My day

I must be slightly crazy, but those who know me know this already. After a full day at work, leaving the house at 6:30 am I come home with the children and some of their friends at 2:30.
After sorting out a snack for the ravenous hords I turn my attention to my househelper who I am teaching to make Thai Green Curry. I discovered after being here a year that the Khmer only have one kind of curry, which although nice, does not compare to the Thai ones I grew up with. Communicating is hard as she has no English (except words from me) and I have very little Khmer. I had magaged to describe the relevant ingrediants to one of the cleaners at school woth the help of one of the teachers, then the cleaner had run my househelper with the list. This invariabley goes wrong as people dont always understand what you are trying to explain!!! I always assume that at least one thing will not be quite right.

Today it was the wrong herb and no chicken!! We finally got there and I was able to teacher her how to make it.
I have discovered that laughing and humour goes a long way to getting the message through. We were both very pleased with the result!!
After this at 5:30pm I have a language lesson for an hour! I have felt like I have made very little progress this year with language and decided this year I was going to make a determined effort!
I am now doing 2 -2 1/2 hours a week, which is not much but more than last year. I have not been able to use my friend Tevy this year as she has extra university courses to do, so I am a bit sad. One of my classes is taught by one of the teachers brother-in-law. It is a group class where the emphasis is on speaking and listening with a bit of reading and writing. The other class I am on my own and I am going to follow on with what I learnt in the first lesson. 
Here is what I have to learn to read!!!!! (I did learn some last year) Consanants.....

vowels.....

and then there are subscripts too which are the symbols below the letters!!! These can change the sound of word quite a lot.
Today was fun because we played "Guess Who" in Khmer. It was a great way to learn questions and useful vocabluary such as baldness and facial hair!!!
So think of me as I try to find time to learn this beautiful but complicated language. Now I have so much sympathy for the students in my class learning English. It is not easy trying to remember everything.
I find I can remember it at the time and then it goes out of my head when I need it.