That last part is where I mostly fit in. I've mentioned this before, but the reason why sex trafficking resonated so much with me was I couldn't imagine how anyone, especially a young child could come back from going through that type of painful experience. I don't know what kind of childhood that would be. If I could use my time to help these girls forget about those experiences, if only for a couple hours a day, and just have fun, then my time was well spent.
I've been working with these girls over the past 3.5 months in a couple of ways. My initial responsibility was to work with about half of the 19 girls on improving their english. I would lesson plan and throw in a few games to test them, let them have a bit of fun to break the monotony that is english class, and give myself an excuse to provide them snacks. Then about a month after I started teaching english, the director of the home told me a handful of the girls wanted to learn guitar and ukulele. Guitar was a go. I've been playing since high school, so that was no problem. Ukulele on the other hand was less of a slam dunk. I'd never touched one before, but the girls wanted to learn, so I said, "Sure." 30 minutes before my first ukulele class, I learned the only three chords I needed to know for the song I was going to teach them, and off we were! Relative smooth sailing from there.
My average day with the girls is an hour of teaching english followed by an hour of either guitar or ukulele, depending on the day. Over these past 3.5 months, the girls have been so great in welcoming me in and helping me feel a part of their family. Some took a bit more time to warm to me, but my strategy (as it is with all females in my life) is to keep making goofy faces at them until they start to smile, and so far it's worked pretty well.
Each girl I interact with is so unique and I appreciate so many different things about each of them. The homework assignment I gave them a month ago was to share one thing about another girl that they really liked, so I'm going use that same assignment to share a bit about the girls I get to interact with everyday. (Since I don't work with all 19 girls, I won't be sharing about all of them. And to be safe, I'll be using aliases instead of their real names.)
SP: I love that SP is so enthusiastic about answering questions in class. She's probably my smartest student, and she basically jumps out of her chair to raise her hand. She's slowly understanding that I want other students to answer questions as well, but that doesn't mean she's happy about it. She'll give me the pouty face if I haven't called on her for a few questions, which should never work, but always does. She even acts as my translator a lot of time for the other students since her english is so good. She's also learning guitar and she's basically mastered it in a couple of weeks. Basically she keeps me on my toes.
KNY: KNY is one of the younger girls and doesn't talk as much, but man, her smile. HER SMILE! I also love greeting her everyday because she'll run up to me with the mightiest high-five someone under four feet can pack.
KTA: I love that KTA helps KNY in class. Like I said, KNY doesn't speak a whole lot, and knows very little english, but KTA will always help her work out each question and come up with an answer that KNY loves to enthusiastically scream out even though she probably only understands half of the words.
PH: PH is so respectful to the point that it makes me chuckle. Without fail, each time she answers a question, she'll stand up, gather herself, and answer as if she was in the army. And when she's not doing that, she's raising her hand quickly to answer a question she doesn't know, and instead will just giggle, while standing up of course.
RM: RM also isn't as talkative, but she's really goofy and makes the funniest faces. What I also love about her is that she always offers me a snack from their 3:00 snack time, whether it's a banana or a slice of mango. A lot of my fruit knowledge comes from her.
SM: SM is similar to SP in that she's really smart and loves answering questions. I'm similarly working with SM to not just blurt out answers so the rest of the class gets a chance. Here's what a typical exchange with SM looks like:
Me: Please raise your hand if you know the answer.
SM: Blue triangle!
Me: SM, I said raise your hand!
SM: I know! But...
Me: OK, please next time raise your hand so someone gets a chance.
SM: OK...
Me: Ok, everyone, please raise your hand if you know the answer.
SM: Red circle!
Me: SM!
SM: I know, I know...
She just gives me her sheepish smile each time I ask her to raise her hand. My other favorite thing about SM is how far she's come even in the short time I've worked with her. When I first started teaching, she would always sit quietly, not engaging or smiling. Slowly, maybe from hearing my broken khmer or seeing my random dance moves, she started to smile a bit more and she quickly turned into the non-hand raising participant she is today.
SPN: SPN is really shy, so she rarely raises her hand and doesn't like being called on. But what I appreciate about her is that she'll always ask the other girls for help if she doesn't know the answer. And then they'll work out an answer together. And being completely honest, one of my favorite sights during my entire time out here is when SPN knows the answer to a question and jets her hand in the air excitedly yelling out the answer. I see her pride swell in these moments and I do my best to soak in that second before moving on to the next question.
SD: SD is similar to SPN in that she doesn't love to answer questions. What I love about her is that she is such a copious note taker, which means she's really trying her best. She'll even reprimand me sometimes if I start to erase the whiteboard before she's done copying down her notes.
CH: CH is the girl that is most to herself. She doesn't really participate in class, but joins us everyday nonetheless. What I love about her is she's always the first face I see when I get to the home and she'll wave to me. I'll ask her, "Soksabai dei? (how are you)?" and she'll give me a quiet, "soksabai (I'm fine)." She's the hardest girl for me to interact with because of her quietness and lack of english, but she always finds me to say hello and that's a great way for me to start my day with the girls.
SL: SL is the girl who on my first day visiting the home asked if I was married, then commented on the fact that I'm probably too old to find someone at this point. That's the point I knew I would love this girl. I don't interact with SL that much because she's one of the older girls that goes to her own school, but I'll see her for a handful of minutes each day before she goes to dinner. We've worked out a handshake, and she braided my hair in a way that made my teammates at Gates actually like my rattail, which is pretty much a minor miracle.
MRI: I don't get to see MRI that much either because she has her own school, but she tries to sneak into my class for the last 10 minutes whenever she can. She'll come to game day, and basically just answer every question. She's like a hired gun. It's funny, too, because she's so nonchalant about her excellence. She sneaks her head in, answers a bunch of questions, then just skips away when she's done. For the love of the game.
MAR: MAR is one of the older girls and you can see her maturity. I appreciate how she acts as an older sister to all of the younger girls and basically helps to take care of them, even though she's still pretty much a kid herself.
RN: RN is no nonsense. I think my first image of her was of her arms crossed. It was as if she was saying, "Impress me." I loved it. I don't teach her english, but she's one of my guitar students and she's fierce with that, too. If RN communicates something, I know that's how she feels, which is a trait I really appreciate in her...now that I'm not scared of her anymore.
SK: SK is also one of my guitar students. SK is generally really reserved and to herself, but my favorite thing about her is when her determination comes out during guitar lessons. I've been working on strumming patterns with her, and it's one of the harder things I'll teach her. SK will work on a pattern, mess up, giggle, then turned stone-faced in a blink of an eye and calmly, but intensely say, "Again." It cracks me up every time. There's no time to dwell in the giggle. It's time to move!
SR: SR is like another caregiver to the girls. She's been at the home for a good amount of time and all of the girls look up to her because she's really mature and takes care of everyone. I so appreciate her maturity and her care for the other girls. She also plays a mean ukulele.
I've been immensely lucky to get the chance to work with these girls everyday and similarly to the girls, I've grown some as well. I remember in the beginning of my 3.5 months teaching them, I probably focused a little too much on lesson planning, and didn't just be present and enjoy my time with them. But as I thought again about what my value was to them, I reminded myself that I'm pretty sure they won't look back at their time with me and think warmly that I taught them simple past tense. Instead, I hope they'll look back and remember that they were cared for, thought of, worthy of being loved, and that they had so much fun laughing and playing and just being kids.
Very well summarized of your interactions with your students. Glad that you feel at home in a foreign place and with ice coffee to boot too.
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