Paint Highlights!

This past week! Students are helping each other find countries on the grid and drawing it from the small country it was on the page to a 3 by 6 meters large map!

On a Sunday (the only day where school’s not in session) the math teacher, in green, Miss Ka Sy, came to help draw part of Australia and the other mysterious, hundreds of isles around the area.

On a different day–a school day–all grades came to help continue draw the countries on the grid and erase the grids as they were no longer needed. More oceans freed!

It’s great to see the older students come out to help, as it’s the end of the years and most are tremendously busy studying for exams! I commend them for taking some time to come help!

Above Mab, 11th grader, is writing the Khmer words for North Atlantic Ocean. He really took his time to make it beautiful; I saw him erasing his work over and over.

Some of the guy students were huddled together debating if other students had drawn the map incorrectly since a large country or body of water was drawn too high, misplacing countries on the grid. I reassured them it was fine, just that Spain southern tip had to be drawn longer to match the map.

The really brave student on the left is drawing the 2010 national flag, where Angkor Wat looks different from the old one–more modern or Chinese looking (in my eyes) but I have no idea why it’s changed. He was really intent on drawing it and made sure the school had the latest picture of the flag on the world map mural! He even stood on a 8 foot or so ladder drawing it with utter concentration. Brave!

It mostly made me smile, this photo! He drew a heart in America! Even when the layer of red was painted over the heart, one could still see it from far away!

My students smiling for their shot. They’re such comedians joking with each other was they paint:

“How about some highlights?”

And it was great to hear them saying congrats to each other:

“Good job! Very good job!”

Sometimes they’d ponder on a recent word they learned in English and yell it aloud out of no where, maybe just practicing:

“Fantastic!”

“Teacher! Not ‘cher!”

There were some other funny, random words, but I forget. Perhaps I’ll post it later.

For Cambodia, there is an arrow that points at the country and even “Kingdom of Wonder” — the advertising slogan — featured under the name of the country. TV ads have made their way to our high school world map mural, but it’s their map, and I’m glad they’re taking ownership of it. When asked, “is this yellow okay, cher?” I’d reply that it’s their map! If that’s the right yellow, it’s the right yellow. Speaking of yellow, the project commences on mornings because the afternoons are too hot. Hoping to finish soon, before it rains every day and makes it hard to paint.

More photos soon! Questing to and fro for some waterproof finish for the map. Is it true people use gasoline to mix into the paint so it looks more pretty? Teachers have been telling me so here! I can’t quite imagine, but if I try it, you’ll see the difference.